Child Witness Centre needs donations as sexual violence cases against youths rise

An organization that helps guide and support young people who are victims or witnesses of crimes, needs more support from the community as their case loads soar.

The Child Witness Centre is the only one of its kind in Waterloo Region and currently has a waitlist of children waiting for help.

“We’re talking to [kids] about what it’s like to have to go to court, what they can expect, the types of questions they’re going to be asked. We debunk a lot of the myths that are out there,” case worker Laura Cook said.

The Child Witness Centre deals with a variety of criminal cases, but sexual violence are the most common.

“These are kids who have experienced some pretty intimate things that have happened to them and those can be very difficult things to have to go into court and talk about,” Cook said.

According to Statistics Canada, the number of total reported sexual violations against children in Waterloo Region more than tripled between 2012 and 2022.

That’s led to more children needing the services provided by the Child Witness Centre.

“We’ve had a perfect storm of contributing factors that have changed the dynamic of the need for our services,” Robin Heald, the executive director of Child Witness Centre, said.

“One of the things has been the Me Too movement. Before the Me Too movement, one in ten people came forward with their allegation of abuse. With the Me Too movement, that’s changed to one in seven. We could track that Me Too movement in our numbers, it was a huge spike.”

The second factor was the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Children being at home with their families. They had so much more time in those environments with high economic stresses and all of the challenges that happened during COVID-19. Those children weren’t in their schools and extra-circulars with highly screened people,” Heald said.

The backlog in court cases during the pandemic also led to more cases at once.

Now the centre is seeing about 17 new victims each week. Sometimes, they need support for a few years.

Last fall, for the first time since opening in 1981, the centre had to start a waitlist for young people trying to access support.

“Now we have 153 children on the waitlist,” Heald said.

“Those are 153 children that aren’t getting what they need going through the process. It’s not a number of gaps that can be picked up later. The court and judicial process goes through step by step, and while children are on the waiting list they’re not getting what they need for that period of time so the cost is enormous for them.”

To overcome that, a fundraiser has launched in hopes of raising $2.5 million over the next five years. Heald said they need about $500,000 per year to get rid of the waitlist and stay on track.

Their hope is to find pledge donations that would come in every year so they don’t have to wonder where funding is coming from.

The money help hire more staff to balance out the work loads that current case workers are dealing with.

Currently, some have up to 110 cases at once. A few years ago, Cook said she’d normally have between 60 and 70.

“The amount of work is difficult because I don’t feel like I’m ever getting ahead of the work. I’m always just kind of responding to the work that’s coming in, whereas I’d like to proactively make sure that kids aren’t falling through the cracks,” Cook said.

“I fear that there could be some kids falling through cracks.”

Heald said more money will ensure cases are being dealt with in a timely manner.

“What’s most important is to serve them as they come to our door, as opposed to weeks and months later. We know that getting that intervention right away, as soon as they need it, makes all the difference,” Heald said.

To offer an inside look at the work done at the Child Witness Centre, an open house will take place for the community on Tuesday, Nov. 18 at 111 Duke St. E, in Kitchener.