This site is designed for Canadian women’s advocates. It provides context, legal information and strategies for undertaking family court support with women who have been subjected to violence by their intimate partner.
The better informed you are about the basics of family law and how family court operates, the better you will be able to assist your clients as well as make appropriate referrals for them.
The After She Leaves manual and website
The content on this site is drawn from the After She Leaves manual. Luke’s Place developed the manual in 2011 for advocates in Ontario. It quickly became a critical resource for workers across the province. The third edition was released in 2022.
In 2023, with funding from Justice Canada, we began adapting the After She Leaves manual for women’s advocates across the country. This website has been informed by partnerships with organizations in various provinces and territories.
About Luke’s Place
Luke’s Place is an award-winning Canadian non-profit organization solely devoted to improving the safety and experience of women and their children as they proceed through the complex family court system after fleeing a relationship in which they were subjected to abuse.
We provide a range of resources and services for survivors and advocates. Learn more about us at LukesPlace.ca.
The language we use
The term family violence is a general one and can refer to many kinds of abuse within a family:
- Partner on partner abuse
- Child abuse
- Abuse by extended family members
- Abuse of elders in the family by younger family members
This site focuses on intimate partner violence (IPV), including both physical and non-physical forms of abuse and control, which is the abuse perpetrated by one partner against the other.
We acknowledge and respect that:
- Men can be victims of abuse at the hands of their female partners.
- Abuse happens in same-sex as well as heterosexual relationships.
- Folks who identify as trans or non-binary can face abuse in their intimate relationships.
However, all of this abuse is rooted in a power structure that is based on misogyny and traditional male power, and women are subjected to the most serious forms of coercive controlling and physical violence, including lethal violence.
Therefore, this site reflects the reality that women are the predominant victims of violence within families. We use the term women to include all self-identified women (including two-spirited, cisgender or transgender women) 16 years of age and older. In heterosexual relationships, men are far more often the perpetrators of violence, especially lethal violence, and so we often use masculine pronouns when talking about the abuser.