Status Report 2002-2003

Implementation of Section 41 of the
Official Languages Act

Annex C - Provincial - List of National Crime Prevention Centre (NCPC) Funded Projects for 2002/03

The National Crime Prevention Strategy (NCPS), which is overseen by the National Crime Prevention Centre (NCPC), is aimed at developing community-based responses to crime and victimization, with a particular emphasis on children and youth, Aboriginal people and women. The Safer Communities Initiatives (SCI), which represents a component of the NCPS, is made up of grant and contribution programs that promote a social development approach and support initiatives that aim to identify the root causes (risk factors) of crime and victimization.

The overall objectives and priority directions being pursued by the NCPC's funding programs are as follow: The Community Mobilization Program (CMP) supports community-based efforts that foster community partnerships aimed at dealing with crime and victimization and that increase public awareness and support for crime prevention; The Crime Prevention Investment Fund (CPIF), seeks to identify and evaluate new social development and community-based approaches to crime prevention (promising practices) by identifying what works and what does not in crime prevention and by explaining why; The Crime Prevention Partnership Program (CPPP), encourages national non-government organizations to develop information, tools and resources. These results / deliverables, applied across the country, are intended to facilitate community involvement in all phases of crime prevention; and The Business Action Program on Crime Prevention (BAPCP), encourages the private sector to become an active partner, leader and resource in crime prevention. It supports the involvement of businesses and professional associations in corporate / community partnership projects that aim to prevent crime and victimization.

* Please note that in the following list of projects, some of the initiatives from the provinces of New Brunswick and Prince-Edward Island identified by an asterix target official languages minority communities although these projects descriptions do not make reference to such communities.

British Columbia

This project aims to develop a training manual and guide to action and to establish an inventory of community resources and a network of 30 to 50 volunteers throughout B.C. in order to help Francophone women who are at risk of being victimized. At the present time, there are more than 31,000 Francophone women in British Columbia and more than 100,000 who speak both official languages. The Réseau-Femmes is the only provincial organization that officially represents Francophone women in B.C. Since 1998, the Réseau-Femmes has been responsible for "Inform'Elles", a provincial crisis intervention, referral and information service provided in French. As a result of the calls received on the distress line, the Réseau-Femmes has determined that a response is required to meet the needs relating to the problem of violence against women and their difficulty in accessing appropriate services.

This project will provide a number of different tools and resources to help meet the needs of older women who have been affected by domestic violence. The first part of the project will be to create a curriculum for 2 days of specialized training for front line workers and personnel working in the justice system. The curriculum will be written by one of the project partners, the Justice Institute, with input from the project advisory committee.

The curriculum and training will address some of the recommendations generated by the first component of the project. Specifically, the training will feature:

• An examination of the needs of older abused women and the differences and similarities to the needs of younger women, the ageing process, and an examination of the types of abuse suffered by older women including, physical, psychological, sexual abuse, neglect and financial abuse;
• Culturally sensitive tools to deal with the specific needs of older immigrant women and barriers faced by older First Nations/Aboriginal women;
• A thorough examination of the issues of ageism, violence against women and elder abuse with a focus on integrated analysis;
• An opportunity to network and create networks that work against violence against older women where none have existed before;
• A component will be included in the training of financial assistance workers addressing the issues that affect older women, with particular emphasis on immigration and cultural issues;
• All service providers who serve immigrant and refugee women will be reminded that immigration policy does not put women leaving an abusive situation at-risk of deportation;
• Information on specific referral and resources, long term housing, how to recruit and screen volunteer homes, prevent abuse and violent crime;
• Innovative approaches to serving and assisting older women leaving abusive relationships or situations; and
• Coordination of the initiatives listed above.

The second component of the project is to produce a 12-minute docu-drama and study guide, which will examine 4 scenarios:

• The continuation of domestic violence in later life;
• Violence in a new relationship in later life;
• A medical reason for physical or emotional abuse (i.e. Alzheimer's disease); and
• Abuse by adult children.

The study guide will elaborate on each section in the video and offer solutions for healthy change, examples of what actions supportive people can do for abused older women. Copies of the video and guide will be available in both English and French. Finally, the sponsor will implement a public awareness campaign to educate the public about the issue of domestic abuse involving older women. This will involve developing and distributing a safety tip card to older women and an educational brochure. The brochure will contain important information on how to recognize the signs of older women who are being abused. The brochure will be distributed to medical professionals, service providers, justice system personnel and businesses.

The goal of this 2-year initiative is to help to decrease and prevent the incidence of domestic violence among older women and to raise public awareness about this issue.

Manitoba

Subliminale addresses the issue of violence in francophone communities in Manitoba and will be developed, and delivered in French. It is a study of violence within the individual as well as within the community. Five performing artists in St. Boniface will be hired to go into the communities to talk with five people each, from various sectors of the community (i.e. the homeless, young children, teenagers, gang members, single mothers, adult professional men, women) about their experience of violence. From these discussions, the artists will develop a monologue for a character that they will portray.

Over the course of 10 days of workshops, each of the five monologues will be woven together with poetry and music into a 60-90 minute theatrical presentation that will be presented in a cabaret format at the Centre Culturel Franco-manitobain in St. Boniface. Following this initial presentation, the performance will be delivered in schools and community centres in five francophone communities in rural Manitoba. Following the presentation, a "talk-back" period will be held to encourage discussion of the issues addressed in the report and the presentation.

Finally, a study guide will be developed with a summary of the findings, suggested activities to help recognize and personalize the problem, and questions to facilitate group discussion of the issues addressed in the report and the theatrical presentation. This study guide will be distributed to the schools in advance of the theatrical presentation for the purpose of giving teachers tools to prepare the students for what they are about to see and experience.

It is proposed to sponsor a two and a half day interactive forum in May with approximately 100 participants from across Canada, representing a sample of:

• Those responsible for crime prevention projects across Canada;
• Leaders from municipalities, communities, police and criminal justice;
• Experts from research, evaluation, teaching and policy;
• Those in public interest groups working with youth, children, women and First Nations.

The forum will focus on strengthening the results that Canadians get from crime prevention. It will examine ways to reduce crime through greater use of Canadian and international knowledge of what works and what does not in crime prevention.

Its objectives are:

• To successfully organize a two and one-half day forum;
• To distribute recent crime prevention material developed by the NCPC, ICPC and other organizations;
• To share progress and challenges in evidence-based crime prevention in Canada;
• To debate and discuss methods of improving the success of crime prevention in Canada;
• To make progress in the task of establishing and sustaining a network to foster results-based crime prevention in Canada;
• To produce and distribute a final report, available in both French and English, summarizing the Forum, recommendations and action plan;
• To increase the capacity of all sectors separately and collectively to contribute to the prevention of crime and violence in Canada;
• To increase the network of people committed to evidence-based crime prevention;
• To enhance knowledge about what has been shown to work in crime prevention, better knowledge of where to get information about successful crime prevention programs, and better knowledge of how to sustain crime prevention initiatives.

It will share Canadian experience, the challenges facing us, what is known, what has worked and been successful and what we can learn from elsewhere. The process will be designed to maximize participant involvement through an open forum or future search approach to maximize cross-fertilization. Materials from both Canadian and other jurisdictions will be available, including "tool kits" recently developed by the NCPC, the ICPC and others. Participants will be asked to propose recommendations based on their experience to date and their vision of the future. Simultaneous translation will occur in all plenary sessions.

New Brunswick

The Ado-Parlons santé project began in September 2001 with the help of a grant from Health Canada and the New Brunswick Department of Intergovernmental Affairs. The Ado-Parlons santé project focuses on risk factors in the physical and mental health of young Francophones in the Atlantic region. Its goal is to enable young people to assume responsibility for themselves by adopting healthy life styles.

The ultimate aim of the project is to prevent the crime of sexual violence against women. The project will contribute to this goal by mobilizing action groups in 3-5 rural communities (including at least one Francophone and one First Nation community). This will be achieved by increasing the awareness of the problem of sexual violence in rural New Brunswick; increasing the capacity of communities to respond effectively and proactively to the problem; and, developing local plans for the ongoing prevention of sexual violence against women. These objectives will be achieved through public awareness and education, the formation of action groups and the engagement of the larger community in scoping its needs and assets relative to the issue in each community. This project will mobilize many local groups, volunteers and professional service providers and lever both financial and in kind support from several sources.

The ultimate goal of the project is to increase the personal safety and security of girls and women and to reduce the incidence of individuals coming into contact with the criminal justice system because of problematic and unhealthy attitudes and behaviour related to intimate interpersonal relationships.

The project will contribute to this goal by adapting and introducing the Making Waves/Vague par vague program to alternative education programs throughout New Brunswick, mobilizing youth and youth-serving professionals in these settings and increasing their capacity to respond effectively and proactively to the relationship education needs of the students attending alternative education programs.

These objectives will be achieved through development of partnerships between the provincial Making Waves/Vague par vague committee, the Department of Education, and over 22 alternative education sites in Anglophone, Francophone and First Nations communities throughout New Brunswick; adaptation of the existing school-based program for use in alternative education settings; recruitment of youth and youth-serving professionals who wish to participate in the program; delivery of student retreats and workshops; and linking of alternative education participants with participants within the mainstream education system.

Public Legal Education and Information Service of New Brunswick (PLEIS-NB) recently produced the "Let's Stop Bullying / Fini l'intimidation" Parent's Guide and Activity Book, which is being distributed in communities throughout New Brunswick primarily through community police officers. Through a combination of focus groups and interviews (English and French), PLEIS-NB will collect qualitative data on the use and effectiveness of the sponsor's bullying education materials. Focus groups and interviews will include a sample of parents, youth and service providers.

The ultimate goal of the project is to reduce the incidence of youth coming into conflict with the criminal justice system because of criminal activity caused by low self-esteem, substance abuse, school failure and / or negative associations and behaviour.

The project will contribute to these goals by mobilizing parents, youth, community volunteers and youth-serving professionals, increasing their capacity to respond effectively and proactively to the needs of youth through the development of sustainable community resources to address these needs.

These objectives will be carried out in a number of rural Anglophone, Francophone and First Nations communities throughout New Brunswick. The project will facilitate the implementation of local action plans initiated by youth at the 2002 Rural Youth Dialogue. The Youth Council of New Brunswick will work with local youth and youth-serving agencies to coordinate and support these activities. Activities will include community assessments; organization of local youth groups; mobilization of community resources for development of youth centres; local capacity building; design and piloting of new programs; and networking between local projects.

The goal of the project put forward by the Comité des intervenants du Nord-Ouest is to reduce the victimization or seniors and to reduce their feelings of insecurity. The sponsoring organization will mobilize volunteers and workers from various non-profit organizations to give educational talks to seniors, especially those who live alone in rural communities. An information kit will be shared that provides information on ways in which people can protect themselves against crime and in which they can obtain assistance if they are mistreated. Among the government and non-government agencies able to make use of the kits are the Service d'aide à la famille d'Edmundston – Grand Sault Inc, the Red Cross, hospitals and the hôpital Extra-murale, social workers, police forces and volunteers. Activities to provide the public with information will also be organized.

The goal of this project is to identify the sources of problems that help to increase the crime rate among young people in the Shédiac/Cap-Pelé area and the surrounding rural areas. In co-operation with the local secondary school and the municipal authorities and with the active involvement of students in Grades 9 to 12, the CRCFB will sponsor a forum that brings together young people and community workers. A consultation with young people will precede the forum. Ultimately, a community action plan will be developed to resolve these problems.

The object of the Festival de la famille is to improve the emotional bonds in families and among communities on the Acadian Peninsula. The sponsoring organization will mobilize and put parents and their children in touch with professional artists in order to plan and create an artistic project. The artists will be twinned with families, depending on the type of project proposed. Special events featuring the completed projects will be held in the five major areas of the Peninsula during the week of the Festival. Also, public awareness activities will be organized to highlight the importance of a healthy and safe family environment. These messages will be conveyed in interviews with the media, camp fires and artistic events. A large number of private sector, government, community and arts organizations will be mobilized as part of this project.

The proposal of the Centre de prévention de la violence familiale de Kent (CPVFK) is designed to reduce victimization and the incidence of bullying by equiping young people to protect themselves and to seek assistance and later giving the bullies an opportunity to gain an understanding of the consequences of their actions. The sponsor will inform and mobilize the public in the Kent area to participate in finding solutions through theatre. A play will be written by the young people and adults and presented in an interactive format that will include discussions with the audience. Following the production, workshops will be offered by the young people, accompanied by front-line workers. They will be twinned from the start of the project to bring the generations closer together. A document concerning the project (research, statistics, script) will be produced on CD-ROM and the project will be recorded on video. The CPVFK has created links with a number of government and community agencies and can count on their active involvement.

The organization will mobilize its partners in the community to create and use early childhood education materials in order to promote discussions of topics relating to personal safety, security and crime prevention.

The organization, a daycare centre that also offers after-hours programs, will develop an educational program for children, parents, employees, family services workers in the community and the general public that will reflect problems of aggression, anger management and intimidation. They believe that earlier intervention is a good method of preventing crime. In order to ensure that the program is sustainable, parents will be hired to help deliver and assume "ownership" of the program. Children will also be involved in the process through the after-class program – they will be involved in creating and presenting satirical plays and stories for pre-school children and the parents.

The ultimate goal of the project is to reduce the incidence of individuals coming into contact with the criminal justice system because of the effects of poverty in early childhood and adolescence.

The project will contribute to this goal by: 1) mobilizing and coordinating the efforts of the voluntary sector, government agencies and families to more effectively work together to address the root causes of poverty in the lives of children and youth in New Brunswick; 2) increasing the capacity of the voluntary sector to respond effectively and proactively to the needs of children and youth living in poverty; 3) developing sustainable community resources to address these needs; and 4) increasing public awareness of the impact of poverty on the long-term well-being and social functioning of children and youth.

These objectives will be achieved through hosting a series of provincial forums on family and childhood poverty; research; local education sessions for parents; posting of resource materials on the sponsor's web site; and information sharing among the voluntary sector, government agencies and community partners.

Ontario

The Anti-Violence Coordinating Committee will deliver a one-day conference, allowing both male and female participants to choose from a variety of sessions. The sessions will address issues that have a bearing on violence against women and children. Topics will include: Healthy Sexual Relationships (addressing sexual abuse and date rape); Healthy Families (addressing family violence); Financial Management; Safe Communities (addressing bullying in schools); Healthy Ageing (senior abuse); Healthy Thoughts (mental health, self-esteem); Aboriginal Workshops; Francophone Workshops; Crisis Management (unemployment, stress), Legal Issues (Landlord and Tenant Act).

The conference will be open to all residents from 6 wards, spread over 200km in Northern Ontario with a $5.00 registration fee. The committee is expecting 150 participants.

Building on the successes of their first phase project, Centre des Jeunes Francophone de Toronto (CJFT) will continue to prevent criminality among ethno-cultural Francophone youth by implementing a research and community-based intervention program. The second phase of the STOP project will include re-establishing youth-led focus groups centered on crime prevention, and the data gathered from these sessions will be presented to an advisory committee (composed of ethno-cultural Francophone youth from across the Toronto area). This information will be utilized to set out guidelines for the creation of a culturally specific crisis-intervention manual, entitled STOP.

In addition to the development of the manual, advisory committee members will take part in a series of "train-the-trainer" workshops. The focus of these workshops will be to increase participants' capacities to develop and implement a training curriculum that will compliment the STOP manual. The main focus of this curriculum will be to provide crisis-intervention training among ethno-cultural Francophone youth, which will also accompany a series of workshops for parents of participants. In addition to providing access to one-on-one counseling, the curriculum will also focus on conflict resolution and anger management. The project will also include hosting a series of meetings and partnership-building workshops with the Toronto Police Service, aimed at reducing attitudinal barriers that exist between its target group and the police service.

Building on the successes of its first-phase project, where a publication of cartoon-based stories reflecting the negative consequences of criminal activity was created, this Phase II initiative will attempt to prevent criminality amongst ethno-cultural Francophone youth by strengthening their leadership and civic capacities and engage them in various outreach activities.

The Théâtre Communautaire pour Prévenir le Crime project will focus on a core group of 30 youth that have been recognized as being "at-risk" due to economic status, academic performance, or behavioural issues. These youth will create interactive theatre modules that will reflect the motifs portrayed in the Phase I cartoon publication. These modules will be carefully structured to elicit discussions on the themes depicted in the theatre skits with their audiences.

Additionally, the focal point of the training will concentrate on developing a sense of empowerment and positive self-worth among its participants. Following the creation of these modules, participants will travel to several Francophone high schools throughout the Greater Toronto Area where they will present their theatre skits to youth aged 14-19.

This early intervention project is designed to complete the identified gap in services available to Francophone youth that exhibit high-risk behaviour related to substance abuse. The program provides life skills training to targeted at-risk youth including those that may be beginning to experience difficulty in school, socially, within the family or legally resulting from substance abuse. Teachers and other appropriate sources will refer youth for participation in the program. Thirty youth (in groups of ten) will participate in weekly sessions learning anger management, life, social and stress management skills. School staff will be trained to deliver the program and an evaluation of the effectiveness of the program will be conducted.

The project will provide leadership, mentoring, resources and increased educational opportunities for Francophone visible minority youth of African descent that are at risk of school drop out and delinquency.

The project will include the establishment of an advisory committee and offer a series of leadership development workshops targeting 30 youth selected on the basis of their potential to become youth leaders. A selection committee will choose youth for participation in the project from two Ottawa area high schools, Deslauriers and Louis Riel. The workshops will allow selected youth to develop a more comprehensive understanding regarding individual rights and responsibilities, develop their skills in conflict resolution and encourage the development of youth cooperatives. The creation of a mentor database will permit the matching of mentors with at-risk youth and expand opportunities for at-risk youth to learn about educational and community resources available to overcome barriers in their lives. The project will include opportunities for voluntary participation in community activities.

Le Cercle Culturel OKAPI de l'Ontario proposes a project that will include ten seminars that will educate a total of one hundred at-risk community members (ten per seminar) about crime and victimization. With the help of over thirty interested volunteers, the organization will offer information sessions about risk factors such as child abuse, inadequate education, unemployment, health problems, etc. which are directly linked to becoming an offender or victim of crime. Community members at greatest risk will be invited to participate in these sessions.

Once community members have learned about the factors that contribute to crime and victimization the community will be better equipped to identify specific problems within their community, and as a result, develop appropriate responses to individual circumstances.

As a second component of the project, Le Cercle Culturel OKAPI de l'Ontario intends to create a web site called E-prevention, which will include educational information, practical tools to promote safety and security as well as links to current local programs and agencies (English and French) that address issues of crime prevention. This will help ensure that agencies and individuals will have an on-going source of information and referral.

This multi-faceted initiative is designed to reduce violence and enhance the interpersonal skills of youth in the community of Vanier. The project has four components including conflict resolution, peer mentoring, recreation and volunteerism. The conflict resolution program entitled "Vers le pacifique" will be implemented in two Francophone schools and at a youth centre. The peer mentoring and learning program will allow older youth to become positive role models by supporting their younger peers with school assignments. Structured recreational activities planned and organized with youth input will provide alternative diversion activities. Finally a volunteer program will be developed to encourage youth to become more involved in their neighbourhoods and community.

The Bullying Prevention Program is based on a comprehensive curriculum created by the Goulbourn, West Carleton, and Kanata Community Resource Centres to empower teachers, parents and school children to address bullying. Activities include conducting a needs assessment in participating schools, hosting teacher training and parent information sessions, developing school committees, implementing classroom workshops (8 weeks of 30 minute lessons per week) to teach children how to address bullying with their peers in a non-violent manner. A community workshop to train the trainer for service providers completes the curriculum.

Over twenty schools from three Ottawa school boards will participate in this project. Project partners include the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, the French Language School Board, school councils, the Ottawa Regional Police, through school resource officers and the Nepean Community Resource Centre.

Prince Edward Island

"Je grandis! Tu grandis! " is aimed at reducing crime and victimization by building self-esteem among children ages 0-12 years. The project will mobilize parents and community partners, increase public awareness of the importance of self-esteem and build capacity in caregivers and parents to foster self-esteem in young children. Planned activities include the development of tools and resource, information sessions targeted to parents and other interested groups, the production of a video on skits written by students in Grades 7-9, and the development of a promotional campaign. The sponsoring organization has strong partnerships in the community: la Fédération des parents de l'Île-du-Prince-Édouard (representing the local parents committee), le Centre de santé communautaire Évangeline, le Centre de ressources familiales Cap pour enfants, and la Commission scolaire de langue française.

The project proposes to offer conflict resolution and peer mediation training, using the model of École Francois Buote (Gifts of Character), which was made available to the school and the community leading to effective crime prevention. This, in turn, will lead to the initiation of in-depth, sustainable activities to attack the root causes of crime.

The aim of the project is to reduce the incidence of unresolved conflict in the school community and the potential for violence. Parents, teachers and students will be introduced to the Virtues Language and peaceful approaches to resolving conflict through a workshop. A committee will be formed with representatives from area schools, students, teachers and parents to plan follow-up activities with a focus on harmony and peace. Partners include all students, teachers and parents of Eastern and French schools, the Club Richelieu de Charlottetown, Peaceworks, Charlottetown City Police and the RCMP. The Club Richelieu of Charlottetown will make a financial contribution.

PHASE 1

Objective #1 To assess the approach taken in the community with respect to crime prevention. Informing and strengthening the community in its sustained commitment to making individuals and organizations more accountable.

Proposed activities

Holding a 2^nd community forum on crime prevention to bring together the representatives of associations and organizations in the Évangéline area as well as teachers and students from Grades 7 to 12 at the École Évangéline to:

1. inform them about the implementation of the Action Plan adopted by the community following the March 1999 Forum and to present the positive results of the strategies adopted and the problems encountered;
2. determine the needs of the community, school and families that arise today in 2002 in order to ensure that people enjoy greater quality of life;
3. determine the strengths of the community, school and families in the Évangéline area that may help to build safe households in a secure community;
4. engage members of the community with the community advisory group in ongoing developments relating to crime prevention: all are expected to be responsible for the well-being of the community.

PHASE 2

Objective #2 To document the mobilization process applied, identify elements that contributed to the success of the mobilization, build a project that will result in sustainable efforts that could serve as a model for other people living and working in minority rural communities in the field of crime prevention.

Proposed activities

1. Study the results of data obtained from the community forum with a view to adjusting the Action Plan to meet the needs reported by participants in the 2002 Forum.
2. Implement the strategies in the 2002 action plan in the community, at school and in families.
3. Promote information relating to topics concerning the strategies in the Action Plan by publishing newsletters and distributing them to each family in the area in bilingual format.
4. Keep all relevant information on file that could be shared with groups that might benefit from the experience of our area in the field of crime prevention by addressing the causes of crime.
5. Participate in meetings of the Prince Edward Island Crime Prevention Association that bring together people interested in issues similar to those focused on by the community advisory group. To have active discussions with groups in the Atlantic area and on a national basis as well.
6. Continue to provide workshops and training sessions in the use of character attributes as the preferred method of dealing with issues relating to the causes of crime in Ontario, Quebec and the four Atlantic provinces. A number of sessions have already been held and others are being organized such as the Conference of early childhood educations from N.B. and P.E.I. in Fredericton on May 3, 4 and 5; the annual meeting of the N.S. School Board Association in Yarmouth on May 30 and 31 and June 1 as well as sessions with a number of religious communities in Quebec and a school board in Newfoundland.

PHASE 3

Objective #3 To provide residents of the Évangéline area with sustainable continuity in this process. To support and sustain partnerships involved in making all people more accountable for the causes of crime, whether it takes the form of petty crime or serious criminal offences.

Proposed activities

1. To enlarge the area to which the Virtues training sessions are distributed: character attributes to enable people to change their language of blame and shame into a language that appeals to such character attributes as respect, justice, trust, tolerance and courage with groups of seniors, young people, school administrators, health services staff, parents, company directors and employees and people responsible for community development.
2. To hold meetings where people live in various villages to persuade them to share, reflect upon and find possible solutions to issues of parent-teen relations, elder abuse, violence against women, girls, children and/or men living in rural communities.
3. To bring together people in the 18-30 age group to think about issues concerning the purchase of alcoholic drinks by adults for minors; violence at hockey games; the workings of the court system; dispute resolution in families and the community; victimization and repeat victimization in relations; rights and responsibilities of young adults.
4. To organize information evenings for various groups in the Évangéline community with people working in the court system, victims services, the provincial minor hockey association, remedial justice, dispute resolution, anger management and others, as the need arises;
5. To continue making productions for community television on subjects relating to making families, schools and the community more accountable for crime prevention by addressing the causes of crime.
6. To take steps with the Department of Highways in order to erect posters at the entrances to villages in the area that indicate the name of the place, welcome visitors and add a message relating to this project such as "Welcome to Maximeville. Drinking and Driving is dangerous!"
7. To continue to provide training in individual and/or collective self-esteem at different times so as to enable everyone wishing to attend to do so because of the flexible scheduling.
8. To prepare and distribute simple tools for use in the family, schools, communities and/or industry to consolidate the efforts of the advisory group on increased accountability of all people with respect to crime prevention.
9. To prepare credit card-size cards for distribution to locations such as public washrooms with the telephone numbers and/or names of agencies that can provide help with various challenges.

Quebec

School violence: Should the governing board deal with it? How? In cooperation with whom? The project's intent is to develop, test and distribute a training program that will educate and support various decision-making authorities in the field of education with respect to the role they can play in preventing violence in schools. The program will be disseminated in more than 70% of Quebec schools and offered to the anglophone educational community across Canada.

The applicant intends to hold a conference on bullying and extortion in co-operation with the Quebec Department of Education and other partner organizations.

This conference is intended first for workers in the network of school boards, pre-school education, primary and secondary institutions, as well as those who work or may be asked to work with the school to ensure that it remains a healthy and safe environment. The conference hopes to bring together parents, students, members of the school administration, members of the teaching staff and workers from the CLSCs, community organizations, police and municipal authorities.

Without the NCPC contribution, parents, students and community organizations could not attend since they would not be able to afford the cost of the conference, and the conference would accordingly be limited to people from the education field, which would reduce its impact as a forum for consultation and networking.

A total of 70 Francophone and 11 Anglophone delegations, each consisting of six people, will be able to register for the conference through local school boards. Furthermore, ten or so community organizations will be invited to present their achievements at a mini-information exhibition.

The conference has the threefold objective of sharing the most recent research findings on the causes of and approaches to effective action to counter bullying and extortion, providing information about promising approaches and experiences in the schools in preventing bullying and extortion and promoting change and mobilizing people capable of acting on these issues.

At the conference, these researchers will present the results of their work. Furthermore, the participants will be able to attend two workshops of their choice; about fifteen workshops will be presented on various promising experiments in preventing bullying and extortion in the schools. Participants will also be asked to take part in a workshop at which interregional discussions will be held concerning the types of action to be taken, challenges to be faced and the winning conditions for consultation that should be created.

A report on the conference will be prepared by the organizing committee as a follow-up on the recommendations produced by this event. Participants will also be invited to complete an evaluation of the event and the results of these evaluations will be included in the report. The report itself and information on the conference will be distributed over the networks concerned and on a Website.

The applicant intends to reach the public in seven administrative areas of Quebec, including the Lower St. Lawrence, the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean area, Quebec City, the Eastern Townships, Montreal, the North Shore and the Montérégie area, which are the areas where people run the greatest risk of being the victims of or of witnessing wrongful use of firearms (Quebec Coroner's Office, 2000).

It will mobilize the players in these areas to develop models for intervention that reflect urban, rural and linguistic realities. From the start of the project, three panels of experts will be created. The first will bring together workers from various fields based in Montreal; the second regional workers from the Province and the third experts working with the English-speaking public. They will document the regional and linguistic realities, note possible models for intervention and approve developments in the project.

Later, a training session lasting approximately 3 hours will be given and a tool box will be provided. Models for intervention, training materials and the contents of the tool box will be applied experimentally in each of the three communities targeted and will later be adjusted in light of the comments received.

Training workshops on the application of the new models for intervention will finally be offered in each of the seven areas. These workshops will be targeted to and mobilize close to 200 workers who will subsequently act in turn as multiplier agents for the implementation of various information activities in their communities.

The professionals' knowledge of the risk factors associated with misuse of and victimization by firearms of young people and women will be assessed before and after they have taken part in the workshops. This assessment will also be designed to determine the level of satisfaction with the materials presented and distributed and may guide the development of new initiatives. Other activities are also planned to measure the impact of the project in the seven areas targeted.

Finally, the materials developed will be distributed throughout Quebec and the rest of Canada and a bilingual on-line documentation centre will be created to contain all the materials in the tool box.