Making the City of Windsor a Safe Community

Falls, traffic collisions, self-harm, assaults and fires are the top five injury priorities in the City of Windsor, Ontario. Together, these result in more than 6,900 visits to a hospital emergency ward and 53 deaths each year for Windsor residents.

A Community Working together

Police, fire, emergency services, city council, health, education, community groups, and citizens came together in December, 2015 to analyse the leading causes of injury and injury-related deaths in their community. Their initiative is called Safe City Windsor.

100+ community leaders and citizensworking together to identify Windsor, Ontario's injury priorities — 100+ community leaders & citizens working together to determine injury priorities in Windsor

This priority-setting session is the 1st step in Windsor’s bid to become designated as one of Canada’s safe communities by Parachute, a national charitable organization dedicated to preventing injuries and saving lives.

Started in 2014 by the Windsor Safety Village, Safe City Windsor now has a leadership table that includes the City of Windsor, Windsor Police, EMS Essex-Windsor, Windsor-Essex County Health Unit, Unifor, Windsor Fire & Rescue, The Safety Village, Windsor Regional Hospital, University of Windsor, Ford City, St Clair College, Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and others.

Becoming Designated as a National Safe Community

Safe City Windsor has two more tasks to complete before the city is approved for national designation:

Carry out a community survey to measure the city’s readiness to embrace injury prevention programs and services.
Prepare an action plan that will reduce the number of injuries and injury-related deaths from the priority causes – falls, traffic collisions, self-harm, assaults and fires.

Windsor hopes to achieve its national safe community designation by June, 2016. It will then join a national network of 45 Canadian communities already designated as safe places.