2021 through the eyes of Eagle Town Victim Services

Every year, both Town and County Councils receive an update from Eagle Tower Victim Services on the previous year’s numbers. Program Manager Tina Prodaniuk visited Woodlands County Council on Wednesday, February 16 and the Town of Whitecourt Council on Monday, February 14. “We provide supports and assistance for victims of crime during and after crisis, and we respond 24/7 with an RCMP referral,” explained Prodaniuk. “Our unit is made up of one full-time and three part-time staff. We have twelve active board members (made up of) community members, Town and County Council and liaisons from both RCMP detachments. We have twelve active advocates as well and four going through security clearance,” she said.

Prodaniuk said that through COVID, staff have been doing the brunt of the workload and are excited to welcome back volunteers at the end of the month. “We are pretty excited to have that volunteer base ramping back up, and hopefully, it stays that way.”

In 2021, Prodaniuk said they had 448 new victims of crime in their coverage area and closed 491 files. “We follow them from the time of the incident to closure in court. So, sometimes that takes up to two to three years to complete. We are a busy, small, little unit, but we definitely have the means to do what we have to do.” Through the twelve months of 2021, they also responded to sixteen callouts. Prodaniuk said though that might seem small for the community, the officers only call them out for really bad calls due to the smaller staff base right now.

“We have attended fifteen days in QB (Queen’s Bench) court. We’ve had 16 days in Stony Plain court. As things go through the process of the court system, we follow the client even if it is a provincial court. We help the crown to submit victim impact statements in court, and we also do restitution forms. So, we guide the clients and the victims to really make sure they are getting the stuff they need. The court system is pretty vast when it comes to a victim of crime, and we try and make it smaller for them and more quaint so they can get the stuff they are required to get in,” explained Prodaniuk.

Funding for Eagle Town Victim Services comes through the Solicitor General. “We have been capped for over eleven years now. We have the Solicitor General doing a review on us right now for our model and our service-developed framework, and we’ve been waiting two and a half years for a response. We have funding up to 2023 from them with no extension. We’ve been capped at $150,000 for eleven years. So, if you can imagine, running a program where we need anywhere from $186,000 on a small year to $260,000 on a big year, and unfortunately, when things like COVID happens, our crime stats go up. So, we’ve been dealing with that as well as the lack of opportunity to fundraise in the community because you can’t have your hand open right now for community fundraisers. It’s really tough.”

To help offset the loss of fundraising opportunities, Prodaniuk explained that they applied for a few grants and successfully received two of them. One is a Community Initiatives Program for COVID 19 funding of $73,358 over two years. The grant aims to help fill the void left by the lack of fundraising due to the pandemic.

The other grant they received is to support mental health through AHS for $28,600. It goes towards local psychologists for clients with barriers. She said the funding would help victims of crime get help faster and not be held up from receiving assistance due to COVID issues, lack of funding, or being jobless. She noted that the grant would alleviate those issues and bring support quicker to those who need it. “We are very creative when it comes to fundraising, and we try really hard to make sure we can pay our staff and thank our advocates for doing the job they do,” explained Prodaniuk.

When it comes to mental health, Prodaniuk said that suicide rates are up and so are sexual assaults. “We’re dealing with those on a regular basis, and hopefully, that will soon go down.” Throughout 2021, twenty-nine incident responses had to do with notifying the next of kin for sudden deaths or suicides. There were also six responses for fire, family relations, and traffic deaths. Seventy-five percent of the clients in 2021 were from Whitecourt, while six percent were from Fox Creek/Greenview, five percent were from Woodlands County, and fourteen percent lived elsewhere, but the crime committed happened locally. Staff helped 166 victims in court, encompassing 998 hours. They also spent over 5100 hours on call.