IMPACT is a backbone organization of Odyssey House and is comprised by a group of service providers committed to eradicating Domestic and Sexual Violence in Alberta’s Northwest. By supporting agencies & building confidence that violence is preventable and can be dealt with through collaborative effort, education, & public awareness. The service providers that help support this effort include Grande Prairie Friendship Centre, Grande Prairie Family Education Society, John Howard Society, Pace, Caribou Child & Youth Centre, Victim Services Grande Prairie, and Grande Prairie RCMP detachment, City of Grande Prairie Community Social Development, County of Grande Prairie FCSS and Odyssey House.

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This network has been active in Grande Prairie since 2017 and previously was under the name Prevention of Family Violence Network Grande Prairie [PFVN) Becoming IMPACT Grande Prairie allows us to align with the provincial IMPACT work, to get recognized because of this alignment and put us in a better position (politically) in our community as IMPACT has influence with the GOA. We are grateful to have a strong and welcomed voice at the provincial IMPACT table, as so often provincial initiatives don’t seem to always take into consideration the rural or remote/Grande Prairie perspective.

In terms of capacity and resources, aligning our community work with IMPACT works, we can share information, resources, training, facilitators, experts and much more, it is a lot easier to work together than on our own. We have a total of 10 Team Leaders on board for our monthly meetings and a larger membership now of 75 comprising of other agencies and businesses.

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Lastly, by positioning our work within the larger IMPACT framework, we have been able to build relationships with others across the province that are doing similar work in a way that we have not been able to do in the past, which has directly improved our capacity, learning, skills and knowledge around prevention family violence.