Changes to the Victim Services model won’t work in dealing with service delivery concerns, says the president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta (RMA).
Victim Services works to help victims of crime or tragedy, and a key objective is to work directly with the RCMP.
Situations can range from domestic violence to sexual assault, or sudden death.
According to the province, program delivery is in the process of shifting to a four-zone model, which aligns with RCMP districts.
“This will improve the reliability, continuity, and uniformity of service delivery across the province; increase professional supports for front-line case workers; and allow for greater flexibility and capacity to deliver services at the community level where they are needed the most,” according to the province.
“Current victim services staff will have the opportunity to apply to be victim case workers, and current volunteer advocates will be able to continue their involvement under the new model.”
But Paul McLauchlin, who is also the reeve of Ponoka County, said the changes, which would include dissolving the current 62 Victim Services boards in favour of the four-zone model, stem in part from concerns about a lack of across-the-board standardization.
“It was also felt that there were areas that were not being served, or that some areas were being under-served,” he said.
To that end, McLauchlin said an RMA resolution recommends doing the opposite of what the government is planning to do, which is to address delivery issues from the grass-roots level.
“The problem with centralization is that now you have decisions about your community being made somewhere else,” he said, adding that essentially, it makes for a “command and control” system.
“It’s a very short-sighted, urban view of service delivery for rural centres,” he said.
“This is completely the wrong direction to go, and we will continue to fight against it,” he said.
“We want to make sure that these wonderful people (Victim Services staff) who are showing up on the worst day of our lives are being supported, and are being given the resources and the investments they need to be successful,” he said.
He noted that with his own experiences on many boards, the higher the level of the board, the further away you are from the problem you are trying to solve.
“You get so high — to a ‘super board’ or this kind of a regional model, truth be told — that you are then so far from the local (issue).
“You literally just become so distanced from it,” he said.
McLauchlin said his members are saying to keep the pressure on to try and stop this series of changes.
“Centralization is the exact opposite of what we have been asking for.”
A provincial response hadn’t been received by press time.