Its history...

In 1965, Marguerite Séguin-Desnoyers opened the Centre Marie-Vincent in the heart of the Montreal Côte-des-Neiges district. The Centre was dedicated to helping five to twelve year-old boys and girls suffering from serious social and emotional problems. It offered them an education, as well as psychological support and psychiatric care provided by child psychiatrists from the Sainte-Justine Hospital.

In 1966, the Québec Social Welfare Department officially recognized the Centre Marie-Vincent, which became public and received an operating budget. In 1969, a new facility was built on Côte-Vertu Boulevard in the City of Saint-Laurent. Because the quarters quickly became too crowded, the Social Welfare Department recommended that the Centre Marie-Vincent only takes in girls and their families.

In 1975, the Marie-Vincent Foundation was created and its financial contributions enabled the Centre Marie-Vincent to increase its services significantly. From the start, the Foundation organized successful fundraising campaigns by calling upon the private sector. With funds gathered at its annual fundraising evening, the Foundation was able to open and operate a weekend drop-in centre for young girls from dysfunctional families.

Throughout the years, due to pressing needs and limited available resources, the Foundation extended the scope of its mission to focus on the case of young victims of sexual abuse. It also catered to children who did not attend the Centre Marie-Vincent on a daily basis. The Foundation was already planning to create a resource to develop the expertise needed to deal with this particularly disturbing problem. Their vision was made a reality in 2005.

The Foundation severed its ties with the Centre Marie-Vincent in 1994, when the Government of Québec initiated a comprehensive reform of its youth facilities and implemented its “Centres jeunesse”.

The Foundation was managing a large fund at the time, so it redefined its mission to provide services to all children under twelve who were victims of maltreatment, and to their families, but particularly to young victims of sexual abuse.

In 2005, thirty years after its creation and thanks to the Government of Québec, to numerous partners from the private sector and valuable collaborators, the Foundation inaugurated the Centre d’expertise en agression sexuelle Marie-Vincent and created the Marie-Vincent Interuniversity Chair on child sexual abuse.