Centre for Health Promotion, Public Health Agency of Canada

Public Health Agency of Canada
997D Jeanne Mance Building
200 Eglatine Driveway
Tunney's Pasture, Ottawa,
Ontario, CANADA
K1A 1B4

The FVI is composed of 14 government departments and a joint committee with provincial and territorial governments that work on various policy, program and research activities aimed at reducing family violence. The FVI addresses all forms of abuse within relationships of kinship, intimacy, dependency and trust. The FVI works on issues such as: child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, elder abuse, and dating violence; specific populations such as abuse of persons with disabilities, Aboriginal peoples, new immigrants/visible minorities; risk factors such as mental health, poverty, and homelessness; and across the continuum of violence from prevention in the health system to intervention through the justice system and corrections.

The National Clearinghouse on Family Violence - operating on behalf of the FVI - is a national resource centre for information about family violence which includes free publications, an extensive library reference collection, video library, and an extensive website. The NCFV also maintains directories of services across the country to provide resources to individuals and organizations in their local communities.

The Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS) is directed and funded by the Health Surveillance and Epidemiology Division of PHAC. This study is a collaborative effort between a national team of researchers and provincial and territorial government as well as the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society. The CIS is an important part of the Public Health Agency's child surveillance activities. PHAC also leads policy, programming and research on the healthy development of children and youth, seniors, mental health and surveillance on unintentional injuries.

VPA focal person

Cecilia Van Egmond
Chair, Government of Canada Family Violence Initiative & Manager, Family Violence Prevention Unit, Healthy Communities Division, Centre for Health Promotion at the Public Health Agency of Canada
Tel: +1-613-941-9125
Fax: +1-613-941-8930
Email: cecilia_van_egmond@phac-aspc.gc.ca

Cecilia Van Egmond has a BA in Humanities and Political Science at York University and an MA in International Affairs from the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs in Ottawa specializing in research on vulnerable children. Cecilia has worked on child custody and access issues under Senator Landon Pearson, war-affected children for the Department of Foreign Affairs and coordinated the Government of Canada's implementation and reporting on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child through the Department of Health Canada in partnership with the Department of Justice.

She was part of the Government of Canada's negotiating team for the UN Special Session on Children and led the federal government's efforts to develop a National Plan of Action for Children following the Special Session. Since March 2005, Cecilia Van Egmond is the Chair of the Family Violence Initiative (FVI) for the Government of Canada and Manager of the Family Violence Prevention Unit, Healthy Communities Division at Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).