From late 2025 until earlier this year, EVA BC’s Workplace Culture Change team, Ashley Humphrys and Sarah Kenyon, worked together to develop and deliver a four-week (15 sessions) Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Awareness Training program to the operations and compliance and enforcement staff at BC’s Environmental Assessment Office (EAO).
The EAO oversees a process set out in the Environmental Assessment Act to “promote sustainability by protecting the environment and fostering a sound economy and the well-being of British Columbians and their communities” and to “support reconciliation with Indigenous peoples in British Columbia” in the context of development projects across BC.
As part of Safe and Supported: British Columbia’s Gender-Based Violence Action Plan, the EAO committed to providing GBV awareness training for all its staff. This training, developed by EVA BC, builds skills to assess and monitor GBV risks linked to temporary accommodations, work camps, and other project-related activities, and to integrate effective prevention and mitigation measures into Environmental Assessment Certificates (EACs) where needed.
This commitment reflects the growing recognition — underscored by the findings of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls — that proactive action is critical to reducing GBV risks in communities near temporary work camps and large industrial projects.
“It was really exciting to have the opportunity to develop this training for this sector,” said Ashley Humphrys, Manager of Social Enterprise at EVA BC. “This is the first training to address the issue of gender-based violence in the environmental assessment work in BC.”
The participants explored how GBV risk intersects with power, colonialism, and systemic inequality, and how to translate identified risks into effective, enforceable mitigation measures.
The training aimed to help EAO staff with content across four modules:
- Describe the root causes of and contributing factors to gender-based violence (GBV), including a foundational understanding of colonialism and its ongoing impacts within resource development and environmental assessment contexts.
- Apply trauma-informed and culturally aware practices to GBV-related work, including community engagement and compliance activities.
- Identify and understand GBV risks across different projects and environments in the resource sector.
- Recognize effective strategies to prevent and mitigate GBV risks and learn how to incorporate them into enforceable conditions.
