IMPACT is a backbone organization of Odyssey House and is comprised by a group of service providers committed to eradicating Domestic and Sexual Violence in Alberta’s Northwest. By supporting agencies & building confidence that violence is preventable and can be dealt with through collaborative effort, education, & public awareness. The service providers that help support this effort include Grande Prairie Friendship Centre, Grande Prairie Family Education Society, John Howard Society, Pace, Caribou Child & Youth Centre, Victim Services Grande Prairie, and Grande Prairie RCMP detachment, City of Grande Prairie Community Social Development, County of Grande Prairie FCSS and Odyssey House.
This network has been active in Grande Prairie since 2017 and previously was under the name Prevention of Family Violence Network Grande Prairie [PFVN) Becoming IMPACT Grande Prairie allows us to align with the provincial IMPACT work, to get recognized because of this alignment and put us in a better position (politically) in our community as IMPACT has influence with the GOA. We are grateful to have a strong and welcomed voice at the provincial IMPACT table, as so often provincial initiatives don’t seem to always take into consideration the rural or remote/Grande Prairie perspective.
In terms of capacity and resources, aligning our community work with IMPACT works, we can share information, resources, training, facilitators, experts and much more, it is a lot easier to work together than on our own. We have a total of 10 Team Leaders on board for our monthly meetings and a larger membership now of 75 comprising of other agencies and businesses.
Lastly, by positioning our work within the larger IMPACT framework, we have been able to build relationships with others across the province that are doing similar work in a way that we have not been able to do in the past, which has directly improved our capacity, learning, skills and knowledge around prevention family violence.
