Sudbury area groups renew commitment to community safety programs

Schools, police, colleges and other organizations in Sudbury and area are updating their training in recognizing troubling behaviour in people before they commit acts of violence in the community.

Thirty-three groups in the region are signing a new commitment to learn about and respond to threatening behaviours before they escalate.

The organizations have all taken training from the Centre for Trauma-Informed Practices. 

Executive director Kevin Cameron began developing the training after he was involved as a crisis counsellor in the aftermath of the fatal school shooting in Taber, Alberta in 1999.

Cameron's theory is that people don't just "snap" and commit violent crimes. He says there are often signs long before  and community members can be trained to recognize them and help before it's too late.

"We have case after case quietly across Canada and parts of America where team members come back with their own jaws dropped and they're going 'Holy crap, we got close on that one," he said.

"Grandfather's gun was in his grandson's room and nobody knew it, including the grandpa, that his gun and ammunition had been taken away."

He credits the 33 organizations in Sudbury and Espanola, which includes school boards, hospitals, police, colleges, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and new members Sudbury Multicultural Centre, Sparks Employment and Canadian Shield home health care with leading the way on these initiatives and keeping up on training and trauma response.

Anna Maria Barsanti has been involved since the beginning in Sudbury, about fifteen years ago.

Barsanti said a school superintendent heard Cameron speak in Ottawa and was inspired to bring his message and training to Sudbury schools.

She said each of the 33 groups in the network has a responsibility to trigger an assessment if they witness a person behaving in a number of ways, including bullying, threatening, setting fires, cruelty to animals and other ways she describes as "cries for help."

"So that if you're aware of someone who's on a pathway toward violence, you can initiate a Violence Threat Risk Assessment (VTRA)," she said.

"It doesn't have to be the school, it doesn't have to be the police. It doesn't have to be child protection. You also have that ability to reach out to do what's necessary so someone's not hurting."

Barsanti estimates there are about 90 assessments a year in the Sudbury area, but says there's no real way to measure success, except in terms of feeling more secure.

"I think we all want to be able to be safe in our community," she said. "We want to know that things are being taken care of by the systems that are in place.

"If we're doing our work and we're doing our work well, then they can walk wherever they want to walk in our community. They can be wherever they want to be in our community and things will be OK."