The Hon. John Gerretsen, Attorney General of Ontario McMurtry-Scott Building, 11 th Floor 720 Bay Street Toronto, Ontario M7A 2S9 November 17, 2011 Re: Family Court Support Worker Program Dear Minister Gerretsen; On behalf of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH), I am writing with regard to Ministry roll-out of the Family Court Support Worker Program and the associated training and support project for MAG funded Family Court Support Workers. This new program was announced by former Attorney General, Chris Bentley, on March 11, 2011. As the Ministry is aware, women s advocates have shared with the Ministry the experiences of women who experience violence within family courts in Ontario for over 30 years. In many cases, those experiences have been, and continue to be, profoundly negative for both women and children. Shelters for women survivors of violence and their children were at the forefront of identifying and responding to concerns within family law on behalf of women who have used women s shelters in Ontario since 1973. OAITH is well-placed, therefore, to evaluate new programs as they unfold. This is true for the new Family Court Support Worker program, as it is for many others. OAITH has also been a member of the women s advocate committee of the Ministry which has met periodically with Ministry staff and political policy representatives to discuss emerging issues and proposed policy changes. As a result, OAITH has been part of discussions leading up to the introduction of new policy and program changes within family law in Ontario for a number of years, including discussions about the potential and realization of the Family Court Support Worker program for women. The creation of the Ministry committee of women s anti-violence advocates was a critical progressive decision on the part of Attorney General of Ontario. The women s advocate committee has been able to provide vital expertise and knowledge to Ministry personnel and to share frontline experience of how proposed changes or issues within the legal systems affect women and children. We appreciate the opportunity to work with Ministry staff and representatives of the Minister whenever possible, and we believe this benefits both policy development within the Ministry and outcomes for women and children in Ontario. 1
OAITH was very pleased to hear that the Ministry was considering a small, time-limited program to acknowledge the challenges for women and children in the family law system and to offer frontline support for women attempting to negotiate the family law courts. The Domestic Violence Advisory Council of the office of the Minister Responsible for Women s Issues at the Ontario Women s Directorate had, prior to the creation of the program, identified family law as an area wherein much more support for women experiencing violence was required. We appreciated that the Ministry of the Attorney General was responding to this need. Shelters for women and children escaping violence the members of OAITH have been responding to the family law needs of women and children since their inception over 30 years ago, without specific funding or recognition. In order to provide the services women need in family court, shelters have been required to fundraise and find other support in order to facilitate women s access to justice in court. The acknowledgement by the Ministry of the Attorney General that women deserve publicly funded support in family court in order to receive fair administration of justice was, therefore, most welcome to our members. We eagerly engaged in discussions within the Ministry with women s advocates as the Ministry began to envision the new program. Within those conversations with advocates, OAITH was clear with Ministry staff that in implementing such a program across Ontario, albeit a program limited in funds and scope, there was a critical need to acknowledge that women s shelters in Ontario, as well as some other community-based women s services, had been providing family court support to women survivors without specific public funding support and that any new program would need to take this into account, especially with regard to allocating the new funds, as well as with regard to any associated support for the program. We were assured that this would be the case and that MAG does recognize the pitfalls of creating a new program to fund new court support workers while others who initiated and built such services do not receive similar public funding support. We take this to mean that proposals for funding from women s shelters and other women-centred agencies already doing the work would be very welcome. The implementation of any new program can be expected to include some imperfections. Regrettably, however, we must raise some concerns about the initiation of the Family Court Support Worker Program that we believe are more serious that the normal hitches that accompany any new endeavour. We hope our concerns can be rectified in a way that improves this important new initiative. With regard to the Court Support Worker Program, we have a number of points to raise: 1. Contracts for funding of the service appear to require services to men as well as women. Since the support worker program was initiated to provide support to women in recognition of their challenges in family court specifically with regard to violence against women, we are troubled by this requirement. Such a requirement was not discussed in any consultations with MAG where OAITH was present and we would like to know by what rationale the decision to include service to men was made and what, specifically, that service is intended to include. This is a particular concern with regard to assurances that women s organizations and agencies already doing this work in Ontario would be recognized as having the appropriate expertise to support their applications for funding. MAG is well-aware 2
that women s shelters, for example, are women-centred services, usually exclusively serving women and that they do not ordinarily provide services to men. Any decision to exclude a shelter service from receiving family court support worker funding as a result of not including men in the service would contradict MAG s intention to recognize the work already being done, albeit unfunded, in the province. In addition, any requirement to provide service to men undermines MAG s acknowledgement that it is women and children who are most at risk of being denied access to justice in family court, as well as undermining the primary mandate of most violence against women services for women and children. Finally, although some Ministry representatives have reportedly characterized service for men as referral to other supports rather than full family court support, we are troubled that this is not a written description included in contracts. Potentially, this opens the program to challenges from active so-called fathers rights groups bent on destroying the family law rights of women, in particular many women and children who experience violence from intimate partners. What is the Ministry s position on this eventuality, should it occur? 2. Although in our opinion, women s anti-violence agencies and women s shelters have the clear advantage in meeting the criteria for experience, knowledge and dedication to supporting women in family court, some approvals for (very limited) funding from MAG have instead been awarded to organizations with little past experience in this work, despite applications from women s services in the same location. 3. The Ministry has continued the practice of requiring partnerships in the community in order to provide funding to an agency for this work and has continued the practice of designating a lead agency to control the funds. This is a model of funding that OAITH cautioned the Ministry against using for this program because it can lead to divisions in local communities that do not serve the interests of women and is counter-intuitive to the overall approach of the Government of Ontario to promote coordination and collaboration at the local level. With regard to the associated training for Ministry funded Family Court Support Workers: The Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses is a member of the advisory committee of the project that will provide face-to-face training and resources, including online networking to the workers in the Family Court Support Worker Program. OAITH also supported and endorsed the application for funding from Luke s Place and Action ontarienne contre la violence faite aux femmes and were pleased when these groups received the funding to move forward with the training. We are very confident that the long experience of creating resources and training for women s advocates who do family court support with women and the long history of support and advocacy for Francophone women by AOcVF will results in excellent training and support for workers. Again unfortunately, we are troubled with the way in which the Ministry has structured the implementation of the training and we are requesting that changes be considered to remedy these concerns without delay: 1. Contrary to advice of OAITH with regard to MAG support for women in family court, the face-to-face training for family court support workers will be provided exclusively to those workers funded under the new program. This despite 3
research by Luke s Place and other indicating that women s family court support advocates want ongoing training and support in their work. (Needless to say, as they are not generally publicly funded for their work, there is inadequate funding support for their ongoing training as well.) This differential treatment by MAG is problematic as some of the members of our Association, therefore, will receive the MAG-funded training (in shelters where the agency receives funding for a MAG supported worker) and some will not. This is especially true for those communities that have already been excluded from participation in any aspect of the Program by the decision to limit implementation of the program as a whole to communities with specific numbers of family court files. This disproportionally affects communities in the North and in smaller rural communities. We would like to see the Ministry set a goal to provide access to this training to all women s shelter advocates who provide this service, regardless of the funding mechanism, in recognition of their long-standing commitment to supporting women in family court, as well as the Ministry s goal of promoting excellence of support for women throughout the family law system in Ontario. We are asking, therefore, that the Ministry find ways and means to include and fund any antiviolence against women family law court support worker in Ontario who wishes to receive face-to-face training. As the training is imminent, we ask the Ministry to act quickly on this concern. 2. Contrary to the advice of OAITH, certain aspects of the ongoing online support for family court support workers will be exclusive to court support workers funded by MAG under the new program. Although online materials will be accessible to both the Family Court Support Worker Program workers and others who perform similar functions in the community, including communities without a designated Family Court Support Worker, and a directory compiled by the project will include both, access to online networking and support among workers will be provided only to those family court support workers funded by the Ministry. We cannot understand the rationale for this differentiation. In terms of costbenefit analysis, we are unable to see how excluding some family court support workers from opportunities to network works to benefit women who need support in family court, regardless of the minimal cost, if any, it might incur. Exclusion of family court support workers who did not receive funding from MAG from both the face-to-face and ongoing online networking aspects of the Training Project does not comply with the goal of the Ministry as outlined in the Training Project Funding Guidelines document to promote delivery of consistent, specialized services across the province nor to build professional capacity across the sector. Since most family court support workers, whether in women s shelters or other women s agencies, work alone in providing family law specific service to women, it would be helpful to all court support workers to have access to the support and work practices of other workers this ultimately works for the benefit of the women and children they serve. We are asking, therefore, that the Ministry open access to online networking among workers to all family court support workers in Ontario working with women and children who experience violence. 4
We are hopeful that our concerns about the new Family Court Support Worker Program can be addressed in a timely manner especially with regard to the face-to-face training initiative. Finally, because the Family Court Support Worker Program is very much needed by women in Ontario and is the first such program to be undertaken by the Ministry of the Attorney General, it is important to us that it truly address the needs of all women and children and the advocates who support them in the family court system. It is important that is be inclusive of all women in Ontario experiencing violence and their children and that it be built right, from the beginning. We believe the issues that we have raised, if addressed appropriately, can only improve family court support and services for women and children in Ontario and better the outcomes in family court that so desperately call out for improvement. We look forward to a response at your earliest convenience. Respectfully, Eileen Morrow, Coordinator Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH) Cc: The Hon. Laurel Broten, Minister Responsible for Women s Issues Members of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH) Luke s Place Support and Resource Centre Action ontarienne contre la violence faites aux femmes 5