Over the next little bit, I’ll be posting about the recommendations from Langley City’s Citizens’ Assembly on Community Safety. You can learn more about the Citizens’ Assembly and their first recommendation on creating Resilient Neighbourhood Networks in a previous post.
|
| What is Langley City's Citizens’ Assembly? Select the image to enlarge. |
Their second recommendation is to create an Advocacy & Service Navigation Framework. People face a fragmented system when seeking safety services. When you need help, you may need to reach out to multiple departments, services, or agencies. You might not even know where to start, get bounced around, have Department A say it's Department B’s problem, only to have Department B say it is Department A’s problem. Service providers may not follow up with you.
A simple example at the City level is knowing whether a safety issue is bylaws or the building inspection department; you might have to make two calls. At a higher level, a 911 call for a domestic situation may have been handled differently if people had been referred to a service provider that delivers family support earlier.
Based on the existing work in our community on coordinated services for people experiencing homelessness, this model of providing a one-stop shop entry point with trained service navigators, who provide proactive follow-up and warm handoffs, should be expanded to all people who need to use safety services in our community. This would reduce overall calls for service and be more effective.
Next up, I’ll be posting about the third recommendation.
No comments:
Post a Comment