Cariboo Chilcotin front line staff gathered for a mobilization session to broaden their stakeholder engagement and awareness about Situation Tables.
A community mobilization session for a Situation Table serving the Cariboo-Chilcotin took place Tuesday at the Williams Lake Fire Hall.
About 40 people attended including CAO for the City of Williams Lake, Milo MacDonald
“I learned a lot,” MacDonald said.
“I thought I was quite familiar with it but I actually learned a lot during the process and really enjoyed it, so very optimistic. Big credit to Dave Dickson and Meg Fehr, and our staff as well as a lot of other people who have championed this thing and believed in it from the start.”
Operating out of Williams Lake, the Situation Table will likely be made up of local officials, police, corrections, and health and social service providers that will work collaboratively to identify and connect vulnerable people to services that they need before they experience a negative or traumatic event.
Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, Mike Farnworth said Williams Lake will be the first Situation Table to be operating in the North District.
“Other tables operating in the province are mostly based in the Lower Mainland, with two others located in Kelowna and one hub serving West Kelowna/Westbank First Nation/Peachland.,” Farnworth said.
Recalling a scenario that was provided at the session, Mayor Walt Cobb told Council Tuesday evening of how a Situation Table took note of a youth who was missing school.
“They went to that home and realized what the problem was. There was a death in the family and other issues, and because of it the dad had lost his job and it was just turmoil,” Cobb said.
“So the kid just didn’t get to go to school and he was on probation because of other things that he had done because of this whole situation. Once they got the Situation Table, they got them the help that they needed at all levels. It’s stopping people from getting into a system that can become worse, so I think if you nip it in the bud, so to speak, it can stop a lot of the work that the police have to do, so I think that it’s a great idea.”
Three-day training to operate the Cariboo Chilcotin Situation Table will be offered in the next couple of weeks.
“As always, my top priority is keeping families and communities safe, and this is just one more tool to find ways to achieve that,” Farnworth said.
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