Congratulations to all of our Neighbours, Friends and Families Workplace Champions!

A two day conference with international experts on high risk takes place at the CAW Family Education Centre in Port Elgin.  Information and a registration form is attached.  Sponsored by the Grey Bruce High Risk Teams.

Counting Women In:  A Toolkit for Rural Action on Poverty

This action toolkit includes five strategies to make poverty more visible in rural communities and to build hope for change.  Each strategy is accompanied by tools that were developed and piloted in Grey, Bruce, Huron and Perth with women and service providers.  The stratagies are:  Gather Women and Communities, Getting the Facts - Community Report Cards, Celebrating Women - Community Arts Project, Engaging Municipal Government, and Building Partnerships.

The Ontario Women's Directorate has just published a Report from the Domestic Violence Advisory Council that can be downloaded at http://www.citizenship.gov.on.ca/owd/english/resources/publications/violence

The Inclusive Communities Committee, a subcommittee of the Grey Bruce Violence Prevention Coordinating Committee is holding free workshops for agencies and workplaces in the Grey and Bruce to build more inclusive communities and workplaces. To date seven very successful workshops have taken place with community organizations in Grey and Bruce.

The Mental Health, Addictions and Abuse subcommittee of the GBVPCC has released the final report No Wrong Door - Creating a Collaborative Rural Response for Women with Abuse, Mental Health and Addictions Issues.

This report is the result of a one year research and community development project funded by the Ontario Victim Services Secretariat, Ministry of the Attorney General.

The objectives of the project were:
- to identify gaps in service for women with abuse, mental health and/or abuse issues;
- to hear from women how to better meet their service needs;

The outcomes, action items and next steps from the Weaving Our Communities conference that was held in September 2007 are presented in this report.

We will be evaluating community action and plans for action that are underway since the September conference that brought 165 people of all ages and backgrounds together to address racism, discrimination and violence in alls its forms.

For more information contact cpurdon@bmts.com

On November 3, 2006 30 community organizations from the justice, social service, child welfare, education, health and violence against women sectors agreed to a Community Response Protocol for Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence It includes procedures in four key areas of work: safety planning, risk assessments, interventions and referrals, case management and community partner meetings based on a shared vision and principles to guide the work. Click to view or download the Community Response Protocol. A Train the Trainer Kit on the Protocol and is posted in the Working Together section of this website,