This section is meant to connect the community safety and well-being planning framework and critical success factors of community safety and well-being planning with the operational practice of developing, implementing, reviewing, evaluating and updating the plan. There is no right or wrong first or last step. Communities have suggested that it can take anywhere between one to two years to develop a plan, and those with the municipality or Band Council in a lead role made the most headway. To provide additional operational support and resources, Section 6 includes a toolkit of guidance documents that builds on the following concepts and identifies specific tools in each area for consideration:

  • obtaining collaborative commitment
  • creating buy-in
  • focusing on risk
  • assessing and leveraging community strengths
  • evidence and evaluation
  • putting the plan into action

Obtaining collaborative commitment

Demonstrated commitment from local governance, whether it is the municipality or Band Council, can have a significant impact on multi-sector buy-in, and is most effective if completed at the beginning of the planning process. This type of commitment can be demonstrated in various ways - through a council resolution, attending meetings, creating a coordinator position, realigning resources and/or creating awareness among staff. Collaboration exists in communities across Ontario, whether it is through strong bilateral partnerships or among multiple partners. The community safety and well-being planning process requires drawing on existing partnerships as well as creating new ones. This may involve leveraging an existing body, or creating a new structure to develop, refine or reaffirm outcomes, strategies and measures in social development, prevention, risk intervention and incident response. Commitment from multiple sectors will usually occur once they have an understanding of what community safety and well-being planning is meant to achieve and its benefits. Commitment may be solidified through agreeing upon goals, objectives, performance measurement and roles and responsibilities.

See Tool 1 for guidance on participants, roles and responsibilities, Tool 2 for guidance on start-up, and Tool 3 for guidance on asset mapping.

Creating buy-in

In order to ensure that each community member, agency and organization understands what community safety and well-being planning is, and to begin to obtain buy-in and create partnerships, municipalities, First Nations and their partners may choose to start by developing targeted communication materials. They may also wish to meet with and/or bring together service providers or community members and take the time to explain the community safety and well-being planning framework and important concepts and/or get their feedback on local risks. Designing a visual identity and creating marketing and/or promotional material may also help to obtain multi-sectoral buy-in and allow community members to identify with the plan.

See Tool 4 for guidance on engagement.

Focusing on risk

Engaging community members and service providers to document risks is the first step. The range of risks identified will be dependent on the sources of information, so it is important to engage through various methods, such as one-on-one interviews with multi-sectoral service providers, focus sessions with vulnerable groups, and/or surveys with public drop boxes. Risk identification and prioritization is the next task that should be done by looking at various sources of data and combining it with feedback from the community.

See Tool 4 for guidance on engagement and Tool 5 for analyzing community risks.

Assessing and leveraging community strengths

Achieving a community that is safe and well is a journey; before partners involved in the development of a plan can map out where they want to go, and how they will get there, they need to have a clear understanding of their starting point. It is important that community members do not see community safety and well-being planning as just another planning exercise or creation of a body. It is about identifying local priority risks and examining current strategies through a holistic lens to determine if the right sectors, agencies and organizations are involved or if there are overlaps or gaps in service or programming. Some communities may find there is a lack of coordination of existing strategies. To address this they should look at existing bodies and strategies and see how they can support the development and implementation of the plan. Other communities may discover that there are gaps in service delivery, and should do their best to fill these gaps through, for example, the realignment of existing resources. As every community is different in terms of need and resources, it is recognized that some communities, such as some First Nations communities, may experience difficulties identifying existing strategies due to a lack of resources. It may be of value for some communities to collaborate with neighbouring municipalities and/or First Nations communities to create joint community safety and well-being plans. For example, where capacity and resources are limited, or many services are delivered across jurisdictions, communities can leverage the assets and strengths of neighbouring communities to create a joint plan that will address the needs of the area.

See Tool 3 for guidance on asset mapping.

Evidence and evaluation

Once risks are prioritized, if gaps in service or programming are found in any or all areas of the plan, research should be done to determine the most appropriate evidence-based response to be put into place to address that risk, while considering local capacity and resources. Some may find after risk prioritization that they already have evidence-based strategies in place that directly respond to identified risks that will be addressed in their plan. At the planning stage, it is important to identify the intended outcomes of those activities in order to measure performance and progress towards addressing identified risks through the development of a logic model and performance measurement framework. Some outcomes will be evident immediately after activities are implemented and some will take more time to achieve. Whether planning for promoting and maintaining community safety and well-being through social development, working to reduce identified risks, or mitigating elevated risk situations or incident responses, it is equally important for planning partners to set and measure their efforts against predetermined outcomes.

See Tool 6 for guidance on performance measurement.

Putting the plan into action

It is important to ensure that strategies put into place in each area of the plan for each priority are achievable based on local capacity and resources. To achieve success, the right individuals, agencies and organizations need to be involved, outcomes benchmarked, and responsibilities for measurement identified. Developing an implementation plan will help municipalities, First Nations and their partners stay organized by outlining who is doing what and when, in each planning area, who is reporting to whom, and the timing of progress and final reports. The date of the next safety and well-being planning cycle should align with the other relevant planning cycles (for example, municipal cycle) and budgeting activities to ensure alignment of partner resources and strategies. Once the plan is documented and agreed upon by multi-sector partners, it is then time to put it into action with regular monitoring, evaluation and updates to achieve community safety and well-being.

See Appendix G for a sample plan.

Conclusion

Municipalities, First Nations and their partners should consider these steps when planning for community safety and well-being. The most important considerations to remember when planning is that the framework is understood, the critical success factors exist in whole or in part, and that the plan responds to local needs in a systemic and holistic way.