Our Story
Our Beginnings
After operating under the "Neighbourhood Watch" banner for three years, the City of South Perth approached us with an opportunity to rebrand, and thus the CoSP Community Safety Collective was born!
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The rebrand has allowed us to extend much further than the traditional Neighbourhood Watch model permitted, and create an entirely community-led, volunteer-run, not-for-profit organisation.
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Whilst our aim is to create a strong online presence and encourage hyperlocal communication between neighbours via WhatsApp and social media, we will continue to inspire and facilitate face-to-face interaction in our neighbourhoods.
Our Aim
By working with local government, and tapping into established connections with subject matter experts already embedded in our local community, we hope to achieve a more democratic approach to community safety and crime prevention - a collective, innovative undertaking that is "of the people, by the people, for the people."
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Furthermore, by utilising the SafeGrowth method, the CoSP Community Safety Collective will seek to embed strategies such as crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED) by working directly with residents associations, community groups, and local change agents.
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Our hope is that we, as a collective, will be called upon to guide, advise and empower, but that ultimately change will be instigated and implemented by members of the community themselves. This approach ensures higher levels of engagement and social cohesion, which in turn helps us to sustain community-building and crime prevention in the longer term.
SafeGrowth
SafeGrowth envisions 21st Century neighbourhoods of imagination, liveability, and safety. It is a people-based program that creates new relationships between local government and residents to prevent crime and plan for the future. While technology and evidence-based practice plays an important role, SafeGrowth builds community capacity with precise and measurable SafeGrowth plans and permanent, problem-solving teams networked together throughout the city.
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SafeGrowth was developed by Gregory Saville in 2007 based on decades of criminological research and consulting work in crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), urban safety and policing, including the formation of the International CPTED Association in Calgary in 1996. Since its launch in Canada, SafeGrowth has been adopted across a number of neighbourhoods in North America, and in 2014 was first introduced in New Zealand and Australia.