I connected with an Alpha House Board Member through Instagram. I was immediately interested in learning more about Alpha House. Later in the year, I attended their Gala with my daughter and was incredibly inspired to hear women and children share their experiences with Alpha House. I’ve continued to support this organization ever since and hope to introduce many others to Alpha House.
From the Executive Director:
Alpha House is a long-term program for women and children who are committed to leaving an abusive relationship. Alpha House provides a safe place for the families to live, heal and rebuild their lives. We provide the women and children with individual and group counselling, family counselling, parenting support, practical supports, life skills development, advocacy, and help the women and children to reintegrate safely back into the community once they complete the program.
Alpha House has been helping women and children for over 26 years. The women that come to Alpha House have nowhere else to go because it is not safe for them both physically and emotionally to live on their own once they leave their abuser. We have a proven track record of helping women successfully leave abusive relationships and move past from being a victim to being a survivor who can live a happy and healthy life and be positive role models to their children. All of this is made possible from the support of the community. We receive 50% of our funding through the provincial government and rely on financial support from the community to provide the very best services possible to the families that come to Alpha House. We are very grateful to all the supporters who have helped Alpha House over the years. The support of the community makes a difference!
Client Story:
To provide a better understanding of some of the issues the women have to deal with, I have included a synopsis of one of our former client’s experience. This former client and her 2 children moved from another country to Canada and were isolated from supports and family. They lived in a small rural town in Manitoba, and they were not allowed to have their own friends or to work and the children were only allowed to go to school and then come straight home. The abuse the client experienced began as emotional and verbal abuse and then in the last couple of years of their relationship, it escalated to physical and sexual abuse. As well, the partner also began to abuse the children both emotionally and physically. The client was not allowed to have her own phone and did not know who to turn to for help because she was scared. Eventually the client found an opportunity to go to her family doctor without her partner and she found the courage to share her story. The doctor connected her to a crisis shelter and from there she was referred her to Alpha House. The first 6 months that the family lived at Alpha House, they were scared to leave the shelter without staff accompanying them. In the first month of being at Alpha House, the client’s X-partner had his off duty RCMP Officer friend contact her and told her that if she did not return to her partner with the children, she would be arrested. She also received a call from CFS because they had been called and told that she had kidnapped the children. Both claims were unfounded, but had she not been here, she would have returned out of fear of being arrested and of the possibility of losing her children. The staff were able to help navigate the systems with her and helped both the mother and the children work through the trauma and abuse they had experienced. They now are living in the community and are thriving.