New training to give Halifax staff skills to safely stop harassment in city spaces

Employees of the Halifax Regional Municipality will soon be better equipped to step up and help when they witness harassment or incidents that could lead to violence in the community. 

Municipal staff, including temporary and short-term employees, will undergo what's known as bystander intervention training, based on a recommendation from the Mass Casualty Commission.

In its final report, the inquiry into the 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia called for all levels of government to "develop and implement gender-based, intimate partner and family violence bystander intervention training for their workplaces and staff." 

Amy Brierley, a policy strategist involved in the initiative at Halifax City Hall, said the training gives people the confidence to intervene when they might have otherwise looked the other way.

"It doesn't have to be a huge intervention. Even going to sit next to a person who's experiencing something, or checking in and saying, 'Are you OK?' can be enough to kind of shift that experience for someone," said Brierley, who has taken part in similar training in other settings.

The training program is under development, with the aim of making it available to staff within the next year or so. It's unclear exactly what the training will look like at this stage.

Cong Chen, a community safety education co-ordinator with HRM, said a key goal of the program is to create a cultural shift away from relying so heavily on emergency response teams, and instead taking a more preventative approach when appropriate. 

He said front-facing city employees like bus drivers and those who work at public libraries, recreation centres and community centres will be first in line to receive the training, followed by office workers, volunteers and others.

Eventually, the goal is to make it available to members of the public, arming them "with the skills they need before things escalate to a crisis," said Cong.

The Mass Casualty Commission said in its final report that a bystander intervention training curriculum should be mandatory in the Canadian school system, starting in primary and continuing through Grade 12.

In Nova Scotia, bystander intervention training is offered at post-secondary schools and some high schools.

At the municipal level, the training is being developed as part of Halifax's Safe City and Safe Public Spaces program, which was created in 2019 with the goal of preventing sexual and gender-based violence in public spaces such as parks, libraries, schools and transit. 

1 in 3 women experienced harassment

In a 2021 study, the program cited a survey that found one in three women in Halifax had experienced unwanted sexual attention, touching or comments in a public space.

The program's co-ordinator, Lindsay Mullin, said that statistic is another reason why bystander intervention training is important.

"I hope this program will give participants the skills to safely recognize and respond to instances of public harassment, and that ultimately by doing so, it creates a broader community of care where everyone can look out for one another," said Mullin. 

MORE TOP STORIES