The Regina and Area Sexual Assault Centre (RSAC) is appealing to the community for support for their Moose Jaw satellite counselling office in order to ensure people in the region continue to receive the mental health support they need to thrive.
"The public has a huge role in how we're funded," explained Chantelle Priel, the RSAC's public education and outreach co-ordinator. "We're hoping that this appeal is a good, supportive avenue not just for funding our work, but to help build awareness and understanding of how we work and operate in Moose Jaw."
The easiest way to donate to RSAC — the only centre offering free counselling specialized for sexual violence, especially with children and youth — is through their website at reginasexualassaultcentre.ca. All donations received from the Moose Jaw area go to support the Moose Jaw area.
"We would like to be known as part of the Moose Jaw community," Priel said. "We started working in Moose Jaw in 2021 because other service providers we've worked with were highlighting the need for increased mental health services, especially for complex cases: Things like sexual abuse of children and youth."
Saskatchewan continues to have one of the highest rates of interpersonal violence in Canada. Priel noted that in Saskatchewan, according to Statistics Canada, 52 per cent of female victims of sexual offences, and 75 per cent of male victims of sexual offences, are under 18. Approximately 70 per cent of RSAC's clients in Moose Jaw are under 18, and 30 per cent of RSAC clients waiting for services are from the Moose Jaw area.
A previous grant from the province through the Criminal Property Forfeiture Fund supported the RSAC satellite office when it was initially established. However, that funding was one-time and is now expired.
"We do get very generous funding from the Province of Saskatchewan for our Regina location," Priel said, "but even with our Regina location there's a percentage of funding that comes strictly from community donations.
"We are incredibly dedicated to ensuring our services continue, so we're constantly looking for other avenues of stable funding to make our services more static. But in the interim, anything that anybody is able to give really helps us."
Clients at the Moose Jaw office are seen bi-weekly, and staff at the RSAC see plenty of evidence of the community need, Priel continued. Sexual trauma at a young age is a major contributor for other social risk factors, such as addiction, housing insecurity, unemployment, absenteeism from work and school, and the perpetuation of painful and debilitating relationship dynamics.
"We see a lot of silence in communities due to blame and shame, which are social aspect that go hand-in-hand, specifically, with sexual violence and trauma. When those experiences go unaddressed, it becomes incredibly difficult for someone to work through and process their trauma to live their fullest life. So, the specialization in sexual violence counselling in the community is really huge and has ripple effects from the individual level to the community level."
Another service RSAC performs in the community, separately from their counselling office, the Victims Advocate Case Review (VACR). The VACR is a trilateral collaboration between the RSAC, the Moose Jaw Transition House, and the Moose Jaw Police Service.
Three or four times a year, experts from each organization gather to review the quarterly sexual violence cases. The program's goal is to explore the cases that did not result in a charge. Sometimes that's due to the complaint being dropped, or insufficient evidence to proceed, but the VACR team also make sure that victims are being treated respectfully, that they understand core components of their case (consent, sociocultural biases, legal considerations), and that each case has been given the accuracy, consistency, and procedural thoroughness it deserves.
