A few months ago, I arrived at Nellie’s to find a woman sitting in our program space with a beautiful 6-month-old baby boy on her lap. I couldn’t help but go over, say hello and coo at the smiling child.

While I gushed over the little tyke, she told me that she was waiting to meet with Diana, one of our Transitional Housing Workers. They had last met a little over a year ago, when she was just a few months pregnant, and now she found herself in a position, once again in need of Diana’s help.

Our Transitional Housing Program helps homeless women find a place to live and offers eviction support to help women stay in their homes. The support we offer can take many forms, including providing guidance on accessing emergency funding to pay rent, advocating on their behalf on landlord-tenant issues, accompanying them to housing tribunal hearings or offering referrals to legal clinics.

In this woman’s case, she had lost her home in a fire—a fire she believes could have been avoided if her landlord had followed through on upkeep and maintenance complaints. Regardless, she was now homeless and living in a hotel (thanks to help from the fire department and the Canadian Red Cross) with her six children, ranging in age from six months to 10 years. She worried that she and her children would have to move into a shelter when their time at the hotel ended. Which is exactly what brought her to be sitting in that spot in our program space, waiting to meet with Diana.

As I gathered a few basic necessities for her to take with her when she left—shampoo, snacks, and toys for the kids—her story reminded me that just because many of our lives have come to a standstill in this pandemic, they have not stopped. Every day may sometimes feel the same, but every day can also bring unexpected challenges. A fire, for example, can rip through our home at any time in our life, taking with it our stability and security.

At Nellie’s, our job doesn’t end when a woman leaves our shelter and finds housing. We remain a vital part of her support network whenever she needs us. She may be fighting to keep her housing, or needing help finding new housing, accessing our weekly food program in order to put healthy meals on the table, or attending one of our many community programs to gain important everyday life skills. Nellie’s will always be here for her.

To every one of our donors, funders, community supporters and volunteers, I can only say thank you for making this possible. Government funding ensures a roof over our heads, beds to sleep in and other essentials, but we are so much more than a bed. It’s because of your generosity that, throughout this global pandemic, we have not only been able to continue welcoming women and their children impacted by abuse, trauma and homelessness but have also been able to continue to be there for the women and their children who still need us, like this woman and her six children, as they build the next chapter of their lives.

A child’s experience when fleeing violence and homelessness is very different from their mother’s. That’s because children don’t choose to come to Nellie’s, their mothers do.

A woman living at Nellie’s decides to flee an abusive or unsafe situation; a child living at Nellie’s is torn away from the life they know, often the only life they have ever known, and thrust into new surroundings. Many blame themselves for their living circumstances and what happened to them. All have to learn to process their trauma. And they need a safe space to express their feelings and work through those emotions in an age-appropriate way.

Our Children’s Program helps them do just that through connection and play. Whether it is through group play activities for preschoolers, craft activities for school-aged children, or teen support programs, our Children’s Program provides the vital human relationship that is the first step toward healing.

As part of this journey, we are thrilled to share our newest offering for the children living at Nellie’s — the Rock and Water program. First developed in the Netherlands and now recognized around the world, Rock and Water promotes the positive development of social and emotional competences and prevents and/or reduces problems in how young people see themselves and interact with others. Research has found that Rock and Water decreases depressive feelings, and increases self-esteem, self-regulation and social acceptance by building self-confidence, self-respect and self-reflection.

Nellie’s is the first gender-based violence organization in Canada to implement this innovative program. Only one other person in the country has been certified, and he offers programming within the Ontario youth justice system. Four of our staff members were certified last fall and now that we have moved into our new shelter (which has dedicated program spaces on the third floor), we are beginning to roll it out.

“This program gained international recognition for helping to fight bullying in schools,” says Jyoti Singh, Executive Director, adding that its effectiveness has now been proven beyond the classroom, including in shelter and youth justice settings. “It teaches kids when to assert themselves, when to be flexible and how to speak up when they see injustices.”

Through a series of exercises and games, Rock and Water teaches kids about the kind of situations to assert themselves by setting their own limits and making independent decisions (be a rock) and the kind of situations to be flexible using communication and respecting others’ boundaries (be water). It’s a physical program as the games are martial arts based, and students learn to block, hit strike shields, stand strong, negotiate using “rock” or “water” verbal approaches, walk away from a fight, consider alternatives to aggression, and develop understandings about who they are, their intuitive feelings and their personal direction. We’ve adapted the sessions with a trauma-informed lens that better meets the needs of the children living at Nellie’s, many of whom may move-in or move-out at any time during the program.

Learning to use Rock and Water concepts gives kids more insight into social situations and the impacts of their own behaviour. During this process they learn to make well-considered decisions, including in social situations, and they develop more versatile behavioural alternatives.

“They’re going to learn skills that they can carry with them long after they move out of the shelter,” says Jyoti.