Luke's Place was founded because of the tragic death of Luke, a 3 1⁄2 year old boy, killed by his father during his first unsupervised access visit. Following Luke’s death, professionals and survivors in Durham Region explored solutions for addressing the difficulties experienced by women survivors and their children. These meetings led to a community conference. One of the recommendations of the conference was to develop a resource centre for women leaving violent relationships and dealing specifically with custody and access issues. Luke’s Place Support and Resource Centre for Women and Children was incorporated in December 2000 and begin delivering services in September 2003. Initially Luke’s Place served the greater Durham region but now serves clients throughout Ontario.
Luke’s Place is not a Shelter. Their primary mission is to provide resources, especially in family law, for women and their children experiencing intimate partner violence. This includes family and court support, legal advice from pro bono attorneys, legal information sessions and a free resource room. They developed several toolkits for navigating beyond separation. Recently they’ve added a technology safety toolkit.
Laura shared several stories and statements from women they served. One that surprised this editor were the ways offenders can use tech to track their victims such as hiding air tags on cars.
Questions
Madimba asked what type of funding they rely upon (Government, grants, and private donations like Rotary).
Dave M asked about how they collaborated with other local groups. (One keyway is their shared space with folks at Rose Of Durham and other groups. This helps cut costs and puts many important resources in one place.) Dave also asked about educating the offenders. Here Laura said there are programs, but they need improvement. Not only for the curriculum but for the follow up with legal teams, parole officers and similar workers. She stressed that education about intimate partner violence must start in schools.
Bev F. asked about how they serve underrepresented groups like women of colour and indigenous women. Laura reminded us that intimate partner violence happens across all races, class, educational groups and Luke’s Place connects with anyone who needs help.
Ted ended the session with a question about how a club like ours can support Luke’s Place and if we could donate to a specific area or the general fund. This is up to each donor, and Laura provided a brief overview of how we can work together to decide.
Robbie L. thanked our speaker.
President David Mankiewicz closed the meeting at 7:50 pm.
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