Public drop-in hours at the Women's Resource Centre in Port Coquitlam will be discontinued but Tri-City Transitions will continue to schedule appointments for women who need resources and support, says the group's executive director.
Carol Metz Murray said the house located at 2420 Mary Hill Rd. will continue to provide educational, specialized and targeted programs but will no longer staff drop-in hours for women.
As well, the name of the Women's Resource Centre will be changed, Metz Murray said, to reflect the fact that men, as well as women, are utilizing services to reduce violence and abuse against women.
In future, the building, leased from the city of Port Coquitlam, will be called the Family Resource Centre.
The staffing change will allow Tri-City Transitions to do more follow-up work with women who leave the Transition House to return to the community. Metz Murray said former residents of the house operated by Tri-City Transitions for women fleeing abuse could fall through the cracks without regular follow-up.
"We will now be able to fill that gap," said Metz Murray, "I am really excited about that."
The changes aren't likely to please the women who used to use the facility, Metz Murray acknowledged, but women will still be able to call the resource centre at 604-941-6311 if they need support, resources or referral.
"They will still get services but in a specialized way," she said.
In the future, if funding becomes available, the house could be used as more of a centre for families and Tri-City Transitions will also look at ways to utilize the kitchen facilities and the community garden.
"We're just starting out [in this new direction], one step at a time," she said.
The future of the internet services for job searching is uncertain, however, because Tri-City Transitions doesn't want to duplicate services being offered by a new WorkBC employment services centre in Port Coquitlam. That centre, which opened Monday as part of a province-wide roll-out of new job centres, will offer a diverse array of employment programs as well as job search services. That office is open for drop-in and is located at 206/208 2540 Shaughnessy St.
