Hope RCMP Victim Services hosted an information session at the Fraser Valley Regional Library on June 2.
According to program manager Marianne Brueckert, people who attended want to know more about what services are available to them and how to access it.
Brueckert mentioned an attendee who wanted to know what they offered to adult survivors of child sexual abuse.
“He himself had been one and had talked about how they bury the issue and often can’t find service to help them at a time when they need it — much like symptoms with PTSD, it comes back later on in life,” said Brueckert. “So it was recognizing the need for having a point of reference where they can get information and get follow up support.”
Asked what kind of services Victim Services provides compared to other agencies in town, Brueckert said they handle cases with police involvement.
“We deal with cases where there’s typically been police involvement and a crime has occurred or a type of tragedy,” said Brueckert. “We … help someone if there is an ongoing criminal investigation in terms of explaining the process, helping them with the court piece of it.”
They do not provide counselling and provide crisis response as their funding allows, “but that is getting more and more limited because there is no funding for it.” Brueckert said crisis response refers to when police demand immediate response from herself and assistant Jan Bentley, for example, in a suicide where family members are affected.
“It’s not an after-hours feature that we’ve been able to offer,” said Brueckert.
Victims of crimes can contact them with questions or, if referred by police, will contact the victim.
Brueckert said the number of attendees at the event were low.
“From an awareness perspective, I don’t know if we hit the mark there in terms of reaching a lot of people,” said Brueckert.