York Regional Police, in partnership with the York Region Centre for Community Safety (YRCCS) and 482 Collective, is launching three-month long bus ad and billboard campaign to raise awareness of intimate partner violence and encourage victims and survivors to Recognize, Report and Prevent It.
The goal of the campaign, Access to Justice: Integrated Services for Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence and its underlying theme of Recognize, Report and Prevent It, is to increase public awareness of intimate partner violence, which affects every community, crossing every culture and social boundary and encourage survivors to report physical, sexual or emotional abuse.
Survivors can access a variety of services and resources, all centrally located, at the York Region Centre for Community Safety. The 482 Collective provides essential items such as food and personal hygiene products to survivors and offers wrap-around services and skills as survivors move forward. York Regional Police also has an officer embedded at YRCCS so survivors do not have to attend a police station to report and to ensure the interaction between police and survivors is supportive and as positive as it can be.
In York Region, police respond to more than 6,000 reports related to intimate partner violence each year. Criminal charges are laid in close to 2,000 of those incidents. The risk of violence is higher for women who are Indigenous, racialized or newcomers to Canada and this is a crime that is chronically underreported.
Other elements of the campaign York Regional Police participates in include the raising of the Purple Ribbon Flag on November 1 to mark Intimate Partner Violence Awareness Month; joining Yellow Brick House as they raised the Wrapped in Courage flag during the annual Break the Silence – Step in my Shoes Walk on November 5; partnering with partner with YRCCS in hosting The Training Institute on Strangulation Prevention on November 14, which provided vital education to more than 150 attendees from 34 agencies; marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Again Women on November 25, the beginning of the 16 Days of Activism Against Genera-Based Violence; and commemorating the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women on December 6 in honour of the 14 victims of the Montreal Massacre.
Our participation in all of these initiatives is meant to further educate our community and encourage victims and survivors to report intimate partner violence through the YRCCS at 1-855-541-2220.
