Empowering GBV Shelter Staff & Service Users through Education on Red Flag Laws (2025-2027)
MAWS’ “Empowering GBV Shelter Staff & Service Users through Education on Red Flag Laws” project, a Red Flag Awareness Initiative, is a public legal education project funded under Public Safety Canada’s Red Flag Awareness Initiative 2025 that aims to increase understanding and use of Canada’s Red Flag laws, including emergency prohibition and emergency limitations on access orders, among those most at risk of violence and those who support them.
Community Action Program for Children) (CAPC) (1997-)
MAWS is the holder of a CAPC (Community Action Program for Children) grant provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) that helps to fund the children’s programs in the provincial shelters. This funding contributes to a children’s worker’s salary, as well as a small amount is provided for training and materials. Children’s programs in shelters are critically underfunded. Teaching and modeling parental skills, child development and self-care for the parent, as well as teaching and modeling positive behaviour in children at the very earliest stages of growth, can influence their choice to be violence-free as they mature. This is a crucial pathway to reducing interpersonal and family violence in future generations.
Transforming Workplace Approaches to Gender-Based Violence (TWA) (2024-2027)
In Canada, Domestic Violence (DV) accounts for about 30% of all violent crimes reported to the police, with the vast majority of the victims being women (Burczycka, 2018). Yet, most workplaces do not have a formal violence prevention strategy, policy, or training for when GBV spills into the workplace.
Oftentimes, employers feel ill-equipped to deal with GBV and feel it is a private matter; however, employee protection Acts such as Manitoba’s Workplace Safety and Health Legislation highlight the responsibility for employers to be informed and to adequately respond to GBV that seeps into the workplace: when violence impacts women in the workplace it becomes a workplace issue.
Inadequate employer responses to violence, threats and harassment highlight a larger systemic issue wherein employers lack awareness, are influenced by the stigma associated with GBV, and choose not to respond altogether. Inadequate or non-responses result in increased levels of isolation and shame, increased safety risks, lower performance levels, increased time off, missed opportunities for promotions∕ advancement, fear of job loss due to institutional barriers and an unsupportive employer, and job loss due to feeling unsafe or unsupported by the employer. This also leads to financial consequences for the employer.
This project aimed to:
- Collect data to analyze current GBV support provided within the workplaces that register for training from GBV service providers certified by our Train-the-Trainer workshops.
- Collect data to analyze the systemic changes that occur after participating in training done by GBV service providers certified by our Train-the-Trainer workshops.
- Finalize report on systemic changes in workplace cultures that stemmed from our project’s work plan activities and outcomes.
- Systematically transform workplace cultures by building awareness, challenging stigmas, and providing tools to support employees experiencing GBV in the workplace.
- Develop in-person and online training, manuals, toolkits, policies and protocols, and online materials or resources on GBV, how it impacts individuals and women in the workplace, and steps on how to protect employees and respond to violence, threats and harassment within the workplace.
- Develop a sustainable social media awareness campaign that can be continued after our project is over to reach out and invite employers to participate who have not yet taken the training offered by the GBV service providers certified by our Train-the-Trainer workshops.
- Improve individuals’ and women’s workplace environments by decreasing safety risks, time off, and job loss, increasing opportunities for promotions and advancement into leadership positions, and encouraging women’s social and economic growth.
- Collect data to analyze current GBV support provided within the workplaces that register for training from GBV service providers certified by our Train-the-Trainer workshops.
Centering the Rights of Women from the Margins: Delivering Low Barrier and Non-Discriminatory GBV Services (2021-2024)
This 29-month project supported the development and implementation of a human rights-based approach to Gender-Based Violence (GBV) services provided by the provincial interpersonal and family violence shelters and affiliate members that compose their collective, to address the root causes of gender-based violence.
The approach we took was one consistent with providing low-barrier services, consistent with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls’ Calls for Justice; services that do not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, substance use, mental health, or country of origin and ancestry, including colour and perceived race.
The Manitoba Association of Women’s Shelters has achieved this by changing and implementing promising practices and procedures that reflect women and gender diverse folks right to safety; by developing and disseminating knowledge that promotes the consistency of practices and structures in program and service design that will center the voices and experiences of underrepresented women and gender diverse folks. For example, having continued working with our Survivor Advisor Group (a.k.a. lived experience advisory group), which was developed during the Transforming Together grant, we have been able to develop the practical steps, guidelines and practices needed to promote low-barrier service delivery.
Furthermore, through the development of our Board Leadership and Equity Toolkit, MAWS was able to illustrate how shelters can develop and implement strategies to recruit staff and board members that are reflective of the diversity of the communities being served.
One of the outcomes we are most excited about is the development of ten Promising Practices that are foundational in implementing and sustaining low-barrier, rights-based, trauma-informed, person-centered practices throughout provincial GBV shelters in Manitoba. These Promising Practices provide guidelines on:
Understanding the environment of GBV shelters and the difficulty counsellors face in navigating crises with urgency and immediacy, MAWS has developed a trauma-informed, rights-based, person-centered Counselor Toolkit. This will provide timely on-the-spot care and further support shelters in reducing the barriers that are so often experienced by individuals accessing GBV shelters.
In conjunction with the Promising Practices, online self-paced training, virtual workshops, and the Counsellor Toolkit, MAWS has developed a Leadership and Equity Toolkit. This Toolkit encompasses information sheets that will support Boards and Executive Directors in reducing compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and burnout in their staff, developing and implementing strategies to recruit staff and board members reflective of the diversity of the communities being served, and focusing on capacity building and professional development for new and seasoned staff.
Lastly, we have focused on safety and providing low-barrier service delivery in a way that centers the voices and experiences of underrepresented women and gender diverse folks by developing a common strategy for addressing service gaps within the sector through our Promising Practices as well as through the partnerships we have made with other family violence/ gender-based violence service providers, with special emphasis on the partnership we are currently building between provincial and federal family violence shelters.
With the project complete, we are excited to announce the development and update of 10 Promising Practices that, once implemented, will a) advance inclusive policies and practices, b) increase networks and collaboration to accelerate systemic change, c) support positive distribution of authority, voices, and decision-making power, and d) address persistent harmful gender norms and attitudes.
As a result of this grant, the Manitoba Association of Women’s Shelters partnered with Manitoba’s family violence emergency shelters in this system transformation work across several communities. They continue to share completed and proven project work with second-stage shelters and any other domestic violence agencies that express interest. The success of project initiatives was evaluated on an ongoing basis through both quantitative and qualitative measures.
The Promising Practices, Toolkits, and partnerships with federal shelters developed from this grant have laid the foundation for future culturally responsive, trauma-informed, person-centered work to unfold within the family violence and gender-based violence sector. As the necessary resources and supports become available, the implementation of Promising Practices will transform the level of accessibility for clients and continue to nurture low-barrier service delivery.
MAWS is excited to see how the research, findings, and materials that emerged from this grant will support future grants and continued efforts to strengthen a collective, unified voice advocating for the rights of women and gender-diverse folks impacted by gender-based violence.
MAWS would like to thank the Government of Canada for supporting this project through Women and Gender Equality Canada’s Gender-Based Violence Program.
Read the news release for the project here
Transforming Together: A Project to Re-envision Family Violence Services In Manitoba (2019-2023)
Through this project, MAWS developed a virtual training portal where an online suite of courses was developed and delivered, customized to address the identified stressors experienced by family violence shelters and agency staff. The courses were self-directed and designed to allow staff to stop and resume where they left off as needed.
The grant built and improved the well-being of shelter staff, enhancing stability and reducing costs caused by staff turnover, which led to improved services for the prevention of violence and the well-being of those exposed to family and gender-based violence.
Transforming Together was a four-year domestic violence/family violence system change project hosted by the Manitoba Association of Women’s Shelters (MAWS) and funded by Women and Gender Equality Canada (WAGE). The project used a collective impact approach to engage and empower stakeholders to re-think and re-energize the collection of services operating within the sector, to amplify the voices of those with lived expertise and to address the causes of domestic and family violence rooted in the behaviours and structures of oppression (racism, colonialism, nationalism, sexism, ageism, ableism, heterosexism, etc.).
As a result of this project, MAWS completed a concise manual and is presently setting up online training for boards to ensure that new and renewing board members understand their roles and contribute positively. The training will have a nominal fee and include the manual.
With strong governance, shelters will be better equipped to meet the challenges of change necessary to meet the increasingly complex needs of the women and children who access their services to escape violence.” (Transforming Together – A Guide to Governance of Boards by the Manitoba Association of Women’s Shelters 2020)
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