The topic of police working with community groups was a key element as police officials from northern Ontario gathered in Sturgeon Falls to discuss community safety planning.
Andrew Fletcher, a Deputy Chief with the South Simcoe Police, put on the presentation at the Sturgon Falls Community Complex this morning.
He updated the northern police leaders from Northern Ontario on how the community safety and well-being approach has evolved and how some communities in Ontario have moved to the next level, which involves community safety planning.
“The message is really one of importance of collaboration and working with our partnerships in the community and not trying to reinvent the wheel,” stated Fletcher.
“Figure out what you have in your community, what assets exist, what other leaders are out there and working with them to collaborate from a risk-focus perspective.”
North Bay police officials have working with a similar model already in the form of the the Gateway Hub, which is made up of community partners from different service providers within mental health, addictions, education, local and provincial police, crisis and social services, probation and justice workers, children’s services, District Health Unit and Regional Hospital along with First Nations.
“I think that the hub is one of the things, I think another success story is our relationship with the hospital that we have with our mobile crisis and that is two agencies that are directly affecting people in crisis and that is a true success story,” stated North Bay Police Chief Shawn Devine.
“So with the hub - and especially this morning with educators - I am a true believer that the education, every child in Canada goes to school for a certain period, why don’t we sit down and look at using that as a basis for creating safer communities at as early an age as we can,” added Devine who noted that members of the four area school boards were also at today’s meeting.
Fletcher is impressed with the North Bay Gateway Hub model as North Bay appears to be heading in the right direction.
“The Community Safety Hub in North Bay has been a well grounded model that you would have seen from the Saskatchewan and Prince Albert Hub,” said Fletcher.
“The Gateway Hub is getting those assets, those community partners together in what they call a situation table and a situation table is to address those situations of elevated risk in our community and get the right people at the right time and the right table to intervene and provide that assistance when needed.”
Fletcher insisted the key to these initiatives is prevention and it’s not about trying to cut costs or lead police services to work more efficiently with less officers.
“My goal would be the government put the money into social services and into education and use some of those prevention mechanisms so that they can be available to deal with those situations and advance them from becoming crisis,” said Fletcher.
Fletcher hopes the northern cops leave the meeting with some new ideas to help create community hubs in their communities.
