HUB MODEL WILL SOON BE IN USE
Program is ‘smart on crime’
Saskatoon police, social workers and others will soon have “a new way of doing business,” one of the co-ordinators of a new program says.
The HUB model, borrowed from a pilot project in Prince Albert, could be up and running within the month, Saskatoon Police Services Sgt. Craig Nyirfa said.
Staff from more than a dozen agencies — social services, health, police and others — will meet twice per week to discuss people deemed atrisk. Rather than waiting until a crisis develops or a crime is committed, the team will brainstorm ways to prevent problems.
“It’s not soft on crime. It’s smart on crime,” Nyirfa said. “It’s a different way of doing business — a smarter, more intelligent way.”
The HUB meetings will take place at the Saskatoon police station. They’ll begin with cases in the core neighbourhoods.
If successful, they’ll expand or create new HUBs to serve other parts of the city, Nyirfa said.
In the past, a police officer or social worker or psychologist would write a report following an incident. No other agency would be notified, even if it might have helped other professionals dealing with a certain person or issue.
Nyirfa said most troubled youth simply need a “gust of wind to help them fly.” The HUB model will help officials tailor that help to the individual.
Nyirfa said individual privacy will still be respected. He said they’ve taken great care to ensure only relevant information is shared. All provincial and local privacy guidelines will be honoured.
Disadvantaged people may find this model preferable to the old one, as they won’t have to explain their situation to multiple workers at multiple sites, he said.
“If your services are better, people will be more willing to accept it,” he said.
Nyirfa said social agencies are also more responsive to the aboriginal community because of improved links with the Metis Nation — Saskatchewan, the Saskatoon Tribal Council, the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and other groups.
The Prince Albert HUB experiment is more than two years old and has already yielded promising results, Nyirfa said. It was modelled after a similar program in Glasgow, Scotland.
Lyndon Linklater, who does work for the FSIN and Office of the Treaty Commissioner, said there’s a lot of work to be done, but he said he’s noticed improved relations between aboriginal people and various agencies.
He said officers like Nyirfa have helped bridge what was a wide gap even a decade ago.
“I’ve seen a real change. They’ve redeveloped those healthy relationships,” Linklater said.
Nyirfa returned to Saskatoon several months ago. The veteran Saskatoon Police Services officer had been in Ottawa for the past few years teaching a course on policing in aboriginal communities at the Canadian Police College.