Muskoka Victim Services’ 25 years of service honoured by community

While there were plenty of smiles and laughing inside the Rotary Centre for Youth in Bracebridge, Eva Zachary, executive director of Muskoka Victim Services (MVS), says the not-for-profit’s 25th anniversary should serve as a somber reminder of the work that still needs to be done. 

“We’re not saying happy anniversary,” she continues. “We’re not technically celebrating 25 years of service because, ideally, we wouldn’t be in service, if it wasn’t needed in our community.” 

MVS hosted its annual general meeting prior to the event honouring its 25th anniversary on June 27. 

It offers on-site emotional and practical assistance 24/7, assessment of victim needs, risk, and vulnerability, and referrals to appropriate community programs for victims of crisis, including intimate partner violence. 

In Zachary’s year-end report, she outlines how they dealt with 477 crisis calls between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024, which is an 18 percent increase from the same period five years ago. She adds how the 641 clients served have been consistent over the past half-decade, however, the reasons they’re reaching out have changed: 67 percent were crime-related, which is 31 percent more than what it was five years ago. 

The growing numbers of calls is compounded by MVS’ 45 percent decrease in volunteers in that same period which Zachary attributes partly to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“We’re slowly rebuilding,” she says, noting how they currently have 33 volunteers. 

Zachary encourages anyone interested in volunteering for MVS to reach out. “You don’t need a PhD to care,” she adds, explaining how MVS will handle training new volunteers. 

Along with the volunteers, Zachary says MVS has two full-time case workers who have between 40 and 50 case files on their desk at any time. 

She explains how each case is different, so it’s hard to say how long the average one is. 

However, she estimates the initial call to MVS lasts between one to two hours. After that, the case worker will reach out to one of MVS’ over 80 community partners to determine which service is the best match for what the victim needs. Zachary says all that could be done in a few weeks, or the case file could be open for close to a year. 

“It’s about them,” says Zachary about the volunteers. “All of the hard work they do to support victims of crime and tragic circumstance.” 

The event featured remarks from multiple dignitaries, including Jeff Lehman, chair of the District of Muskoka, who shared gratitude for the work done by volunteers locally for nearly three decades, pointing out the district declared intimate partner violence an epidemic in April 2024. 

The mayors of Bracebridge, Gravenhurst, Huntsville, Lake of Bays along with Parry Sound-Muskoka’s federal and provincial representatives, Scott Aitchison and Graydon Smith, respectively, also spoke during the event. 

While Zachary is grateful for the support MVS receives locally and provincially, it’s not enough to address the growing needs of the community as well as their own. She says they applied for more from the district and Ontario’s Ministry of Children, Community, and Social Services. 

“Our greatest challenge has been the increase in the complexity of crisis calls, which utilize a substantial amount of resources and team resilience,” explains Zachary. 

She says when MVS was founded in 1999, the expectation from the province was that after attending the initial crisis call, they follow-up three times and close the file. 

“We’re no longer see that,” she says. 

Zachary notes in her report MVS did 1,841 follow-ups last year, which is 22 percent when compared to the previous five years.