The following report will provide you with an overview of our challenges and achievements this past year, as well as some forecasting of the work that the membership projects for CAEFS.

1. Human Rights in Action
   
   Immediately following last year’s AGM, we had a meeting to further develop our partnerships and working relationships with NWAC and SIS/W4J for this project. During the meeting, the members of the Steering Committee developed the following ‘Human Rights in Action Vision Statement’:
   

   This project is about strengthening women and creating self reliance to survive the CSC experience. We want to increase the abilities of individual women in prison and the organizations involved to work within the spirit of resistance to achieve realistic goals to name and rectify injustices and create a legacy of permanent change.

   The three groups also agreed to the following principles of operation:
   
   
   1. The project is penal abolitionist in nature (i.e. keeping women in community and/or working on decarceration strategies to return women in/from prison to the community, linkages to other social change initiatives).
      
      
   2. All work will be aimed at achieving substantive equality of/for women in and from prison (i.e. addressing inter-sectional, multi-dimensional oppression of women, Aboriginal women).
      
      
   3. The initiative will be inclusiveness. The members of the Steering Committee will search out individuals if we find we have a gap and need someone else to assist us. For example, the group has already agreed that there should be at least one Elder on the committee to help guide our work.
      
      
   4. The initiative must be independent of CSC.
      
      
   The Steering Committee consists of ten (10) members. Of these, one will be an Elder for the Steering Committee and three (3) representatives from each organization (SIS/W4J, CAEFS, and NWAC) will make the total membership of 10.
   
   In addition to developing peer advocates and advocacy support teams in the prisons for women, via the HRIA we are also working on specific decarceration strategies for 4 individual Aboriginal women who also have mental health issues and are serving life or long sentences.
   
   During January, February and March 2006, orientation sessions were conducted at the eight federal prisons where women are currently imprisoned. The turn out of the women at all of the prisons was very good, ranging from 60-90+% participation rates. We also appreciated all of the support, assistance, and involvement of the regional advocates and prison workers from our membership. The results of the sessions are attached. Some of the HRIA Steering Committee members are working on an introductory memorandum to include and send in to all of the women in the prisons in order to permit any additional feedback desired.
   
   The women in all five of the regional prisons and the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge indicated a keen interest in having peer advocates. There was also consensus that they would like to have a broad based training program for all women to educate them about their rights, relevant policies and how to advocate on their own behalves. As such, it looks as though the next stage of the HRIA training for peer advocates will be a two part process: 1) 1-2 days of general training for all who wish to participate; and 2) 3-4 days of training for the peer advocates.
   
   The women at the Isabel McNeill Minimum Security House (IMH) as well as those in the segregated Churchill Unit in the Regional Psychiatric Centre (for men) (RPC) indicated that they did not wish to have peer advocates. The women who attended the orientation session at RPC advised that they would like our ‘outside’ group(s) (CAEFS/SIS/NWAC) to monitor women who go there for ‘treatment’. The women don’t tend to stay there long enough to do the training and peer advocacy. The women at IMH want SIS/W4J to do the advocacy. They want the broader advocacy of CAEFS, NWAC and SIS to focus on assisting women to get to the house and on keeping the house open.
   
   The key issue raised by the participants in the other six prisons and which we (CAEFS/NWAC and SIS) will need to address before we proceed relates to who should be the Peer Advocates. As the attached document reveals, there were many good recommendations about who should do the advocacy and the sorts of training women would like to receive. Across the prisons, most agreed that the role of the peer advocate(s) should be:
   
   
   • To participate in training to familiarize self with relevant law, policy and procedures;
     
     
   • To assist women in prison to identify their rights, entitlements, application eligibility dates, et cetera;
     
     
   • To assist women to advocate for and access services and supports to facilitate successful return to the community;
     
     
   • To assist with resolution and/or grievance of issues;
     
     
   • To call upon and seek the collaboration of local advocacy team members and CAEFS, NWAC, SIS, Correctional Investigator and/or lawyers to address breaches of the law, systemic issues, et cetera;
     
     
   • To monitor and document ongoing issues, especially unresolved concerns and/or repeat problems;
     
     
   • To advocate creative responses to uphold/promote the rights, address the needs, and remedy the concerns of women in and from prison;
     
     
   • To seek, incorporate and continue training of peer advocates and peer advocacy process.
     
     
   In addition, although the responses varied somewhat between prisons, most women felt that the peer advocates should be either part or full time positions within the prison (i.e. institutional work placement(s)) but not report to the prison administration. Rather, the clear direction from all prisons was that the advocates should have an externally-located support team to whom they would account. The team would be independent of CSC but collaborate with CAEFS’ Regional Advocates. We would also like to see NWAC’s justice workers and SIS members involved in each region.
   
   We are currently working on the development of the training materials for the project. We are also discussing the need to develop a protocol or memorandum of understanding with CSC to address how issues such as disclosure of self-injury, illegal activity, et cetera would be addressed. We look forward to the next stages of this important project.