Latest news with #ElizabethFrySociety
CTV News
21-07-2025
- CTV News
Sask. celebrates funding partnership with Elizabeth Fry Society
Saskatchewan's public safety minister is celebrating his ministry's funding partnership with an organization that helps women reintegrate after leaving custody. In a news release Monday morning, the province said it's committing about $280,000 in annual funding for the next three years to the Elizabeth Fry Society of Saskatchewan to help its Wikowin Supportive Housing program. 'This program will help ensure that women leaving custody or under community supervision have access to safe, affordable housing and the supports they need to successfully reintegrate into the community,' the province said in the release. 'Through this investment, the Elizabeth Fry Society will help give women the footing they need to move forward and avoid returning to custody, which ultimately contributes to safer communities across the province,' said Tim McLeod, the province's public safety minister. The funding will help cover the costs of supervising residents at its property and provide wraparound services to help with income assistance, addiction services and family reunification, the Elizabeth Fry Society says. 'This funding will allow us to provide safe, supportive housing for women leaving custody, women who deserve an opportunity to make meaningful change for themselves and their future,' said Nicole Obrigavitch, Elizabeth Fry Society executive director. The province says the agreement expands on its preexisting relationship with the society, including a $330,000 two-year investment announced last year to help expand its presence in women's correctional facilities to deliver cultural programming and supports.
CBC
08-05-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Legal group asks for judicial review of case against Judge Alain Bégin
A coalition representing three major groups in the Nova Scotia justice system is calling for a judicial review in the case of Judge Alain Bégin. The provincial court judge has faced scrutiny for his comments and actions in a number of cases, and has been harshly criticized by the province's top court for his conduct. In a March decision, a review committee who looked at the complaints against Bégin said the judge should be reprimanded, but not face a judicial council hearing that could strip him of his job. The three-person committee said an undiagnosed mental condition contributed to Bégin's questionable behaviour. Now, a coalition made up of the Nova Scotia Criminal Lawyers' Association, the Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia and the Mi'kmaw Legal Support Network is requesting a judicial review of that committee's decision. In court documents filed Monday, the coalition has asked for public interest standing. That's a legal mechanism that allows individuals and organizations to bring cases of public interest before the courts even if the matter does not affect them personally. "All of the coalition partners work within the justice system and have a strong interest in ensuring fairness, transparency, and accountability in all its processes, including the judicial complaints review process," the coalition said in a statement. Public hearing One of the things the coalition wants the court to rule on is when a matter should be referred to a public hearing. "The public must have confidence there is judicial accountability, including that complaints of judicial misconduct will be reviewed properly, and determined fairly," the statement read. In one of the incidents that touched off the committee review process, Bégin referred to an accused in a sexual assault case as a "deviant" but then tried to walk back his remarks. That drew a strong rebuke from the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, the province's highest court. No date has been set yet for a hearing in Supreme Court.
CBC
06-05-2025
- CBC
Fake nurse who treated hundreds of patients in Kingston sentenced to house arrest
A 24-year-old Kingston, Ont., woman has been sentenced to house arrest for what a judge called a series of lies that included forging nursing credentials that allowed her to treat roughly 200 patients before being found out. Madeline Stenhouse appeared in the Ontario Court of Justice on Tuesday wearing a black suit and glasses. She nodded as Justice Alison Wheeler described her "youthfulness" as a reason to show restraint in sentencing. "Ms. Stenhouses's offending was the product of immaturity in not knowing how to accept or deal with the fact that she failed nursing school," the judge read from her decision. The fake nurse was sentenced to two years less a day to be served in the community, including 18 months of house arrest. She was also ordered to complete 240 hours of community service with the Elizabeth Fry Society and to pay $40,000 to the University Hospitals for Kingston Foundation. In delivering her sentence, Wheeler said patients rely on the health-care system and must be confident they're being cared for by professionals. "Ms. Stenhouses's conduct was calculated, sustained and had the potential to harm a wide range of people who were in a medically vulnerable state," said the judge. Stenhouse previously pleaded guilty to defrauding Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) of more than $5,000 and using a forged document. Court heard she repeatedly lied about her level of education and provided falsified credentials, including a photo of a degree she had not earned and a doctored screenshot from the website for the College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO). Assistant Crown attorney Courtney Cottle had called for a jail sentence, urging the court to draw a "harsh line" to deter anyone else considering impersonating a health-care worker. Stenhouse actively deceived the hospital and put people at risk every day despite multiple opportunities to come clean, the lawyer argued, adding the accused was "essentially committing fraud for 672 days." "It's not a matter whether it was about financial gain, immaturity, wanting to please her parents.… This is about her being in a position of responsibility to care for people when they're extremely vulnerable," said the Crown. "The only way ... to try and stop this behaviour is to show people that you will go to jail. Real jail." 'I regret every second' Stenhouse apologized, describing her arrest as a "wake-up call" and taking responsibility for her actions. "I never intended to cause harm and it is not lost on me, the seriousness of what I did," she read from a piece of paper during an April court appearance. "I regret every second of it." On Tuesday, Wheeler read out the facts of the case, counting seven lies Stenhouse had told during her time at the Kingston General Hospital. She initially applied to be a nursing assistant in April 2021, providing verification of enrolment from St. Lawrence College showing she was in her third year. However, she had forged that document, court heard. In fact, Stenhouse had dropped out in the fall of 2019 and all information she provided about her studies was false. That included her application in April 2022 to work as a registered nurse, according to the facts. Court heard Stenhouse was given the paperwork to obtain a temporary licence but never submitted it. Meanwhile, she completed "buddy shifts" and was assigned to a surgical floor. Starting in August 2022, she began caring for patients without supervision, doing so for nearly five months before she was asked to provide her college registration number on Jan. 25, 2023. Stenhouse sent a screenshot of the CNO website that appeared to show her licence and registration number, but when hospital staff contacted the college they learned she wasn't in its database. During a Jan. 30, 2023, meeting with hospital staff, Stenhouse admitted she'd created the screenshot, but claimed she'd sent it by mistake, the judge read from the facts. Two days later, she again met with staff at the hospital and was asked to provide proof of her education. Instead, she showed a picture of her degree, saying she hadn't brought the original because she'd travelled by bus, court heard. Stenhouse was fired that same day. Court was told her earnings including benefits totalled $46,717.02. Credentials easy to check, college says Defence lawyer Michael Mandelcorn had called for his client to be sentenced to house arrest. While he agreed that a nurse without proper training could potentially put patients at risk, he noted there had been no complaints about the care Stenhouse had provided. Mandelcorn said his client started struggling with anxiety and depression in high school, which continued as she started her nursing program. Asked by Justice Wheeler why Stenhouse impersonated a nurse, the lawyer said it was a difficult question to answer but suggested her mental health and unwillingness to tell her parents that she'd flunked out had played a role. "If Ms. Stenhouse ... could completely articulate why she did that, she would not have done it," Mandelcorn said. Hospital says it's made changes KHSC announced in February 2023 that it had fired an employee who provided "extensive forged documentation" in order to treat roughly 200 patients. A spokesperson said it was the first time KHSC had encountered such a situation. Following the incident, the hospital said it had changed its policies so that orientation for new nursing graduates would only begin after their registration had been verified. The hospital will also check the status of its nurses with CNO monthly instead of annually. The college previously told CBC it has online tools to quickly check the registration status of anyone claiming to be a nurse, however a simple online search of Stenhouse's first and last name using the CNO's "Find a Nurse" tool revealed no results. Instead, her name now appears on a list of "unregistered practitioners," which the college's website states is for individuals who are not nurses but may "holding themselves out" as qualified for the job.
CBC
07-03-2025
- Health
- CBC
N.S. announces funding to help survivors of intimate partner violence
Advocates have been lobbying for more funding to address the epidemic. On Thursday, the Elizabeth Fry Society held a vigil in honour of Nova Scotians who have been victims of intimate partner homicide. Celina Aalders has the story.
CBC
06-02-2025
- General
- CBC
Federal funding helping Greater Sudbury address homelessness, add shelter spaces
Social Sharing The federal government is helping the City of Greater Sudbury address homelessness through funding to help with the addition of more shelter spaces and warming centres. Liberal MP for Sudbury, Viviane Lapointe announced that Ottawa is providing $8,457,271 in funding to the city to help the municipality cope with the homelessness crisis. Sudbury has seen the number of unhoused people rise over the past three years. The investment includes $1,532,256 over two years through the Unsheltered Homelessness and Encampments Initiative, which will help support activities under a Community Engagement Response Plan. The plan includes the additional warming centre services at Energy Court and the Samaritan Centre over the winter months that were added at the start of the season. The remainder of the funds, $6,925,015 over four years, is coming through the Reaching Home: Designated Communities fund, which will assist the city in continuing to offer more shelter support. "This funding will directly support community-based efforts to provide warmth, safety, and stability for vulnerable homeless adults and youth," said Lapointe in a statement. "By expanding the capacity of warming centres, outreach services and shelters, we are working to improve the lives of people in our city." A portion of the $6 million investment is going to the Elizabeth Fry Society's Safe Harbour House, a low barrier emergency shelter for adult women and gender-diverse people. The organization, which recently opened a new, larger location on Cedar Street in December, has added 16 more shelter beds to its services for a total of 26. "The need has certainly grown over time," said Cory Roslyn, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society. "It didn't take long when we opened Safe Harbour House at our old location in 2021 for those 10 beds to fill up. But since we've been here for just over a month, we're almost full again at 26 beds. And so that really shows us the need that exists in our community and our organization." Safe Harbour House is also expanding its services to include homeless female youth between the ages of 16 and 18, which will help to fill a gap in youth services left behind with last year's closure of the Sudbury Action Centre for Youth (SACY). "It is a real shame that SACY had to close and that gap was created," said Roslyn. "So really, what we're doing is just responding to that need. And girls 16, 17, 18-years-old really are probably the most vulnerable group that we work with at Elizabeth Fry. And so it was important to us to be able to expand and offer that safety for them." Roslyn added that despite additional shelter and transitional housing spaces being added in the city, what is really needed is more permanent, affordable housing to solve the housing and homelessness crises. That's something the city is working on as it continues to try and reach its goal of ending homelessness by 2030, according to Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre. He says the city is in a better position now than it was 18 months ago. "I think we're in a better spot. That being said, the challenge remains and sometimes it's trying to find apartments for our most vulnerable," said Lefebvre.
