Saskatchewan has the highest rate of intimate partner violence in per capita in Canada and a Warman man knows the consequences.
Ken Wynes was three when his father killed his mother, who was a nurse, in 1970. He lived with his grandparents, who weren’t offered any professional help dealing with the grief or raising him and his seven-year-old brother, he said.
“I felt really isolated and alone. I didn't have contact with my paternal side of the family. Not with him, who went to jail, my father. So I essentially lost half of my family tree,” Wynes told CTV News.
His grandparents died when he was 12. He was sent to live with his first foster family. It was a negative experience and sent him into deep depression.
However his second foster family was “amazing” at helping him through tough times, he said.
He doesn’t have many keepsakes of his mother except for a few photos and her wedding ring.
Now 51, he has a family of his own. He has been working as a social worker for 28 years, mostly helping teenagers.
He is part of a Stop Domestic Violence conference starting Tuesday in Saskatoon at the Radisson Hotel. It’s organized in part by his wife, who is also a social worker.
"It's not just for front line workers, again we want to expand it because there are millions of dollars lost due to missing work or sick time, those types of things, due to employees that are involved in domestic violence or violence in the home," Treena Wynes said.
