The municipality in Sault Ste. Marie has partnered with a local business owner, college and school board to develop the Superior Skills program. Superior Skills provides eight-week intensive skills training to individuals in receipt of social assistance. Skills training is provided based on identified market gaps in the community; such as sewing, light recycling, spin farming, etc. At the end of the training program, the local business owner incorporates a new company for program graduates to begin employment. The goal is to employ 60% of program graduates at the newly formed businesses.
Prevention
Proactively reducing identified risks
Planning in the area of prevention involves proactively implementing evidence-based situational measures, policies or programs to reduce locally-identified priority risks to community safety and well-being before they result in crime, victimization and/or harm. In this area, community members who are not specialists in “safety and well-being” may have to be enlisted depending on the priority risk, such as business owners, if the risk is retail theft, and property managers, if the risk is occurring in their building. Service providers, community agencies and organizations will need to share data and information about things like community assets, crime and disorder trends, vulnerable people and places, to identify priority risks within the community in order to plan and respond most effectively. Successful planning in this area may indicate whether people are participating more in risk-based programs, are feeling safe and less fearful, and that greater engagement makes people more confident in their own abilities to prevent harm. While planning in this area is important, municipalities, First Nations and their partners should be focusing their efforts on developing and/or enhancing strategies in the social development area to ensure that risks are mitigated before they become a priority that needs to be addressed through prevention.
Based on an identified priority risk within their community, Kenora has implemented Stop Now And Plan, which teaches children and their parents emotional regulation, self-control and problem-solving skills. involved in this initiative include a local mental health agency, two school boards and the police. Partners Additional information on this program, and others that could be used as strategies in the prevention area of the plan (e.g., Caring Dads and Triple P – Positive Parenting Program), can be found in the Snapshot of Local Voices booklet.
Risk Intervention
Mitigating situations of elevated risk
Planning in the risk intervention area involves multiple sectors working together to address situations where there is an elevated risk of harm - stopping something bad from happening, right before it is about to happen. Risk intervention is intended to be immediate and prevent an incident, whether it is a crime, victimization or from occurring, while reducing the need for, and systemic reliance on, incident response. Collaboration harm, and information sharing between agencies on things such as types of risk has been shown to create partnerships and allow for collective analysis of risk-based data, which can inform strategies in the prevention and social development areas. To determine the success of strategies in this area, performance metrics collected may demonstrate increased access to and confidence in social supports, decreased victimization rates and the number of emergency room visits. Municipalities, First Nations and their partners should be focusing their efforts on developing and/or enhancing strategies in the prevention area to ensure that individuals do not reach the point of requiring an immediate risk intervention.