Community Family Services of Ontario

Published purpose

This 36-month project will develop, test, implement and share a wraparound continuum-of-care model to address the need for culturally and linguistically relevant supports for underserved East Asian Gender-Based Violence (GBV) survivors and their families in Ontario. This target population includes newcomers/refugees, those living with disabilities, and those with limited income, who are past or present victims of gender-based violence perpetrated by family, work, systems, or human trafficking. Community Family Services of Ontario (CFSO) will achieve this by: conducting community/stakeholder consultations; developing and testing a robust wraparound model of support; conducting an evaluation to assess model effectiveness; integrating evaluation results to refine the model; and disseminating results within both the GBV sector as well as in ethnic media networks, all with the involvement and input of the GBV survivors/clients. This project will engage Toronto Public Health, York Region Public Health, Victim Services Toronto, John Howard Society, and the Canadian Red Cross, as well as East Asian GBV survivors, ensuring that project activities are trauma-informed and survivor-led. The impact of this model will also be assessed through a external evaluation process, including its potential to be adapted and replicated, with findings to be integrated into programming for future GBV survivors and to be shared with the GBV sector to increase the body of knowledge. By the end of the project, CFSO will have developed a promising practice and have shared it with the wider GBV sector, to strengthen supports to underserved East Asian GBV survivors and their families in Canada.