Welcome

The Shield of Athena Family Services is a non-profit community based organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and children victims of conjugal and family violence, particularly those coming from ethnic and Anglophone communities. The Shield offers services in a wide variety of languages and uses an approach which is both culturally and linguistically attuned to the needs of the ethnic communities. With one office in Laval and the other in Montreal, it is involved in three core activities:

• Specialized, multilingual, services for victims available at the Montreal and Laval offices

• The Shelter (Athena’s House) provides a multilingual, safe and empowering environment for women and their children victims of family violence

• Multilingual services for communities which informs communities in their language of origin on various topics related to family and conjugal violence

 

Individual services

Consultation

The Shield of Athena offers individual confidential consultations, crisis intervention, counselling and referral to women and children exposed to conjugal or family violence at the Montreal and Laval offices by appointment and at our shelter, Athena’s House. Thanks to the Shield’s own caseworkers and cultural interpreters from a wide variety of communities, we are able to offer culturally adapted consultations in the following languages:

  • Arabic
  • Armenian
  • Creole
  • English
  • Farsi
  • French
  • Greek
  • Italian
  • Romanian
  • Spanish
  • Turkish (on call)
  • Urdu

If clients require services in any other languages, we use authorized interpreters from la Banque d’interprêtes of the Agence de la santé et des services sociaux de Montréal.

Cost: free

Legal Clinic (from September to May)

The Shield of Athena Legal Clinic provides free and confidential legal information to women. Supervised by a lawyer, a McGill University law student talks to women about their rights, family law and criminal law.

Law students cannot give legal advice. They can only provide information.

Cost: free

Scales of justice Shield of athena

Home Visits

The Shield of Athena offers home visits to women who need a consultation but are unable to come to the Montreal or Laval offices due to a variety of reasons such as pregnancy, illness, injury, lack of childcare help, inability to use public transportation, etc.

Cost: free

Economic Assistance

The Shield of Athena offers economic assistance in the form of food, clothing, diapers and toys to its clients and their children twice per year at winter and spring holiday activities. This service is for our long term clientele only and not available to short term clients.

Cost: free

Advocacy and Accompaniment

At the Shield of Athena, professionals are available to advocate on behalf of clients to government officials on such issues as income security, immigration, access to low-income housing, sponsorship, employment programmes, etc.

In addition, they can accompany clients to appointments and court during legal proceedings to offer emotional support, interpretation and translation.

Cost: free

Follow-Up for Former Shelter Residents

The Shield of Athena offers follow-up services for former residents of Athena’s House.

Cost: free

Drop-in Day Care

Crayons Shield of Athena

The Shield of Athena now offers a drop-in dare care located at the Laval office to its clients, including residents and former residents of the shelter as well as women using its external services. The new service now allows them to leave their children for short periods of time in a supervised and secure setting to attend court hearings, meetings with social service and income security agencies, other appointments or, simply, for respite.

For more information on any of our services or to book an appointment, call
514-274-8117 (Montreal office)
or
450-688-6584 (Laval office)
or email us at:
bouclierdathena@bellnet.ca