Sexual Assault Support Centre of WR seeing increase in calls to support line

The Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region (SASCWR) is seeing a 22 per cent increase in calls coming in lately to its 24-hour support line, while requests for individual counselling have also doubled.

The rise in demand for services comes in the wake of the alleged sexual assault case involving five members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior Hockey team.

On Feb. 5, the London Police Service announced criminal charges were made against those players.

In a statement, Hockey Canada said they are cooperating fully with the police and pending the completion of the appeal process, all players from that the 2018 National Junior Team are suspended.

Hockey Canada said since last year they have implemented measures to improve the culture of the sport including requiring all national team athletes, coaches, and staff to undergo mandatory enhanced screening and complete training on sexual violence and consent.

They hired SASCWR to complete some of those training sessions in 2022 and 2023. Those sessions included topics of masculinity, consent, healthy relationships and bystander intervention.

In a statement to CityNews Kitchener, SASCWR said they provided Hockey Canada with two-hour ‘Leading by Example’ introduction sessions. Those sessions aim to provide an overview of sexual violence prevention. They said the last training session with Hockey Canada took place in August 2023.

“We believe that consent and healthy relationships education is a powerful tool for creating social change. That said, for meaningful change to take hold, training needs to be reinforced by an ongoing, fulsome strategy within sports organizations to address sexual violence to shift rape culture within sports,” read the statement. “As part of these efforts, governments, sports organizations, and corporations need to recognize the expertise of community-based sexual assault centres across Canada and fund them to provide training to local athletic organizations.”

In the statement, the public education manager said SASCWR teams are currently, “Working beyond capacity and without adequate funding to ensure survivors of sexual and gender-based violence are provided with safe spaces, care, and support.”