Our agency (Cowichan Women Against Violence) was not surprised with the increase of violence toward women and children when COVID-19 required people to isolate. Isolation increases the risk of violence towards the vulnerable. Abusers can ‘hide’ more easily.
This article addresses much of what my staff see and have been working with daily since last spring. We are considered front-line workers so our agency was able to stay open and be available to vulnerable women and families but our practices had to shift. We follow all the health protocols and now have the high learning curve of doing sessions virtually. Yet, as this article indicates, not everyone who needs our help is able to access us through an on-line platform or is it safe to do so. That means I have the challenge of helping staff to feel safe while still caring for our clients and working with staff to find new ways to keep women safe when using technology.
Technology-based gender violence was becoming a new trend in the past few years but it is now increasing exponentially. As a non-profit we are trying to ‘catch up’ in our technology skills as most of our money went to our client work rather than developing strong IT systems and knowledge.
I often feel ‘behind’ in knowing how to use technology to its best advantage. I was 30 before I saw my first computer. During high school I used the old style calculator (if we used one at all) rather than the scientific calculators I watched our children use. Shifting my brain from being a parent who knows things to teach their children, I had to quickly recognize what our children offered back in regards to learning technology. I owe most of my learning to our mid-30’s son who has patiently spent time teaching me even when I was a reluctant learner! One of the challenges I am taking on is to work with our IT consultant to improve our systems and then roll out a useful training format to our staff.