New Here To Help Group Starting Soon!
Woman abuse is still extremely prevalent in Canada, but it’s not always seen. A woman may be afraid to speak out against her abuser. According to the Canadian Women’s Foundation, on any given night in Canada, 3491 women and their 2724 children sleep in shelters because it isn’t safe at home, and approximately 300 women and children are turned away because shelters are already full. Approximately every 6 days, a woman in Canada is killed by her intimate partner. These stats are not good, so it is Yorktown Family Services’ vision to make sure that children, youth, individuals and families are living in safe and healthy relationships and communities. This is why we introduced the Here To Help program.
Here To Help groups are dedicated to assisting mothers and children exposed to family violence. The program is designed to enable recovery from their experiences. By responding to the needs and feelings of children, the groups aim to prevent children from re-creating similar violence as adults. There is a group for mothers, and four groups for children of different ages, which will be held simultaneously one evening per week.
A participant of the program describes the support that her and her son received from Here To Help in her own words: “My son is very empowered because of the counselling he received at Yorktown’s Here To Help program. Because of the services and support that we received, I feel like we are OK now. We can deal with things. Here To Help precipitated the beginning of my emotional healing. I began to address the emotional pain of how I grew up, what I went through having a baby at a young age, what I went through in my marriage. I didn’t realize the impact that not having a support system had on me at the time.“
The same participant also speaks highly of Yorktown in general: “From my experience, I think that services like this are not just an option for women who have experienced violence and their children; a program like Here To Help is essential. Yorktown is a ‘hospital for your emotions’. When there is something physically wrong, you go to the hospital and you get a physical work-up so you know what is going on with your physical system, but when you are emotionally sick, where do you go? That is what Yorktown was for me. Yorktown helps you do an emotional work-up and connects you to your resilience, to your power, to your strengths and equips you to move on from emotional challenges. It’s emotional physiotherapy.”
Here To Help runs three times a year, and the upcoming session begins soon! If you or someone you know – maybe a sister, friend, mother, daughter, co-worker, etc. – could benefit from this program, we urge you to reach out. The first step in asking for help is always the most difficult, however, it is our goal to assist those mothers and children so that they have a bright and happy future.
Dinner, childcare and T.T.C. tokens will be provided. Translation services are available in most languages, upon request. For further information, to register, to request language-specific services, or to refer families, please contact: Karen Blake, Manager of Community-Based Violence Prevention Programs, 416-394-2424 x 228. All families must be pre-registered and will be interviewed prior to starting Here To Help.
Yorktown is here to help.