Department of Health, Taipei City Government

(1) What is a Safe Community

"Safe Community" can be: a city, county, township, or a single administrative region, committed to a variety of safety promotion, injury prevention, violence and suicide prevention, and control personnel  from harm caused by natural disasters. The program covers all ages, gender and environmental conditions, and through certification can become part of an international safe community network. (ISCCC)

"Security community" means a community which by consensus among communities, combines all available resources within the community and beyond to reduce a variety of accidental or intentional damage and create a more secure environment and promote interpersonal harmony. The promotion of physical, mental, and social well-being is a continuous and comprehensive effort of the movement. Therefore, the "security community" is not a description of the security features the community already has, but an aspirational exercise for creating safer communities and continued efforts. (Bai Lu, 2007)

(2) Safe Community concept

 The Safe Communities concept was originally launched as an official World Health Organisation (WHO) term in their General Program in the end of the 1980’s. The co-operation between WHO and the Safe Community Movement started in 1986 and began its formal existence at the First World Conference on Accident and Injury Prevention held in Stockholm, Sweden in September 1989. In the Manifesto for Safe Communities, the resolution of the conference 1989 stated that the International Safe Community movement should work with “WHO Health for all” as a vision. The ground pillars in the Stockholm manifesto are:

• All human beings have an equal right to health and safety
• Accident and injury prevention requires coordinated action by many groups
• Health sector have a crucial role in collecting information on injured people, injury patterns, causes of injuries and hazard situations
• Local programs must include all citizens and focus on the most vulnerable
• Evaluation both of the process and outcome of a safety promotion program is important
• An international development work for safe communities is necessary!

 All International Safe Communities serve as models for other communities. According to investigations and research the injuries decrease by more than 25 % every year in Safe Communities.

The Safe Community initiative differs in comparison to other injury prevention programs. In an International Safe Community, the community itself plays the leading role. The term Safe Community implies that the community work for increased safety in a structured approach, not that the community is already perfectly safe. Creative methods of education, physical planning and environmental change joined with appropriate regulations and enforcement are an important beginning for the safety of a community. An International Safe Community use the traditional means of control such as economic, regulations and governing by objectives and visions. No single approach is sufficient for changing existing behaviour patterns. Heightening of public awareness is also very import.

Programs to prevent and control injuries and accidents must identify and characterise the injury problem and evaluate the effectiveness of injury control interventions. Though epidemiology is not the soul of the safe communities concept, the vital importance of it must be respected.

Characteristic for an International Safe Community is not only that the community and the leadership in the communtiy are mangening the Safe Community program. The program is also broad and include promotion and prevention of all kinds of injuries such as Injuries of accidents, violence and suicide. It also embrace  prevention of the consequences (human injuries) related to Natural Disaster. The program covers all age groups gender. It has a special focus on the most vulnerable.

According to investigations and research the injuries decrease by more than 25 % every year in Safe Communities.

While the movement was growing started a quality management programme leading to a peer review system where the leading communities (now about 400) were labelled International Safe Communities. Up to 2015 In the leading unit was connected to the Karolinska Instutut the WHO Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion at Karolinska Institute Dept. Public Health Sciences. Gradually When Regional Networks and more International Safe Community Support Centres were established the network functions remained with those while The WHO Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion (WHO CCCSP) was encouraged to focus on the quality aspects of the International Safe Communities. A process for quality control has been developed including training of International Certifiers in a one-year program leading to an international accreditation- now 48 are accredited.

(Source: https://isccc.global/history)

(3) How to Promote Community Safety

The "security" concept can be in various forms and the content of the program to promote the community in all areas and at all levels. For example: in the work environment, it can be some job security plan for the safety of employees working in schools on certain issues prone to injuries on campus, to promote school safety, in residential communities, it can be a home safety plan, under the overall community environment, we can promote traffic safety and disaster prevention plans and other plans. Plans must be driven by interdisciplinary organizations, in order to facilitate brainstorm, and maximize coverage logic; at the same time, each security promotion program must have clear logic, methods, and effectiveness evaluation, which is based on injury surveillance needs. Thus, the community consensus conferences, community injury data collection, execution and evaluation of a variety of safety promotion programs, are necessary to promote the community safety plan.

It is worth noting that the secure community is in an upward motion to emphasize the driving force, such that needs of the community can be met with a clearer, more government policy implementation (Taiwan Association for Community Safety Promotion Center).