City Struggling to Move Past Abuse Problems
By Trevor Pritchard
Standard-Freeholder
August 23, 2008
http://www.standard-freeholder.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1169379
The room is at the end of a hallway, its door adorned with a simple sign marked "Private."
Inside, Colleen Parrish has placed a coffee pot, a box of Kleenexes, and some of her own magazines. Two of her husband's paintings hang on the otherwise bare walls.
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"It was really unattractive," she explains. "If I was a person who was going to come in for counselling support or witness support, I wouldn't have wanted to be in the room."
It's not hard to view the changes Parrish has made to the Cornwall Public Inquiry's support room as a microcosm of the greater changes she'd like to see take place in the city. As policy director, Parrish oversees Phase 2 of the inquiry, which has a mandate to foster healing and reconciliation in a community that's struggling to cope with decades of sexual abuse allegations.
Since much of the Phase 2 mandate has been carried out behind the scenes, its public profile is considerably lower than Phase 1, the ongoing hearings into how institutions like the city police and the Roman Catholic church handled those allegations.
But that doesn't mean Phase 2 isn't as vital, says Parrish -especially if you were to ask the more than 300 people who had been approved for counselling by the end of May.
Still, questions remain as to what the landscape will look like for those victims, never mind the local agencies that have supported them, when the inquiry eventually leaves Cornwall.
The inquiry's original mandate had no specific provision for counselling.
But its commissioner, Normand Glaude, was "strongly" in favour of ensuring those services were in place for the people who needed them, Parrish says. As of May, Phase 2 had spent $1.66 million on counselling, plus an additional $150,000 to transport survivors to counselling sessions. Approximately $950,000 had also been committed for research, community meetings, training and education, and informal testimony.
The financial numbers pale in comparison to the inquiry's overall cost, which has been pegged at more than $30 million. And while the budget for Phase 2 has no cap, Parrish -who spent 10 years working for the Ontario Public Service Employees Union's (OPSEU) pension trust -says that doesn't mean the advisory panel isn't exercising restraint.
"I think that we have been sensitive to not spending money in Phase 2 on things that people feel are sort of 'esoteric,'" she says.
For Parrish, one non-esoteric expenditure would be a public forum this fall to discuss the prison sentences handed down to convicted sexual abusers.
Many of the Phase 2 initiatives approved by the commissioner -like a proposed "safe house" for sexually abused men -originally came from abuse victims themselves, she says.
"I think one of the things that people in Cornwall should feel proud about is that they have chosen not to look the other way," says Parrish. "They have chosen to engage in these issues. And they're painful, they're difficult, they're complex."
But the issue of how to handle survivors who'll eventually be cut off from the inquiry's counselling support is not only complex, but also controversial.
Since counselling will end 90 days after Glaude issues his final report, expected in 2009, Phase 2 has struck a "transition committee" to manage that change. The committee, Parrish says, includes -among others -an abuse survivor, a private counsellor, and representatives from agencies such as the Cornwall Community Hospital.
One part of their mandate, she adds, is to help agencies deal with a possible flood of new clients.
"We don't want to be in a situtation where we place undue pressure on existing agencies in Cornwall, many of which do very fine work with very little money," says Parrish. "So we're aware of that."
Not everyone, however, is so optimistic. One of the most vocal critics is Sarah Kaplan, co-ordinator of the hospital's Assault and Sexual Abuse Program (ASAP).
"Why would private practitioners be on that committee?" she asks. "If you're making money from the inquiry, guess what? You're gonna say, 'Never stop providing service.' It's like me being in on a meeting where they're discussing if I should get a raise or not."
Kaplan is clear she has no problem with the idea of counselling. But she accuses the inquiry of not working close enough with local agencies like ASAP, which has operated in Cornwall since 1992, to get victims the appropriate help.
Kaplan says that since Phase 2 began, not one survivor has been referred to ASAP.
"We're hurting as agencies. We're being -I wouldn't say abused -but we are being disrespected by the inquiry in almost a similar way," she says.
"Our voice is not heard. Our credibility and expertise is discounted. So we're similar to the survivors."
Both Kaplan and Debbie Fortier, executive director for Maison Baldwin House, predict they'll be overwhelmed with new clients once the inquiry ends.
Fortier says Maison Baldwin House -which provides counselling for women who were sexually abused more than two years ago - has one social worker who already sees, on average, four clients per day.
Women affected by the inquiry have already started coming to the centre looking for counselling, she adds. Both Maison Baldwin House and ASAP have waiting lists for new clients.
"We've just referred them back (to the inquiry)," says Fortier. "So we know it (a flood of new clients) is going to happen."
Kaplan vows that, although she's more outspoken than some of her colleagues, she's not alone in her criticism of Phase 2.
"One of their really great ideas," she says, her voice tinged with sarcasm, "was that they were going to have this shelter for men who've been sexually assaulted. Shelters and housing issues are usually related to domestic violence. Usually sexual assault isn't. And if you have a shelter that is that specific for men, it's going to be empty all the time."
Much better, Kaplan says, would be a facility with a more "open mandate," perhaps a drop-in centre with a crisis bed and counselling services.
Jan Handy, a member of Phase 2's advisory panel, says a men's shelter would not only be used by people from Cornwall, but also from the surrounding area -which could include Ottawa and Montreal.
"It would be one of the first in the country," says Handy.
"There are not that many shelters for men."
The group researching the project, Shelter 2015, is expected to present a report by the end of September.
Another community group, PrevAction, will also be submitting its own five-year plan to the commission in the fall.
That group -which takes in a wide swath of community members, including the city's chief of police, Dan Parkinson, and Bishop Paul-Andre Durocher -held a series of public meetings in 2007 to brainstorm ideas on how to foster healing in Cornwall.
Some of the suggestions people floated included a community-owned business run by at-risk youths, a new youth centre, a summer festival to raise awareness about sexual abuse, and the aforementioned men's shelter.
PrévAction has now spent the past few months consulting privately with "dozens and dozens" of community groups and experts, and will be presenting its plan to the commission this fall, says group member Coun. Bernadette Clement.
While one of PrévAction's goals is to promote education and awareness, the overarching idea of "healing" Cornwall is, in Clement's words, "a bit more tricky."
"It's not just about programs and education," says Clement. "It's also about the whole issue of self-esteem."
Parrish says that when she first came to Cornwall, there was "a divide" between abuse victims and the community's institutions. But those barriers began to fall, she says, as the two groups got together at Phase 2 workshops and shared ideas for moving the city forward.
Gazing into her crystal ball, Parrish says that other places will eventually look to Cornwall for expertise in community healing.
Particularly interesting, she says, is that the recent Goudge Inquiry into pediatric forensic pathology in Ontario included counselling support in its mandate -an initiative that was "pioneered" in Cornwall.
"I think there's a lot of future here," says Parrish. "People will be saying, 'Why don't you call up this institution in Cornwall? They've figured out what to do and can help.'"
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