“DRPS is actively supporting Region of Durham, municipalities and numerous community partners in creating a Community Safety & Well-Being Plan. Communities will take a holistic approach to community safety and well-being service delivery,” said a DRPS statement.
On January 1, legislative amendments to the Police Services Act, 1990, mandated that every municipality prepare and adopt a Community Safety and Well-Being Plan (CSWP) in partnership with their police services. Municipalities were two years (until January 1, 2021) to prepare and adopt their CSWP.
Durham has created a Steering Committee co-led by the Commissioner of Social Services and the Commissioner of Planning and Economic Development, which will guide the process. The Regional CAO and DRPS Chief are the Executive Sponsors.
Community Safety and Well-Being Plans are intended to formalize the shared responsibility of safe and healthy communities beyond policing. CSWPs require an integrated approach to bring municipalities, First Nations and partners together to mobilize the levers of safety and well-being collectively, said a report by the regional authorities.
Current and mounting demographic pressure is placing new and different demands on the Region. The anticipated growth that is coming to Durham Region will bring with it fundamental changes to the make-up and character of the Region. The long-term sustainability and health of the Region is critical to community safety and well-being, it added.
Having a made-in-Durham CSWP will produce a number of inherent benefits. Apart from creating a sense of shared ownership for community safety and wellbeing, the CSWP will:
- Identify the key issues impacting the Region in general, and in particular to the area municipalities and specific areas within them;
- Increase understanding of local risks and vulnerable groups;
- Increase awareness, coordination and access to services;
- Identify priority areas and recommendations for action;
- Determine optimal strategies to improve community safety and well-being;
- Identify the capacity across Durham Region to address community safety and well-being related issues;
- Confirm operating procedures for a more integrated and aligned collaboration process across agencies and geography;
- Reduce the financial burden of crime on society through cost-effective approaches with significant return on investment; and
- Provide a platform for overarching multidisciplinary Regional benefit.
Additionally, this project provides opportunities to enhance many interrelated efforts across the Region, such as strategic planning, economic development and tourism, planning for regional growth, increasing transit ridership, emergency management, health and social services resource allocation, and more.
The report said some municipalities in Durham Region (such as the Town of Ajax) have had a community safety strategy in place for more than a decade. Various other upper and lower-tier municipalities around the province have also developed CSWPs. Best practices, and lessons learned from these Plans will be analyzed to inform and streamline Durham’s process.