Rape Crisis Ottawa closes and lays off staff - to "revision" itself - code for ??????

[stumbledin]

The Ottawa Rape Crisis Centre is closing down, staff have been terminated and the board is planning a "revisioning process" in the hopes of reopening next spring.

"We know that it's a really challenging time," said Dillon Black, one of the centre's five volunteer board members. "For us, this was the most ethical decision we could make...it wasn't a decision that was made lightly."

The plan to restructure includes ensuring services are more relevant to Black, Indigenous and people of colour as well as to the LGBTQ community, according to the board. The goal is to make the organization "more meaningful, relevant, but also to ensure that in the long term, the work still exists."

"It's a very bold plan and is a bold decision that we made," they said.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-rape-crisis-centre-closing-terminate-staff-reopen-spring-2021-1.5797669

That doesn't smell right

indeed ... but were they pushed or woked?

And meantime Ottawa goes into a long cold lockdown without any rape crisis services. Sigh

Are we supposed to take from this that they deemed the service was somehow not applicable to Black, Indigenous, people of colour and the LGBTQ community?? ie. these people don’t also suffer rape attacks?? Bit baffled as to why a service for everyone - even men - couldn’t stay open!

And in fact who would have faith in any sort of rape crisis centre, under any sort or re-badging were so easily able to think this "revisioning" was more important than supporting their clients.

" ... For some clients and workers, the news of the closure came as a shock.

"[Nov. 11] is my last appointment and then I have no therapy," a sexual assault survivor told CBC. "I'm sad and confused."

... At least pick up the phone and call other agencies and say, 'Hey, this is what we're planning on doing and we need to know that you're going to be there to pick up the slack,'" said Lee. "I don't think any of us really understand why the board would make this decision and then be just so lacking in accountability or transparency."

With long wait lists for counselling services at other organizations across the region, Black said the board understands that finding new, affordable services for all the centre's survivors will be a challenge. ... "

There is something seriously wrong with attitudes towards the actual users that you would behave like this.

Claiming it was the most "ethical" thing to do is complete bt

And as for the line about former employees welcome to "re-apply" for their jobs? WtF? That's corporate jargon for undermining rights and probably pay. And (without knowing Canadian employment law) meaning even if some staff are re-employed it will break any long term service conditions.

It's not just that this seems to be some sort of closing the door on the women's liberation origins of the organisation, ie formed at grassroots levels by survivors, but drifting into business attitudes.

I see one of the Board members is also part of the Coaltion to End Violence and they talk about both Violence Against Women (VAW) and Gender Based Violence (GBV). One one level that would seem good, as it implies that they respect that VAW is specifically about the sex class of women. But suspect in practice it is about melding them all together.

www.octevaw-cocvff.ca/

Huh?

They just closed their doors with no warning? In the middle of pandemic?

Could be loads of things

Financial difficulties
Some kind of misbehaviour about to come out
Dunno

Very odd.

Who is the Dillon person. Having a Google.

orcc.net/about/feminist-approach

This page is interesting. Odd to me. Women seeking help just need to know they will be listened to, safe etc. This lecture on feminism is weird? Potentially off-putting I'd have thought.

orcc.net/about/orcc-values-and-beliefs

Again it's kind of odd. Maybe a culture difference?

The Centre's management board is now (rightly) being criticised for not putting any support in place for existing clients.

How could they have ever thought they could do this. I am sure the pandemic made providing support services more difficult, but so many women's support groups have managed to continue to provide services by working from home why couldn't they. (And in fact given space for the building works or whatever.)

This is a tragedy for those needing support and a direct insult to those who have been summarily sacked.

None of it makes sense.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/closure-ottawa-rape-crisis-centre-concern-victims-how-fill-void-1.5798706

My first thought was they are having financial issues as so many are and didn't really have an option.

It could be the case and that is why they are looking to restructure, it seems, according to identity politics criteria. Maybe they think that will open up new funding streams.

That page about their values - it's kind of gobbledegood I think. Sexual violence is racist? It could be sometimes obviously, but I am pretty sure that actually there is sexual violence that has nothing to do with racism, and that there even could be sex offenders who aren't racist at all.

I said a few weeks ago on a thread that there seems to be this desire to want to conflate all of the "isms" and "phobias" as if they are just all manifestations of one thing. People didn't seem to agree but I am more and more convinced it is true. And somehow to be against all these isms is to be part of one movement, one big identity politics conglomeration, under the brown-black-rainbow flag.

Goosefoot, you are correct: some sociologists refer to the “kyriarchy”, the underlying system of oppression from which (they argue) all types of oppression arise - a Grand Unifying Theory of Intersectionality.

Hence combatting only misogyny (or homophobia, or...) is, they believe, missing the real enemy: the kyriarchy.

This has been in the scholarly literature on gender for about 30 years, but I’ve only noticed it becoming common in the everyday practice of community organisations more recently.

This page is interesting. Odd to me.

Yep that page is seriously weird. One could see why feminist ideas might be helpful to rape or domestic abuse victims (although their is no actual detail) but the ideas that the therapy will be anti-racist and the therapist won't oppress the client are just daft.

I said a few weeks ago on a thread that there seems to be this desire to want to conflate all of the "isms" and "phobias" as if they are just all manifestations of one thing. People didn't seem to agree but I am more and more convinced it is true. And somehow to be against all these isms is to be part of one movement, one big identity politics conglomeration, under the brown-black-rainbow flag.

That's definitely a thing. It's the basis on which the nutters can look at people who have made huge contributions to women's rights or fighting racism and say they are fascists just because they have one 'wrong' opinion.

Whatever the reasons there is NO justification for not making arrangements for existing clients!

This is the BIG red flag.

Whether pandemic, financial, or wokery, there is nothing that allows this to happen.

I wonder if they will ever re-open as their professional status is totally shot.

Interesting that news papers are keeping an eye on this. When most women's groups close, you might get two lines at the bottom of a page.

Implies they think something is suspicious.

@dratalanta

Goosefoot, you are correct: some sociologists refer to the “kyriarchy”, the underlying system of oppression from which (they argue) all types of oppression arise - a Grand Unifying Theory of Intersectionality.

Hence combatting only misogyny (or homophobia, or...) is, they believe, missing the real enemy: the kyriarchy.

This has been in the scholarly literature on gender for about 30 years, but I’ve only noticed it becoming common in the everyday practice of community organisations more recently.

Wow, having looked that up, it's really interesting.

It reminds me a lot of some of the more far-out speculative bits of medieval philosophy, where an image or model that described something real was pushed so far that a whole set of structures emerged which seemed largely unconnected to any reality.

@NiceGerbil

orcc.net/about/feminist-approach

This page is interesting. Odd to me. Women seeking help just need to know they will be listened to, safe etc. This lecture on feminism is weird? Potentially off-putting I'd have thought.

It's very off-putting. It comes across that you are probably going to be lectured at.

Feminist counselling is essentially client-centred in its approach. The goal is to provide clients with information, resources and support; to listen empathetically; and to help them develop more resources and support systems.

Is there any type of counselling which isn't "essentially client centred in its approach" etc, etc?

Dido we disagree a lot I know.

But. There's a time and a place for lengthy statements about politics. And the home page of a refuge is not it.

I can't comprehend how they even did that. Ok we're a refuge. How can we make our service sound safe, friendly, reassuring. Etc.

Reams of schpiel is off-putting.

Have they even thought about the service users?

In my job we write stuff that has to be consumed by the general public. Always an eye to. Plain English. Fact that a significant proportion of the population do not had have good literacy levels etc. And this is in the private sector!

That stuff reads to me like it was written to massage the egos of the people writing it. With zero though about how it would be relevant to, help etc anyone looking them up.

It's a totally bizarre site. I would say if the amount of thought for the end user on the site translates to their services then that's worrying.

My initial assumption was Oger had finally succeeded and they are in a funding crisis but that still doesn't excuse total shut down with no sign posting to alternative provision.

@DidoLamenting

My initial assumption was Oger had finally succeeded and they are in a funding crisis but that still doesn't excuse total shut down with no sign posting to alternative provision.

Oger is in BC - he has nothing to do with funding in Ontario.

Thanks.

I think the refuge oger was going after had their funding revoked months ago?

This is definitely a different one.

archive.md/VLIjY
archive.md/Q75V7
archive.md/vcres
archive.md/qf5Mf
archive.md/ZIz9P
archive.md/RlwBb
archive.md/Cz1aK
archive.md/RhZEZ
archive.md/h6sSF
archive.md/MlEcM

Just doing a little bit of research/cataloguing.

This is the official statement from the current board of ORCC
archive.md/sN2AR

And this is an open letter from former ORCC board members, volunteers and service users, basically asking WTF?
archive.md/YemJi

Looks to me (speculating) that it’s an attempt to clear out all the crusty old feminists and replace them with new, woker, queerer staff.

Dillon Black is a ‘violence against women advocate’ (poorly phrased but perhaps inadvertently revealing? Seeing as they have done lots of press interviews but rarely mention women at all).

Apparently there have been lots of fractures in the Ottawa LGBT scene, including, at one point, an attempt at two competing Prides:
(the second one billed itself as a ‘more inclusive, anti capitalist Pride’ blackbutstillwhite.wordpress.com/category/anti-capitalist-pride/)

and BLM protested Ottawa Pride in 2017:
ottawasun.com/2017/03/23/pride-has-lost-its-way/wcm/8cf5228d-0417-4d51-806d-8f5292b7bd67

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/withdraw-public-funding-pride-hubley-1.4192182

ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/capital-pride-to-review-demands-by-black-lives-matter-protesters

now it seems that a similar fracture has been imported into ORCC.

Social justice and intersectional queer theory/critical race theory = more important than offering tangible support to victims of sexual violence.

Fingers crossed I’m wrong, eh?

Excellent digging Betty.

Perhaps screenshot/save all your work in case thus thread ever goes whooshhhh.