Southwest Crisis Services hosting event to raise awareness about intimate partner violence
The story of a victim of domestic homicide, as told by three family members at an upcoming event in Swift Current, will bring awareness to the horrific reality of intimate partner violence.
Southwest Crisis Services is hosting the Her Story brunch with guest speakers at the Living Sky Casino Event Centre, March 23.
“The main purpose of this event is to generate awareness to the prevalence of intimate partner abuse in Saskatchewan,” Southwest Crisis Services Executive Director Becky Walker said.
“Our hope is to spread knowledge and to get people talking and thinking about this, because it’s an issue that’s not slowing down. The levels of violence in relationships are increasing and we’re just hoping that we can give people the information to get help or help someone else that might need it.”
She noted that data from Statistics
Canada indicate that Saskatchewan has one of the highest levels of intimate partner violence in the country, but it is also evident from the work done by Southwest Crisis Services.
“We’ve seen an increase as well in calls to our crisis line and an increase to our caseloads,” she said. “Our councillors are seeing more people.”
Southwest Crisis Services decided to organize the brunch with impactful presentations as part of an effort to create more discussion about the issue of intimate partner violence.
“One of our main priorities now is prevention and raising awareness,” she said. “We’re not titling it a fundraising campaign. It’s an awareness campaign. We’re shifting the focus from fundraising to awareness. If we get donations and make a little bit of money off tickets, that’s great, but our focus is getting the word out there and equipping people with the knowledge they need to get help.”
Southwest Crisis Services operates a safe shelter in Swift Current that provides a haven for women and their children leaving an abusive situation. Other services include a 24/7 crisis help line, outreach support counselling for women, men and children dealing with interpersonal issues or who are at risk of abuse, as well as sexual assault support services.
“Part of what we do is prevention,” she said.
“So we are out in the community doing groups and educating and doing that kind of thing already. We just want to build on that. So we’d like to put a lot more focus into prevention and that’s where this initiative stemmed from.”
The three speakers at the brunch are family members of Abbie Speir, who was murdered by her partner in Yellow Grass on April 20, 2017.
He was sentenced to life in a Regina court on July 23, 2020 after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.
Joan Mcdonald from Saskatoon is Speir’s mother, Lorell Mcdonald Linke is her younger sister living in Regina and Swift Current resident Leah Mcdonald Perrault is her twin sister.
“We’ve learned to refer to ourselves as sort of secondary victims and each of us has a unique perspective,” Mcdonald Perrault said. “I hope that it will shed light for people on how many of us are needed to support folks going through intimate partner violence or domestic abuse.”
She added that everyone has a role to play to learn more about the realities of intimate partner violence and its wide impact.
“The data suggests that all of us know somebody who’s going through this, but very few of us are aware of that,” she said. “Some of the education work that my sister and mom and I have been trying to do since Abbie died is talking more about what some of those signs might be and helping folks to recognize that.”
The March 23 brunch in Swift Current will be the first time that all three of them will be speaking at the same event. Their previous speaking engagements have only been in pairs and they have also been raising awareness through their individual efforts.
“My mom does lots of work in workplace education,” Mcdonald Perrault said. “She’s trying to work with employers to help their employees to recognize the signs of violence and hopefully be able to provide supports. My sister is a school teacher and she does lots of work with her students, particularly in law classes, where they’re looking at the legal systems and their part in the supports that are available. I’ve done lots of work in spiritual settings, churches and faith communities. We’re just hopeful that by talking about something that is often silenced, that there will be people spared from this experience in the future.”
She added that their speaking engagement at the Southwest Crisis Services event will provide a perspective on how they experienced the same traumatic event in different ways.
“One of the things we found was that the experience was so unique for each of us,” she said. “We all had different memories relating to the murder and the follow-up, the trial and all of that. I think the folks that come to the Her Story event are going to get a glimpse into how families grieve differently and the different ways in which family members experience something like this.”
Mcdonald Perrault feels it is important to discuss intimate partner violence, because it is still framed as a victim’s issue and there are support programs for victims, but there are not nearly enough preventative and treatment programs for perpetrators.
“This is a perpetrators issue and the only thing that would have stopped Abbie from dying was if her perpetrator hadn’t killed her,” she said. “Most of the supports and the conversations are aimed at victims. But how do we identify the people in our community who are perpetrating intimate partner and domestic violence? How do we make it safer for them to articulate that they’re having difficulty solving their problems without resorting to violence? How do we make the supports more accessible? Southwest Crisis Services is one of the only shelters in the province that offers perpetrator supports.”
She feels the discussion about intimate partner violence should also include the need for legislative changes, for example making changes to Canadian criminal law to include coercive control as part of the definition of domestic violence. This has already been done in other jurisdictions such as Scotland, Ireland and Denmark.
“I think people get in over their heads, they’re locked in behaviour patterns that haven’t been serving them well and they don’t have other means for support,” she said. “If we want to live in a safer world, we need to build safeguards in and the whole of the culture needs to recognize patterns and trends and possibilities that can put them at risk. We need to build better structures for making sure that everybody’s well supported.”
The Southwest Crisis Services Her Story brunch with guest speakers will start at 11 a.m. on March 23 at the Living Sky Casino. No minors are allowed due to sensitive subject matter. Tickets are $50 per person or $500 for a table of 10. For more information and to reserve tickets, call 306-778-4401 or send an e-mail to swcrisis@sasktel.net