Community-Based Responses that Advance Healing.

Interventions that Transform.

Through keynote and panel presentations we will identify and address the structural pathologies that oppress diverse communities who access our support while sharing interventions that transform. These community-based responses position our communities at the center. Our approaches provide safe healing spaces for participants to stand in their own power while working to redress harm.

Day One: Tuesday, March 30, 2021

10 AM – Keynote: Travis Heath (he/him), Metropolitan State University of Denver– Community Care and Abolition Inspired Approaches to Psychotherapy

11 AM – Panel: Theresa Thomas, Rosa Elena Arteaga and Travis Heath

1 PM – Workshop with Theresa Thomas (she/her) – Compassionate Currency: A Person-Centered Perspective on Addictive Behaviors and Other “Disordered” Coping

About the presentation: A Medical Model of Health and Wellness or Dysfunction and Disorder is inherently racist, xenophobic, and discriminatory. “Typical” and “mainstream” standards only apply to a very specific type of privileged minority. And yet, these are the standards utilized to assess mental, emotional, and physical health and well-being. The use of substances for example has been politicized and weaponized to target those who would be denied any other methods of coping and survival. As conscientious citizens, support people, front-line workers, or even open-minded individuals, we are not exempt from having internalized these largely discriminatory messages. Failure to identify and analyze how these messages impact our thinking, our empathy and our ideas will limit our ability to empathize and provide useful, valuable, and life-changing supports.

Let’s explore together these uncomfortable concepts together and learn how to be more effective in our support work.

2:30 PM – Presentation by Rosa Elena Arteaga (she/her) – We are Multi-storied: Resistance that Heals

About the presentation: An anti-racist intersectional feminist framework where Rosa collaborates with girls and women survivors of sexualized and intimate partner violence to deconstruct the societal expectations that both oppress them and limit their right to stand in their own power, and ultimately denying them the right to live free from violence.

Speakers:

Travis Heath (he/him), Metropolitan State University of Denver

Travis is a licensed psychologist and has served as a professor of psychology at Metropolitan State University of Denver for the last 12 years. In July, he will become an Associate Professor at the University of Denver and assume co-directorship of the International Disaster Psychology: Trauma and Global Mental Health graduate program as well as serve as Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the Graduate School of Professional Psychology.

Past work he’s been involved with looked at shifting from a multicultural approach to counseling to one of cultural democracy that invites people to heal in mediums that are culturally near. His most recent work involves incorporating the work of Black abolitionist scholars into psychotherapy, community healing, and uprising. His writing has focused on the use of rap music in narrative therapy, working with persons entangled in the criminal injustice system in ways that maintain their dignity, narrative practice stories as pedagogy, a co-created questioning practice called reunion questions, and community healing strategies. He is currently co-authoring the first book on Contemporary Narrative Therapy with David Epston and Tom Carlson. He has been fortunate to run workshops and speak in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Norway, United Kingdom, and United States.

Theresa Thomas (she/her), Women’s Counsellor, Battered Women’s Support Services

Theresa is committed to helping people achieve freedom from systemic and societal oppression in every capacity. Since moving to Vancouver in 2012 Theresa has been focused on learning the origins and impacts of trauma. Theresa’s therapeutic focus is on trauma intervention, freedom from abuse, substance misuse, and achieving empowerment using largely narrative therapeutic techniques. Theresa has an MCP in Counselling Psychology and is currently an STV counsellor at Battered Women’s Support Services, and coordinates the BWSS Black Women’s Program. Theresa was born and raised in Houston, Texas.

Rosa Elena Arteaga (she/her), Manager of Direct Service and Clinical Practice, Battered Women’s Support Services

Rosa Elena Arteaga has been working in the anti-violence field for over twenty years delivering workshops on violence against self-identified girls and women and providing training to service providers at the national and international level. In her role as Manager of Direct Services and Clinical Practice, she oversees a number of programs within BWSS. Since 2008, Rosa Elena has researched and addressed the issue of battered women being wrongfully arrested and has been successful with a number of police complaints. Rosa Elena holds a Master’s degree on Narrative Therapy and Community Work and she works from a decolonizing, feminist, anti-oppression, practice.

Day Two: Wednesday, March 31, 2021

10 AM – Keynote: Kim Hawkins (she/her), Executive Director at Rise Women’s Legal Centre – “Why Can’t Everyone Just Get Along? How BC’s Family Law System Puts Survivors in Danger”

11:30 AM – Panel

River Shannon (they/them), Staff Lawyer, YWCA Metro Vancouver

Kim Hawkins (she/her), Executive Director at Rise Women’s Legal Centre

Lisa Rupert (she/her), Vice President (she/her), Housing Services and Violence Prevention, YWCA Metro Vancouver, 

Moderated by Angela Marie MacDougall (she/her), Executive Director, Battered Women’s Support Services

Speakers:

River Shannon (they/them), Staff Lawyer, YWCA Metro Vancouver

River Shannon is a staff lawyer and legal educator with the YWCA Metro Vancouver, where they provide free legal services to women living in YWCA Housing who have experienced violence from an intimate partner. River also facilitates free workshops for the general public on a broad range of legal issues, advocates for positive change in the community, and supports YWCA outreach and support staff in navigating BC’s courts and institutions.

Kim Hawkins (she/her), Executive Director at Rise Women’s Legal Centre

Kim Hawkins is the founding Executive Director at Rise Women’s Legal Centre which opened its doors in 2016. She came to Vancouver via Whitehorse, Yukon Territory where she worked for many years as a staff lawyer at a busy legal aid clinic, practising mainly in the areas of family, criminal and child protection law. While in Whitehorse she also spent two years as a judicial clerk, worked as an investigator at the Yukon Human Rights Commission, and served as President of the Board of Yukon Women’s Transition Home Society. From 2007 to 2008, Kim worked on strategic constitutional and human rights litigation at the Legal Resources Centre in Grahamstown, South Africa. She holds a J.D. in Law from the University of Victoria, and a Masters in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford. When she isn’t in the office, Kim enjoys baking bread, yoga, and puttering around her community garden plot.

Kim was born and raised in Victoria BC, in the unceded territory of the WSÁNEĆ (Saanich) Nation and is grateful to now live, learn, work and play on the unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Tsleil-Waututh (Burrard) and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) Nations. She is also deeply thankful to her many teachers from Yukon’s First Nations.

Lisa Rupert (she/her), Vice President, Housing Services and Violence Prevention, YWCA Metro Vancouver

With over 27 years of front-line experience working with women who have experienced violence from an intimate relationship, Lisa Rupert is currently the Vice President of Housing and Violence Prevention for the YWCA Metro Vancouver. She oversees ten housing communities for women and their children, 3 second-stage transition houses, and the YWCA’s PEACE, Legal Education, and Outreach programs. Throughout her career, Lisa has worked on projects that have influenced policies to support women leaving abuse. Through a collaborative approach and ongoing advocacy for the clients she serves, Lisa has created and implemented programs facilitated workshops, been an active media spokesperson and a dedicated volunteer on housing and violence prevention services across Metro Vancouver. She is a current member of the Board of Directors for the BC Society of Transition Houses, sits on the Vancouver Police Domestic Violence and Criminal Harassment Unit Community Advisory Committee and the FREDA Community Advisory Committee.

Moderator: Angela Marie MacDougall (she/her), Executive Director, Battered Women’s Support Services

Through her community-based organizing, frontline work and activism over three decades, Angela Marie MacDougall has been deeply involved in movements for social justice. Since the nineties, Angela has developed training curricula from an intersectional and anti-oppression framework while her work as a trainer with community-based organizations, systems players, universities and in the larger public sphere has always emphasized the influence of a community-based response toward gender, racial, economic justice. Angela’s impact includes the development of empowerment and advocacy-based program and service delivery models that address gender-based violence and violence against women that are grounded in strong theoretical frameworks that include feminist trauma-informed analysis that integrate the role of substance use and mental wellness.

Angela Marie MacDougall is a founding member of Feminists Deliver a provincial organization dedicated to shedding a light on the urgent issues facing marginalized communities in British Columbia and the grassroots struggles leading the way for transformative change while build transnational connections between grassroots intersectional feminist movements; and re-envisioning the global women’s agenda as one that centers a diversity of grassroots intersectional feminist voices. She is a long-standing member of Vancouver’s February 14th Women’s Memorial March, the first women’s memorial march was held in 1992 in response to the murder of a woman in the Vancouver neighbourhood named the Downtown Eastside. Angela is a founding member of Intersectional Feminist Justice Research and Organizing Collaborative that brings together researchers, academics, data and policy analysts, students and community organizers to provide critical research, data, policy and strategic support for ending violence, gender equity and social justice movements. Ms. MacDougall was named a Remarkable Woman by the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Magazine named her one of Vancouver’s most powerful people.

Day Three: Thursday, April 1, 2021

TBA

We’ve created 31 Actions for Gender Justice to raise awareness, spark conversations and take action that transforms gender and power relations, and the structures, norms and values that underpin them. Every day for the month of March we will highlight an action that advances gender equity and justice for International Women’s Day (IWD).

Stand in Solidarity: October 4^th and Beyond

31 Actions for Gender Justice: Day 6

Each year on October 4^th, National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, we honour the lives of all murdered and missing Indigenous women, girls, and Two-Spirit people, and demand action.

But we stand in solidarity all year round. Join our call for justice.

To learn more, we invite you to read:

• “National Day of Action for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Trans, and Two-Spirit People” by BWSS.
• “Red Women Rising: Indigenous Women Survivors in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside,” by Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre, 2019.
• BWSS Indigenous Women’s Programs, cultural services run by Indigenous women for Indigenous Women.

This is by no means an exhaustive list! There’s so much more that we can do to advocate for political, economic and social changes.

We’ve created 31 Actions for Gender Justice to raise awareness, spark conversations and take action that transforms gender and power relations, and the structures, norms and values that underpin them. Every day for the month of March we will highlight an action that advances gender equity and justice for International Women’s Day (IWD).

This is by no means an exhaustive list! There’s so much more that we can do to advocate for political, economic and social changes.

Support Youth Empowerment

31 Actions for Gender Justice: Day 5

Girls and young women are driving change around the globe and we celebrate their accomplishments. But they still face challenges: gender bias, the wage gap, discrimination, gender-based violence, health and safety risks, exacerbation of gender justice during COVID-19, harassment, among many others.

Harmful gender norms impact youth of all genders in Canada, but women, especially women in marginalized groups –Indigenous, Immigrants, Black, gender diverse- are disproportionately affected.

To advance Gender Justice and support youth empowerment:

• Advocate for Indigenous girls who experience poverty, vulnerability to racialized male violence and disproportionate institutionalization in prisons, mental health institutions and welfare placements. “The scars of Indian residential schools continue to have a profound impact on Indigenous youth.”[1]
• Encourage girls and young women to participate in gender equity initiatives and take action.
• Shed light on their challenges and support initiatives aimed at eliminating barriers to education, health care, employment and justice.
• Inequalities and gender bias starts in childhood. Promote gender equity and respectful interactions among children and youth.
• Promote inclusion and diversity at home, at school, in the workplace, online.
• To best support girls and young women, hear their voices. These are only a few ideas of how you can help change perceptions of gender among youth.
• Promote young women’s leadership.

Be an advocate. Be a mentor. Empower and inspire. Lead by example.

[1] Justice for Girls. A Space to Thrive. 2018 Retrieved from http://www.justiceforgirls.org/uploads/2/4/5/0/24509463/a_space_to_thrive.pdf

[1] Justice for Girls. A Space to Thrive. 2018 Retrieved from http://www.justiceforgirls.org/uploads/2/4/5/0/24509463/a_space_to_thrive.pdf

We’ve created 31 Actions for Gender Justice to raise awareness, spark conversations and take action that transforms gender and power relations, and the structures, norms and values that underpin them. Every day for the month of March we will highlight an action that advances gender equity and justice for International Women’s Day (IWD).

This is by no means an exhaustive list! There’s so much more that we can do to advocate for political, economic and social changes.

Normalize a Culture of Consent

31 Actions for Gender Justice: Day 4

In Canada, approximately 4.7 million women -or 30% of all women age 15 and older- reported they have been sexually assaulted at least once since the age of 15.[1] Sexual assault is rooted in gender inequality. Prevention education, change of attitudes and behaviours, justice and support for survivors and awareness are key to fight against any form of sexual violence.

Join this effort and promote a safer and better sexual culture by talking about what consent is and what it’s not, supporting prevention programs for teens, sharing information with your networks, advocating for support for survivors and calling out rape culture.

Seek help if you or someone you know have been sexually assaulted. Call/text/email BWSS Crisis Line. You are not alone.

Say NO to the glorification of violence against women, objectification of women, victim-blaming, rape jokes, “locker room talk” and other attitudes and behaviours that degrade women.

Learn and share what consent is:

Given freely and willingly – without pressure, fear, manipulation, intimidation, threats, guilting or under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Informed – without being deceived or being told half-truths.

Enthusiastic – doing only what you want and not what you are expected to do.

Specific – saying yes to one thing like kissing or making out doesn’t mean that you are saying ‘yes’ to sex.

Reversible – anyone can change their mind about what they feel like doing, anytime.

Coherent – every participant in sexual activity must be capable of giving consent. Failure to recognize that the other person was too impaired to consent is not “drunk sex.” It’s sexual assault.

Same rules for everyone – including people in marriage and committed relationships.

No consent = Rape. No excuses.

[1] Statistics Canada. Gender-based violence and unwanted sexual behaviour in Canada, 2018: Initial findings from the Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2019001/article/00017-eng.pdf

[1] Statistics Canada. Gender-based violence and unwanted sexual behaviour in Canada, 2018: Initial findings from the Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2019001/article/00017-eng.pdf

We’ve created 31 Actions for Gender Justice to raise awareness, spark conversations and take action that transforms gender and power relations, and the structures, norms and values that underpin them. Every day for the month of March we will highlight an action that advances gender equity and justice for International Women’s Day (IWD).

Zero Tolerance for violence against women

31 Actions for Gender Justice: Day 3

Raise your voice to call for zero tolerance for violence against women. Violence against women and girls is a violation of human rights.

Call out inappropriate behavior in a safe manner. Any form of violence –physical and psychological- against women is unacceptable, from inappropriate jokes and street harassment to murder. Speak up and step up.

Say NO to normalizing microaggressions like sexist jokes, the wage gap, bullying, patronizing speech, unconscious bias, gaslighting, slut-shaming, body-shaming, sexual harassment, and the list goes on…

Microaggression or so-called subtle violence isn’t so micro or so subtle. It’s abuse that belittles, shames, and oppresses women. It reinforces violent attitudes, behaviours, and perceptions that contribute to marginalization, overt physical and psychological abuse. And extreme forms of gender-based violence like murder.

The Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability listed 155 cases of gender-based killings of women in 2020 in Canada.

The numbers are deplorable:1 woman killed every 2.3 days in Canada.

According to Status of Women Canada, intimate partner violence is a prevalent form of violence. While intimate partner violence affects people of all genders, women account for the vast majority of cases.

Raise your voice against all forms of violence to help change these attitudes, behaviours, and perceptions.

Together, we can lift women up and save lives.

We are here to support you. If you need help, please contact our Crisis & Intake Line:⁠
⁠
Call: 604.687.1867 (Toll-Free 1.855.687.1868)⁠
Text: 604.652.1867 ⁠
Email: intake@bwss.org⁠

We’ve created 31 Actions for Gender Justice to raise awareness, spark conversations and take action that transforms gender and power relations, and the structures, norms and values that underpin them. Every day for the month of March we will highlight an action that advances gender equity and justice for International Women’s Day (IWD).

Learn about BWSS approach: Decolonial  Feminism & Intersectional

31 Actions for Gender Justice: Day 2

What is decolonial feminism?

Maria Lugones, Argentinian scholar, introduced the term in “Toward a Decolonial Feminism” (2010) in which she explains that gender is understood based on Eurocentric perspectives forced on people of colour through colonialism and capitalism.

She proposes to question and resist this colonial system by understanding how it continues to oppress women and by finding ways to fight this oppression.

Looking at the struggles of women through a decolonial lens allows us to consider intersectionality and understand the issues of all women –especially women of colour.

What is intersectionality?

The term was first coined by scholar and civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw in her 1989 paper about the oppression of Black women, “Demarginalizing The Intersection Of Race And Sex: A Black Feminist Critique Of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory And Antiracist Politics.”

Intersectionality refers to the unique forms of oppression and discrimination experienced by individuals or groups of people based on overlapping or intersecting social identities -race, sexuality, ethnicity, religion, age, gender, and other identifying factors.

An intersectional approach recognizes that there are different forms of oppression and discrimination within social identity categories. For example, Crenshaw explains that it’s important to look at the intersection of race and gender, not at race alone, to understand the oppression of black women.

Understanding decolonial feminism and intersectionality is crucial to advance gender justice.

Recognizing that different aspects of identity interconnect helps us better understand the issues and the needs of marginalized individuals and groups of people.

Thanks to our decolonial and intersectional approach, we fight to dismantle oppressive structures and acknowledge that not all women face the same challenges. Our approach allows us to understand and meet the needs of women who turn to BWSS for help.

How can you help?

Share your stories and/or amplifying the voices of women who share their experiences. Keep the conversation going by listening to women, learning about gender inequity, speaking up against gender bias, and promoting real change in attitudes.

Women’s voices are powerful.