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Annual Report 2009

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Weekly Peer Support Group for Women

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Reaching Out - The Experiences of Abused Women in Grey Bruce

The results of this two year research study are available here: Reaching Out Project Summary Report



Our Mission Statement
Our Statement of Principles

The Women's House was created to serve the needs of women and their children who experience violence and abuse in their lives. It is our hope that they can find a secure home where they can take some peaceful time to assess their situation and make choices for their future which will allow them to live in a peaceful environment.

The Women's House will promote public awareness, provide community outreach and a safe home with a supportive environment. Our goal is to reduce and ultimately prevent family violence.

At the shelter we attempt to achieve an atmosphere in Society in which all are respected, safe and valued as individuals. In the interim, we need to provide a safe container which nurtures, heals and encourages growth to full potential.

The need for a structure to help provide safe shelter for women and their children feeling violence in their homes was identified in the early 1980s through the grassroots community. We were incorporated in June of 1984 and the house opened in 1985 with the majority of funding coming from the Ministry of Community and Social Services. The physical shelter is located in the small town of Kincardine (population 6000) and serves the rural areas of Grey and Bruce Counties. We are the only service providing free shelter and counselling in a large geographic area and serving a population of approximately 65,000. We are a non-profit corporation governed by a volunteer board of directors, employ 20 staff and depend on over 50 volunteers.


Second Stage Housing Project

Recently the Toronto District School Board released a report addressing the culture of violence and silence in our schools. It reports that thirty percent of female students reported experiencing sexual harassment and/or sexual assault.

More than half of Canadian women have experienced physical or sexual violence since the age of 16, and approximately 25 Ontario women are murdered by their spouses annually. Three Ontario women were murdered in the final weeks of 2007. The majority of women leaving abusive relationships bring children with them who have observed their father physically abusing their mother. Many of the fathers observed THEIR fathers beating THEIR mothers. Home becomes the training ground for violence.

How do we interrupt this process?

Women's House Serving Bruce and Grey, helps mothers and children overcome the impacts of abuse through individual and group counseling and parenting supports. There is no cost for these services. For more than 20 years, with the assistance of provincial funding, Women's House has provided safe and accessible accommodation to Bruce County women fleeing abusive situation. That shelter is limited to six weeks.

Six weeks, particularly in Bruce County's high cost rental situation, does not provide enough time to address the multitude of changes and arrangements that need to be accommodated in a separation, let alone one that is unplanned and crisis-driven. Where women cannot obtain housing for themselves and their children, they are forced to choose between homelessness and returning to the violent situation. Those who return to the violence place their children in even more confusing situations, themselves at increased risk of physical harm, or even death, and their children at increased likelihood of becoming virtual orphans, where their mother is dead, and their father imprisoned.

Women's House's Second Stage Housing projects (in Saugeen Shores (4 units), Wiarton (3 units), Kincardine (4 units) and Walkerton (3 units)) will provide some relief for this situation. The one, two and three bedroom units will provide 11 women and their families with one year of safe, adequate housing, as well as many of the supports which will enhance their abilities to surmount the challenges they face.

Although far from addressing the whole problem, ensuring that women leaving abusive situations have access to safe and appropriate accommodation begins to provide children with stability, the opportunity to experience a violence-free environment and to learn non-violent ways to resolve conflicts. Each child who increases her ability to resolve conflict through negotiation and who is able to envision non-violent conflict resolution has a better opportunity of living in a violence free environment, and using non-violent forms of conflict resolution.

People who are interested in helping develop this second stage project, or who are interested in working with children, can obtain more information by calling 396-9814 X 32 Further information about WHSBG services can be received through 396-9814 Ext. 0. Crisis line numbers are 1-800-265-5566; (Sexual assault) 1-866-578-5566

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Women's House Serving Bruce and Grey
Business Line (519) 396-9814
Crisis Line (519) 396-9655
Toll Free 1-800-265-3026
Sexual Assault Crisis Line 1-866-578-5566


Site designed and maintained by Tina Schoenhoeffer