Responsibilities of the Advisory Committee

• Leading community engagement sessions to inform the development of the plan.
• Determining the priorities of the plan, including references to risk factors, vulnerable populations and protective factors.
• Ensuring outcomes are established and responsibilities for measurement are in place and approving performance measures by which the plan will be evaluated, as well as the schedule and processes used to implement them.
• Ensuring each section/activity under the plan, for each priority risk, is achievable.
• Ensuring the right agencies/organizations and participants are designated for each activity.
• Owning, evaluating and monitoring the plan.
• Aligning implementation and evaluation of the plan with the municipal planning cycle and other relevant sector specific planning and budgeting activities to ensure alignment of partner resources and strategies.
• Setting a future date for reviewing achievements and developing the next version of the plan.
• Thinking about ways in which the underlying structures and systems currently in place can be improved to better enable service delivery.

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

Key Tasks of the Advisory Committee

• Developing and undertaking a broad community engagement strategy to build on the members’ awareness of local risks, vulnerable groups and protective factors.
• Developing and maintaining a dynamic data set, and ensuring its ongoing accuracy as new sources of information become available.
• Determining the priority risk(s) that the plan will focus on based on available data, evidence, community engagement feedback and capacity.
• After priority risks have been identified, all actions going forward should be designed to reduce these risks, or at least protect the vulnerable groups from the risks.
• Based on community capacity, developing an implementation plan or selecting, recruiting and instructing a small number of key individuals to do so to address the selected priority risk(s) identified in the plan.

Implementation Teams

For each priority risk determined by the advisory committee, if possible and appropriate, an implementation team should be created or leveraged to implement strategies (e.g., programs or services) to reduce the risk. The need for implementation team(s) will depend on the size and capacity of the community and the risks identified. For example, a small community that has identified two priority risks that can be effectively addressed by the advisory committee may not require implementation teams. On the other hand, a large community with six priority risks may benefit from implementation teams to ensure each risk is addressed. They may also establish fewer teams that focus on more than one priority risk. If planning partners determine it is appropriate for them to have a new implementation team to ensure the commitment, a document should be developed and signed that outlines agreed upon principles, shared goals and roles.

“It’s important to ensure that committee members want to be there and have a strong understanding of safety and well-being planning.” - Dana Boldt, Rama Police Service