Becoming a Safe Community
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 the fear 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, anti-social behaviour and crime in a co-ordinated and sustainable manner.
The Safe Community Model
The Safe Communities model is an internationally recognised, evidence-based best practice model for addressing community safety issues at the local level.
The underlying philosophy behind the framework is to prevent injuries in all areas, for all ages, in all environments and situations, invoking government, non-government and community sector support. Essential themes of the model are to reduce injury and promote safety and well-being for all citizens in a community.
The concept is characterised by the following core attributes:
- community leadership and participation
- program reach
- priority setting
- data analysis
- program evaluation
- communication and networking
Pan Pacific Safe Community Accreditation
Pan Pacific Safe Community Accreditation is an international standard which a community can apply for. To achieve this standard a community must prove that it has met each of the six criteria for Pan Pacific Safe Community Accreditation.
For more information, please see the following resources:
- Pan Pacific Safe Communities Accreditation Guide
- Safe Communities Priority Setting Guide