PrévAction step closer to setting up centre thanks to $118,000 in funding

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Cornwall Standard Freeeholder

24 April 2012

By KATHRYN BURNHAM kathryn.burnham@sunmedia.ca

CORNWALL — PrévAction is one step closer to establishing a Child and Youth Advocacy Centre for Cornwall, Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry and Akwesasne, thanks to over $118,000 in funding from the department of justice.

Much consultation with community groups in place have resulted in the advocacy centre being a priority for PrévAction, said Richard Allaire, chair of both PrévAction and the child and youth advocacy centre subcommittee.

The $118,880 from the Victims Fund will help create a business place to get the centre off the ground.

“The centre will integrate a multi-disiplinary team of professionals in a child-centred environment that nurtures the abused child and uses all the wisdom of its partnership to see that justice is done,” Allaire said.

He explained that rather than having a child, who is either the victim or witness, re-experience the event by explaining over and over to several agencies, the advocacy centre hopes to help streamline the process, bringing the agencies together.

“The centre will manage in such a way that it brings support and comfort required at the time,” he explained. “The centre can help prosecute better.”

Allaire said the Child and Youth Advocacy Centre will complement services already available in the community, filling a need that other agencies have said should be addressed.

“Through our own resources we (will act) as alliances within the community, we will provide children and their non-offending parents and guardians with essential social, medical and mental health services and supports,” he said.

PrévAction was created in 2006 as a response to the Cornwall Public Inquiry, with the goal of leading the community to healing and reconcilliation. They have been working with the Child and Youth Advocacy Centre subcommittee since 2009.

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