Safe Committee makes inroads
The photo showed up on an Instagram post Oct. 7 from Brooks’ Safe Communities Committee but it was a post where an RCMP officer based in the Brooks detachment stopped to take an adorable picture of a young boy playing with his friends. The boy was dressed as a police officer costume.
The officer handed out a SuperKids tickets to the boy and his friends and then gave the children a tour off the police car and showed them all the gadgets on the car.
Doesn’t seem like a big deal but connections like that, that the officer made with the children is building foundations and connections for down the road.
Kendra Sieben, Safe Communities Facilitator, says it is important for the organization to maintain and foster a friendly, cooperative and trustful relationship between the public and law/emergency enforcement.
The mandate of this Committee is to “foster the creation of a safe and secure community. Specific responsibilities of the Committee include cooperating with community groups in creating programs or pursing initiatives to improve public safety, making recommendations to Council relevant to community issues, providing community feedback concerning Bylaw enforcement strategies or activities and to develop educational materials advocating personal safety and security.”
The RCMP wanted to better communicate with the public on a variety of different issues but they wanted to find the best means to do so.
“They realized they were missing the mark as far as dealing with community issues that needed to be done,” explained Sgt. Bruce McDonald, the Brooks RCMP detachment commander, who added the Committee was initiated in 2012. He says at the time they believed that instead of having a law enforcement initiative that they saw the opportunity to have the public and different agencies drive these efforts.
Sieban says the initiatives are generated by the committee which has meeting and are a collaboration of representatives from a variety of City, County of Newell and different emergency services departments. They meet every second Wednesday of the month and Sieban has regular meetings with McDonald and will also inform her of any ideas or thoughts which unexpectedly come up and need immediate attention.
“The beauty of our committee is that they are able to come together and discern different information from various regions of the city and county and bring that information together,” she explains. They then how we can address it effectively and what resources we can all bring together.
She says the current mandate hasn’t changed but how it is delivered has altered slightly, not necessarily because of technology but more due to the pandemic.
“The biggest difference from (when the safe committee was introduced to currently) is that the education awareness events we are capable of providing has increased, part of that has to do with us having that wider reach …getting more people involved,” explains Sieban adding they have good working relationships with the City and the County of Newell. “How they perceive their own community is the biggest priority.”
Sieben is busy with numerous types of social media post, she posts info from anything regarding anything from Safe Communities Committee Vacancy; to getting a Criminal Record Check or advertising events such hosting free car seat clinics or talking about protocol for protestors at the Black Lives Matter demonstration in Brooks this past June.
Another aspect of what the Safe Communities Committee does is to send out a lot public service announcement with information on safety tips. This includes such things as warning people about the dangers of inattention while driving a vehicle.