“W h e n O t h e r

According to the ACWS 2021–2022 Workforce Survey, 69% of shelter staff surveyed indicated that the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an increase in the complexity in the cases of the survivors that their organization serves.9 In particular, staff reported that because of the pandemic, survivors have experienced increased isolation, declining mental wellness, and reduced service availability. [...] In the summer of 2023, ACWS conducted a total of fifteen focus groups about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on domestic abuse survivors and the shelters and staff that support them. [...] The Intersection of COVID and Domestic Violence The single greatest challenge that we heard from survivors across the province was that the COVID-19 pandemic intersected with their experiences of domestic violence and abuse in ways that amplified the impacts of both the abuse and the pandemic. [...] Systemic Barriers In addition to reporting on how the pandemic intersected with and amplified ...survivors reported their experiences of abuse, survivors reported that the pandemic has that the pandemic has increased the number of systemic barriers that they have experienced as increased the number of they work to heal. [...] Virtually all the barriers survivors and their children face have been caused Virtually all the barriers by systems that have failed to understand the realities of domestic violence survivors and their and abuse or to account for the unique needs of survivors and their children.