Alberta communities looking to prevent crime may be motivated by Red Deer’s Community Safety Strategy.
Darlene Wilson, a Red Deer Social Planning community facilitator who was integrally involved in the strategy’s development in 2016, will speak at the Alberta Community Crime Prevention Association’s annual conference May 8-10 in Edmonton.
“I’m going to talk about the effort that went into creating the strategy, the community engagement processes and the implementation, which is the phase we’re in right now,” said Wilson.
Wilson said the association was interested in having the strategy discussed at the conference.
“Red Deer is one of the first communities in Alberta to engage in a process with the community to form a safety strategy,” Wilson said.
“I think the rest of the province would like to see how things are going with our progress. The hope is to offer some information, awareness and perhaps some motivation to others looking to do the same thing.”
The goal of the strategy is to identify what changes Red Deer needs to make to be safer.
“The whole purpose … was to engage the community and work with them in a collaborative spirit,” said Wilson.
In 2014, Red Deer council created the Community Safety Ad Hoc Committee to develop the first local strategy for community safety and crime prevention.
The committee engaged with the community through surveys, focus groups and other means.
Two years later council adopted the strategy, which aims to bring individuals, agencies and organizations together to build on existing community assets.
READ MORE: City council adopts community safety strategy
The committee is now working on implementing the key strategies into the community, such as forming a collaborative group with multiple stakeholders to help prevent crime.
“We want to do things with the community. The city does not own community safety – it’s of everyone’s interest,” she said. “Implementing the strategy really requires every Red Deerian, every family, neighbourhood and organization to find their place in the strategy.”
Wilson said other municipalities across the countries are working on their own community safety strategies as well.
Wilson’s excited for the upcoming conference, she added.
“The array of speakers is fantastic,” she said. The conference “gets better each year – I’ve gone for the last couple years now.”
For more information on the Community Safety Strategy visit www.reddeer.ca.
sean.mcintosh@reddeeradvocate.com
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