WELLINGTON COUNTY – Wellington County OPP are confident they can still engage the youth through a new Community Response Unit.
Late last month, the Upper Grand District School Board unanimously approved ending the School Resource Officer (SRO) program which meant police officers will not be embedded at Guelph, Wellington and Dufferin County schools.
As a result, Wellington OPP are reallocating resources toward the new Community Response Unit (CRU) to continue engagement with youth and the wider community.
“We feel strongly that we do not need a physical school location to engage, educate and interact with the youth or community members of Wellington County,” a presentation to the Wellington County Police Services Board said on Wednesday.
“There are numerous opportunities on a daily basis in which to do this and we believe that moving our SRO positions to a newly-created unit and position named the CRU will do this.”
Sgt. Corrie Trewartha told the police board the new unit will provide flexibility for additional frontline support and wider-community engagement.
The members of the CRU would be consistent faces seen at community events such as the Scottish Festival, Riverfest, downtown street closures and others.
There is also preliminary discussion of creating a youth advisory committee, with two youths each from the seven municipalities, to find out specifically what the youth seek from officers regarding community engagement through a diversity lens.
“We know that as the county grows that is becoming more prevalent and so we want to be able to address those concerns direct from the youth,” Trewartha said.
Other youth engagement will happen through the Integrated Youth Service Network hubs and presentations made to schools.
The officers in this unit will also be able to respond to nearby calls for service to assist other officers when possible and they are not tied to any specific location in the county.
“They’ll be able to go throughout the entire county and respond to the issues that need to be responded to,” Trewartha said.
The most significant changes will be seen at the four high schools in Wellington County that would normally have a dedicated SRO.
Trewartha said the plan is to transition two of those spots to the new unit starting in July and add the other two in October.
She said the OPP are rethinking the approach to youth and community engagement with an innovative and flexible new unit.
“You can’t serve the community sitting in an office chair and you can’t serve the youth (this way) either,” Trewartha said.
“The new unit, the CRU, is important and this new direction is pretty exciting.”
