To read the Community Safety in Wyndham Findings Report please visit The Loop
The Empowering Communities grants is part of the Victorian Government’s Building Safer Communities Program which includes grants and a series of community forums across Victoria. The Empowering Communities program is designed to support local communities design and lead innovative initiatives to address the causes of crime and improve perceptions of safety.
Empowering Communities funding aims to:
- build the capability of the community to understand crime related issues and design and implement effective crime prevention approaches
- strengthen relationships between community stakeholders to work in partnership to deliver crime prevention activity, and leverage community capacity to deliver sustainable outcomes beyond the funding period
- engage and mobilise the community to address issues of local concern
- build the evidence base for successful community development initiatives that address crime and safety issues.
In November 2021, Wyndham City was awarded $700K to fund the development of a community partnership to design and deliver a crime prevention initiative. The grant program sets out key stages and activities through which Wyndham City Council will develop a community partnership and deliver a crime prevention initiative. These include the establishment of an action group, the hosting of five localised community safety forums across Wyndham, community consultation development, delivery and measurement of a community initiative.
Empowering communities brings the community together to listen and respond to community concerns and ideas on how to tackle local issues that impact on crime and safety. The program will be delivered up until June 30 2024, and will be implemented in stages.
Wyndham Local Action Group
The Wyndham Local Action Group was established in June 2022, bringing together key services and community members. The Local Action Group is responsible for connecting the initiative to the broader community and overseeing its implementation.
The following organisations and stakeholders are represented on the Local Action Group:
- Wyndham City Council
- Victoria Police
- Local residents representing the diverse community
- African – Australia Family Parenting Support Services Inc.
- The Huddle
- Youth Activating Youth
- Whitelion Youth
- WEstjustice
- Neighbourhood Watch
- Department of Justice and Community Safety.
Community Consultations
We successfully delivered a series of five Community Safety Conversations during July as part of the third step in the Empowering Communities Grants Program. The conversations aimed to identify safety issues of concern and ways in which these issues could be addressed. The community sessions were supported by a survey on The Loop this enabled those who could not attend to still contribute their voices around crime and perceptions of community safety.
There was community interest in the project with 285 registrations for the session and 151 attendees, The Loop survey received 3,230 page views and 25 surveys were completed. A Findings Report was developed with the consultation results and will be used by the Local Action Group to consider the issues raised, as well as any further targeted engagement and identify the key priority areas. The Findings Report will be made public on October 5th via The Loop
Next Steps
The Local Action Group will determine next steps which will include developing a common goal and identifying projects and project deliverers, who will use $370K of the Victorian Government’s Building Safer Communities Program grant to meet community safety needs within budget. It is expected that following this review at the group’s monthly meet ups in October and November, the awarding of project funding will take place early next year after a process for dissemination of funds is established.
To find out more about the Empowering Communities Grants visit Empowering Communities
Coordinating Organisation
Empowering Communities in Wyndham is coordinated by Wyndham City Council.
For further enquiries and/or to contact the Local Action Group please email empoweringcommunities@wyndham.vic.gov.au
