The City of Surrey took action to proactively address community safety concerns in response to increasing gun and gang violence. It developed a collaborative program, called the Surrey Anti-Gang Family Empowerment Program (“SAFE”), which brought together 11 partner agencies to deliver support to at-risk youth.
“The SAFE Program provides direct services to some of Surrey’s most at-risk residents. SAFE clients often have identities that expose them to intersectional forms of marginalization such as gender, socioeconomic status, language, religion, newcomer status and trauma experiences. Many SAFE initiatives fill gaps where no service existed prior to implementation,” the City says of the program.
Since it was started in 2019, more than 4,400 people have been supported.
One of the individual programs is a responsive model for assessing at-risk clients before factors are considered “acute”, and also allowing for consensual referrals across programs. The Children and Youth At-Risk Table (CHART) allows organizations partnered with SAFE to track the situation their clients are facing, and coordinate support collaboratively.
The data showed staff and partners that weak parental connection and parent/child conflict were prevalent in most high-risk cases. Through engaging with parents, staff found many parents didn’t have an adequate understanding of the issues that Surrey youth face. They also connected with more than a hundred youth to learn about their experiences with risk and safety in the community, and to better understand which issues were difficult to speak to a trusted adult about. That information, with input from subject experts and partner organizations, were packaged in a way to empower Surrey caregivers with education and resources to help keep kids out of gang life: www.empowersurrey.ca.
SAFE programming is founded on the notion that collaborative interventions will result in reduced risk, increased resiliency, and decreased affiliation with criminality. Initially funded with grants through Public Safety Canada, Surrey has now made the program a part of its core prorgramming. The SAFE program won the Community Excellence Award in Service Delivery in 2023.
The deadline to submit a nomination for the 2024 CEA awards is May 17, 2024.