For our funding campaign, since this is a rural community, we decided that it was really important to provide various services in the same building. Previously, women victims of violence were forced to go to various places. They had to go to an RCMP office, although that was a location that is more suited to aggressors. They had to go to the hospital to consult a forensic nurse. They had to meet a lawyer. They had to go and speak with a social worker. They then had to go to a shelter. It was too much.
The new building will allow us to group all of the services the women need, from A to Z, in a single building. There will be an investigation room for the RCMP. A forensic nurse will come and provide all the necessary care to victims of sexual assault. There will even be a centre for joint custody children. That service exists elsewhere in Canada, but it will be the first in New Brunswick. Over the years, we have seen that in cases of domestic violence, it is preferable that there be a supervised area when children go from one parent to the other. There are greater risks of violence if the exchange takes place in a parking lot or grocery store, rather than in a place designed for that purpose. We decided that if we were to build something, we would have a place where joint custody children could go from one parent to the other without their having to communicate with each other; this prevents further conflict in cases where parents are really in daily conflict.