(Image Credit: Big Bear Youth & Advocacy Centre / Facebook)

By Dylana Kneeshaw

CHILD & YOUTH ADVOCACY CENTRE

Big Bear Child & Youth Advocacy Centre support moving forward, with practice model in Kamloops to begin in January

Nov 27, 2019 | 5:13 PM

KAMLOOPS — In order to help children who have been abused or mistreated in Kamloops find the support services they need, a trial run of a new centre proposed to keep everything under one roof will be starting up in January.

The Big Bear Child & Youth Advocacy Centre (BCCYAC) group, which has yet to have a building of its own, is led by professionals within healthcare, social work, and legal services.

Fundraising for a future centre for the organization has already started, and a test run of the collaborative system will begin in the New Year out of the existing Suspect Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN) clinic at Royal Inland Hospital.

According to Tara Ettinger, Big Bear’s Project Coordinator and Director, the facility the local group is looking to build would ensure access to everything children and families would need after abusive situations.

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“Essentially what Big Bear Child & Youth Advocacy Centre is, is we’re coordinating the response to child abuse disclosures. So what we’re doing is really enhancing what our community has been doing for almost 20 years.”

Currently in Kamloops, Ettinger notes there are many existing services and legal avenues to sort through when a child discloses abuse. Service partners who support bringing the Big Bear Centre to the city include Kamloops RCMP, BC’s Ministry for Children & Family Development, Secwépemc Child & Family Services, Interior Health, the City of Kamloops, Lii Michif Otipemisiwak Family and Community Services, and Thompson Rivers University.

Despite the number of agencies available, Ettinger says the gap in service is noticeable in the distance families have to travel between each agency.

“So that does mean travelling to the hospital, travelling to the SCAN clinic, which is another department at the hospital, going to the RCMP station to give their interview, travelling to child protection, and travelling to the courthouse to meet with Crown.”

Dr. Denise Chapple is the department head of pediatrics at Royal Inland Hospital, and works in the hospital’s SCAN clinic- which helps up to about 150 youth per year.

She says the BBCYAC advocacy model mirrors what exists in other cities. It centralizes services in law enforcement, child protection, and prosecution, alongside mental health, medical, and victim advocacy professionals.

“The Zebra in Edmonton for one, and the Sheldon Kennedy Centre, though I believe it has a different name now, in Calgary, we were able to tour those as well,” she says. “You can just sort of sense the collaboration of all the disciplines being all under one roof, and just how much more efficient that must be to work under a system like that.”

Working in pediatrics in Kamloops since 2003, Dr. Chapple notes that having children retell their story to multiple agencies can be traumatic.

“Even just from an information point of view, the story may somehow change or become different, and that could potentially affect that child’s case in general,” she explains. “So I think just having them tell the story once is much more efficient from a legal point of view, and then also just from a mental health point of view.”

It will take several million dollars to build a centre in Kamloops, and advocates have begun fundraising to cover the costs. With a two- to four-year timeline in mind, Ettinger says they know it’ll take time to raise enough money, have architectural assessments, renderings, and approvals in place.

“We’ve done research with other advocacy centres throughout Canada. So a new build, we’re looking anywhere from $5 (million) to $7 million (in costs). And with an existing building, with renovations it could be from $2 (million) to $4 million,” Ettinger says. “So it’s really such a broad spectrum of what we need, but we do know that we need some good fundraising.”

A social worker and coordinator with the SCAN clinic, Jocelyn Barratt says having Big Bear up and running will make the whole process smoother for the children and families she works with on a regular basis.

For now, Barratt says the group behind the project has used a feasibility study to support a practice model working with the clinic at RIH.

“We haven’t had anyone in place to date who can take on those pieces of supporting the child and family to navigate the systems outside of SCAN,” Barratt explains. “Under the new practice model in phase one, we’ll have an advocate integrated into our practice, and that advocate is going to be the key person to carry that child and that family throughout the process.”

The pilot project will be implemented in January of 2020, and run for at least one year to see how well it serves Kamloops, and the surrounding area.

(For more information about the Big Bear CYAC, click here to access the organization’s website.)