Dear Editor,
Help & Shelter would like to respond to a statement appearing in your newspaper published on Sunday 26th September, which states that contact was made with us in September 2021 with regard to shelter services and that the persons were told that we do not accommodate women with children at our home for battered women.
We believe that there must be some mistake as we do accommodate women victims of domestic violence with children at our shelter and have done so since the shelter first opened some 20 years ago.
Help & Shelter offers free counselling to women and children affected by all forms of abuse. We offer court support for our clients who are in the midst of litigation. We offer couples counselling and hotline counselling and psychosocial support for both English and Spanish speaking clients. We work with all our clients via a care plan which focuses on the rehabilitation and reintegration of survivors of violence and abuse. We also provide shelter services for victims of TIPs.
At any given time our shelter houses some three times more children than women, as most survivors of violence who seek shelter services bring their children with them.
To cater for the needs of the resident children we have a child minder and child advocate who are always present to take care of children and give schooling and learning support.
Help & Shelter’s records and statistics are all posted on our website and cumulative statistics up to June 2021 are available for review.
We would appreciate it if this clarification could be published.
We however do celebrate with “Jenny”, as with any success story of a survivor/victim of violence who has benefited from a caring and responsive system.
Best Regards,
Colin Marks
Coordinator/Director
Help and Shelter
Editor’s note:
We have checked with ‘Jenny’ again in relation to her contention and these were her words: “When I go to the building on Woolford Avenue with my baby I had to speak to someone in charge because the security guard told me to wait at the gate. A man came and I said ‘Good day Sir, I have nowhere to go can you please keep me and my child’ and he said I am sorry but we don’t keep women and children here you will have to go somewhere else. And I said okay…”
