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After having the opportunity to speak with Alison Peck, the Executive Director of Cedar Centre, we were introduced to the amazing work that their organization does for their community. Cedar Centre has been in operation for 30 years and serves 9 municipalities of York Region and surrounding areas. Their vision is to “improve the lives of individuals who have been impacted by trauma” and that’s directly reflected in their programming: “[We] provide trauma specific services for children, youth and adults of all gender identities who have experienced childhood interpersonal trauma” states Alison. The Centre’s Child, Youth & Family Program provides clinical services such as individual cognitive and body therapies for children and youth up to 18 years old, psycho-educational support to the child or youth’s caregivers, family and caregiver counselling for people who have experienced secondary trauma related to their child’s experience, and group therapy for children and their caregivers. The Centre’s Adult Program provides group programming as well as individual intensive trauma-specific cognitive and body therapies for adults and seniors who have experienced childhood abuse-related trauma. On top of their regular programming, they also have a service dog named Vixen who supports their programs by attending therapy sessions, introducing children to the agency, and acting as an overall support for both the service user and their supportive caregivers.

Out of the in-depth and supportive programs they offer, Alison wanted to highlight the redesign of their adult programs in partnership with Dr. Heather MacIntosh of McGill University. The objective of this partnership was to make the flow of the program more prescriptive and to have all levels of the program, including initial intake components, to be trauma informed. The curriculum they are implementing and evaluating is Skills Training in Affect and Interpersonal Regulation (STAIR) which is a program specific to individuals who have experienced interpersonal trauma and are living with the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One of the results of this evaluation saw the addition of a trauma informed case worker from York region to begin working with Cedar Centre. They have also introduced metric pre- and post- evaluations to measure the therapeutic processes after the clinical therapy to Cedar Centre. They can now directly see the change happening with their service users. They will be introducing a feasibility study for the children’s program in May 2018 in partnership with York Regional Police and Children’s Aid Society. This will help them to better understand the needs of the York region and whether they should introduce wraparound services for children who have experienced trauma, a model that is already used throughout Canada such as at the Zebra Child Protection Centre in Edmonton, Alberta.

Through her position as Executive Director, Alison has had the opportunity to work with many women and children who have experienced trauma and she says that every individual’s experience is different, which guides “what they are taking from our services and what they are bringing to our services”. She says this work is very validating because it gives her and Cedar Centre the opportunity to learn from and connect with the people accessing their services.

One of the challenges that Cedar Centre and the VAW sector faces as a whole is the systemic issues that are causing women and children to access their services. After a service user has completed a program with Cedar Centre, they may be able to prevent someone from returning to their services by educating individuals on healthy relationships and providing supportive caregivers with tools to make better decisions around children. However, the VAW sector can’t prevent something from happening to an individual nor can they undo the trauma that has occurred. One way that Cedar Centre challenges the systemic issues is by gently pushing back with the conditions of the services that they provide: “[We] don’t work with a child that is still accessed by the offender which means that the court and system is often compelled to move quicker to get the child away from the offender so they can receive services [from us].” It’s this type of pushback that will make a difference in the lives of children who have experienced interpersonal trauma.

When asked about her views on feminism in regards to the VAW sector, Alison quickly outlined how feminism has changed, “As we are changing as human beings, as too are our concepts and expressions of feminism. We still have the same systemic issues but how we approach them has changed in how it is discussed and treated.” Alison’s definition of feminism underlines the importance of the concept of equity which she uses as a mandate to the work that she does and her overall desire to provide a safe and welcoming environment at Cedar Centre.

By offering the services that Cedar Centre does for individuals who have experienced childhood interpersonal trauma, Alison says that by nature, the work is political:  “It is a fight for resources, it is a fight to convince people that these terrible things are happening to people, and it is a fight to find safety and security and equity for the people we are serving” states Alison. This is something that Alison and the team at Cedar Centre strive to do every day in the York Region.

Lastly, Alison’s hope moving forward for the VAW Forum of Central Region to is continue to connect with the other organizations as there is a unique diversity of agencies and organizations who can bring different knowledge, experiences and perspectives to the table when they are meeting together.