On-line Learning Curriculum for CB

With so much good research supporting cognitive-behavioural approaches, we were pleased to partner with Huron House Boy's Residential Home to develop an on-line curriculum for front-line staff working with at-risk youth. Over six months, students of the e-Learning Cognitive Behavioural Intervention Curriculum (eCBIC) combine instruction on theory with opportunities to practise skills using both in-the-moment strategies and in one-to-one times with youth clients. Instruction is delivered using live workshops, interactive on-line modules, readings, quizzes, homework, graded assignments and a final exam. Successful program completers receive a certificate from the Centre.

Train-the-facilitator Manual for Adolescent Suicide Prevention

Suicide is the number two cause of death in Canadian teens. Over three days, attendees of this curriculum learn to facilitate training with their co-workers serving high risk/high needs youth. Facilitators learn about adolescent suicide including risk indicators and protective factors. They enhance skills for reducing harm and supporting young people, hone their facilitation skills, and practise training peers. Successful candidates receive certification from the Centre. The work continues upon return to their settings where they train co-workers using the ten-module manual, to build their agencies' capacities for responding to suicidal youth.

Training to Prevent Peer Aggression in Custody

Fear of peer assault is a common concern among youth entering detention or custody facilities. This train-the-facilitator manual creates champions and mentors to raise awareness about instrumental peer-to-peer aggression (IPA) in custody settings. Program content includes learning modules for both staff and youth. Attendees at the three-day workshop both experience and facilitate the modules they will use with co-workers and clients. They learn to recognize IPA, understand its nature and consequences, know how it is used in the facility culture and its connection to power/status/respect. Successful completers receive certification from the Centre.

On-site Training about Children & Domestic Violence

Centre staff routinely travel across Canada and the United States to deliver training workshops on the topic of children living with violence against their mothers. Sometimes we get invitations from farther afield, like Japan, Guam, Brazil, and the U.K. Training material is tailored to the length of time available, audience, and level of instruction desired, from a basic introduction through to skill building for seasoned therapists. The approach is highly interactive and attendees have the opportunity to understand better the needs of these children and teens and to take back concrete ideas for intervention.

Province-wide Training for Educators

A series of workshops for teachers and other educators about the needs of elementary students who live or lived with domestic violence at home was rolled out across the province from 2007 to 2010. Partners on this initiative were the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario and Springtide Resources, with funding from the Government of Ontario. Both a resource guide and facilitator manual are provided to participants. Download a copy of the resource guide from the Centre's web site.

Violence Against a Mother Shapes Children as they Grow

The National Clearinghouse on Family Violence in Ottawa funded the development of this 40-page booklet in 2007. Topics addressed include facts & figures, ten ways a child can be changed by living with violence at home, and some myths about woman abuse and children. This is a concise resource for anyone wanting to understand how children experience violence against their mothers and how those experiences may shape them as they grow, from infancy to adolescence.

Sustainable Strategies for Safe Schools

Created with generous funding from the Trillium Foundation of Ontario, this CD and companion administrator’s resource is used by educators as an individual staff development tool or discussion platform with a variety of audiences. The Stages of Change School Assessment Checklist yields information useful in the development and implementation of a safe school plan. View the CD on-line through the web site of the Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children.

Helping the Helpers of Abused Women

Of relevance to anyone who works with women, the 2008 resource called Helping an Abused Woman provides insight into how abuse affects women and gives concrete ideas to apply on the front line, including worksheets for group or individual interventions. If you need training for new staff, or a booster for seasoned staff, this is the perfect resource. Readers learn key assumptions about abuse in intimate relationships, service principles, why all helping professionals must understand abuse dynamics, paradoxes of abuse, common control tactics and rationalizations of abusive men, thoughts and feelings blocking emotional leaving, and 10 promises not to make to women. The second guide in the series applies this understanding for staff of abused women's shelters, refuges or transition houses.

Several Translations of Centre Resources now Available

We are delighted when other non-profit agencies ask to translate our work for use with families in other countries. We grant permission so long as the Centre is acknowledged as the author and copyright holder, no profit is made by the sale of our work, and they send us a copy of the final product. For example, the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation translated both the handbook and trainer's manual for early childhood educators, called Understanding the Effects of Domestic Violence. Guilford Press translated on of our books into Japanese: Protecting Children from Domestic Violence. Twelve of our resources are already available in French.

Child Witness Training in the Territories

In this initiative funded by Justice Canada, Centre staff delivered presentations on the topic of children and court testimony in Yellowknife, Inuvik, Whitehorse, Watson Lake and Iqaluit. The visits afforded the opportunity to learn about the unique challenges of victim support within the context of northern circuit courts. This knowledge informed the development of the Journey to Justice training resource which was distributed across the north in 2009.

The Journey to Justice in Canada's North

This 90-page guide from 2009 takes the basic principles of helping children and teenagers testify in court and adapts them for use in Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut where circuit-court parties travel to isolated communities and sometimes hear the evidence of children in criminal trials. Also addressed are the needs of witnesses with diagnosed or suspected fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). The document was developed and distributed with funding from the Policy Centre for Victim Issues which is part of the Department of Justice in Ottawa.

"A Full and Candid Account" Booklets

These seven bilingual booklets from 2007 were produced and distributed across Canada with funding from the Department of Justice in Ottawa. They help prosecutors, victim-support workers, judges and others understand and meet the needs of children who testify in court. Topics covered are: overview of issues related to child testimony, testifying outside the courtroom (e.g., via CCTV), witness screens, video-recorded evidence, designated support person, hearsay evidence and children, and children and teenagers who testify in domestic violence cases.