On this page you will find a detailed outline of our schedule for the forum and descriptions about all sessions. To learn more about the speakers for each session, you can visit our speaker profile page.
Day 1 — September 25
Opening (7:30 am – 12:00 pm)
Registration for our Annual Training Forum will take place on the Lower Lobby. At registration our EVA BC staff will welcome you and you will receive a name-tag, a participant program, and your swag bag.
This session will set the energy for the two days of our forum. This plenary session will be available for all participants. More information coming soon.
Lunch (12:00 – 1:30 pm)
Information regarding lunch coming soon. If you have any dietary needs, restrictions or preferences, please make sure to note this information in your registration.
Workshops (1:30 – 3:00 pm)
Please note that these are concurrent workshops (will all happen simultaneously). You can select your workshop of choice during registration.
Presenter(s): Cassidy Smith, STV Counsellor, Victoria Sexual Assault Centre (VSAC).
Using the arts-based method of body mapping, participants will explore how being supported, connected, attuned to, and reflexive within their working roles impacts their trust in self and others, and therefore their own working role sustainability. This hands-on workshop draws on the facilitator’s thesis research, which explored anti-violence workers’ experiences of trust and sustainability in their roles. This research identified four key themes: Trust, as Connectedness, as Safety; The Trustworthy Counsellor: Self-Trust and Sustainability through Role Affirmation; Sustainable Trust as Connected Assurance; and Self-Trust as Reflexive Realism. This interactive session will offer a reflective space for frontline workers to deepen their own understandings of themselves within their work, these core concepts, and their relevance in supporting long-term resilience in this important work.
Presenter(s): Nadia Grutter, Living In Community
Sex workers are multiply marginalized by criminalization, sex work stigma, vulnerability to predatory violence, and lack of representation within many gender equity spaces. To truly deliver programming that creates safety for everyone, organizations must listen to and uphold sex workers’ needs and experiences.
In this session, Living in Community will deliver an informative workshop on how anti-violence organizations can ensure all parts of their work are intervening and advocating appropriately for sex workers’ rights.
Building on our 20+ years educating, advocating, and convening sex workers and other diverse stakeholders across BC and beyond, this workshop will address:
- Best practices for frontline workers when supporting sex workers accessing your organization’s programming
- Organizational policy recommendations for frontline organizations to ensure sex workers’ needs are met
- The importance of an integrated, sector-wide advocacy approach, viewing sex work as work and sex workers as respected and vital members of our communities.
Networking Activities (3:30 – 6:00 pm)
More information coming soon.
More information coming soon.
Day 2 — September 26
Morning (7:30 – 8:30 am)
More information coming soon.
Workshops (9:00 am – 12:00 pm)
Please note that these are concurrent workshops (will all happen simultaneously). You can select your workshop of choice during registration.
Presenter(s): Jesanne Stanko, Blooming Self Somatics
This experimental workshop is a space to pause, restore, and reconnect with your body as a resource. Building on your existing understanding of nervous system functioning, we will focus on practical, embodied tools to support micro-regulation, boundary repair, and nervous system recovery in the face of the ongoing demands of your role.
Together, we will explore where and how the work lives in your body, practice tools for in-the-moment resourcing, titration, and boundary repair, and leave with personalized practices to sustain your presence and well-being within frontline work. This is a space for embodied integration, resourcing, and nervous system care, designed for those already doing the work and in need of space to be held in it.
Presenter(s):
- Alida Mayor, Peers Victoria Resources Society
- Pam Kimmerly, Peers Victoria Resources Society
This workshop explores why sex workers experience violence and how SAS workers can better support this community. We’ll break the session into three main parts:
- Sex Work & Violence
- Laws: Explore how laws meant to protect sex workers often increase their vulnerability.
- Stigma and Discrimination: Unpack the harmful belief that sex work is inherently dangerous and that survivors “asked for it.”
- Bad Date and Aggressor Reporting System (BDAR)
- What is the BDAR?: Learn about the BDAR system and its role in reporting violence.
- Why the BDAR Matters: Understand how it promotes safety and community care.
- Support and Advocacy
- Supporting Sex Workers: addressing biases through education, including conflating sex work with human trafficking.
- Resources Available: Review support options for sex workers.
- Solidarity: The importance of standing with sex workers, including on Red Umbrella Day
Presenter(s):
- lonnes leloup, Peer-to-Peer Community Co-op
- Ryan Calderon, Peer-to-Peer Community Co-op
- Rachel S., Peer-to-Peer Community Co-op
- katie hocking, Peer-to-Peer Community Co-op
The violence poor people face intensifies due to the barriers they encounter in accessing services and employment, often compounded by their diverse intersectional identities. Frequently, people supporting poor communities don’t have lived experience of poverty, which can increase the violence poor communities face when policies and programs supposed to help them are created and implemented without them.
The PPCC models what an inclusive economy and service provision free of violence could and should look like, grounded in cooperative organizing and community recommendations collected through a multi-year research project we conducted aimed at reducing gender-based violence in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES).
In this workshop, you’ll hear from people with lived and living experience from the DTES community on why and how centering and supporting a peer-led approach to poverty reduction can ensure sustainable systemic change within organizations to include the most marginalized, ultimately reducing the violence these communities face
Lunch (12:00 – 1:30 pm)
Information regarding lunch coming soon. If you have any dietary needs, restrictions or preferences, please make sure to note this information in your registration.
Workshops (1:30 – 3:00 pm)
Please note that these are concurrent workshops (will all happen simultaneously). You can select your workshop of choice during registration.
More Information coming soon.
Closing (3:30 – 4:30 pm)
More information coming soon.
Join us as we gather all participants back in one space to close our two days together and honour the work that we all do for survivors and for our communities.
