Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres (OCRCC)

Published purpose

Through this 31-month project, the Ontario Coalition of Rape Crisis Centres (OCRCC) will scale a BIPOC community of practice model and implement anti-racist reflexive practices within sexual violence services to strengthen the GBV sector. It will address the need for 1) increased support and decreased isolation for BIPOC staff in Ontario sexual assault centres, 2) increased support for racialized survivors of sexual violence, and 3) increased opportunities for anti-racist organizational and systems change. To do so, the project will 1) scale a BIPOC counsellor community of practice model to BIPOC outreach, education, and management roles in sexual assault centres in Ontario; 2) create a peer-support meeting model; 3) deploy an existing decolonizing toolkit with allies to enhance organization change; and 4) undertake advocacy work to address the interaction of race and gender oppression on gender-based violence. An evaluator will measure and assess the impact of the promising practice. OCRCC will publish the toolkit and related calls to action on the OCRCC webpage; present the promising practice and peer-support meeting model; disseminate advocacy work addressing interaction of race and gender oppression in internal and external networks; and present the evaluation summary to OCRCC leaders, so to share information on the promising practice with others so that they may replicate it or expand upon it. Supplemental funds in 2026 will be used to undertake additional knowledge mobilization activities including targeted dissemination and guidance on integrating project tools with member sexual assault support centres.