Child advocacy centre being constructed here

The Chinook Sexual Assault Centre has teamed up with Prime Catering and The

Italian Table to assist children who have experienced abuse and neglect.

Through a staff giving campaign, Prime Catering and The Italian Table is leading the way by investing in the Chinook Child

Advocacy Centre Give Support Give Hope Campaign.

The Chinook Child Advocacy Centre will be one of eight centres in Alberta, devoted to giving children and youth who have experienced sexual, emotion, physical abuse or severe neglect a safe space to share their story and receive the support and resources they need throughout the entire disclosure, investigation and judicial process.

"There are already six that exist in the province and there are two more that are being built, ours and one in Medicine Hat,” said Kristine Cassie, CEO, Chinook Sexual

Assault Centre. "It’s actually a model that’s used throughout North America that brings together all the players who help make a child’s life better when they’ve gone through sexual abuse or severe physical abuse or neglect.

"If we can provide the best possible support up front for someone who has been abused, we can deal with the trauma. We know children who aren’t given support when they’ve been abused are 26 times more likely to experience homelessness at some point in their life. We know addiction can become a real issue. So we hope we can act early and if we can get those supports we can actually change the course of what’s happening in their life, that they can feel good about who they are and not be defined by their abuse and have a good quality of life."

For their part, Prime Catering Ltd/Italian Table are sponsoring the building of the kitchen.

“When Italian Table opened up a couple years ago I set up a donation opportunity for staff to contribute from their cheque every couple of weeks and then we matched the funds. So we went into Christmas with a pretty nice chunk of cash sitting there,” said Michael Marcotte, owner of Prime Catering and The Italian Table.

Marcotte learned of the Chinook Sexual Assault Centre’s campaign throught LinkedIn.

“I know Kristine and they were announcing their job advocacy centre,” he said.

“I read some of the material they sent and I thought it was a great opportunity for us to be an early adopter and try and get this thing built. We couldn’t think of a more noble opportunity to get involved and encourage others to get involved to solve some of the ugliest parts we see in society.”

Fittingly, Prime Catering and The Italian Table has taken over construction of the kitchen at the new facility.

“What’s cool about it is it ties in with what we do for a living, so we’re looking forward to supporting it ongoing and providing cookies or juice boxes for the folks who utlize the factility,” said Marcotte.

"Obviously, we need a place for our staff to have their lunch and they want to be part of it,” added Cassie. “(Marcotte) is really passionate about how we can change things for kids to make lives better and really sees this as an investment for the future. We’re thrilled they were the first ones to get on board and that they’re challenging the rest of the community to help out as well.”

Having signed the lease a few days ago, Cassie said the Chinook Child Advocacy Centre will operate on the main floor of the Professional Building dowtown.

"We’ve been working on this for about two years now,” said Cassie, adding they have a multi-disciplinary team in place that includes the Lethbridge Police Services, the RCMP, Children’s Services, Blood Tribe Children’s Services, Piikani Children’s Services, The Blood Tribe Police Service and Alberta Health.

“So we’re already starting to do tabletop exercises and moving to doing actual cases sometime in late-spring.

From that, we’ve leased some space. We’re just in the final development piece to be able to construct the leased space to meet the needs of these children and families.

[That means everything from a forensic interview room, which has to be soundproofed and have certain equipment in it to a therapy room for the needs of children and adolescents, a family room, a kitchen and those types of things we need to have in place to be functional. The lease space is there, now we’re going to push to hopefully have people invest in this process. We think this is a good move for Lethbridge and area.

“Certainly, we’re seeing lots of issues around homelessness and addiction and we know a lot of this comes from early trauma. We’re hoping we can change the course for the future of our community as well."

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