QUEBEC REPORT

by Miriam Bailey

Resource for adult incest survivors
In the last few months CCLOW has been very involved in setting up its research project: "Breaking Silence: New Beginning for Women Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse." The result will be a pamphlet to be given to users of health and social service facilities in Montreal and to women's organizations. It will be bilingual and cover such issues as: "Feeling Alone," "Identifying the Problem," "Breaking the Family Silence," "Getting Help," "Organizing for Establishing the Services Needed by Adult Incest Survivors" and "New Perspectives and Directions. "

The first step has been to hire a team of researchers, Dr. Suzanne Peters and Fabienne Pierre-Jacques. They are now doing a literature survey, interviewing community people and inquiring about the availability and type of services for adult incest survivors. This phase of the project is being financed by Secretary of State Women's Program and the Department of Health and Welfare. We expect a grant in the new fiscal year for printing and circulation. Our Health and Welfare grant is predicated upon our circulating the pamphlet as a model throughout the country. The project is being supervised by Greta Nemiroff on a day-to-day basis (it is housed in The New School of Dawson College) and there is a CCLOW Advisory Committee of Miriam Bailey, Leiba Aronoff, Greta Nemiroff, and Ruth Fainstat.

There have been two CCLOW meetings since September. The first was to introduce Miriam Bailey to the membership. In January a second was held to discuss the "Breaking Silences" project as well as the possibility of having the next large CCLOW phantasmagoria in Montreal. This was discussed at some length, and Miriam Bailey will bring the recommendations to the February board meeting. Needless to say, Montrealers would be delighted to host such an event.

NEW BRUNSWICK REPORT

by Joan MacFarland

We are now in the fourteenth week of our twenty week Canadian Jobs Strategy re-entry program for women in non-traditional occupations. All fifteen participants were placed in on-the-job training sites. They have been doing excellently and we expect 75-80% of them to be able to continue in the same jobs after their training is completed.

Aisla Thomson, Executive Director of CCLOW, visited our branch and our project in the last week of February. She was able to meet the women in the project as well as the teacher and coordinator of the project and see their enthusiasm first-hand.

We have set, as a priority, getting more involvement in our activities from women outside of the Fredericton area. Two of our members have agreed to do some organizing for us in this regard - one in Moncton area and the other in the Newcastle area, which is in northeastern New Brunswick. We have allocated some of our networking funds for this purpose.

We have also been involved in a number of other activities. Although we were unable to appear before the Standing Committee on the Secretary of State which is to have a hearing in Halifax, we have offered to endorse the brief of CCLOW-NS branch. Dorothy MacKeracher and Joan McFarland have become involved, as principal investigator and co-investigator respectively, in the CCLOW application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council for the funding of a project proposal on "How Women Learn". As a member group of NAC, we sent Judith Grant-Thorpe as a voting member to the annual general meeting in Ottawa in May. We have also nominated Kay Nandlall as a candidate for the NB representative to NAC for 1987-88.

Upcoming is the Third National Laubach Literacy Training Conference to be held in Fredericton May 28-31. We plan to send at least one representative.