The Victims Fund provides grants and contributions to support projects and activities to help support victims of crime. More specifically, the fund promotes access to justice, improves the capacity of service providers, fosters the establishment of referral networks, and increases awareness of services available to victims of crime and their families.
Child Advocacy Centres (CACs) are child-focused centres that provide a coordinated approach to investigation, intervention, treatment and prosecution, in child abuse cases. They adopt a seamless and collaborative approach to addressing the needs of child and youth victims or witnesses of abuse to minimize system-induced trauma by providing a child-friendly setting for young victims and their families. Child and Youth Advocacy Centres (CYACs) offer the same services as CACs, but to a broader age-range of victims. Both CACs and CYACs receive funding under the CAC portion of the Victims Fund.
Child Advocacy Centres bring together a multidisciplinary team of police, child protection, medical services, mental health services, victim services, and prosecutors in a child-friendly environment. Professional services offered by CACs include coordinated forensic interviews; examination of the child by a medical professional; victim advocacy, including court preparation and support; trauma assessment; and counselling.
CACs help children and their families navigate the justice system in a number of ways. For example, CACs provide a child or youth with a safe and comfortable environment in which to be interviewed by criminal justice professionals, and they seek to reduce the number of interviews and questions directed at a child. CACs may also provide education and training to justice professionals on best practices for interviewing child victims and witnesses. Ultimately, CACs lead to better communication between agencies supporting young victims and to increased access to services for young victims and their families or caregivers.
It has been shown that investigations conducted by CACs are cost-effective and can expedite decision making by Crown prosecutors laying criminal charges. Parents whose children receive services from CACs are more satisfied with the investigation process and interview procedures, and those children who attend CACs are more likely to say that they were not scared during the forensic interviewing process.
Since 2010, the Government of Canada has allocated a total of $10.3 million to new or enhanced CACs and CYACs. In Economic Action Plan 2015, the Government committed to providing additional funding to CACs and CYACs. It will provide $5.25 million over four years starting in 2016-17, along with $2.1 million on an annual basis thereafter, to make the support and services provided by CACs and CYACs more accessible in communities across the country.
CACs and CYACs that have benefited from Government of Canada funding, either directly or through funding provided to one of their partners, include the following:
- Nova Scotia
Sea Star Child and Youth Advocacy Centre Demonstration Project, Halifax
- Quebec
Centre d'expertise Marie-Vincent, Montréal
- Ontario
Child Advocacy Centre of Simcoe/Muskoka, Orillia
Boost Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, Toronto
Koala Place Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, Cornwall
Kristen French Child Advocacy Centre Niagara, St. Catharine's
- Manitoba
Snowflake Place for Children and Youth Inc., Winnipeg
- Saskatchewan
Regina Children's Justice Centre, Regina
Saskatoon Centre for Children's Justice, Saskatoon
- Alberta
Caribou Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, Grand Prairie
Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre, Calgary
- British Columbia
Alisa's Wish Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows
Sophie's Place Child Advocacy Centre, Surrey
Vancouver Child and Youth Advocacy Centre, Pilot Project, Vancouver
The Government has also provided funding for projects that explore the creation, development or adaptation of the CAC model in the following communities:
- Ontario
Brampton
Kitchener
Ottawa
Sioux Lookout
- British Columbia
Vernon (North Okanagan Child and Youth Advocacy Centre project)
Victoria (ORCA)
West Kootenay Boundary (Safe Kids & Youth (SKY) Coordinated Response)
- Yukon
Whitehorse (Project Lynx)
- Northwest Territories
Yellowknife
- Nunavut
Iqaluit (Umingmak Child and Youth Protection Centre)
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July 2015
Department of Justice Canada