Article Index
The Wildflower Way
Equity-Oriented Care for Women 55+ Who Experience Gender-Based Violence
Project Overview
What:
The Wildflower Way (formerly titled STOP-GBV 55+ Project) aims to support professionals and leaders in human services with tools to integrate services for older women who have experienced gender-based violence (GBV) into broader equity efforts through relational, trauma -and violence- informed policy and practice.
This is a 5-year nationwide project involving a diverse group of partners across many sectors including shelters, interval and transition housing, violence against women, elder abuse, new Canadians, and community support services for older adults. Particular attention will be given to women experiencing systemic barriers and oppression including Indigenous women, members of the 2SLGBTQI+ community, women residing in northern, rural, and remote communities, immigrant and refugee women, women living with a disability, and Francophone women.
Why:
Most screening and intervention tools addressing violence against women have been designed for younger women. The specific needs of women over 55 years of age experiencing gender-based violence - a generation all too often overlooked in communication and prevention efforts around intimate partner violence, consent, and sexual violence, represents a significant knowledge gap for those providing services to this population.The status quo in services for older women who are victim-survivors of gender-based violence is unacceptable. 
The Wildflower Way is both a narrative strategy and a practical guide for nurturing this growth, offering a path toward sustainability, healing, and genuine systemic change in human services.
How:
The CNPEA and project partners will connect with a broad range of service providers across Canada with experience supporting survivors of GBV to ascertain whether the tools they currently use are appropriately addressing the needs of older women. A longer-term goal is to develop a series of promising practices for service providers and organizations to enhance their capacity to effectively outreach and respond to the needs of older women experiencing GBV. Identifying how specific groups are overlooked in the provision of services will assist in strengthening the resources necessary to address service provision gaps.
Our Partners:
- Action ontarienne contre la violence faite aux femmes (AOcVF)
- Centre for Research & Education on Violence against Women and Children (CREVAWC) at Western University
- DisAbled Women's Network of Canada (DAWN)
- Egale Canada
- Elder Abuse Prevention Ontario (EAPO)
- Mushkegowuk Council, Ininiwak E Wichihitochik Victim Services
- Ontario Association of Interval & Transition Houses (OAITH)
- Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI)
- Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada
Since the start of the project, our partners have provided guidance on project process and strategies, input on draft materials and project deliverables, helped engage relevant stakeholders and community members to support and inform the project, participated in the project's developmental evaluation process, and supported the sharing of information about the project.
Contact Us About this Project:
Benedicte Schoepflin, Executive Director, CNPEA
Margaret PacPherson, Project Manager
This project is funded by Women and Gender Equality Canada.
