I think prevention is a priority—probably the biggest priority.
In Waterloo region, we've seen consistent numbers of intimate partner violence. We haven't seen them go down, but we also haven't seen them spiking over the last number of years. I would come back to the fact that, again, we have a hub model already, so whether a victim reports to police first or chooses to report to another agency that's part of our Family Violence Project hub, they have the ability to do that. There are many cases in which, maybe, a victim is not comfortable yet reporting to police, but they know they can go to any other partner and receive those supports, whether it's financial support or what to do if something happens—to set them up with a phone, or resources, or a place to go or housing with women's crisis, etc.
Each partner has a role to play in recognizing where victims are at when they're ready to report, but, again, the commitment we've made over the last number of years is around early intervention, with a focus on prevention. When we're involved with a couple who have had more than two domestic reports—so no charges were laid, but there were calls to the police—that is a flag for us, and an officer and a victim services worker go together to actually meet with both parties to try to determine what the underlying factors are that may be causing them to be reporting to police, and then work on those. That's one thing we're really committed to. In fact, if we could expand it and have more resources.... We know that it is having an impact. We're seeing fewer cases in which we're involved with those individuals who are actually progressing to a stage of charges.