The community safety and well-being planning framework is intended to get municipalities, First Nations and their partners thinking in new ways about local issues and potential solutions by exploring options to address risks through social development, prevention and risk intervention. While this may spark interest in beginning a local collaborative planning process, there are several factors that will be critical to the successful development and implementation of a plan.

The following critical success factors should be taken into consideration when developing a plan:

  • strength-based
  • risk-focused
  • awareness and understanding
  • highest level commitment
  • effective partnerships
  • evidence and evaluation
  • cultural responsiveness

Strength-based

Community safety and well-being planning is not about reinventing the wheel — it’s about recognizing the great work already happening within individual agencies and organizations, and using collaboration to do more with local experience and expertise. Ontario communities are full of hard-working, knowledgeable and committed individuals who want to make their communities safe and healthy places, and it is important to leverage these individuals when developing a plan. Helpful information and guidance may also be found by talking to other communities in order to build on their successes and lessons learned.

Community safety and well-being touches every resident and is important to all aspects of our community — from education to health to economic development. It is an area of community planning in which many community members are greatly interested and excited to be involved.
Lianne Sauter, Town of Bancroft

Risk-focused

Community safety and well-being planning is based on an idea that has been a focus of the health sector for many years — it is far more effective, efficient and beneficial to an individual’s quality of life to prevent something bad from happening rather than trying to find a “cure” after the fact. For that reason, local plans should focus on risks, not incidents, and should target the circumstances, people and places that are most vulnerable to risk. As a long-term prevention strategy, it is more effective to focus on why something is happening (i.e., a student has undiagnosed Attention Deficit Disorder and challenges in the home) than on what is happening (for example, a student is caught skipping school). Risks should be identified using the experiences, information and data of community members and partners to highlight the issues that are most significant and prevalent in the community. For example, many communities are engaging a wide range of local agencies and organizations to discuss which risks they come across most often, and are compiling available data to do additional analysis of trends and patterns of risk to focus on in their plan.

Awareness and understanding

Community safety and well-being planning requires that each community member understands their role in making the community a safe and healthy place to live. It is important to engage individuals, groups, agencies, organizations and elected officials to work collaboratively and promote awareness and understanding of the purpose and benefits of a strategic, long-term plan to address community risks. For example, it may be more helpful to speak about outcomes related to improved quality of life in the community – like stronger families and neighbourhoods – rather than reduced crime. This is not just about preventing crime. This is about addressing the risks that lead individuals to crime, and taking a hard look at the social issues and inequalities that create risk in the first place. Potential partners will likely need to understand what they are getting into — and why — before they fully commit time and resources.

I think it is important to change the conversation early on in the process. A social development approach to community safety and well-being is a marathon rather than a sprint.
Susan Evenden, City of Brantford

Highest level commitment

As the municipality has the authority, resources, breadth of services and contact with the public to address risk factors and to facilitate community partnerships, Ontario communities confirmed that municipalities are best placed to lead the community safety and well-being planning process. In First Nations communities, obtaining buy-in from the Chief and Band Council will provide a strong voice in supporting community safety and well-being planning. This type of planning is a community-wide initiative that requires dedication and input from a wide range of sectors, agencies, organizations and groups. To ensure that all the right players are at the table, it is critical to get commitment from local political leadership, heads of agencies and organizations, as well as other key decision-makers who can champion the cause and ensure that their staff and resources are available to support the planning process.

Effective partnerships

No single individual, agency or organization can fully own the planning exercise — a plan will only be as effective as the partnerships and multi-sector collaboration that exist among those developing and implementing the plan. Due to the complex nature of many of the issues that impact the safety and well-being of individuals, families and communities, including poverty, mental health issues, addictions, and domestic violence, a wide range of agencies, organizations and services need to be involved to create comprehensive, sustainable solutions. This may begin through communication between service providers, where information is exchanged to support meaningful relationships while maintaining separate objectives and programs. Cooperation between agencies and organizations is mutually beneficial because it means that they provide assistance to each other on respective activities. Coordination takes partnerships a step further through joint planning and organization of activities and achievement of mutual objectives. Collaboration is when individuals, agencies or organizations are willing to compromise and work together in the interest of mutual gains or outcomes. Working in this way will be critical to the development of an effective, multi-sector plan. Many municipalities, First Nations and their partners that are developing local plans have found that having a dedicated coordinator is very helpful in supporting and facilitating collaboration among all the different partners involved in the development of the plan. As partners work together and find new and more effective ways of tackling common challenges, they may begin to operate in convergence, which involves the restructuring of services, programs, budgets, objectives and/or staff.

Evidence and evaluation

Before a plan can be developed, it will be important to gather information and evidence to paint a clear picture of what is happening in the community to support the identification of local priority risks. Some communities have already started to gather and analyze data from various sources, including Statistics Canada, police and crime data, as well as data on employment levels, educational attainment rates, social services and health care information. If gaps in service or programming are found in locally-identified areas of risk, research should be done to determine the most appropriate evidence-based response to be put into place. On the other hand, communities that already have evidenced-based strategies in place that directly respond to a local priority risk identified in their plan should review each strategy to ensure outcome measures are established and that they are showing a positive impact. Depending on these results, enhancing or expanding these strategies should be considered. Once a completed plan is implemented, data and information will be equally critical in order to evaluate how effective it has been in addressing the priority risks and creating positive changes in the community. The same data and information sources that indicated from the beginning that housing and homelessness, for example, was a priority risk in the community, should be revisited and reviewed to determine whether that risk has been reduced. Sharing evidence that the plan is creating better outcomes for community members will help to build trust and support for the implementing partner agencies and organizations, the planning process, and the plan itself.

Cultural responsiveness

Cultural responsiveness is the ability to effectively interact with, and respond to, the needs of diverse groups of people in the community. Being culturally responsive is a process that begins with having an awareness and knowledge of different cultures and practices, as well as one’s own cultural worldview. It involves being open to, and respectful of, cultural differences and developing skills and knowledge to build effective cross-cultural relationships. It also includes developing strategies and programs that consider social and historical contexts, systemic and interpersonal power imbalances, acknowledge the needs and worldviews of different groups, and respond to the specific inequities they face.

  • cultural awareness - acknowledging differences
  • cultural sensitivity - respecting differences
  • cultural competency - developing skills and knowledge
  • cultrual safety - self-reflection, empathy and advocacy

As part of the planning process, community safety and well-being plans should take into consideration, at a minimum, the following elements of diversity, as well as how these elements intersect and shape the experiences of individuals/groups (for example, increasing risks to harm, victimization and crime):

  • ethnicity (for example, racialized communities, Indigenous communities)
  • gender identity and sexual orientation (for example, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, two-spirited, intersex, queer and questioning)
  • religion
  • socioeconomic status
  • education
  • age (for example, seniors, youth)
  • living with a disability
  • citizenship status (for example, newcomers, immigrants, refugees)
  • regional location (for example, living in northern, rural, remote areas)

Communities should tailor programs and strategies to the unique needs and strengths of different groups, as well as to address the distinct risk factors they face. Planners should strive towards inclusion in their communities by proactively removing barriers to participation and engaging diverse groups in meaningful ways.

See Appendix B for engaging youth, Appendix C for engaging seniors, and Appendix D for engaging Indigenous partners.

Conclusion

Municipalities, First Nations and their partners should be considering the critical success factors throughout the process of developing, implementing, reviewing, evaluating and updating the plan. The next section will connect the community safety and well-being planning framework and critical success factors to practical advice and guidance when undergoing this planning process.