Our Vision

A world without violence where individuals, relationships, families, and communities are safe, empowered, and healthy.

Our Mission

Nova Vita provides safety and support for people experiencing gender-based violence, delivers programs that promote accountability and change for those who cause harm, and works with community partners to strengthen prevention and coordinated responses.

building with garden

Our Values

At Nova Vita, we are and value:

  • Trauma-Informed: We practice the principles of trauma-informed care – safety, choice, trust, collaboration, empowerment, and equity – and create environments that reflect these principles for those we serve and those who do this work.
  • Equity & Inclusion: We work to reduce systemic barriers and ensure our services are accessible, relevant, and responsive to the diverse communities we serve, including Indigenous peoples, racialized individuals, 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, newcomers, and people with disabilities.
  • Leadership: We contribute our expertise to strengthen community awareness, partnerships, and system responses to gender-based violence. 
  • Effectiveness: We deliver high-quality services that respond to evolving needs, and we use evidence, data, and experience to continuously strengthen our impact. 
  • Accountability: We are accountable to the people we serve, our community, our funders, and those who do this work. We are transparent in our decisions, actions, and use of resources.
  • Community-Focused: We are responsive to the needs of our community and work alongside our partners to strengthen coordinated, local responses to gender-based violence.

Our Strategic Plan

Workforce Capacity & Well-Being

Nova Vita will be a stable, well-resourced workplace with strong retention, competitive compensation, and clear pathways for staff growth and well-being.

Organizational Foundation & Leadership

Nova Vita will have a clear, sustainable structure with defined roles, strong leadership capacity, and aligned systems.

Role in the System

Nova Vita is a recognized leader in the gender-based violence prevention and response in Brantford and Brant County, with a clearly defined and valued role within the local gender-based violence response system.

Intentional Growth

Nova Vita will grow selectively and sustainably, based on clearly defined priorities and organizational capacity.

2026-2029 Strategic Plan Coming Soon

Our Board of Directors

Nova Vita Domestic Violence Prevention Services is governed by a Board of Directors, consisting of dedicated community members who volunteer their time and service to lead our organization.

2025-2026 Board of Directors:

Patricia Lovelock, President

Shannon McMannis, Vice-President

Rae-Lynne Aramburo, Secretary

Safi Hafiz-Zadeh, Treasurer

Paul Oddi, Director

Susan Swackhammer, Director

Candis McInnes, Director

Michaela Kargus, Director

Odion Akhirevbulu, Director

Emily O’Kell, Director

Ben Strasser, Director

Thank you to our board members, past and present, for volunteering your time, expertise, and leadership to make a difference in support of women and families impacted by violence and homelessness. 

Partners & Memberships

Nova Vita is A Proud Member Of

Nova Vita is A Proud Associate Member Of

Nova Vita is A Proud Member of the Following Committees

Our History

In the early 1980s a group of Brant County citizens became concerned that there were no facilities for abused women and their children in Brantford and Brant County. Supported by the results of a needs study, a local community group led efforts to open a transition home for abused women and their children.

house

A Board of Directors was formed and became incorporated under the name “Nova Vita Women’s Shelter Incorporated” in October 1982. The name Nova Vita comes from the Latin “Nova Vitae” meaning “new life” and epitomizes our goal of helping women and children who have experienced abuse make the transition to a new life, free from violence.

Nova Vita Women’s Shelter Incorporated opened with 18 beds on June 1, 1983 and on that very first day a woman and her two children were welcomed into the safety of the newly renovated house, our emergency shelter on Chatham Street.

In February 1995, we moved into our new facility at 59 North Park Street. This expanded operation, with 18 beds, allowed Nova Vita to better serve individuals and families in the community. The building we now call home is completely wheelchair accessible with large children’s play areas.

We changed our name to Nova Vita Women’s Services. In this same year, Nova Vita began offering services to men who were perpetrators or victims of domestic violence through group and individual counselling. We have provided these services for over 20 years in which they have grown to include the Partner Assault Response Program for both men and women, as well as the S.C.R.I.B.E program for men who are at-risk of becoming abusive towards their partners.

First charity Golf Tournament to raise funds to support Nova Vita programs and services.

First time ever, Nova Vita could not accommodate every woman and child who came to our door in need of safe shelter and support.

Funding from Ontario Government allowed us to launch our children’s program. In collaboration with the BRAVE Committee, the Refrigerator Door was developed; a handbook that served as a comprehensive, community resource toolkit for women seeking to leave abusive relationships and connect with other local supports to meet their needs.

Nova Vita completed a $2.8 million dollar addition and renovation to our building on North Park Street. Funding from the Municipal Government allowed us to offer 10 additional beds for women and children who were experiencing homelessness for a total of 33 beds. In this same year, Nova Vita solidified its formal partnership with Brant Family and Children’s Services (now Child & Family Services of Grand Erie). This partnership afforded both agencies with the opportunity to better assess support support for families who have been impacted by domestic violence through collaborative service delivery. The partnership also included the ability for Brant Family and Children’s Service Workers to have their offices located directly on-site at Nova Vita.

On May 6, 2005 we officially opened Maria House – A Home for Families in Transition conveniently located next to our main building. This second stage transitional home with independent living and support provided greater opportunities for women and their children to build resilience through a wrap-around service delivery model.

Also in 2005, we changed our operating name to Nova Vita Domestic Violence Prevention Services to better reflect the diversity of programs and services that we offer. Nova Vita Domestic Violence Prevention Services is the only organization in Brantford and Brant County dedicated to helping both the victims and perpetrators of domestic abuse.

Fueled by the success of Maria House, we expanded our second stage transitional house and built an addition to accommodate six more apartments to call home.

Due to the growing need of families who were experiencing high conflict relationships and struggles with effective co-parenting, Nova Vita created the Caring Families program, which was further supported by a comprehensive research evaluation. Caring Families offer support to mothers, fathers, and their children and is delivered in concurrent group structure. Also in this same year, in partnership with Brant Family and Children’s Services, we began our Differential Response program where staff from both organization meet with each parent/caregiver separately to further asses the family’s individuals and collective needs to ensure a comprehensive service plan is developed.

Nova Vita hosted its first event in recognition of International Women’s Day to raise funds to support Nova Vita programs and services.

Nova Vita held its first Men in Heels: Standing Tall Together Against Domestic Violence event, with all proceeds going directly to support our residential services. In the same year, through the financial support of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, we began the Hairspray Project; a collaboration with local salon professionals to provide crucial information about the impacts of domestic violence and how to recognize the signs of domestic violence.

In efforts to raise additional funds for our services, Nova Vita opened Closet Couture Boutique; a social enterprise that provides customers with quality clothing at affordable prices to generate financial support, while also offsetting the high volume of clothing donations we receive every day.

Closet Couture Boutique moved from its original location at 222 King George Road to the location at 415 Fairview Drive.

Also in 2018, Nova Vita completed a Multicultural Community Capacity Grant through the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration, to connect community service organizations and women from Multicultural Communities. We focused on women’s social connections and provided opportunities for developing cooking, food handling, and creativity skills, along with practicing English vocabulary, developing entrepreneurial skills and increasing knowledge of resources for business development.

With funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation, Nova Vita continued to foster community engagement to build the capacity of parents, caregivers, and professionals of children exposed to high-conflict and/or domestic violence through a trauma-informed lens.

Also in 2019, Nova Vita was successful in receiving a 4-year grant from the Government of Canada’s Department of Women and Gender Equality, to continue promoting social and system change towards gender equality. This opportunity enabled us to better foster relationships with multicultural and Indigenous communities and to enhance our strategic planning, policy development, and community engagement endeavours in order to embrace diversity and inclusion for women and girls affected by violence.

The 2019-20 fiscal year was a year of transformation. Our Board of Directors, management team, staff, and community partners all took part in reflecting on our organization’s strengths and challenges, and what we envision for Nova Vita. Through this process we developed a new logo coupled with a new website design and layout, inspiring hope and growth, which we debuted at our 2019 Annual General Meeting. We reimagined our vision of the world we are striving towards and aligned our mission to the work we are doing, underscoring the complexity of preventing, intervening, and responding to interpersonal violence and abuse. We solidified and articulated our value statements to lay the foundation of our organization and to clearly represent the way in which we do our work.

In response to the added risk for safety brought on by increased isolation during the global pandemic, Nova Vita invested in innovative solutions to connect with those in need. With generous funding from the Canadian Women’s Foundation, our text and online chat service is another way for individuals experiencing violence or homelessness to connect with Nova Vita. Our staff are available 24/7 to offer emotional support, safety planning, information on our services, referrals to community resources, and guidance on how to support someone in an abusive relationship. Learn more at novavita.org/chat.

In partnership with the Brant OPP, the Victim Support Grant improved support for individuals and families living in Brant County impacted by domestic violence or human trafficking. Program initiatives included: the creation of public education and awareness materials, trauma informed training for emergency services personnel, and the hiring of additional staff to expand services and outreach supports to rural communities. Timing for the VSG Project aligned with the opening of our satellite office at the Cowan Community Health Hub in Paris, ON.

2023 marked the anniversary of Nova Vita providing 40 Years of Hope to the Community we serve. It was on June 9, 1983, the very first night we opened our doors, and we welcomed a woman and her two children into Nova Vita. Since that first night over 25,000 individuals and families experiencing violence, abuse, and homelessness have accessed our services since we first opened our doors 40 years ago.

Nova Vita values diversity, equity, and inclusion. As part of a four year grant from the Government of Canada’s Women and Gender Equality(WAGE) we were able to complete a full redesign of our program brochure to include translated versions into seven languages, helping to improve the accessibility of our vital programs and services available to all members of our community. Languages available include: English, Arabic, French, Hindi, Punjabi, Spanish, Tagalog, and Ukrainian.

With our lease agreement ending and the rising costs of operating a retail store front, we made the difficult decision to close our social enterprise, Closet Couture Boutique, in order to focus on our vital programs and services.

Nova Vita continues to engage in evaluative research of its many programs and services in partnership with a variety of educational institutions. Nova Vita also continues to seek out additional funding by acquiring government grants to further grow and support our services. These grants have facilitated the success for many programs that allowed for an increase in staffing, resources, and program development.

Nova Vita received a two-year grant from Ontario Stands (Standing Together Against Gender-Based Violence) to launch EPIC Action: Engaging Men and Youth to Reduce Gender-Based Violence. Focused on men and youth who are struggling in their relationships, the program uses a four-pronged approach—Education, Prevention, Intervention, and Coordination. Through this multi-faceted strategy, EPIC Action aims to reduce the impact of gender-based violence, fostering safer and healthier communities in Brantford and Brant County. This funding also supported the opening of a new satellite office for the Challenge to Change program, providing additional staffing and a dedicated space for individual and group counselling for men and youth.