Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter
“In times of crisis, incidents of family violence and abuse can increase.”
In 1973, a group of visionary women opened a 13-bed volunteer-run shelter for women and families in the Beltline in Calgary. The following year, the shelter registered as a charity called the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter. Today, the shelter agency has expanded to serve over 15,000 Calgarians annually with a vision of creating a community free from family violence and abuse.
One in two women will experience one incident of physical or sexualized violence, says the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter’s website. More than a shelter, the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter provides many innovative safety, healing and prevention programs to the community. Programs and services include a 24-hour family violence helpline, an emergency shelter, a wellness centre, child and adolescent services, and more. “It’s still amazing to me that such a simple step as one phone call could so dramatically change a person’s life,” says an individual named Catherine on the shelter’s website.
The Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter offers several programs for the community. The first is a 24-hour Family Violence Helpline, where counsellors can answer questions and provide confidential counselling, safety planning and referrals in multiple languages. The second is the emergency shelter, providing a safe haven from violence to women with children and single women experiencing family violence and abuse. The third is the Child, Youth and Family Program, which provides support and counselling to children, youth and their family members who have experienced family violence and abuse. A fourth program is the Men’s Counselling Service, which offers individual and group counselling for men who are concerned that their anger and abusive behaviours are negatively impacting their family members. A fifth program is the Take a Stand Initiative, which offers presentations to organizations and groups to learn how to identify family violence and abuse and all its forms, ways to respond compassionately and positively to victims, and how to connect victims to resources.
CHAS recently donated $15,000 to the Calgary Women’s Emergency Shelter, which provided free transportation and program supplies to children seeking refuge at the shelter. “In times of crisis, incidents of family violence and abuse can increase,” says Kim Ruse, CEO of the Calgary Women's Emergency Shelter. “We are grateful to CHAS for their donations and support throughout the years. We rely on the generosity of the community to help us keep those impacted by family violence and abuse safe.”