Previous Work
Women’s Shelters Canada’s key previous projects include:
Shelter Ready Fund, 2023-26
Through four rounds over three years, this grants program provided various levels of grants across the country to shelters for women, children, and gender-diverse people fleeing violence. In total, over $1.5M was distributed to more than 70 shelters, supporting outreach programs, legal support, children’s programming, awareness-raising and prevention efforts, as well as more difficult-to-fund capital projects and greatest needs.
COVID-19 Federal Funding to VAW Shelters, 2020-24
From 2020 to 2024, WSC distributed over $120 million of federal funds to shelters across the country for women, children, and gender-diverse people fleeing violence. These funds were desperately needed by an already underfunded sector that was now facing a health pandemic, reduced opportunities for fundraising, and increasing costs to address new safety standards. Meanwhile, shelters were also seeing an increase in both the number of crisis calls they were receiving and the severity of violence they were seeing. Information on how this funding was spent is detailed in two reports to the Department of Women and Gender Equality Canada: COVID-19 Emergency Funding and Response and Recovery Funding.
Roadmap to a National Action Plan on VAW and GBV, 2021
Since 2013, WSC has been advocating for an adequately funded, robust National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence. On April 30, 2021, WSC delivered A Report to Guide the Implementation of a National Action Plan on Violence Against Women and Gender-Based Violence to the federal government. The report answered the question, What will it take to achieve a Canada free of gender-based violence? Led by WSC, the roadmap was the result of consultation and collaboration with forty anti-violence experts from coast to coast to coast and included 100 policy actions across four pillars. Publications related to the NAP can be found here.
Shelters of the Future, 2016-2019
The Shelters of the Future Project examined the multiple roles that violence against VAW shelters play in supporting and protecting women who are victims of violence. To mark the end of the project, WSC planned a working meeting called Shelters in the Future – an opportunity for representatives from VAW shelters and partner organizations to come together to honour the past, examine the present, and look to the future. A report on that event is available here.
Past Events
Shockproofing Communities National Summit for the Gender-Based Violence Sector, 2023
Partnering with the Canadian Women’s Foundation, this Summit brought together women’s and gender justice organizations working to end gender-based violence and created an opportunity for the sector to exchange lessons learned during the pandemic, come up with strategies to “shockproof” the sector against future crises, and work toward our shared vision of a world without gender-based violence. It brought together 500 participants from shelters, transition houses, sexual assault centres, resource centres, and other GBV organizations.
Beyond Feminist Brain Drain Symposium, 2022
As part of the Feminist Brain Drain study, WSC created space for our sector to come together in-person for the first time since 2020. Fifty participants from the shelter sector came together to learn, share, and help develop a sector-led action plan for addressing the labour challenges our sector is facing.
Shelters of the Future: A National Conversation, 2018
To mark our five-year anniversary as a national unified voice on the issue of violence against women, WSC held Canada’s first national VAW shelter conference. Drawing nearly 600 participants, the conference highlighted the work of shelters and shelter workers; provided capacity building opportunities for them; and contributed to the development and enhancement of policy linked to the issue of VAW.