Want to help people but don’t know how to get involved? You may want to consider volunteering for victim services with the Moose Jaw Police Service.
Want to know more? Victim services will be holding its first ever open house tonight from 6 to 8 p.m. at the police station (21 Fairford St. West).
“We have kind of opened our doors to people in our community who may have a few hours to donate to our victim services unit,” said Donna Blondeau, victim services coordinator. “We are quite sure there are people out there. We have volunteers at present but we are hoping to add a few more people to complement our victim services unit.”
The open house will highlight exactly how victim services benefits the community.
“We are a police-based program, so our referrals come directly from the Moose Jaw Police Service. We provide information, support, and referral to victims of crime and tragedy. This includes information about their case, emotional support, and referrals to appropriate agencies, whether they be counselling services, police, Crown prosecutor — the services that they need to speak with,” said Blondeau.
“A lot of the times people are not certain what to do, they don’t who to talk to, or what they are entitled to know. We keep them in the loop about what is going on so they are not excluded from the process.”
Volunteers must be 19 years of age and older. There is a minimum requirement of two volunteer hours per week. Of course, training will be provided.
“We do our own training and we pair them with a trained volunteer,” said Blondeau. “They learn how we provide that service. We kind of bring them in and get their feet wet so they can see if this is what they thought it would be or if they feel they are suited for this. At some point, after they have been here for a little bit, then we go into our classroom. We do approximately 40 hours of in-classroom training.”
Current volunteers will be at the open house to answer any questions.
“Our trained volunteers are going to be there as well; I felt it would be beneficial to have somebody who is actually doing the follow up with victims to be there,” said Blondeau.
“I am the coordinator and, yes, I can explain all of it because I set up the program in Moose Jaw, but I felt it would be important to have the other part — the volunteers who actually do the follow-up work. They can answer some questions and express how it has impacted them and how they feel about doing this type of volunteer work.”
Attendees will hopefully get a better idea as to whether or not they are suited for this type of work.
“It is not for everyone,” said Blondeau. “We have situations where people are victims of various crimes, be that a theft or a sexual assault and everything between, even up to homicide.”
It can be challenging, but rewarding work.
“We may see peoples’ lives change dramatically from the time we first meet them to the time where things have kind of got back on track for them.”
