About Us

A Safe Life is a Basic Right

Bay of Quinte Safe Communities is a grass roots, not-for-profit, charitable organization that was created in June 1997 by partners in the community who felt that safety in our area was a growing concern. These partners included the local municipalities, police, fire, health unit, hospitals, chambers of commerce, Loyalist College, WSIB, local industry and Trenval.

The purpose of our organization is to reduce the incidence of preventable injury and death in the Quinte region through public awareness and programs developed to teach safe practices at home, school, work and play. We were designated a safe Community by the Safe Community Foundation in March 1998 and incorporated in 2001. The Safe Community Foundation is recognized by the World Health Organization. Our mission is to make the Quinte area, the safest place to live, work, learn and play.

Our designation took a concerted effort by all our partners who were required to demonstrate that our community does more than just desire that fewer of its citizens are injured; it is a community that has created the capacity to address its injury challenges in a thoughtful and practical way. To become designated as a Safe Community in Canada, our community demonstrated that it had acquired the four attributes that all successful Canadian Safe Communities possess. These attributes include: Leadership, priority setting for programming, sustainability and community engagement.

The concept for developing a Safe Communities movement grew out of the First World Conference on Accident and Injury Prevention, held in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1989.

The Manifesto for Safe Communities defines the resolution of the conference and still stands as the key foundation document for the international Safe Communities movement, and for Safe Communities Canada.

Many people and organizations in communities all over the world aspire to the goals of safe communities, and invest energy and resources to achieve these goals. The conceptual significance of the manifesto is that it encourages systematic collaboration of all organizations and people within a community to effect a change. The concept of a safe community recognizes that no single approach to issues of injury prevention and safety promotion can be as effective as a broadly understood and supported collaboration among community organizations and community members. This is where the concept of a safe community is unique: It recognizes that the leading role is played by the community itself, an entity that is larger than any of its component parts.

Bay of Quinte Safe Communities works with its partners to put people and processes in place to ensure that a blend of strategic activities and community involvement will have a significant impact on the rate of its injuries wherever and however they occur.