SAVIS provides 24/7 support through our support and crisis line, offering free, confidential and non-judgmental assistance to survivors of sexual assault and violence. This support line can be used by anyone who has experienced distress or trauma and to support people of survivors such as friends, partners and family members. The line is answered by staff and skilled volunteers who have successfully completed in-depth frontline training. Our support line is routed through an answering service that will take the caller’s contact number and pass it on to the worker who is on call. The caller’s contact number is always kept confidential.
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SAVIS volunteers are trained to help survivors file a police report for sexual assault, go with them to court or Nina’s Place in Joseph Brant Hospital where they can receive medical care after a sexual assault. The volunteer can also provide advocacy, information, resources, options and emotional support to empower and inform the client. While we provide options, we do not guide clients’ choices.
SAVIS works to increase public awareness of sexual harassment and violence, especially in societies that tolerate one-sided, patriarchal power. Staying silent will only perpetuate the cycle of abuse affecting women and children
SAVIS provides free and confidential one-on-one, online and telephone counselling from a feminist perspective. Counselling is available at our office in Oakville, and we offer telephone and video counselling via zoom. We understand that women experience oppression in varying configurations and intensity depending on their individual backgrounds and this may have an additional impact on those already facing sexual abuse. Our counsellors work from an anti-racist and anti-oppressive viewpoint to provide assessments that are non-judgmental and supportive.
We provide various counselling packages based on your needs: from three to five sessions for crisis counselling, short-term counselling of up to eight sessions or long-term counselling of 18 sessions.
SAVIS also provides crisis counselling at the Vanier Centre for Women and Hope Place Residential Treatment Centre in Milton. All counselling is free of charge.
Service Goals:
- To operate a 24-hour crisis line providing confidential support counselling for sexual assault survivors.
- To provide a volunteer to accompany the survivor to hospital, police station and court when necessary.
- To create a supportive environment in which the client is encouraged to become motivated toward positive personal and social adjustment.
- To make the necessary program opportunities available to clients to assist them in making positive personal and social adjustment.
- To contribute to the prevention of violence against women and children by providing public education and understanding.
- To make the services of the Centre accessible to people of all races, abilities, class, sexual orientation, cultural backgrounds and religions.
- To advocate for systemic changes that will lessen oppression.
Who We Are
It all started with five women in 1985 wanting to turn around the lives of survivors of sexual violence. Together they started a crisis line, the Halton Rape Crisis Centre. Four years later, their number had grown to 12 volunteers, answering 50 calls a year. Now, the renamed Sexual Assault & Violence Intervention Services of Halton (SAVIS) responds to more than 3000 crisis calls a year, supporting more than 300 clients in our counselling program. More than 4,500 attendees come to our community events and violence prevention presentations each year.
SPECIAL PROGRAMS
SAVIS offers various public education workshops and presentation topics to schools, the community, businesses and agencies. Popular topics include healthy relationships, self-esteem, coping with emotions and how to support a survivor of violence. These presentations are free and available to any group in the Halton region.
SAVIS is taking a lead role on mapping out services for trafficked girls and women in Halton region. The main goal of the project is to lead the development of a support model for survivors of human trafficking and raise awareness about the issue in the Halton region through public education and training.
Dedicated volunteers are essential to many of the programs that SAVIS operates. Volunteer opportunities include work on the crisis and support line, outreach through information booths at schools and community events, membership on the steering or fundraising committees, attending bingo fundraisers once a month or helping out in our offices. SAVIS offers front-line volunteer training once a year as well as training for other roles throughout the year.
SAVIS is a non-profit referral agency. Other agencies and community members are encouraged to tell clients about our services. Individuals can call our central office during business hours at 905-825-3622. Information will be taken over the phone and callers need only to give their first name, the initial of their last name and a phone number. A counsellor will call them back to make an appointment.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
SAVIS sits on the Territorial Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, Anishinaabe to the Attawandaran Nation, and Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
Our center supports survivors who are from these territories as well as many survivors who are settlers on this land. Our agency cannot participate in anti-violence and trauma work without recognizing the role of colonialism in creating and causing violence. We honour the strength and survivorship of individuals who have experienced sexual violence, and we cannot forget the significant role such violence played, and continues to play, in our colonial history.
SAVIS is committed to making every effort to be considered a safe and useful tool in the healing journey for all its survivors including indigenous folks. To do so, we must recognize and honour our collective responsibility towards reconciliation and decolonization; a process that must centre Indigenous and self-advocacy work.