An open letter to Premier Alison Redford,
Hello, my name is Brandi Robinson and I am writing to you as a parent in support of Little Warriors, and it’s Be Brave Ranch it is building. I have three children who have come into my life in the past two years through adoption or fostering. Recently I reached out to Little Warriors as a parent of a child who has been sexually abused prior to her placement with me. My middle daughter came to me in January of 2011 and was adopted in September of the same year. About three or four months after being placed with me she disclosed that she had been raped repeatedly in her past and had spent the first six, almost seven years of her life suffering repeated, habitual and tortuous sexual assaults. She then endured, questioning, giving her testimony and repeating her disclosures at The Zebra Center here in Edmonton and soon after started counseling with a psychologist. As a parent it was heart-wrenching watching my daughter go through this, but this heartache was only a prelude to the anguish that was to come. You see Honorable Redford, though my daughter disclosed her abuses well over a year ago and has benefitted from nearly weekly counseling sessions, her healing has not really begun. Even tonight I sit up writing this letter to you at 1:45 a.m. as she has been up three times already with night terrors over the things that these predators did to her. To see her get no relief for her pain tears me apart as a parent. To hear her scream at me because I didn’t rescue her soon enough wounds me so deeply. I can only offer her a band aid for the gushing wounds she has inside her heart and I cannot bear to see another child, another mother, another family endure this pain any longer.
The thing that gets me through all the days and nights like tonight is knowing that help is on its way for my daughter in the form of the Be Brave Ranch, a treatment center for all of our broken children crippled by child sexual abuse. But that help cannot get here soon enough. Though multiple facilities exist in Canada to rehabilitate the offenders of child sexual abuse, there is no facility in all of Canada that can rehabilitate the shattered lives of these children. The Be Brave Ranch being built by Little Warriors will do this by offering centralized, specialized, intensive and multi-disciplinary therapy to these kids to help rebuild their trust, their self-esteem and heal the emotional damage these crimes cause. Little Warriors has already raised a third of its budget to build the ranch. But my question to you Mrs. Redford is where is the Alberta Government’s support on this crucial issue? There are 8 million survivors of child sexual assault in Canada, 8 million people who are impacted daily for the rest of their lives, 8 million people who didn’t get the healing that this ranch will offer. Think of the lives that can be impacted by supporting the Be Brave Ranch and Alberta’s most valuable resource, our children.
I am asking you as the Premier of this great province to put our kids on the priority list, take a stand that these special children deserve a place to heal, and offer your support for the Be Brave Ranch. Financial support, not only now, but in the future in funding the beds that my daughter will sleep in to find some reprieve from the horrendous pain she is in. I’m asking that the Little Warriors Be Brave Ranch be a source of pride for all Albertans as the first place in all of Canada to offer such innovative treatment to children who had no choice in the dark paths they must now walk. Little Warriors cannot do it without the support of this province’s government. I urge you to contact the Little Warriors Founder Glori Meldrum and take a stand that the Premier of Alberta will support this facility and stand behind it in the future.
Thank you for your time in this crucial matter. Sincerely,
Brandi Robinson, Morinville
Thank you for writing this, Brandi. I hope she hears it, really hears it, and takes action.