'Sharing their stories': Women helping women escape violence, 40 years on
Credit to Author: Randy Shore| Date: Tue, 26 Nov 2019 02:10:21 +0000
The moment a woman tells her story of abuse for the first time is transformative.
“In the group sessions, women get to share their stories and they also get to hear others sharing very similar stories and they see that they are not alone,” said Angela Marie MacDougall, executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services.
“They come to understand that there isn’t anything wrong with them, that the problem is the violence.”
Many women call the BWSS crisis line (604-687-1867) several times before they muster up the courage to join a group session. But that is where the healing begins.
“It’s often the very first time that a woman talks about what has happened to her. Women ground themselves in the power of that shared knowing and connect with each other,” she said. “That’s how you break free from the power that abusers have over women in relationships.”
And that is why the drop-in group session — held at a secret location — has been running weekly since 1979.
BWSS commemorated 40 years of service on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which took place Monday.
Twenty-five staff and 160 volunteers are ready to provide emotional support, assist with safety planning and to access a huge diversity of resources built over decades.
Support is available in dozens of languages and there are special resources for women of different cultural backgrounds, in particular First Nations, Latin American, West Asian and African.
The services are peer-based meaning, for example, that Indigenous women are helping Indigenous women from a place of shared experience, and with an understanding of the socio-political nuances of being Indigenous in Canada.
“Our understanding of the roots of violence and the inequalities at its heart has really changed how we deliver services,” said MacDougall. “Our services have become very specialized to help women who might be marginalized.”
Their public education mission has also expanded dramatically over the years and includes school-based workshops for teen girls and boys to address dating violence.
Janet Freeman started as a volunteer at Battered Women’s Support Services in 1984 and was trained to facilitate support groups.
“The goal was to have women help each other in an egalitarian way, as opposed to seeing a psychiatrist or expert,” she said. “As a facilitator, you are there as an equal, not to impose anything.”
With just two part-time staff at the time, volunteers like Janet helped to develop the programming and begin to build an impressive institutional knowledge base. After joining the staff a few years later, she stayed on in various roles for 16 years.
“It has really expanded a great deal over the years,” she said. “At first all we did was run support groups as a way to help women out of isolation, which is one of the main features of being controlled by someone.”
Peers and counsellors have a vast body of knowledge and tips for leaving an abusive situation, going to court or dealing with a spouse who has weaponized child custody, she said.
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