The Safe Communities Model

The Safe Communities concept is an internationally recognised, evidenced based best practice model for addressing community safety issues from the local level.  It incorporates both general health promotion concepts and strategies for grass-roots level participation.  The Safe Communities concept was established in Sweden in the 1980s after the First World Conference on Accident and Injury Prevention held in Stockholm, Sweden 1989.   The Manifesto for Safe Communities can be found here (http://www.phs.ki.se/csp/pdf/Manifesto.pdf).

The underscoring philosophy behind the community safety framework is to address all kinds of safety, and prevent injuries in all areas, for all ages, in all environments and situations, involving government, non-government and community sectors.    Essential themes of the model are to reduce injury and promote safety and well-being for all of a community’s citizens.  

 The concept is characterised by the following core attributes:

• community infrastructure and leadership;
• community participation;
• program sustainability and administrative capacity; 
• program range;
• priority populations;
• program evaluation;
• impact and effectiveness; and
• community engagement. 

Community safety is too big and complex to manage by a single body or strategy.  The Safe Communities model can be considered as a social movement in community safety and injury prevention.   

What is a Safe Community?

A  Safe Community is one in which all sectors of the community work together in a coordinated and collaborative way, forming partnerships to promote safety, manage risk, increase the overall safety of all its members and reduce their fears of harm.  The key feature is the creation of a local infrastructure (i.e. coalition of community, business, government and non-government leaders) that combine their resources and interests to address local concerns about injuries, crashes, antisocial behaviour and crime in a coordinated and sustainable approach.     

Community may be defined as either a delineated geographical area, a group with common interests, professional associations, or the individuals who provide services to a specific location.  

Safe Communities are successful in improving actual and perceived levels of safety for their community because they engage community members to define priority safety concerns and identify potential solutions, as perceived by the community members themselves.  The most effective Safe Communities not only engage the community members to identify issues, they also seek opportunities to coordinate efforts from the local level, raise public awareness, incorporate programs from state, national and international levels, creatively mobilise all community members to participate and engage the support of important interest groups. 

The principles a Safe Community adopts will vary accordingly from place to place because each community has different priorities and different perceptions of safety issues.  Through implementing the model’s concepts, many community voices are represented and collaborated to develop one personalised message suitable for that community.

Becoming a Designated Safe Community:

An option for those communities who adopt and implement the Safe Communities philosophy is to become accredited as a Designated Safe Community.  In order for a Safe Community to achieve Designation, there are currently six criteria which a community must demonstrate their compliance with.  The criteria form the essential framework for the future of the community’s sustainable safety initiatives and processes.  These Criteria include:

1. An infrastructure based on partnership and collaborations, governed by a cross-sectional group that is responsible for safety promotion in their community;
2. Long-term, sustainable programs covering both genders and all ages, environments, & situations;
3. Programs that target high-risk groups and environments, and programs that promote safety for vulnerable groups;
4. Programs that document the frequency and causes of injuries –i.e. established data collection systems to inform project development –includes community consultation and perception surveys;
5. Evaluation measures to assess their programs, processes & effects of change; and
6. Ongoing participation in national and international Safe Communities Networks –requires you support other Safe Communities.

There are several steps to a community achieving designation and the processes require appropriate documentation.  More can be read from:
http://safecommunities.org.nz/becoming/accred/view
http://www.phs.ki.se/csp/index_en.htm

Outcomes of the Safe Communities Model:

Significant economic and social benefits are achieved from even modest improvements in community safety.  Through aligning community safety and injury prevention work with the Safe Communities philosophy, both actual and perceived levels of safety improve for residents, students, workers and visitors of the community.  Economic benefits noted in Safe Communities arise from business and tourism developments, residential growth and decreased costs expended on injury and crime.  Social benefits, such as increased social capital and cohesion among community members, result from the establishment of strong and sustainable partnerships across community sectors. 

Other noted outcomes from adopting the Safe Communities model include reduced injury and enhanced community safety through community action; the promotion of collaborative safety and prevention programs and approaches; the creation of a more comprehensive picture of local risks; and reduced duplication of resources, information and services in the community.  This evidenced based safety promotion model requires a whole of government approach and also provides a voice to the community and its members.  The safety framework enhances the community’s credibility and through the designation process, invites international high status recognition for local efforts.

Working with the Safe Communities concept includes establishing partnerships and building coalitions, which themselves, build community capacity and provide many opportunities to the community.  Partnerships should exist between leaders from service providers, business and community members at local, state and national levels.   By building more sustainable local partnerships for safety, the benefits of safety promotion are recognised, the injury burden will be reduced, and improvements in community safety outcomes will follow.  Effective collaboration requires shared visions and objectives as well as ongoing monitoring and shared reflection processes.  Working together as a coalition creates benefits for the community which include increased synergies; mapping and linking of current initiatives to target shared risk factors with interrelated solutions; increased impact and reach to disadvantaged groups from joint resources; and shared burden of community safety and injury issues between community, health and justice services.

Safe Community Networks:

Each individual Safe Community forms part of an international network of accredited Safe Community Programs.  Building networks is a form of capacity building and allows for sharing of resources, problems and solutions across multiple levels.   The Safe Communities model functions across four core networks:   International, National, State or Provinces and locally. 

For example, there are International networks, such as the WHO Collaboration Centre (http://www.phs.ki.se/csp/index_en.htm) and international certifying centres including the Australian Safe Communities Foundation (ASCF) (http://www.safecommunities.org.au/ascf/welcome.php), Safe Communities Foundation New Zealand (SCFNZ) (http://safecommunities.org.nz/) and Safe Communities Canada (http://www.safecommunities.ca/). 

Within Australia, there are numerous networks and support centres for Safe Communities, including: the Royal Children's Hospital Safety Centre, Melbourne (http://www.rch.org.au/safetycentre/index.cfm?doc_id=1730), Queensland Safe Communities Support Centre (http://www.safecommunitiesqld.org/modcore/HomePage/frontend/index.asp), Victorian Safe Communities Network (VSCN) (http://www.vscn.org.au/pages/index.php),  and ICCWA (/).   ICCWA currently consider it as core business to support communities to implement community safety initiatives in their local areas.  The Royal Children's Hospital Safety Centre, Melbourne is an accredited Affiliate Safe Community Support Centre. 

Finally, the fourth levels of Safe Community networks are at the local level.  These include local level Partnerships such as the Denmark Safe Community Committee.   A Local Government Authority’s community safety committee is often a beginning base for a local level Safe Community network.

First Steps for building a Safe Community:

Safe Communities often begin with an interest and driving force from a core group of community level stakeholders, generally a champion in the community.  The first stages include the development of a core group or meeting of service providers and community groups involved in safety.  Current initiatives need to be mapped and programs audited, data collected and community perceptions surveyed to identify assets of the community and priority areas of need.   This process helps to identify the right partnerships needed to form and coordinate the Safe Communities coalition.  A coordinator should be appointed to develop the partnerships, intergrate plans and programs to reduce injury and promote Safe Communities.

The Safe Communities model is an effective and sustainable approach to community safety promotion and injury prevention from the local level, however when implemented by a community, it needs to be shaped for that community.  Each community has different priorities and frameworks for health service delivery and different cultural and socio-economic characteristics.  Emphasis should concentrate on local injury surveillance & community participation that would promote strategies which the community engages in and essentially owns.