High Risk Strategy

Over the past several years, the VAW community has become increasingly aware that not all domestic abuse cases pose the same level of risk to women. In 1999, the murder of Sandra Quigley by her ex-partner highlighted the urgent need to identify potentially lethal situations using key, proven indicators to create a coordinated and effective response.

Member agencies of the Woman Abuse Council of Toronto formed a High Risk Project Committee to develop a comprehensive strategy for identifying and responding to potentially lethal situations. The strategy includes three main components:

Regular use of Risk Assessment Processes and Procedures to:

Identify key indicators for women who are at high risk of death or serious injury.
Encourage women and practitioners to jointly conduct risk assessments using developed tools.
Gain commitment from those involved to use and implement the safety planning kit.

See High Risk Assessment Tool (90.5KB)

Immediate Action in Cases of High Risk:

Convene a safety-planning meeting with anyone who is involved with the woman to share necessary information, and develop and implement a timely action plan that responds to the immediate needs of the woman. This plan will include ways to protect the woman and to monitor and constrain the partner's behaviour.

Case Consultations with High Risk Consult Team:

Consult on difficult cases with the multi-disciplinary High Risk Consult Team of experts. The team provides formal and informal consultation with practitioners to help assess difficult cases and determine appropriate interventions. Any of the sectors involved with an abused woman may initiate the consultation.

High Risk Consult Team

The High Risk Consult Team is a multi-disciplinary team of professionals. The team provides formal and informal consultation with practitioners to help assess difficult cases and determine appropriate interventions that increase the safety of women and children and constrain abusers.

To bring a case forward to the High Risk Consult Team, please call the WACT office to arrange a telephone intake and assessment. The case will be screened to determine its urgency. There are three possible outcomes of the screening:

Case identified as an emergency. Core members of the Team will be contacted to arrange for emergency telephone consultation.
Case identified as appropriate for the next monthly High Risk Consult Team meeting.
Case referred to one or two of the Consult Team members for a first level review. These cases are those in which timely intervention of a practitioner from one or two sectors would have a direct impact on the woman's safety.

High Risk Training

The Woman Abuse Council of Toronto provides free training to organizations on high-risk assessment. The purpose of the training is to:

Train practitioners to conduct a thorough risk assessment to determine safety risks or need for timely response.
Bring practitioners together to identify ways to respond to the safety of women in high-risk situations.
Develop a common safety plan with key partners to coordinate the safety of the woman and/or her children.

Training sessions can be developed to suit agency needs and the populations served. WACT staff will come to your agency to provide the training. Contact WACT for more information at 416-944-9242 or wact@womanabuse.ca

WACT would like to acknowledge the Ontario Trillium Foundation for its generous support of the High Risk Strategy Project.