Committee approves updated approach to crime prevention, community safety

The City’s Community Services Committee today approved updating the Community Safety and Well-Being Plan (CSWB) to incorporate the mandate and goals of the former Crime Prevention Ottawa (CPO). Crime Prevention Ottawa was a City-funded board focused on reducing crime and enhancing community safety, and this merger would ensure that CPO’s important work and research continues. The recommended updates build on the strengths of the former CPO by integrating them into the CSWB Plan to better serve Ottawa residents by delivering more targeted and impactful initiatives. The City would support at-risk youth through social development and empower priority neighbourhoods through engagement. The City would also collaborate with community partners to identify risks and prevent crisis situations before they happen. The City would continue to fund existing CPO initiatives and add $750,000 from the former CPO budget to the current $2.1 million CSWB budget, for a total of $2.85 million. Two new public members would be added to the CSWB Advisory Committee, to bring an independent resident perspective. The recommended changes would serve as an interim plan until a full engagement and review process for the entire CSWB Plan can happen in 2025, as required by the Province. The Committee also received an update on the pilot of a customized person-centred care approach in the City’s four long-term care homes. Person-centred care focuses on the individual needs of residents and enriches their lives with more choice, autonomy, relationship-building and home-like environments. A University of Ottawa evaluation of the program conducted earlier this year highlighted the positive impacts of person-centred care. These include improvements in resident quality of life, family engagement and staff satisfaction. After piloting person-centred care neighbourhoods at both the Peter D. Clark home and Garry J. Armstrong home, the City has now expanded the program to six neighbourhoods across all four homes, with plans to gradually expand the program to all neighbourhoods. The Committee approved, in principle, the list of projects the City would fund under the Community Partnership Major Capital program in 2024. The program seeks to improve parks and recreation facilities on a cost-sharing basis with community partners. There are five projects recommended for approval, to which the City would contribute more than $745,000. The City would also increase the maximum funding threshold for the minor capital partnership program to $15,000 for projects on City lands, and to $10,000 for projects on other qualifying non-City lands, to reflect the increased costs of delivering projects. The funding increase would be in effect for the application deadline on May 1, 2025, pending Council approval of the 2025 community partnership capital budgets. Items considered at this meeting will rise to Council on Wednesday, October 2. For more information on City programs and services, visit ottawa.ca, call 3-1-1 (TTY: 613-580-2401) or 613-580-2400 to contact the City using Canada Video Relay Service. You can also connect with us through Facebook, X (Twitter) and Instagram. Related topics

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