One thing I would say is, I think the best practices shift as our work moves forward. If you see the stats with regard to shelters, for example—that's part of our area of expertise, as we have 18 shelters across the country in six provinces and two territories—if you have two-thirds of women who are just accessing shelters once, then you know those women have made a change in their lives and are not getting stuck in the same situation, which is pretty much the standard. What I said about seeing in some other provinces a difference in the shelter population than 10 or 20 years ago, with more women with mental health and addiction issues coming to the shelters for abused women.... It's anecdotal, but we hear this from shelter workers. That population wasn't trying to access those shelters before and those shelters were not trying to get their doors open. They were saying, “This needs to be a safe and quiet space and we can't cope with you.” I think that shift in population shows that other women are finding other ways out of violence or that violence is being prevented. Again, it needs a study, but that's anecdotal.
On November 27th, 2014. See this statement in context.