Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members, for giving me the opportunity to appear as a witness at this very important standing committee.
My name is Shelina Jeshani. I'm the director of strategic partnerships and collaboration. I oversee the Safe Centre of Peel, which is located in the region of Peel in Ontario. I'm privileged to be here representing 16 partner organizations, accompanied by my partner, Peel Regional Police, who will share the time with me today.
I'm not here to share with you the outrageous statistics that we already know regarding the prevalence of IPV in our country. What I want to share with you today is an innovative, evidence-based, best-practice model of how a community can work together to respond and provide a safety net for victims of IPV.
The Safe Centre of Peel is the collaboration of 16 community partners who are providing an integrated, coordinated and wraparound service delivery model for victims of IPV. We have been in operation for over a decade.
In 2008, our community partners began discussions about how we needed to respond to IPV in our community differently. We couldn't continue to work in silos, duplicate services and watch while vulnerable women tried to navigate systems that we had created. This began our journey of consulting with frontline service providers and survivors to understand their experiences, gaps and hopes for a responsive service system.
We consistently heard that victims were being told to repeat their stories over and over. Victims were told they couldn't bring their children with them to these different services. They were left trying to navigate complex systems and sectors. Many of these victims were also managing multiple barriers, such as language needs, immigration, low to no finances, young children and virtually no support system. We know the needs of victims and their children are vast and the system is just too hard and complicated to navigate.
We then looked elsewhere to see what other innovative models existed. We came across the family justice centre model that has been recognized as a best practice by the U.S. Department of Justice and has established centres across the U.S. and in 25 countries.
The Safe Centre of Peel, like the family justice centre models, works on creating a service response that is cross-sectoral. We recognize that collaboration and integration among community services, justice, legal, health and education are vital in being responsive to victims of IPV. Today, we share with you the opportunity to highlight the Safe Centre of Peel as a best practice model that can be showcased as a national model of practice.
We are all aware that we have a problem in our country with the issue of IPV and its impacts on our children and our communities. When we ask victims to go from place to place and repeat their stories over and over again, when they don't have a safe space for the children and we expect them to lead integration and connection between sectors, it is virtually impossible. We need to do something different across our country so we can keep women and children safe. IPV is a complex issue, but the service delivery doesn't need to be.
We urge you to consider the Safe Centre of Peel as a national best practice model that can be implemented across the country. The development and implementation of these models need to be adequately funded to create centres and communities that are reflective of the needs of these communities.
Part of our integration at the Safe Centre of Peel has been to establish our integrated work with our justice partner, Peel Regional Police. I would like to ask Inspector Hewison to provide an overview of this partnership.
Thank you.