RCMP Victim Services in Williams Lake will not be losing any of its caseworkers.
The Canadian Red Cross recently provided more than $85,000 in funding for two more years for a part-time caseworker who was brought on for one year following the 2017 wildfires through previous funding.
“I left on holidays thinking oh my, let’s hope and a couple of days into my holiday our City CAO (Milo MacDonald) and I get an email saying the funding has been approved and it’s coming,” said Dave Dickson, Manager of Community Safety.
“It was great but then to call the employee to say your funding is in place for two more years was really special.”
Dickson estimates the one full time and two part-time caseworkers have a rolling caseload of around 200 people.
The Victim Services program provides services to all victims of crime and trauma providing support and empowering victims to move from crisis to confidence.
“By having that extra person not only does it help our team, it helps our community and it helps the Victim Service team because there’s basically four teams (one RCMP based, one Community based, and two First Nations based),” Dickson said.
“They all work collaboratively together so it just helps to continue to make a real unified team.”
(Editor’s Note: Listen to Dave Dickson, Manager of Community Safety in the audio file below)
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