The Voice - Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services - AASAS.ca

Join VAD as we learn about our members in this membership series.  Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services (AASAS) is our guest this month and we are very pleased to provide information about their services to our membership.

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00:00:00 Teresa

Welcome to the.

00:00:00 Teresa

Voice of Albertans with disabilities. AKA vad society’s Podcast for June 2022 I'm Teresa Jackson, your host and VAD’s program and services manager.

00:00:11 Teresa

Thanks for joining us today.

00:00:13 Teresa

In today's podcast, I'll be talking to Deb Tomlinson and Cheryl Wallach from the Association of Alberta.

00:00:20 Teresa

Sexual Assault services working together for an Alberta free of sexual assault and sexual abuse.

00:00:27 Teresa

Debs role at the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services is a chief executive officer and Cheryl is a communication specialist.

00:00:36 Teresa

VAD has started meeting with our membership to learn about the resources that are available to arrive at or individual members within the disability community, and I wanted to talk to the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services to find out about the resources that this organization offers.

00:00:52 Teresa

Together, we hold the power so hello, Ladies.

00:00:55 Teresa

Please take a moment and briefly introduce yourself and then tell us about your role with the association.

00:01:02 Deb

Sure, thanks Teresa.

00:01:04 Deb

We're just we're happy to be here today and to talk a little bit about ourselves and about AASAS.

00:01:11 Deb

The organization.

00:01:12 Deb

So I'm Deb Tomlinson and I'm the chief executive officer.

00:01:18 Deb

I started with AASAS, an awfully long time ago.

00:01:22 Deb

When it was very, very small and really took a little break in between but came back in 2013 and.

00:01:32 Deb

The organization has grown and I think 2 our community response to sexual violence has changed quite dramatically.

00:01:41 Deb

We can talk more about that when a little bit later, but it's definitely a positive thing in a move in the right direction.

00:01:49 Deb

So I manage.

00:01:51 Deb

I lead the provincial network and I have an amazing team of people.

00:01:56 Deb

One of them is Cheryl and I'll hand it Over to her.

00:02:01 Cheryl

Thanks Deb.

00:02:02 Cheryl

I'm Cheryl Wallach and I'm the communications person for AASAS.

00:02:07 Cheryl

I've been at the organization as of this Sunday big anniversary coming up five years, and before that I spent a lot of time in animal welfare, so it's one of those things where I think I've always worked in anti violence but just in different areas of anti violence.

00:02:25 Cheryl

My job at AASAS really is to work with everyone to pull together any materials that they're looking for to be on top of our social media.

00:02:37 Cheryl

Any sort of publications and media relations and try to support.

00:02:42 Cheryl

The team really in the work that they do to get it out to the community as well as communications with our Members.

00:02:49 Teresa

Welcome ladies, thank you.

00:02:50 Deb

I have another Little tidbit for you Teresa.

00:02:53 Teresa

OK.

00:02:54 Deb

When I first moved from all I was born in Saskatchewan, but eventually I found myself out in Toronto and when I first moved from Toronto back to Calgary, I worked at Alberta Committee of Citizens with Disabilities, which is.

00:03:10 Deb

Was the old name for VAD.

00:03:14 Deb

Yeah, so I have a special connection.

00:03:18 Teresa

Wonderful, that's neat to meet somebody who is in the previous version of us. Awesome

00:03:26 Teresa

OK so I have a few questions about AASAS to gather some information for our listeners so the AASAS, member agencies and services are responsible for day-to-day frontline delivery of services within their local communities in regional areas.

00:03:42 Teresa

What kind of frontline services are offered by AASAS members?

00:03:47 Deb

Yeah, thanks for asking that because we have 15 sexual assault centers all across our province up North, Fort McMurray, Grand Prairie, right down to Medicine Hat and Lethbridge and the sexual assault centers are really the ones who are on the ground day in, day out.

00:04:06 Deb

Responding to the needs of Albertans who have been affected by sexual violence, so that could be survivors themselves, it could be their friends, their family members.

00:04:18 Deb

It could be even professionals who are looking to help survivors.

00:04:24 Deb

So we see individuals throughout the lifespan - all ages, some as early as early as age 3.

00:04:34 Deb

We see people of all gender identities, all races, ethnicities, sexual orientation.

00:04:43 Deb

The sexual assault centers provide a number of different services.

00:04:47 Deb

They start with kind of crisis response.

00:04:51 Deb

They do information support and referral, counseling.

00:04:56 Deb

Public education.

00:04:57 Deb

Then they help folks make a decision about whether or not they want to enter into the criminal justice system, and if they do, they support them, and if they don't, they support them as well and we also do outreach to communities that are underserved or unserved.

00:05:19 Deb

It's it, I think it's important to say too that the sexual assaults interests respond to survivors who are both recent survivors of sexual assault in adult hood like it just happened very recently.

00:05:32 Deb

They also respond to recent survivors of child sexual abuse, but also to historical, people who've experienced historical assault because survivors find it really difficult to come forward and share with others about what.

00:05:48 Deb

Had happened to.

00:05:48 Deb

Them a large portion of who we serve.

00:05:52 Deb

Are historical survivors so people for who the incident happened a long time ago and maybe now are just ready to come forward and reach out for help?

00:06:06 Deb

AASAS , I don't know if you want to know so, so that's what the centers do, which is just like the most important work.

00:06:14 Deb

Ours is what a sauce the provincial network does is a little bit different, so AASAS really really simply does two things.

00:06:22 Deb

One is we want to make sure that anybody who's

00:06:26 Deb

Been affected by sexual violence in Alberta.

00:06:29 Deb

Has access to services and supports so that they can heal and recover from the trauma they've experienced and the other thing we do is we want to make sure that everybody in Alberta understands.

00:06:44 Deb

So what sexual violence is, what a big problem it is, how harmful it is and what, what they should do if it happens to them or to somebody that they know or love or care about.

00:06:58 Deb

So our target audience for our awareness is really everybody.

00:07:04 Deb

In Alberta, an important audience, though is our government, so those decision makers, those policy makers because.

00:07:13 Deb

It's really important that our government has sexual violence on their radar as an important social policy issue that's kind of, in a nutshell, really what AASAS the provincial network does.

00:07:28 Teresa

Sounds like you do a lot of important Work on both sides.

00:07:32 Teresa

The next question we have is the primary work of the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services is to provide leadership, coordination and collaboration of sexual assault services in Alberta.

00:07:45 Teresa

Can you tell me how your organization does this?

00:07:48 Deb

Well, that's you know we do that coordination and collaboration through those two pillars that I was just talking about.

00:07:55 Deb

So first of all, the access pillar you know making sure that everybody in Alberta can access services to heal and recover, and the awareness pillar.

00:08:07 Deb

So making sure that Everybody knows about sexual violence in Alberta and what to do if it should happen to them.

00:08:15 Teresa

What is the prevalence of sexual violence in Alberta?

00:08:21 Cheryl

You know what's interesting is there hasn't been a huge amount of resource very specific to sexual violence in Canada or even Alberta.

00:08:30 Cheryl

There was a study done in 1986.

00:08:33 Cheryl

That was national.

00:08:34 Cheryl

So one of the things that we did as AASAS was decided that you know the research around prevalence in Alberta is really important.

00:08:41 Cheryl

We need to know what's going on, so we did some study ourselves and we released those results in 2020 and it.

00:08:50 Cheryl

Confirmed what we've always known because of the work that that we and our centers have done for decades.

00:08:56 Cheryl

Now is that it is a really serious issue in our province, more so than most people would really know or understand or think, because historically it hasn't really been talked about.

00:09:08 Cheryl

So what we found?

00:09:10 Cheryl

Through our study is that 43% of Albertans have experienced sexual violence in their lifetime.

00:09:17 Cheryl

43% so almost half of Albertans.

00:09:24 Deb

Yeah, and I think it's important to note that you know we got this information we surveyed over 1500 Albertans.

00:09:32 Deb

We only talked to people over the age of 18 because we wanted, you know, to be safe and make sure that we were only talking to adults.

00:09:40 Deb

But we talked to them about their experiences.

00:09:43 Deb

In their adult life and in their in their childhood.

00:09:47 Deb

So throughout their lifespan.

00:09:49 Deb

And we gave examples of very serious types of sexual assault, most of which would reach the threshold of a crime for kids.

00:10:00 Deb

100% would reach the threshold of a crime and found that that quite astounding number. So and if you do the math, it works.

00:10:09 Deb

Out to about 1.8 million Albertans. So we have a significant issue on our hands that we.

00:10:18 Deb

Need to address.

00:10:20 Cheryl

Yeah, another thing that we asked them to just to give us, you know, an idea of people awareness. We asked them and 67% of Albertans told us that they personally know a survivor of sexual violence.

00:10:33 Cheryl

Which is a.

00:10:33 Cheryl

High number considering it's not always talked about and that could have been impacted by you know Me2 in 2017, where more conversations started.

00:10:42 Cheryl

But I think we can all very safely assume that even if you're one of those people listening and you're like, well, no one has ever told me I'm not aware of anyone in my world that has been sexually.

00:10:53 Cheryl

Assaulted or harassed or abused.

00:10:55 Cheryl

Just chances are you do, you do know them.

00:10:59 Cheryl

You know that person just hasn't disclosed to you.

00:11:03 Cheryl

They may have disclosed to others or not disclosed at all.

00:11:06 Cheryl

So I think it's really safe for folks out there to look at this issue and think you know it.

00:11:12 Cheryl

It does impact me.

00:11:13 Cheryl

It impacts people.

00:11:14 Cheryl

I know my friends, my family, my coworkers.

00:11:18 Teresa

Yeah, very much so.

00:11:20 Teresa

I'm just wondering, are there a lot of people when you give them the awareness campaign information that realize sexual violence is something that they didn't understand.

00:11:33 Deb

I think you're right, Teresa.

00:11:35 Deb

I mean one of the downfalls of having this be such a hidden issue is that some people don't understand what sexual violence is, and sadly, sometimes even people experience sexual violence and they don't name it.

00:11:51 Deb

As such, and I'm talking about really serious incidents of sexual violence, you know they might.

00:11:58 Deb

I've heard folks call it, you know.

00:12:00 Deb

Well, maybe it was just really bad sex.

00:12:03 Deb

It's like no, that was sexual assault.

00:12:06 Deb

That's a crime.

00:12:08 Deb

So yeah, I think just just helping people be aware of what sexual violence is and that it happens a lot in our communities.

00:12:17 Teresa

How does the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault services work within the disability community?

00:12:26 Cheryl

Well, we know that individuals with disabilities are disproportionately impacted by sexual violence.

00:12:32 Cheryl

Now, our research in Alberta didn't have a large enough sample size to be statistically relevant, but there has been other research done which you know it’s quite consistent across the board, so we can confidently.

00:12:47 Cheryl

Say that that reflects the Alberta population as well.

00:12:50 Cheryl

So what some of the studies have.

00:12:52 Cheryl

Shown is that the risk of sexual abuse among persons with disabilities is at least a 150 Percent compared to individuals of the same sex and similar age without disabilities, so the risk is much higher.

00:13:08 Cheryl

One study states that 83% of women and 32% of males with an intellectual disability have been sexually assaulted.

00:13:17 Cheryl

And I know she seemed you said wow, there Teresa like is a bit surprising and I think a lot of people would go.

00:13:25 Cheryl

That is really surprising, but when you look at sexual violence, it's a crime of power and control.

00:13:31 Cheryl

The people who are sexually assaulted, abused and harassed tend to have less power in our society.

00:13:38 Cheryl

Right, so you think of it as male versus female in society, females have less power within society in general.

00:13:46 Cheryl

People with disabilities even more so.

00:13:49 Cheryl

That's the case and you see with people of different genders or sexual orientations that aren't the social quote norm.

00:13:58 Cheryl

Are more impacted by sexual violence than others.

00:14:01 Cheryl

So yeah, the disability community is just definitely disproportionately impacted with our organizations.

00:14:09 Cheryl

We want to make sure and they try very hard to be accessible.

00:14:13 Cheryl

And interestingly enough, just last week it was National Accessibility Week and our, I'm just gonna use our member agency in Edmonton as an example.

00:14:22 Cheryl

They posted online about being accessible.

00:14:26 Cheryl

You know talking about physical accessibility, so doors, washrooms.

00:14:33 Cheryl

Having a person at the front desk all the time available for any extra assistance someone might need.

00:14:39 Cheryl

Those types of things.

00:14:41 Cheryl

They also talked about communication accessibility.

00:14:45 Cheryl

So they more specifically about language, but you know they offer counseling in multiple languages.

00:14:52 Cheryl

We'll bring an interpreter in.

00:14:54 Cheryl

They talk about modifying.

00:14:56 Cheryl

They will modify their education programs for folks with intellectual disabilities, people just need to contact them directly.

00:15:04 Cheryl

There's a button on their website.

00:15:06 Cheryl

You hit that button and it addresses accessibility issues and makes the site accessible.

00:15:12 Cheryl

They try to be chemical and sent free.

00:15:14 Cheryl

For folks with light sensitivities, if you contact them ahead of time, they will, you know, kill the fluorescent lights or lower them in their in their office.

00:15:24 Cheryl

So every organization of course is going to be different.

00:15:28 Cheryl

That's just one, but anyone with a disability who wants to seek out help.

00:15:34 Cheryl

They if they contacted the organization and via phone or website or through assistance then I am sure any one of our member Agency will do their very best to accommodate anyone with a disability and help them out.

00:15:48 Cheryl

As best they can.

00:15:50 Cheryl

Because I mean everyone needs the best kind of support possible.

00:15:55 Cheryl

Another thing for AASAS from the AASAS perspective, the things that we do around the disability community, probably the biggest things are for our with our training programs.

00:16:06 Cheryl

We do make them closed captioning available.

00:16:09 Cheryl

Try to make them as accessible as possible that way.

00:16:12 Cheryl

We know we have more work.

00:16:14 Cheryl

To do and we all you know, I think all every organization does and even just with this call coming today.

00:16:20 Cheryl

I'm like man. What else can we do?

00:16:22 Cheryl

We always need to do do.

00:16:24 Cheryl

More and do better.

00:16:26 Cheryl

When we run our awareness campaigns, probably the biggest partnership we had was through our I.

00:16:32 Cheryl

Believe you campaign.

00:16:34 Cheryl

Because we know that sexual violence impacts everyone, we want to make sure all of our campaigns are very inclusive.

00:16:43 Cheryl

But we also want to be very sensitive.

00:16:45 Cheryl

To how we might portray anyone with a disability within our materials.

00:16:49 Cheryl

Whether it's posters or or video.

00:16:51 Cheryl

So we consulted with a couple of disability.

00:16:55 Cheryl

On our, I believe you creative, you know just to make sure that we're doing things in the right and very best possible way so that folks from the disability community who might see that feel included, not, you know, just a token example or or something like that.

00:17:14 Cheryl

We want to make sure that everyone out there knows that we and our organizations are.

00:17:19 Cheryl

Here for them.

00:17:21 Teresa

Awesome, I remember that campaign. It was very well done.

00:17:25 Cheryl

Thank you.

00:17:26 Teresa

If someone is looking to get involved with the sexual assault and abuse prevention work, is there a referral process for your organization?

00:17:34 Deb

Yeah, I would encourage.

00:17:36 Deb

Folks to go to the AASAS website so that is just AASAS.ca.

00:17:43 Deb

And look up the page that.

00:17:46 Deb

Describes all our member agencies.

00:17:49 Deb

The 15 sexual assault centers.

00:17:51 Deb

That's where you're going to get your best volunteer opportunities.

00:17:56 Deb

If people are looking to get involved in that way, and that's also where you'll see jobs advertised as well.

00:18:03 Deb

If you're looking for work, but in terms of.

00:18:06 Deb

Volunteer opportunities there's often opportunities to work and part of the support and information lines and that involves a big commitment.

00:18:18 Deb

But often means you can work from home on that and, but you do have to be trained quite intensively, sometimes 50 to 60 hours of training so that when someone calls to reach out for help, you know how to give a really good positive trauma informed response.

00:18:39 Deb

I know the centers also look at volunteers for opportunities to do education in the community.

00:18:45 Deb

They do booths, they do presentations and then of course each of the sexual assault centers and AASAS has a board of directors and those folks are always looking so recruiting people to be in leadership roles and guide and direct.

00:19:03 Deb

You know, the agencies.

00:19:05 Deb

In the future in Alberta, so there's lots of opportunities.

00:19:09 Teresa

What is an interesting fact about AASAS that everyone should know?

00:19:14 Cheryl

Well, that's easy.

00:19:16 Cheryl

We have amazing training programs.

00:19:19 Cheryl

And a lot of people don't know that, so I think we have four that I can think of off the top of my head, there's first responder to sexual assault and abuse training, and some people hear the title and they go.

00:19:30 Cheryl

Oh is that for police and paramedics and doctors?

00:19:34 Cheryl

No, it's for anyone who might be the first person responding to a disclosure.

00:19:40 Cheryl

Of sexual violence.

00:19:42 Cheryl

We take people, it's it's.

00:19:43 Cheryl

It's a two full day training online or five afternoons.

00:19:49 Cheryl

We we're doing it in person prepandemic

00:19:52 Cheryl

We've started to do a small number of in person trainings again and what we do is we take people through an understanding of what sexual violence.

00:20:02 Cheryl

Is right from child sexual abuse?

00:20:06 Cheryl

Adults who are sexually abused as children?

00:20:09 Cheryl

Sexual violence or sexual harassment, sexual assault.

00:20:14 Cheryl

And we learn not just about what that is and what it means.

00:20:18 Cheryl

We learn about the impacts on people and we learn how to respond.

00:20:22 Cheryl

If someone discloses that type of sexual.

00:20:25 Cheryl

Violence to you.

00:20:27 Cheryl

And when we respond, it's not about us.

00:20:29 Cheryl

As responders, we're learning skills and we have a lot of those skills because lots of us know how.

00:20:35 Cheryl

To listen and.

00:20:36 Cheryl

Reframe things what it is, is learning how to use our skills to best support the other person.

00:20:43 Cheryl

And it can be a.

00:20:44 Cheryl

Hard thing, because if it's someone most time, it's somebody know telling you about this that you're.

00:20:50 Cheryl

Going to be upset.

00:20:51 Cheryl

Right, But what we talk about, really, is the most important thing, is what we're saying, how we're saying it, and its impact on the person who's already experienced this this horrible event.

00:21:06 Cheryl

Right, so it's really popular and has gotten great evaluation.

00:21:12 Cheryl

And whether you're professional and.

00:21:14 Cheryl

Need to do this.

00:21:15 Cheryl

As part of your work, that's.

00:21:18 Cheryl

Great, but as a person within the community.

00:21:20 Cheryl

you become a safe person and if you talk that you know like I went and got this training about sexual violence when I first started AASAS and I got the training and I'm like

00:21:33 Cheryl

I got this.

00:21:34 Cheryl

Training and boom.

00:21:36 Cheryl

I had a disclosure in my personal life.

00:21:40 Cheryl

You know, so people know you're saved that you care that you're supportive and you understand when you go through something this like this, where you where you're learning how to be really a good responder.

00:21:57 Teresa

You said the there's four training programs.

00:22:00 Teresa

Is there a fee?

00:22:01 Teresa

For them?

00:22:02 Cheryl

There is a thief for all except for esos I think.

00:22:09 Deb

Yes, yeah it depends.

00:22:10 Deb

Yeah, so for first responder training it's a two day training, 2 full day training.

00:22:17 Deb

Or you can take it online as well.

00:22:19 Deb

I believe currently it's at 299- $299. We really try to keep it as affordable as we possibly can.

00:22:29 Deb

We have a counseling training for therapists, so for professional therapists who want to learn more about specifically processing sexual violence trauma with clients, what's involved in that?

00:22:44 Deb

That's a 12 week online course.

00:22:47 Deb

All of these are on the.

00:22:49 Deb

AASAS website again we have another one called enhanced emergency sexual assault services.

00:22:55 Deb

That one is mostly offered in community and focuses on 1st responders like police and health professionals.

00:23:05 Deb

And how to respond in a good way in a supportive way.

00:23:09 Deb

But also if the individual wants to pursue charges or an investigation or the criminal justice, how to help them in in terms of collecting evidence.

00:23:22 Deb

And then do you want to talk about workplace sexual harassment, Cheryl.

00:23:26 Cheryl

Sure, Teresa, I don't know if you've heard about our moments Matter Campaign, it just launched, launched last year.

00:23:33 Cheryl

It's our anti workplace sexual harassment campaign and the main focus is around primary prevention around sexual harassment.

00:23:43 Cheryl

We know that in.

00:23:44 Cheryl

Our workplaces there are policies and procedures in place.

00:23:48 Cheryl

It's required by Alberta law that we have.

00:23:50 Cheryl

Policies and procedures in place.

00:23:51 Cheryl

About you know sexual harassment is bad.

00:23:54 Cheryl

Don't do it.

00:23:56 Cheryl

Here's what happens if you do do it.

00:23:58 Cheryl

These are the procedures that we go through.

00:24:01 Cheryl

But like a lot of things that we have out there, it doesn't actually stop sexual harassment from happening in the first place.

00:24:08 Cheryl

So what we what we look at doing is how can we make it so that this doesn't happen?

00:24:17 Cheryl

So what it focuses on is building positive, respectful workplace cultures where people are listened to where people are respected and cared about.

00:24:27 Cheryl

Where there's no room for bad behavior, including sexual harassment.

00:24:33 Cheryl

So as part of that campaign we wanted.

00:24:36 Cheryl

To build a.

00:24:36 Cheryl

Workplace sexual harassment training, which we've done, but we've made it a little bit different from your typical workplace sexual harassment trainings.

00:24:45 Cheryl

It's not just about this is what it is, and it's bad.

00:24:49 Cheryl

And This is why and don't do it and this is Why not to do it?

00:24:53 Cheryl

We're actually taking a look at.

00:24:57 Cheryl

Being more actionable, So what do you do?

00:25:01 Cheryl

if you see someone being sexually harassed in the workplace, what do you do if you?

00:25:09 Cheryl

Hear about it going on.

00:25:11 Cheryl

What do you do if someone tells you you have done something?

00:25:17 Cheryl

Which is really hard for folks, right?

00:25:20 Cheryl

And what do you do as a leader of an organization?

00:25:23 Cheryl

You know if you hear it happening or to lead by example with your positive, respectful behavior so that other people emulate

00:25:33 Cheryl

You within that organization.

00:25:36 Cheryl

And you build up this organization of positive, respectful behavior where there's no sexual harassment.

00:25:42 Cheryl

It seems very big and pie in the sky and it really is and it's hard.

00:25:47 Cheryl

But if we want to change the world and end sexual violence, including sexual pronouncements.

00:25:53 Deb

And our and our culture change our culture, yeah.

00:25:57 Cheryl

We have to do that kind of work so as AASAS organisations.

00:26:03 Cheryl

We can be there.

00:26:04 Cheryl

We are there to support people.

00:26:05 Cheryl

It's happened too, but we really need society to make some change so it doesn't happen.

00:26:12 Cheryl

You know in the first place.

00:26:13 Cheryl

And even we even have it in our first responder training a module on rethinking prevention.

00:26:19 Cheryl

So we have.

00:26:21 Cheryl

We've all heard those tips.

00:26:23 Cheryl

See now I'm going off track for workplace sexual harassment.

00:26:25 Cheryl

You know the tips around avoiding or preventing sexual assault by, you know, carrying your keys with between your fingers, never leaving your drink unattended.

00:26:35 Cheryl

Don't go out late at night by yourself, you know, don’t wear headphones while you're running.

00:26:40 Cheryl

And that's a.

00:26:41 Cheryl

Risk reduction tip.

00:26:42 Cheryl

You're reducing your own personal risk and there's nothing wrong with that.

00:26:47 Cheryl

And in terms of making yourself feel safe or more safe, but it's not stopping that person from making that choice.

00:26:54 Cheryl

Ways of sexually assaulting or abusing or harassing someone.

00:27:00 Cheryl

Right, so we need society to shift to the point where that's just not acceptable.

00:27:07 Cheryl

It's not just overlooked, as you know, in the workplace it just happens and you just have to deal with.

00:27:12 Cheryl

But you know that, Oh yeah, you know catcalls out on the street whatever.

00:27:17 Cheryl

No big deal doesn't deal with it.

00:27:20 Cheryl

No, because all of those behaviors are the foundation that lead to things like sexual assault.

00:27:26 Teresa

So kind of like a preventative maintenance instead of reactive.

00:27:34 Teresa

I like that idea.

00:27:37 Teresa

Can you please tell our listeners how to get ahold of the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services if they want more information?

00:27:45 Deb

Yeah, I  would encourage folks to go to the  AASAS website, but most people when they're looking for services or supports or even volunteer opportunities. As I was just mentioning, they actually go to the sexual assault centers themselves are member agencies.

00:28:05 Deb

The AASAS work is really more in the background supporting the sexual assault centers, so I would say to reach out to the sexual assault center.

00:28:15 Deb

And folks can also contact Alberta, one line for sexual violence.

00:28:21 Deb

Whether that's for support for themselves or so they can help others.

00:28:25 Deb

And that's a province wide talk text or chat line that I guarantee you will.

00:28:35 Deb

Offer a positive, informative, supportive response to anybody who reaches out for help the the text and talk number is 1866.

00:28:48 Deb

64038 thousand to chat. Just go to the AASAS website.

00:28:56 Deb

AASAS.ca and click on the little button at the bottom of the screen and you can start chatting right away.

00:29:04 Teresa

Is there anything else that I should be asking that I haven't?

00:29:07 Teresa

Asked yet.

00:29:09 Deb

Well, I.

00:29:10 Deb

Think just to tell everybody that.

00:29:13 Deb

Everyone has the potential to make a difference in the life of a survivor.

00:29:18 Deb

Come talk about sexual violence.

00:29:20 Deb

Break the silence.

00:29:23 Deb

And you'll find if you do as Sheryl was saying earlier, folks will reach out to you and they'll disclose.

00:29:30 Deb

And if they do give a positive response, don't ask questions.

00:29:35 Deb

Don't ask why.

00:29:36 Deb

Don't judge, just say I'm sorry that happened to you.

00:29:40 Deb

I believe you it's.

00:29:42 Deb

Not your fault.

00:29:43 Deb

When you're ready, if you want some help to reach out your resources, I can tell you where to find them.

00:29:50 Deb

That will make a tremendous difference, because survivors who get a positive response are more likely to reach out for help and more likely to consider accessing justice.

00:30:01 Deb

So everybody has a.

00:30:03 Deb

Really important role to play in ending sexual violence.

00:30:07 Teresa

That was very well said.

00:30:09 Teresa

Thank you for your time and energy today.

00:30:10 Teresa

Devin, Cheryl.

00:30:12 Teresa

Your supported of the community is a value to all.

00:30:15 Teresa

Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services is an organizational member of VAD and a link to the website can be accessed on our membership list online.

00:30:25 Teresa

Individuals looking to access VAD members can do so at vadsociety.ca/social Dash action. Thank you again for joining.

00:30:35 Teresa

Dads Podcast voice of Albertans with disabilities is across disability nonprofit organization oven for people with disabilities that is guided by the principles of accessibility, equity and inclusion.

00:30:49 Teresa

Learn about VAD services on our website at vadsociety.ca or call 780-488-9088 For more information.

00:30:58 Teresa

If you have a topic you would like to hear more about in a podcast, please email myself at VAD at vadsociety.ca with topic ideas, speaker suggestions or your feedback.

00:31:10 Teresa

Signing off for the day together, we hold the power.