Northwestern Ontario Women's Centre

Published purpose

This 30-month project will support a feminist response and recovery from the current impacts of COVID-19, through systemic change. The Northwestern Ontario Women’s Centre (NOWC) will achieve this by operationalizing the implementation of their High Risk Navigation Protocol and promoting its use as a central tool among service providers to relocate the safety of women, Trans and non-binary people and their children at the front end of the systemic response to Gender Based Violence (GBV); scaling up the GBV Navigation advocate position; creating a Court advocate position to reinforce and monitor the use of safety measures in legal processes; identifying gaps, examining links, researching alternative measures; and creating and publishing recommendations to change GBV protocols and policies, disseminating information, encouraging systemic change, promoting effective measures of accountability and prevention of GBV both inside and outside the criminal legal system. At the end of the project, the organization will have contributed to addressing systemic barriers by advancing inclusive policies and practices, increasing networks and collaboration to accelerate systemic change, supporting positive distribution of authority, voices, and decision-making power, addressing persistent harmful gender norms and attitudes to support women’s equality. The organization partnered with Thunder Bay and District Coordinating Committee to End Women Abuse (TBDCCEWA), with funding from Law Foundation of Ontario, to develop the High Risk Navigation Protocol which will be operationalized and implemented during this project. Members of TBDCCEWA will support the protocol’s implementation. Dissemination of project information will also be shared on NOWC’s “Analysis to Action on Gender-Based Violence” website.