INNISFAIL – The town's new victim services navigator has been introduced to the public for the first time and Innisfail’s top cop said the new model is almost “exactly the same.”
“When we were losing victim services here in Innisfail I was definitely fairly outspoken that I wasn't happy because we had such a good program,” said Innisfail RCMP Staff Sgt. Ian Ihme, the local detachment commander, to citizens attending a town hall meeting on Feb. 19 at the Innisfail Library/Learning Centre.
“I've been so pleasantly surprised and happy with the new program as well (and) from my perspective almost nothing has changed.”
The town hall, jointly hosted by the Innisfail RCMP and the Town of Innisfail, attracted about 30 citizens on a cold winter evening, with Ihme giving the opening presentation.
It was followed by presentations from Gary Leith, the town’s new director of protective services; Arno Glover, chair of the Innisfail Policing & Safe Community Committee; representatives from the Innisfail Citizens on Patrol Program, and the introduction of staff of Innisfail’s new Victim Services model.
“The people have changed but the service is pretty much almost exactly the same,” said Ihme. “There's small little changes but from a from a community perspective they're almost not even noticeable.”
A year ago Ihme announced at a town hall that Mary Dawn Eggleton, executive director of Innisfail & District Victim Services, left the agency to become the program manager of Red Deer-based Central Alberta Women's Emergency Shelter.
In 2023, the provincial government announced it was replacing the provinces 62 police-based victim service units to a more regional focused model that will still retain a working relationship with RCMP.
The new model has four new regional boards representing the province in the east, west, north and south.
Innisfail is being served by the new Central Alberta Regional Victim Serving Society (CARVSS).
During the town hall meeting on Feb. 19 Ihme introduced Jolene Cole, court support navigator for victim services in Innisfail, and her immediate supervisor Brittany Sande, assistant director of operations for CARVSS.
Both gave brief remarks to town hall attendees.
After Ihme’s public comments he told the Albertan that under the previous victim services model, staff with each victim services unit had to do everything themselves, including human resources duties and fundraising.
“That's a duty Jolene doesn't have to do. She focuses only on victims,” said Ihme,” adding Cole has her own office at the Innisfail detachment. “It’s the exact same office our old victim services had.
“If you were a victim before it would almost seem very similar, except there’s a different face that you're looking at.”
Sande told the Albertan there is now a “lot more” standardization within the organization, noting as an example that a client in Bashaw is now getting the same level of service as he or she would get in Sylvan Lake.
“If a navigator chooses to go on vacation there's coverage in that detachment for that week,” said Sande, who oversees operations in 11 different detachments. “Victims are maybe waiting 24 hours to get contacted, versus before they would wait that week until that navigator got back.”
Sande told the Albertan that operations in Innisfail are going “very well” with Cole, who began her duties at the detachment six months ago.
“Jolene has had to pick up a lot of maybe missed files in that seven months when there was no VSU (victim services unit),” said Sande, “Jolene has made a really great effort at stepping up and showing up for those victims who maybe didn't have services for those seven months when victim services was down.
“She’s done really well at supporting the community and getting them the resources they need.”
