"Creating a Framework for the Wisdom of the Community:" Review of Victim Services in Nunavut, Northwest and Yukon Territories

4.0 Yukon Territory (cont'd)

• 4.5 Summary of Needs and Recommendations

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4.0 Yukon Territory (cont'd)

4.5 Summary of Needs and Recommendations

4.5.1 Summary of Needs

As noted throughout this paper, most respondents felt that, compared with other Canadian regions, particularly northern jurisdictions, the Yukon Territory has a well developed continuum of professional services for victimized people. They note the increasing variety of specialized services for victimized individuals and the high volume of work being done by all agencies offering services to victims. Some respondents believe they are seeing the results of these efforts in greater sobriety, increased community awareness and increasing participation in healing events. Although there is no definitive way to prove it, it may be that lower rates of reported spousal assault, sexual assault and child abuse are the result of these services and interventions.

However, all respondents believe that there are still gaps, barriers and needs in the area of service provision to victimized individuals, families and communities. These challenges, as reported by respondents, and a summary of overall social conditions relating to victimization, are as follows:

• high levels of unresolved and hidden historic abuse;
• high levels of cognitively impaired, chronically traumatized and addicted individuals many of whom are victimized on an ongoing basis;
• traditional and contemporary beliefs that blame victims for the violence, minimize and deny the high levels of violence and protect offenders;
• limited informal support networks for victimized individuals;
• high rates of alcohol and drug abuse;
• high rates of interpersonal assault: spousal assault, sexual assault and child abuse;
• high rate of teen pregnancy;
• high rates of sexually transmitted diseases;
• lack of community and family support for victimized individuals;
• substantial public denial and minimization of interpersonal violence, spousal assault, sexual assault and child abuse which protects offenders, blames victims and keeps these crimes largely hidden;
• public antagonism towards social activists working in the area of victimization, particularly the victimization of women;
• some degree of suspicion and distrust of formal victim services available, particularly in smaller communities;
• lack of understanding and support from political leaders in both First Nation and public governments towards victims and victim services;
• leaders with unresolved victimization issues and/or offending behaviours;
• lack of capacity within existing services to deal with the level of need;
• lack of services for women with historic abuse issues and for male victims, elderly victims, children at high risk and child victims of violence;
• inadequate aftercare, community development and outreach programming within existing services;
• lack of adequate crisis intervention services, including a crisis line and sexual assault centre, particularly in non-business hours;
• an inadequate complement of community-based and First Nation sponsored services for victims in outlying communities such as women’s shelters, victim services, counselling resources, healing programs and treatment options;
• lack of long-term programs for cognitively impaired and neurologically damaged victims;
• an absence of program standards and evaluation processes for agencies working with victims, including lack of protocol and policy around confidentiality and case management;
• lack of clarity around the roles and responsibilities of the various agencies assisting victims;
• inadequate resource sharing amongst agencies;
• inadequate supports and information for parents, teachers and others dealing with acting out children and youth;
• lack of understanding and application of a victim-centred approach in most service sectors;
• a lack of cultural and historical understanding between the various ethnic groups, particularly First Nations and non- Aboriginal groups, with the result that victim programs are not jointly planned or supported;
• a lack of understanding in all service sectors, including judiciary, police, corrections, victim services, social and medical services, about the dynamics and recovery process of victimization and trauma;
• a lack of understanding in all sectors about the power imbalances in male/female relationships;
• inadequate statistical information gender that is consistently updated;
• inappropriate use of restorative justice initiatives which pressure victims into participating in healing and sentencing circles against their will;
• inappropriate sharing of Victim Impact Statements in restorative justice initiatives;
• inappropriate treatment of victim/witnesses by defence counsel;
• disagreement over the separation of offenders and victims during court ordered offender treatment programs; and
• lack of police enforcement of no-contact orders and breaches of probation.

4.5.2 Summary of Recommendations from Service Providers

Respondents offered a wide variety of recommendations throughout the interview process. These recommendations are summarized below under the headings of public awareness; specific program resources, community-based resources, for judicial system and law enforcement, and for legislation.

Public Awareness

• the adoption, by society and by service providers, of a victim-centred approach to ending violence;^[149]
• an aggressive and intense public awareness campaign around family violence, sexual assault and child abuse;
• the employment of respected elders, youth and others as community role models;
• band council and First Nation resolutions which make a public commitment to ending spousal assault, sexual assault and child abuse;
• the formation of men’s groups which support ending violence against women and children, and assist women’s groups in their work around these issues;
• a respectful public debate around the issues of victimization and violence against women; and
• subsidized substance-free social events for youth and adults.

Program Resources: Training

• training for all professional service providers, including judiciary, police, health workers, victims services workers, addictions workers and medical personnel, working with victimized people in the dynamics of trauma and victimization, the recovery process and the power imbalances in male/female relationships;
• training for all service providers in First Nations culture and history; and
• more support, resources and training for police, teachers and others in a position to intervene in violent situations.

Program Resources: Capacity

• increased staffing for over burdened agencies;
• improved facilities for agencies offering residential and large group programs;
• subsidized counselling available in non-business hours and subsidized counselling for women wishing to access feminist counsellors; and
• more transitional housing space available to traumatized women in Whitehorse.

Program Resources: Practical Support

• more resource and information sharing, and joint planning, between agencies;
• ongoing, rather than year-to-year, funding for agency programs;
• the development of program standards, core competencies and evaluation processes for agencies and governments working with victims, including protocols and policies around confidentiality and case management; and
• the production of statistical information that is provided by gender and consistently updated.

Program Resources: New Programs

• more youth recreational programs;
• more early intervention programs for high risk families with young children;
• more victim-centred programs for elders, children and men;
• more aftercare, community development and outreach programming in existing service agencies;
• more crisis intervention services: a toll-free territory-wide crisis line and a sexual assault centre;
• services that provide long-term care for chronically victimized and often cognitively impaired adults;
• a First Nations healing centre;
• a youth shelter;
• a shelter for men who are victimized and/or transient;
• additions to school curriculums that include information on interpersonal violence, communications, conflict resolution, etc.;
• groups for survivors of spousal assault, sexual assault and other types of violence; and
• an outpatient social worker at the hospital.

Program Resources: Community-Based Resources

• more support to victims in communities with victim service programs, Stop the Violence counsellors, women’s shelters, youth programming and early intervention programs in each community;
• more support to community-based agencies working with victims in the form of mentorship programs, clinical supervision and regular debriefing; and
• greater public government support to First Nations recovery programs and greater efforts to work with these governments, and other agencies, to reach victimized First Nations individuals, families and communities.

Judicial System and Law Enforcement

• mandatory charging in all family violence and sexual assault cases;
• mandatory treatment for all violent offenders;
• stiffer sentences for violent offenders;
• review the policy of allowing offenders to stay with their victims during treatment;
• recognition of the unpaid work of women in court cases and a halt to the pilot project asking spouses to forgive court-ordered child support payments;
• police enforcement of no-contact orders and action on breaches of probation;
• more training for police, judges and JPs in family violence, sexual assault, victimization and male/female power imbalances in relationships;
• longer police placements in northern jurisdictions and more experienced officers;
• censuring of defence counsel who abuse witnesses during trials;
• more training, supervision and monitoring for Community Justice Committees and others working in restorative justice programs with a focus on the needs of victims and the dynamics of trauma;
• requirement that Community Justice Committees start with smaller property crimes before working on cases involving violence;
• requirements that the criminal justice system and restorative justice programs work more closely together on treatment plans, offender follow-up and victim safety; and
• placement of more youth on the Youth Justice Panel.

Legislation

• the passage of a Victims of Crime Act that would validate and enshrine the rights of victims in law;
• the passage of a Violence Against Women Act which would recognize the power imbalances in male/female relationships and force consideration of this dynamic in legal and criminal matters;
• the establishment of a Yukon, rather than federal, Crown Attorney;
• the passage of an Adult Guardianship Act and an Assisted Decision Making Act to legally assist cognitively impaired and FAS adults without advocates;
• the passage of a Child Advocate’s Act; and
• the re-establishment of a Victims Compensation Fund for victims needing financial assistance with their recovery.

4.5.3 Additional Recommendations and Closing Comments

The above recommendations are self-explanatory but would perhaps not be complete without some reference, and further emphasis on other key issues.

Bridging the "Disconnect"

As stated and described throughout this paper, there are a relatively large number of well-developed, universally available services for victims in the Yukon, especially compared to other northern jurisdictions. These services, according to respondents and observers, base their work on an increasingly solid foundation of current information about trauma, victimization and recovery. Notwithstanding the recommendations detailed above, they provide a range of well-planned interventions available to most sectors of society.

However, and according to most respondents, it appears that First Nations service providers and public service providers work largely in isolation from each other. In addition, some First Nations service providers expressed that they, and their clients, feel some level of mistrust, and even abandonment, in terms of public government services and community agencies. They are not convinced these agencies and services understand them or have their best interests at heart. On the other hand, respondents working in public government programs and public agencies felt concerned about the difficulties they have felt around working in close tandem with First Nations programs.

Given that First Nations people are overrepresented as clients in many public government programs and community agencies, and given that the bulk of territorial financial resources for victimization rest with public government service providers and community agencies there would seem to be some need to bridge this ‘disconnect’ between First Nations service providers and clients, and public government and agency service providers.

Community-Based Services

Another area that perhaps needs to be addressed and emphasized separately is the issue of community-based services. Most respondents raised this issue, many of whom are providing community-based services and outreach programs. However, when 74% of the population lives in one place, Whitehorse, it is understandable that services are focused there. On the other hand, it isn’t possible to ignore the sense of isolation, and frustration about limited community-based resources, expressed by those service providers in smaller communities. They note the lack of victim recovery programs, women’s shelters, offender programs, aftercare programs, early intervention programs, youth programs and services to the elderly, and others with special needs, in their communities. They also referred to feeling cut off from other service providers as they attempted to deal single handedly with dysfunctional and entrenched community, social norms around interpersonal violence.

The ideal solution would be the provision in each community of the programs listed above. However, until more services are available in each community there are some steps that might be taken to reduce isolation and to fill programming and support gaps.^[150]

Increased Community-Based Resources for Victims

• the training of community-based service providers in a community development approach to service delivery;^[151]
• the further training of the victim assistance volunteers attached to the RCMP in most communities in cross cultural awareness, the dynamics of victimization and the resources available to them;
• the use of mobile trauma recovery programs which hold treatment programs, and provide aftercare, in the smaller communities;
• the establishment of small healing and support groups for victimized people to increase the level of formal assistance to victimized individuals and to assist in the establishment of informal community support networks; and
• the funding of First Nations-sponsored trauma recovery and healing programs, which could include one, or several, First Nations healing centres, as requested by several respondents.

Support to Community-Based Service Providers

• the establishment of regular interagency meetings in each community to decrease feelings of isolation for those service providers who are assisting victims;
• the inclusion of community-based service providers in an established wider network of territorial service providers, for example, a network of territorial shelter workers who hold regular phone and in-person meetings;
• the establishment of opportunities for community-based service providers to participate in regular clinical supervision of their work as well as opportunities for debriefing, training and counselling;^[152] and
• the establishment of yearly conferences and/or training and healing opportunities for all territorial service providers working with victimized people.

Services for Cognitively Impaired Victims

A point that stands out in the interviews done with Yukon service providers is the apparently high number of cognitively impaired victims of crime. Some of these people are victimized on a regular basis. For example, the Family Violence Prevention Unit, Victim Services, estimates that 60% to 75% of the people they assist have some degree of cognitive impairment from trauma or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. They also report that addictions are an issue in 75% of their cases.

Service providers are attempting to cope with this situation within the scope of their existing programs. And agencies such as the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society of Yukon are developing programs which target this segment of the victimized population.

As there apparently isn’t a great deal of formalized information about either the numbers or situations of these people the recommendation would be that formal research be carried out which examines the following:

• the number of victimized people in the Yukon with permanent cognitive impairment, or brain damage, from trauma and/or Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and/or addictions;
• the current situation, needs and circumstances of these individuals, including living conditions, employment, informal supports, legal problems, parenting issues, life skills issues and past treatment interventions;
• the long-term prognosis for their lives given the services currently available to them in the Yukon; and
• recommendations for service provision that will give them the highest quality of life and minimize their victimization and/or acting out behaviours.^[153]

The issue of cognitive impairment, amongst both victims and offenders, is a relatively recent area of awareness within the intervention, addictions, treatment, judicial, correctional and policing systems. Those groups with the most experience in this area, in this early stage of public understanding, are front line service providers who live and work on a daily basis with cognitively impaired individuals. This group includes foster parent associations, group home staff, residential treatment staff, organizations whose focus is cognitive impairment, teachers and the family and

friends of cognitively impaired persons. It would be appropriate for these more experienced service providers and family members to offer training, support and information to those government departments and agencies who find they are dealing with large numbers of cognitively impaired victimized individuals.

In the final analysis, it may be that existing and future programs designed to assist victims will have to make major adjustments to their intervention and treatment approach taking the possibility of cognitive impairment (along with culture, traumatic symptoms and many other factors listed throughout this paper) into consideration. It is also likely that victimized individuals with permanent brain damage will need long-term specialized services that are beyond the scope of existing formal services and informal support networks. Support to these individuals will involve a conscious multi-faceted and community-wide effort.

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• [149] A victim-centred approach makes the needs and rights of victims the central priority.
• [150] Several of these suggestions are already being employed successfully by some community-based service providers.
• [151] See the Nunavut chapter of this paper for more explanation of a community development approach.
• [152] These supports to community-based service providers need to be built into the program’s yearly budget.
• [153] A possible starting point in reviewing suitable programs for this population is the STOP FAS program of Manitoba Health. This is a community-based mentoring and support program for traumatized and brain-damaged mothers at risk of having FAS children and is based on several successful similar programs in the United States.

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