Evaluation of the Justice Canada Federal Victims Strategy

5 Conclusions and Recommendations

5.1 Conclusions and Recommendations

5.1.1 Relevance

The Justice FVS has evolved since its inception to respond to the needs of Canadian victims and survivors of crime. It has continued to play an active role in advancing legislative change (e.g., CVBR, C-51), while also increasing policy development and leadership activities through the PCVI (e.g., national networks for FILUs and CACs, increased focus on training justice professionals, through trauma-informed approaches for working with victims, increased public awareness activities). The FVS response has also progressed with respect to program development and delivery support, for example, through increased Victims Fund resources for the development of specialized, responsive services, which inform, and are informed by, Justice FVS policy activities.

At the same time, the Justice FVS (as a vehicle to deliver on federal priorities), remains consistent with government priorities, roles and responsibilities, particularly with respect to its focus on working with FPT partners to increase access to justice for victims and survivors such as families of MMIWG, child victims, and victims of gender-based violence (e.g., human trafficking, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence). Further, there is a continuing need for the Justice FVS and its multi-pronged approach, particularly with respect to collaborating with federal, PT, and NGO/CBO partners to identify and respond to the ongoing and emerging needs of victims in Canada in a multifaceted and collaborative manner.

The evaluation findings also indicate that certain communities of victims and survivors experience ongoing barriers to accessing services and supports. This is detailed in the section below.

5.1.2 Performance

The Justice FVS utilized its multi-pronged approach to improve criminal justice system responses to victims and to increase access to responsive services that support victims. The Justice FVS enhanced the capacity of those working in the justice system to develop and deliver responsive services (e.g., Victims Fund funding, knowledge exchanges, FPTWG), increased the awareness of victim issues, legislation, and services (e.g., PLEI, fact sheets, symposia, research). The Strategy also improved legislative and policy response to victims (e.g., criminal law reform with a victim focused policy lens, support to implement legislative changes). Importantly, the Justice FVS provided leadership across these areas to support a more coordinated and collaborative approach to identifying and responding to victim issues across FPT partners as well as other stakeholders involved in responding to victim issues. In particular, extensive work has been conducted to increase collaboration opportunities across federal government departments, PTs, some NGOs, victim advocates, and international partners.

A common theme during the evaluation period was the ongoing barriers to accessing victim services, including some of the services funded by the Justice FVS (e.g., barriers to accessing services and supports in rural and remote areas, lack of awareness and training for some justice professionals regarding new approaches such as trauma-informed practices, lack of access to appropriate aftercare services for victims of crime). To continue to address these barriers, it was indicated by most key informants that the Justice FVS, through its multi-pronged approach, should continue to focus on supporting the development and delivery of responsive models of care which have demonstrated success such as FILUs and CACs (e.g., collaborative models of care which are interdisciplinary, create partnerships between PTs, NGOs, and communities, and are trauma- informed and culturally safe). This includes a continued focus on awareness raising and training for justice system professionals and other stakeholders interacting with victims to support these new, more innovative approaches.

Key informants also noted that challenges exist for certain communities of victims to engage the criminal justice system. They may be intimidated or mistrustful for example due to the ongoing impact of colonization, racism, poverty and marginalization, among other factors. Commonly identified under-served communities include: individuals living in rural, remote, and Northern communities (including Indigenous communities); racialized communities (e.g., Black Canadians), victims of gender-based violence such as sexual assault, intimate partner violence and human trafficking; victims who are LGBTQQI2S; persons with disabilities and seniors; families of missing and murdered Indigenous peoples; victims of cybercrime; families of homicide victims; and people experiencing homelessness and poverty. Additionally, there have been increased rates of gender-based violence, violence against children, and cybercrime as a result of COVID-19 pandemic isolation measures.Endnote 63Endnote 64Endnote 65Endnote 66Endnote 67Endnote 68

To continue to address the ongoing barriers to accessing victim services, as well as the needs of different communities of victims, the following recommendation is proposed:

Recommendation 1: To continue to address the ongoing and emerging needs of victims and survivors of crime, it is recommended to engage in annual collaborative priority setting exercises to inform the activities of the Justice FVS.

5.1.3 Program Design, Delivery and Efficiency

Overall, results of the evaluation suggested that the Justice FVS program design and delivery was effective and efficient. In terms of the Victims Fund, funding agreements were structured to address shared PT and federal priorities, but were sufficiently open and flexible to allow PTs to address existing and emerging jurisdictional issues. Effective and efficient program delivery was facilitated through supportive relationships between departmental personnel and Victims Fund recipients. Additionally, it was found that the Victims Fund agreements were generally efficiently delivered, with the majority of the funds being expended between 2015-16 and 2019-20, although some greater lapses were identified in 2016-2017.

Some challenges were observed with respect to Victims Fund performance reporting, and there were some limitations with the current performance measurement approach to funded activities under the Victims Fund. In particular, there was inconsistent data collection from PTs and NGOs regarding their activities, primarily due to variable reporting practices (e.g., lack of consistent quantitative information from recipients across activities as well as a lack of concise and targeted qualitative information to support accessible performance data) and some challenges with understanding and using the lengthy reporting templates.

Additionally, Justice data management systems for tracking the activities of the Victims Fund were identified as a challenge for regular monitoring of the Strategy and could use improvement (e.g., difficult to easily access information on CFPs, applications, rejections, amendments, activities, outcomes, etc.). However, departmental stakeholders identified that a new data management system is being implemented and may be able to address some of these concerns.

Project reporting was inconsistent across funding recipients and Justice data management systems. Improvements in this area would help funding recipients and departmental officials to complete and analyze reports in a more consistent and timely manner to better assess program performance on an annual and longer term basis.

In order to address some of the challenges noted regarding performance reporting, the following recommendation is proposed:

Recommendation 2: It is recommended to improve reporting templates and tools to allow for more consistent and strategic data collection of Victims Fund projects.

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