Measuring results is always an issue when we do our program, and for the community safety planning, it's multi-stage programming, so the first question will be if the community wanted to engage with us and if it had a community safety plan. That could take one, two, or three years, and then it's the implementation. How do you get the partners around the table? Success is measured on getting partners together and getting things started in a community.
Then the programs run. At a minimum, you'll want five years to be able to get the program running and have enough data to then evaluate whether it has worked. To see outcome results, I'd say you are looking at about seven to 10 years. Remembering that this is multi-generational, you are targeting the youth and you need to let them grow up to see if the results are going to be there.
We've had initial internal evaluations of the community safety plan, and it's looked very positive. That's why we received extra funding in 2015 for it. In the crime prevention strategy, federally our role is to fund projects to develop an evidence base of what works, and then work with provincial partners, private sector partners, and communities to institutionalize the successful programs.
On the sustainability of what we're doing and looking at the long-term results, you're not going to get that outcome in three or five years. You need to let the program do what it's meant to do and then assess the outcome after the people have been able to move on.