West Coast LEAF and the Canadian Centre for Elder Law are proud to present Roads to Safety, a legal handbook for older women in BC. Roads to Safety covers legal issues that older women may face when they have experienced violence. It explains rights and options, using stories to illustrate the legal information.
Older women have told us that they face many different types of legal challenges, and that it can be hard to find clear legal information that applies to their situation. That’s why we created a handbook that brings together information about a wide range of legal issues:
- Emergency information and safety planning
- Decision-making rights
- Immigration rights
- Getting legal help
- Income assistance
- Applying for a pension
- Applying for housing supports
- Protection orders and peace bonds
- Keeping grandchildren safe
- Steps to protect yourself from financial abuse
- Property division after separation
As a companion piece to Roads to Safety, we have also produced multilingual wallet cards listing sources of support and information for older women.
We are grateful to the many older women and other members of our community who helped with this project. Thanks also to the BC Council to Reduce Elder Abuse for funding the Older Women’s Legal Education Project (which includes Roads to Safety).
Thanks to the generous support of the BC Association of Community Response Networks, all resources associated with this project were reprinted in March 2017. As of June 2017, there were limited copies of the handbook still available as well as wallet cards in languages other than English. Unfortunately, the version of the wallet card for Indigenous older women as well as the general English version are out of stock.
If you represent an organization that supports older women, you can inquire about ordering print copies of Roads to Safety or our wallet cards by emailing Alana Prochuk at education {at} westcoastleaf {dot} org or by calling 604-684-8772 extension 117.
Download the PDF version of Roads to Safety.
