City of Edmonton charts path for violence prevention through new blueprint

The City of Edmonton has released a new plan with the hopes it will reduce and prevent violence in the city. 

The Blueprint for Violence Prevention report looks at ways to better connect different levels of government and prevent violence by tackling systemic issues.

City administration presented the report during Monday's community and public services committee. 

The report also looks at how the city can keep youth and various communities safe. 

The need for an action plan for violence prevention was requested via a motion from city council on Sept. 12, 2023.

Edmonton has consistently ranked fourth for violent crime severity index across 10 Canadian municipalities of similar size, according to data from Statistics Canada referenced in the report. 

On Oct. 2, 2024, city council approved $750,000 in multi-year one-time funding from the community safety and well-being funds for 2025 and 2026 to implement some action items in the violence prevention report. 

A key focus during Monday's meeting was ensuring at-risk youth are not entered into the criminal justice system. 

"There's a population of youth that it kind of seems like they haven't really been supported in the way that they need to," Cayleigh Bluett, with YOUCAN Youth Services, told committee councillors. 

YOUCAN offers a variety of education and employment support for kids and young adults between the ages of 12 to 24. 

Bluett said the majority of referrals come from Edmonton Police Service among other partners. 

"We've got lots of parents, community members, probation officers, school supports, reaching out, requesting this type of support that they're just not able to access."  

Bluette said the non-profit's programs have been successful but the organization is running into issues with capacity and needing more resources to support growing need. 

"Many of these youth suffer as the result of lots of barriers. We've got poverty, we've got mental health, addiction, substance use, instable housing, so many things," Bluette said. 

"Lots of these youth have really not been given a decent chance to be productive, safe, healthy members of society. In terms of the work that we do, we work alongside youth to bring them to a point where they're able to advocate for themselves."

Data from YOUCAN found a 64 per cent reduction in violence in the last year among youth who had gone through their programs.

Pauline Smale with the family centre and the neighbourhood empowerment team (NET) also told councillors that oversight and collaboration were key to ensuring prevention of violence is possible. 

The Family Centre is part of the NET collective started with the intent of addressing crime and social disorder. 

 Other partners include the City of Edmonton, EPS and United Way of the Alberta Capital Region. 

 "NET and the role of the family centre's youth liaisons have been part of the current safety and violence prevention ecosystem, contributing to the co-ordination of responses, of local solutions, working with the community," Smale said. 

In 2024, the family centre assisted over 16,000 Edmontonians including 6,640 youth.  

"The blueprint also highlights that this work isn't something that the city can, or should, take on alone," said Coun. Ashley Salvador. 

"It recognizes that other orders of government play a critical role, and if we want to see meaningful results, not only do we need full participation from all of those important stakeholders, in other words, government, but need adequate and sustained investment."

Some next steps of the action plan will creating a violence reduction network along with getting more sustained funding for initiatives and doing public engagement.