Child counsellor is cut

By Dan Hlborn
Published March 3, 2004


According to Adele Wilson, executive director of the Marguerite Dixon transition house society, the most critical service to be cut by her group is the child support worker who used to offer counselling to the traumatized children living at both the transition house and in the second stage program.

"These kids come from domestic family violence and upheaval, and they come to us in crisis," Wilson said. "They've been through a lot of trauma, and we no longer have a specific person to deal with it.

"That's the prevention aspect of our work," Wilson said. "When you have to make a choice between prevention and crisis, you have to deal with the crisis. That means now we can't have a prevention program.

"Without proper caring at this point, the effects of trauma can come out in relation to other kids at school and it affects their ability to have fulfilled and fulfilling lives.

"These kids will normalize abuse. They'll say their mother and father had an abusive relationship, and that's normal," Wilson said.