Every hour, the Calgary Police detachment gets approximately two calls related to domestic violence disputes. Domestic violence rates in Calgary have gone up by 21 per cent since back in May. 

November is considered Family Violence Prevention month. 

Family Violence Prevention month first started in 1986 in the small town of Hinton. Four Albertans formed the Hinton Society for the Prevention of Family Violence and launched Alberta’s first family violence education and prevention campaign. 

All of this prompted the Alberta Legislature to keep family violence prevention as an ongoing provincial initiative, according to hinton.ca. 

In honour of Family Violence Prevention month, Lethbridge Family Services is offering a new online series about healthy relationships and taking good care of yourself. This series is going on throughout the month of November.

To register for this new online series, go to lfsfamily.ca.

John Thompson, Outreach and Education Supervisor at Lethbridge Family Services, offers some more information about the new series.

“We do presentations and workshops from one hour to three hours and we are doing a series of presentations throughout November every Tuesday evening in November from 6 to 7 p.m. We’re also available to offer those same presentations to community groups or perhaps faith communities or other opportunities where people would like to expand their awareness of family violence.”

According to the Calgary Domestic Violence Collective, domestic violence can be present in relationships characterized by intimacy, dependency and trust. The purpose of the abuse is to control the other person. 

Domestic violence rates go up during and after natural disasters and an economic downturn. As a country, we are currently experiencing both.

Most people who experience abuse first tell their informal supporters, which normally include family and friends. 

Coercive control is usually the method abusers use to control their victims.

According to Coercive Control, a book written by Evan Stark, control becomes coercive when it involves the repetitive use of tactics to regulate and dominate an intimate partner’s daily life and restrict personal liberties.

Coercive control is low-level, cumulative, frequent and not obvious. 

Abusers use outing as a form of control. That means they frighten their victims by threatening to reveal something that their victim doesn’t want other people to know.

Sagesse is a social services organization located in Calgary that empowers individuals, organizations and communities to disrupt structures of domestic violence. The name Sagesse means wisdom.

Sagesse uses the acronym REAL talk as a way to have discussions about domestic violence.

R stands for recognize, E stands for empathize, A stands for ask and L stands for listen.

Recognizing domestic violence isn’t easy because it’s not black and white; there’s not a set list of signs to look for in order to know if someone you know is experiencing domestic violence. According to Sagesse, people experience abuse on a spectrum through many different forms of power and control.

When empathizing with a victim of domestic violence, Sagesse recommends that you trust your gut feeling and believe that person. The reason being because the way you respond to that person will determine how they seek help in the future. 

Ask questions that give you a better sense of the situation. That will enable you to support the person experiencing the violence.

According to Sagesse, listening means creating space for someone to define their own experience without judgment. 

When talking to a person who uses violence or coercive control, it’s important to maintain a balance between supporting them and holding them accountable for their actions. 

Carolyn Mitchell, the Program Coordinator at Sagesse, believes having these conversations will help to stop domestic violence.

“Because safety is our priority and so like I said, if you can have some of these tough conversations, if you know the person using violence, that is going to work to help us one day eradicate domestic violence, which is ultimately our goal.”

To learn more about Sagesse and the supports they offer go to sagesse.org.