Innovation is the cornerstone of everything we do.
Sagesse believes that we have an obligation to engage in innovation to find new approaches to seemingly intractable issues. To us, innovation is a mindset. It’s about taking a close look at our current practices, acknowledging and recognizing that something needs to change and trying to change it. We do this through a rigorous research and development process, quickly adapting and testing new ideas and ways of approaching long-standing social issues.
Sagesse is dedicated to disrupting patterns of abuse and advocating for systemic change to eradicate violence. Our research reflects important strides we have made in understanding and addressing the complexities of domestic abuse.
Individuals who work with Domestic Violence (DV) survivors are often exposed to traumatic events that can leave them feeling overwhelmed, distressed, and susceptible to experiences of trauma themselves. The purpose of this exploratory study was to understand the health and wellbeing of staff in the DV sector to build capacity around providing safe and supportive working environments.
Gendered domestic violence and coercive control are prevalent public heath concerns in Canada with dire consequences for survivors. Peer support groups may address and reduce negative impacts of domestic violence and coercive control on women's stress, coping, safety, and alliances with social support network members, the focus of this study.
Canada’s social services sector is entrenched within a framework of moral and ethical responsibility, providing essential interventions to reduce harm and keep people safe, housed, and fed. This is an enormous missed opportunity. The social services sector needs to move toward a model that embraces the disruption and innovation that has taken place in transportation, retail and entertainment by incorporating research and innovation models into their entire organizational structure.
Sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals tend to experience similar or greater frequencies of IPV compared to their cisheterosexual counterparts. Stigma and discrimination toward sexual and gender diversity can lead to myths and misconceptions about relationship dynamics among SGM individuals, which can contribute to IPV occurrence within the community.
Affluent survivors of abuse are rarely studied, and few services exist to meet the needs of this population. Because of the dearth of research and evaluation data, no best practices have been identified for working with survivors with higher socio-economic status.
Although a commonality of definition and understanding of scope is absent, there is a common experience of coercive control reported by those with lived experience of sexual exploitation. Little is understood around the intersection of the experience of sexual exploitation and coercive control.
Women involved in sex work experience high rates of abuse often from multiple perpetrators. This study examined the impacts of a novel community-based program addressing the intersecting issues of sex work and abuse using a coercive control framework.
The stakes are high in the civil society sector. When we make mistakes, violence can escalate and people can be hurt. In their first book, Andrea Silverstone and Carrie McManus call for a sense of urgency and responsibility in pursuing innovative solutions to achieving social change.
We’re all about finding the best way to do things. Community needs can change on a dime, and our structure is such that we can meet those needs almost immediately. We pride ourselves on being versatile, fierce, and flexible. Through a combination of experience, research and experimentation, innovation has led Sagesse down a path of groundbreaking programs, audacious goals, and inspiring advocacy.
What’s at stake is enormous. We have an ethical responsibility to do everything we can to eradicate domestic, and if we always do exactly what has been done, then we will never make the progress we want and need to see.
We also offer our innovation expertise to other nonprofits and businesses through our social enterprise called ByDesign. All revenue generated here is invested in Sagesse’s programs and services that are directly helping people across Alberta to heal from domestic abuse experiences, support others who have been impacted by domestic abuse, and eradicate domestic abuse in our province.
As a social enterprise dedicated to improvement, innovation, and challenging norms, ByDesign promotes real change. ByDesign began as a way to assist non-profits and organizations with instructional design, program facilitation, and consulting services. From there, we recognized the need to expand our influence and engage in widespread capacity building, community engagement, and overall social change.
We are pioneering a new industry of innovation to help organizations and businesses expand their capacities and unlock the potential for more powerful processes. Our social enterprise arm, ByDesign, not only allows us to flex our professional skills in new ways, but also allows us to bring in additional funding to Sagesse.
Through ByDesign, we offer custom consulting services, facilitation, evaluation support, and curriculum development. Our tools will spark ground-breaking change in organizations, companies and government entities across Canada tackle complex and pervasive social issues in ways that are not only flexible and customizable but also relevant and courageous.
All revenue generated here is invested in Sagesse’s programs and services that are directly helping people across Alberta to heal from domestic abuse experiences or support others who have been impacted by domestic abuse.
In order to make lasting and meaningful changes, you have to understand the legacy and then let it go. You have to get comfortable with the unknown and trust the messiness. You must invest in your processes, your thought experiments and your research & development. You must accept risk mitigation over risk elimination, and you have to know your worth.
At Sagesse, we engage in all these things and more. We engage daily in the examination and dissection of our work and ourselves to find the answers we need to build something brave and different.
