First I'll quickly touch on your question around services for men. I was having a conversation with a group of social workers about why the focus is always on women. One of the things they said is they have nothing for the men. They may know that she will go back, or he will go on and be with another woman.
The other thing we've seen repeatedly is that men who have been violent to women are directed toward anger management. I think it's really important that we acknowledge that this isn't about anger; it's about power and control.
Our Status of Women project involved three years of funding. There was $60,000 the first year and then $80,000 for the two years afterwards. It's running out. We really hope to be able to maintain that service. When we started that project the goal was to fill some of the gaps in women's access to legal services. Over those three years we've seen further erosion of that.
One thing we've tried to do is create legal clinics that are accessible to women and recognize that a woman may come in with a family law issue, a child welfare issue, or an immigration issue, but there are poverty issues there. There are all the criminal law issues they're dealing with, and we set them up with lawyers who understand those things and understand those dynamics.
A lot of our work is focused on training the women who work with these women, whether they're settlement workers or people in transition houses, because with the withdrawal of legal aid we've seen that they're doing more and more of the work that lawyers used to do.
So with that project we've really tried to fill narrow service gaps. But what women really need is representation in court from lawyers who understand the dynamics of violence against women and can be with them throughout the process.
We've been able to offer some bandages. We've been able to help women get visits with their kids and get restraining orders. That's important, but it's not a substitute for a funded legal aid service and training advocates who are already overworked to be able to help women write affidavits and things.
Again, it's great, it's important, and it would be a real tragedy if we were to lose that service in the coming year. But it's a bandage.