Children's Aid Society in Sudbury, Ont., creates team for intimate partner violence cases
CBC
WARNING: This story contains details of intimate partner violence.
The Children's Aid Society of the Districts of Sudbury and Manitoulin has created a four-person team dedicated to complex cases that involve intimate partner violence.
Elaina Groves, the organization's CEO, said about 30 per cent of cases they investigate involve intimate partner violence.
"What staff are telling us, and what supervisors and managers are seeing is more complexities in the cases that they've become far more serious and intersecting with mental health and with misuse of substances," she said.
While all case workers with the Children's Aid Society investigate cases that involve intimate partner violence, Groves said the new team is handling those that are most complex.
Each person on the team, she said, is investigating about 20 cases.
Groves said the number of cases that involve intimate partner violence has increased gradually in recent years.
"[We] saw that the numbers have steadily been going up," she said.
"But it's in the complexities, the seriousness of them, that we said we have to do something different."
In addition to their investigations, she said the case workers also support families impacted by intimate partner violence, which includes finding them basic items like food and clothing, along with a place to live.
"They may have walked out with nothing," Groves said.
In November 2023, Sudbury city council declared intimate partner violence an epidemic. The motion followed an intimate partner violence case that ended with the death of 40-year-old Carol Fournier.
The previous month there was a high-profile case in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., in which a 44-year-old gunman killed five people, including three children.
To date, more than 94 communities in Ontario have declared intimate partner violence an epidemic, according to Groves.
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