Community safety - situation tables

The Collaborative Public Safety Program (CPSP) leads and supports efforts to create and enhance existing Situation Tables in B.C.

Situation Tables (also known as Hubs) help front line staff from the public safety, health, and social service sectors to identify vulnerable people and collaboratively and rapidly connect them to services before they experience a negative or traumatic event (for example, victimization, overdose, eviction, etc.). Situation Tables empower agencies to reduce a broad range of risks that can impact a person’s well-being and safety.

Situation table benefits

• Reduce long term demand on emergency and police resources
• Increase vulnerable peoples’ use of services
• Proactively connect people to services

Situation table community of practice

The CPSP is building a Situation Table Community of Practice to enable participants to learn from each others' experiences and to learn about other community safety issues and response. Participants’ experiences and insights from the first community of practice session are available in the Public Safety Insights – Summary of the Day of Dialogue on Situation Tables.

Situation tables in B.C. communities

Situation Tables were first introduced in B.C. by the following municipalities:

• Surrey Mobilization and Resiliency Table (SMART)
• Surrey Children and Youth at Risk Table (CHART)
• Mission Active Support Table (MAST)

Following the success of the first Situation Tables, the OCR-GO has funded the following communities to implement their own Situation Tables:

• Penticton Community Active Support Table (CAST)
• Kelowna Outreach and Support Table (KOaST)
• West Kelowna, Westbank First Nation, and Peachland - Greater Westside Hub
• Burnaby Mobilization and Resiliency Table (BMART)
• Hope Situation Table (HOST)
• Cariboo-Chilcotin Acute Response Table (CCART)
• Terrace Situation Table
• Prince George Situation Table
• Cowichan Valley Integrated Response Team (CVIRT)
• Campbell River Situation Table
• Kitimat Situation Table

Recently funded communities include:

• Prince Rupert
• Smithers
• Nanaimo
• Quesnel
• Oliver and Osoyoos
• Kent-Harrison
• Whistler
• Abbotsford