VANCOUVER -- Since the start of the pandemic, calls to the crisis line at Battered Women’s Support Services have gone up 300 per cent.
“What has happened in terms of being in a controlling and abusive situation, you may be in one, you may even be aware of it, but COVID-19 has intensified it and escalated. So all of sudden your personal safety is threatened,” said BWSS volunteer call-taker Leanne Janzen.
“It’s amazing how many women have taken action during COVID-19. Right in the middle of this world pandemic women are leaving abusive relationships,” said executive director Angela Marie MacDougall. “The crisis line has been a really important part of first response for those women.”
The line is now staffed 24 hours a day, but to stay that way, it needs more call-takers. There are currently 50 trained volunteers, and BWSS would like to add 20 more.
“That could be about four hours a week at a minimum, or it could be up to 20 hours a week, depending on someone’s availability,” said MacDougall. “Our training is extraordinarily comprehensive. Skill-based, theoretically sound and with supervision.”
For Janzen, who volunteers 12 hours a week on the overnight shift, it’s intense but immensely rewarding.
“COVID’s affecting everybody and for me I think it’s really important to reach out and do something,” she said. “It’s a way to get involved and connect and do something with community, because for me, I feel frustrated. So this is a way I can feel relief. I’m doing something.”
