Over the past 25 years, woman abuse services have expanded to respond to emerging needs. Perhaps the first to be acknowledged, especially within women's shelters, were the needs of children exposed to woman abuse and the needs of abused women as mothers. As a result of lobbying efforts, shelters won funding to provide child and youth advocate workers in every shelter in the province.
Through their work with women and children together, independent community-based woman abuse services have gained experience and expertise about the impact of woman abuse on children that is unparalleled in any other community sector.
The history and mandate of the child welfare system would seem to indicate that this system would also be one of the first to recognize the impacts of woman abuse on children and to adopt specific responses to the need, but this has not been the case.
In the past two years, however, the child welfare mandate has expanded to include child exposure to “family violence” within the child welfare caseload as a result of amendments to the Child and Family Services Act , proclaimed into Ontario law in March 2000. New risk assessment and eligibility tools within child welfare can identify child witnesses of woman abuse as eligible for protection under sections of the Act outlining “emotional harm”.
Since the passage of the amended Act , the Ministry of Community, Family and Social Services has provided joint training sessions to child welfare and violence against women services staff on violence against women, and the mandates of the violence against women and child welfare sectors. The Ministry has also developed a provincial standard for the creation of local protocols to govern interactions between the two sectors that will be required in all communities with these services.
While many women's advocates believe that the child welfare system could be an ally to women trying to escape violence, the inclusion of child exposure to violence within the “emotional harm” section of the Act has raised a number of serious concerns. Not the least of these are the differences between violence against women and child welfare services as they both address child exposure to woman abuse:
•  The two systems have different histories, philosophical foundations, mandates and organizational cultures that are not always in harmony.
•  The child welfare system also has a legislated mandate, which both governs the work of child welfare and its relationship with the community, and confers on the child welfare system powers that do not exist in the violence against women sector. This mandate creates an imbalance of power between the systems that influences their interactions and ability to advocate for women and children. A legislated mandate also provides child welfare with increased ability to pressure government for resources. (As a result of the new legislation and increased caseloads within child welfare, funding to the child welfare sector has doubled since 1995. In contrast, core funding for women's shelters was cut by 5% in 1996, a reduction that has never been restored in spite of rising demand for services. At the same time, funding for programs in second stage housing programs for abused women and their children was eliminated.)
•  Both the amendments to the legislation, the development of a risk assessment and eligibility spectrum, as well as current protocol development has enhanced the interaction of the two systems and the points at which the above imbalances can come into play.
Many women's advocates within the shelter movement believe that, as both sectors are required to respond to children exposed to woman abuse, it will be critical for child welfare agencies to adopt a specific, woman-centred approach to violence against women in its interventions and seek the direction and guidance of the woman abuse sector.
Specific or differential responses to violence against women within mainstream systems are not new, of course. With varying degrees of success, specific protocols and frontline programs exist within the criminal justice system, the medical community and other social programs. Such a response could be developed within child welfare, provided government and child welfare will work with the violence against women sector to ensure issues are addressed in a way that supports and protects both women and children.
The inquest into the death of Gillian Hadley, which released its findings in February 2002, recommended such a specific response be created within child welfare. It recommended that the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses, the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies and the Ministry of Community, Family and Children's Services collaborate to develop this response.
After March 31 2003, the Coroner will report on progress made on implementation of the jury's recommendations from the Hadley inquest. Hopefully, this work can begin before the report is due.

For eight years, Eileen Morrow has been Coordinator of the Ontario Association of Interval and Transition Houses (OAITH). OAITH is a 67-member association primarily of first stage shelters for abused women and their children across the province. OAITH has been working on issues of violence against women at both the provincial and federal levels for over 25 years. OAITH is currently working on a project to identify the impacts of new child welfare practice and legislation on women and children using shelters.

Visit http://www.owjn.org/issues/w-abuse/hadley.htm for the details.

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