INSIDE: Cops set to ride in Tour de Valley T H U R S D A Y
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September 19, 2013
Mission peewees perfect
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E N T E R T A I N M E N T abbotsfordtimes.com
Revoked! Teacher’s certificate suspended ROCHELLE BAKER RBaker@abbotsfordtimes.com
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he wife of a former Abbotsford Catholic school teacher convicted of sexting a student has had her own teaching certificate suspended because she covered up her husband’s activities. Sandra Careen, a teacher at St. John Brebeuf Secondary, was handed a five-month suspension starting Sept. 1 by the B.C. Teacher Regulation Branch (TRB). Careen was investigated after it came to light that she
Abbotsford Catholic teacher suspended for concealing that her husband sexted student knew her husband, Martin Careen, also a former teacher at St. John Brebeuf, had been sending inappropriate messages to a student at the school and hadn’t reported the activity. Martin was convicted of invitation to sexual touching in July 2011 after engaging in sexually explicit text messages with a 17-year-old student at SJB, part of the Catholic
Independent Schools of Vancouver Archdiocese. The messages were sent from a mobile phone registered in Sandra Careen’s name. During Martin’s trial, telephone records from the night of Jan. 27, 2009 show that he and the victim spoke on the phone and texted about an upcoming exam. The inappropriate texts
began after 11 p.m. and contained innuendo and talk of sexual acts and preferences. Ac c o rd i n g t o t h e T R B investigation, two days after the exchange, the student approached Sandra Careen, her homeroom and English teacher, and told her about the offending text messages but wouldn’t say who sent them. The next day, Jan. 29, 2009, the victim met with Sandra Careen again and told her the texts had been sent by her husband. see SEXTING, page A7
– FILE PHOTO
Sandra Careen, left, has had her teacher’s certificate suspended for concealing the fact that her husband, former Abbotsford Catholic teacher Martin Careen, right, sexted a student.
Women’s centre closing its doors at the end of the month Negotiations for prospective new home ongoing CHRISTINA TOTH CToth@abbotsfordtimes.com
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ore than four years after the Abbotsford women’s drop-in centre opened, the Warm Zone will close its doors at its McCallum Road site at the end of the month. But it will be opening in a new place, somewhere not too far away, say its operators. “We’re feeling positive about finding a place. We’re in conversations right now,” said Dorothy Henneveld, executive director of the Women’s Resource Society of the Fraser Valley. The centre’s staff members are packing up files and furniture now to make the move by Sept. 30, she said Friday. The agency began with outreach work in 2006, meeting for coffee and building relationships with local street-
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–– JEAN KONDA-WITTE/TIMES
Warm Zone co-ordinator Michele Giordano is in the midst of packing up as the drop-in centre for women at risk is moving from its current downtown Abbotsford spot to another as-yet unconfirmed site at the end of September. entrenched women, many who were in the sex trade and had addictions and mental health problems. After obtaining temporary
funding from the Status of Women Canada to run a pilot project, the WRSFV opened a physical space in March 2009 near downtown Abbotsford,
where most of the women plied their trade. “We outgrew our current location within a few months of opening. We really need
more space. The [current] landlord has been gracious enough to let us stay on this long,” she said Friday. The Warm Zone offers the
women a safe place to take a break from their risky lifestyles. Thirty to 40 women visit the centre every day, and from 120 to 150 different women come in every month, said Warm Zone co-ordinator Michele Giordano. They can get a meal or a coffee, nap for a few hours, have a shower, do laundry and talk with counsellors. Volunteers come to give haircuts or just have conversations. Some of the women have even been involved in an art project in which they created and painted masks – these have been shown in The Reach Gallery and Museum for the past three summers. It hasn’t been an easy ride, as funding was been sporadic during its first three years as a pilot program. However, Henneveld said last week that she is “feeling very positive” about continued stable funding from a pair of sources, although she could not reveal details yet. see SHELTER, page A7
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