Tara Murray
A partnership between Brimbank council, local police and key stakeholders will be strengthened.
The former Safety Roundtable group was established by council in 2013 as a critical partnership group supporting community safety.
A new partnership, the Brimbank Safety and Wellbeing Partnership will come into effect, replacing the roundtable. The partnership is a formal agreement, shared values and commitment of resources between diverse members, including Victoria Police, the state government, health and community service providers, community leaders and council.
Councillors supported the formation of the network at last week’s council meeting.
“In 2022, council worked with a number of internal and external stakeholders to co-design a scalable approach for improving safety and ensuring community wellbeing at the Errington Reserve precinct in St Albans,” a report to the council meeting stated.
“As part of this, a service co-ordination model was developed that included recommendations to convene a Brimbank Hotspots Group and transition the Safety Roundtable into the Brimbank Safety and Wellbeing Partnership (SWP).
“The Hotspots Group brings police, traders and service providers to identify and undertake place-based interventions in ‘hotspot’ locations across Brimbank, including Errington Reserve. This includes the coordination of welfare responses, policing, local laws compliance, public realm safety and amenity improvements and place activation.
“It is intended that the SWP will provide strategic oversight for these location-based interventions, bringing key local stakeholders together to focus on ways to improve safety outcomes through social inclusion rather than just a law-and-order approach.”
The key objective of the SWP includes overseeing the outcomes of the safe and inclusive Brimbank strategy and implementation plan, to share information as a basis for collaborative action and community education, identify emerging needs and gaps relating to community safety issues, provide input on strategic policies, plans and projects that seek to improve community safety outcomes and oversee actions arising from the Brimbank Hotspots meeting.
Councillor Victoria Borg said it was pleasing that the partnership was now also focusing on wellbeing, with research showing that those who are a threat to community safety usually have mental health related problems and other health problems.
