Child advocacy centre gets funding boost

By Lethbridge Herald on August 23, 2025.

Nathan Reiter
Lethbridge Herald
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A new $60,000 increase in funding from the provincial government will give the Chinook Child and Youth Advocacy Centre some breathing room, says CEO Kristine Cassie.

The province announced earlier this week that eight child and youth advocacy centres across Alberta would receive a share of $330,000, which represents a 10 per cent increase in funding. Other centres across the province to receive funding include the Waypoints Community Services Association (Fort McMurray), Little Bear Child and Youth Advocacy Centre (Lloydminster), Caribou Child and Youth Centre (Grande Prairie), Sanare Centre (Medicine Hat), Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre (Red Deer), Zebra Child and Youth Advocacy Centre (Edmonton) and the Luna Child and Youth Advocacy Centre (Calgary).

Child advocacy centres bring law enforcement agencies and community partners together to provide services including mental health, medical and legal supports to youth and children experiencing sexual or emotional abuse or neglect.

“Grant money when you’re in the charitable sector is really important, especially for services that are surrounding the issue that we’re dealing with,” says Kristine Cassie, CEO of the Chinook Sexual Assault Centre, where the child and youth advocacy centre is co-located.  “This actually helps us have that backbone structure to be able to deliver the services. Up until this point, we’re heavily reliant on very small grants from other foundations or from donations from the public. 

“This actually gives us some breathing room to be able to provide those services and actually invest more of our energy in the services rather than always going home to look at what those donations are going to be.”

In a statement to the Herald,  Lethbridge East MLA Nathan Neudorf said, “For children and youth experiencing violence or abuse, the first step toward healing is finding a safe place and people who will listen and believe them. “

Cassie says the $60,000 will provide much needed breathing room for the lease and staffing for the centre.  

“A great deal of that is towards those back bone structures that we need. The lease payment that we have is something that we have to make sure is done. We have access to the forensic rooms that we’ve built and to the treatment spaces that we have. Even being able to alleviate some of that, a lot of that for our lease is actually coming out of donations to be able to pay for that. The other part is actually on staffing, we have the child and family advocates that we need to be able to provide that service to the children and the families as you’re going through this process.”

The Chinook Child and Youth Advocacy Centre has seen an increase in use within the last 12 months, and Cassie says there are still many children and youth in situations that have not been brought to the centre.

“In this past year, we saw 100 more children and youth than what we did the previous year, and in total, in the last three years we’ve actually seen 604 children and youth come through our centre. We’re seeing a growing trend of it being used more and more. Our referrals are direct from policing agencies and from children’s service agencies. These aren’t all the children that are experiencing abuse within southwest Alberta, but these are the ones identified through those two primary systems.

“I think it’s really important, both for the province and for our communities, to really recognize how much child abuse is actually happening in our communities and the stand that we need to take to really end that pattern from continuing into the future. Having child abuse advocacy centres throughout the province is a game changer for many communities in that it provides really solid evidence-based work with kids and with families that they can heal.”

If you see a situation involving a child that worries you, concerns can be reported 24 hours a day, seven days a week to the Child Intervention Line at 1-800-638-0715.