New grants worth $15 million to help address family violence have arrived on the scene because of wise counsel from rural Alberta, the minister of children and family services says.

Emergency family violence shelters in small-town Alberta “created the impetus” for the three new funding streams, Searle Turton told The Macleod Gazette.

“They were looking for more innovative grant streams, ones with flexible options to meet their specific geographic concerns,” he said.

Turton’s comments came a day after a Sept. 2 announcement of staggered closing dates for applications under grants the province teased in July.

First up is a $4-million envelope called the Facility Grant Pilot Program, with money available for upgrades and maintenance of eligible women’s shelters for roofing, heating and ventilation projects. Applications for the capital grants close Sept. 29.

Requests for new or increased dollar support to “adapt to changing community needs and strengthen services” are supported through a new operational fund that sets aside $5.1 million. Applications close Oct. 6.

And the Regional Collaboration and Innovation Grant, worth $5.8 million in total, supports projects over two years to help groups build partnerships, improve coordination and develop innovative emergency family violence services. Applications close Oct. 15.

The new grants are part of an advancement of Alberta’s 10-year strategy to end gender-based violence. Released in May 2025, it’s putting more than $188 million this fiscal year towards expanding prevention efforts and increasing access to supports and services.

The funding includes more than $93 million for the prevention of family and sexual violence, supporting women’s shelters and sexual assault centres.

Children and Family Services supports 31 women’s emergency shelters, 19 second-stage shelters, two alternative service delivery models, five fee-for-service shelters in First Nations communities and the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters. The ministry also recently provided funding for 15 sexual assault centres and their umbrella group, the Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services, along with eight child advocacy groups.

The three new streams follow a rocky reception to a needs-based assessment system, which the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters said in late May reduced funding for over a dozen shelters, most of them rural.

The province then course corrected with the announcement of $700,000 in transitional funding to give service providers — many in less populated centres — extra preparation time.

The minister said the government has been working on the shift to needs-based funding for three years and that the shelters knew it was coming.

“There also came questions about specific concerns and challenges in rural areas that are not the same as the ones in the large urban areas of Calgary or Edmonton,” said Turton, who represents Spruce Grove-Stony Plain.

Flexibility for regional collaboration is big for the shelters, because often they don’t have the traffic or money on their own for the tools or service to meet all needs.

“I’m very thankful that our ministry at this time has been able to help provide these options for rural shelters.”

Turton said recent changes in his ministry’s approach have been groundbreaking and are getting attention from other provinces.

“This is probably the largest transformation and addition of improvements in family violence, sexual assault and child advocacy centres that we have had in decades,” he said.

Although the results of the changes haven’t been fully measured, the province does know that increasing numbers of Albertans are using the services.

“Instead of just having silos for different agencies around the province, we are now truly supporting a spectrum of care that residents are able to access,” Turton said.

“We realize that there’s a lot more that can be done, but because of our efforts there are a lot of Albertans being looked after that otherwise would not have had the opportunity to access these services,” he added.

By George Lee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Original Published on Sep 08, 2026 at 18:43

This item reprinted with permission from   Fort Macleod Gazette   Fort Macleod, Alberta

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