From Awareness to Action

There have been repeated calls for greater public awareness on family violence, as well as better professional training, more resources, and enhanced collaboration between the justice system and community service providers. While considerable work has been done to help family law professionals identify family violence and assess risk, this awareness has not yet been matched with a high level of training on how to go from identifying family violence to understanding its’ impact on survivors and their children and creating and supporting appropriate parenting plans in the context of family violence.

This project, funded by the Department of Justice Canada, supports the continuation of five regional Communities of Practice through the Alliance of Canadian Research Centres on Gender-Based Violence. These Communities of Practice are comprised of survivors of family violence and representatives from the gender-based violence (GBV), health, and family law sectors, and work together to:

• Enhance training opportunities for GBV specialists and Family law specialists to support trauma-informed practice.
  
• Promote standardized screening tools to enhance the substantive and procedural decision- and recommendation-making by multidisciplinary family law professionals involved in family violence-related child custody matters (including judges, lawyers, and assessors). 
  
• To create a standardized guide for parenting plans where there has been family violence. 
  

The work of Awareness to Action builds on the PHAC grant Supporting the Health of Survivors of Family Violence in Family Law Proceedings.

RESOURCES & WEBINARS