Social development requires long-term, multi-disciplinary efforts and investments to improve the social determinants of health. The social determinants of health are the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age. These could include education, income, food security, quality housing, and more. By improving the social determinants of health, we can reduce the probability of harm and victimization overtime.

Social development is where a wide range of sectors, agencies and organizations bring different perspectives and expertise to the table to address complex social issues, like poverty, from every angle. The key to successful social development initiatives is working together in ways that challenge conventional assumptions about institutional boundaries and organizational culture. Our goal is to ensure that individuals, families and communities are safe, healthy, and happy in all aspects of their lives.

Planning in the area of prevention involves proactively implementing evidence-based policies, programs, or situational measures to reduce the priority risks identified in our community. Priority risks could be any number of issues in our community, whether it be food insecurity, discrimination, substance use, or housing. Prevention is meant to address these risks before they result in crime, victimization, or harm to our residents.

In this area, community members who are not specialists in “safety and well-being” may have to be enlisted depending on the priority risk. If a priority risk is retail theft, for example, business owners may be consulted. Similarly, if a risk is occurring in one building, a property manager may be able to assist.

Service providers, community agencies and organizations will need to share data and information about things like community assets, crime and disorder trends, vulnerable people and places. By doing so, we can identify priority risks within the community to plan and respond most effectively.

Planning in the risk intervention area involves multiple sectors working together to address situations where there is an elevated risk of harm. Essentially, stopping something bad from happening, right before it is about to happen.

Risk intervention is intended to be immediate and prevent an incident, whether it is a crime, victimization, or harm from occurring. Risk intervention will also reduce the need for, and systemic reliance on, incident response.

Collaboration and information sharing between agencies on things such as types of risk has been shown to create partnerships and allow for collective analysis of risk-based data. In return, this can inform strategies in the prevention and social development areas.

This area represents what is traditionally thought of when referring to crime and safety.

It includes immediate and reactionary responses that may involve a sense of urgency like police, fire, emergency medical services, a child welfare organization taking a child out of their home, or a school principal expelling a student.

Many communities invest a significant amount of resources into incident response. Although it is important and necessary, it is reactive, and in some instances, enforcement-dominated.

Planning should also be done in this area to better collaborate and share relevant information. This includes types of occurrences and victimization, to ensure the most appropriate service provider is responding. Initiatives in this area alone cannot be relied upon to increase community safety and well-being.