Potential volunteers for the recent Moose Jaw Police Service victim services open house who arrived even minutes after the announced start time found the doors to the building locked, leading to a half dozen folks turning away.
Why was that? Let Moose Jaw victim services co-ordinator Donna Blondeau explain.
“We were absolutely filled to capacity and we had to turn people away, we didn’t expect anywhere near that many people,” she said. “There were about 40 people in our classroom, which holds about 25 or 26, we had chairs pushed every which way, people standing and people sitting. It was quite crowded and we had no space even for the people who showed up, so we basically had to shut it down.”
You read that right – so many people showed up to offer help to victims of crime in Moose Jaw that they couldn’t even deal with the number that showed up. And when you know what victim services is responsible for – providing emotional and practical support during the first few critical hours after a crime, help prepare victims for court and help lessen the effects crime has on its victims – that’s all the more impressive.
“I was actually quite overwhelmed, because we’ve never done this before and certainly I think this a good way of getting people out and finding out if people are interested, is this something you want to do or is this not quite what you thought it was,” Blondeau said. “So now we have lots of applicants and there may be some more coming to us later on. It just worked out really, really well and I was so happy to see it turn out so well.”
The main goal of the open house was to increase the number of volunteers available for follow-up in local victim services programs, with the aim of reaching out to and assisting as many victims of crime as possible while also making sure they have the necessary follow-up.
“It’s great to see that we have so many people who are willing to commit and devote several hours a week to make sure people are being assisted,” Blondeau said.
A major area of improvement they’re looking for is in call-out situations, where volunteers will be available to help a victim on short notice.
“We don’t have a list right now, we did have, but our numbers have decreased to the point that we don’t any more,” Blondeau explained. “So we’re hoping we’ll find people who are willing to be called out after hours because these things don’t happen from nine-to-five all the time.”
Potential volunteers will fill out a recruitment form, after which individuals will be selected and contacted for an interview and things will continue from there.
Whether or not another open house will be held it the near future is up in the air, but after how things went the first time around, it might not be necessary for quite some time.
“We’ll kind of see where things are at,” Blondeau said. “People are busy with their lives… so we may look at doing another in the fall and if need be we certainly will.”
