Thank you for your question.
Certainly there are myriad crime prevention services and supports to the front lines that are noteworthy. With respect to the work that's ongoing, I think I'll focus on what we're trying to achieve with respect to the work in what's been identified as the most vulnerable communities, the communities that have the highest levels of violence against women. Our efforts with respect to that will involve a multidisciplinary approach, clearly from numerous federal contributors.
But when I look at the police realm and specifically ways in which we can work to address violence and better the situation for youth who are affected by violence in those families, one specific program would be intervention and diversion strategies. Across the realm of policing there are a number of best practices relative to being responsive to youth at risk. Oftentimes youth who are caught up in familial violence and who experience that end up having encounters with the police and end up being youth who are in crisis and at risk. In terms of intervention and diversion models—the hub model, for example, and the START model in Manitoba—a number of them are recognized best practices. What they undertake, what they seek to do, is to identify what those risk factors are and try, from a collective community standpoint, to respond to what that youth needs when he's in that crisis.
If it's a specific issue surrounding familial violence, then it's making sure that as a community we respond to the risks at play. If there's a substance abuse issue, then it's diverting that youth to the appropriate resources that can support that youth and get him on the right track. I think historically this is a proper way to deal with things, a holistic way to assist youth who are in crisis. It doesn't serve a youth well to simply lay a criminal charge and not give consideration to the risk factors that are causing him to act out.
That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to back up our efforts on the prevention scale. In the meeting that's taking place in December in Prince Albert with the detachment commanders working in those most vulnerable communities, we will have subject matter experts represented from a variety of youth intervention and diversion programs who will speak about the merits of those programs and will assist them should they seek to implement those programs locally within their own communities. We're looking to expand on some of these recognized best practices that assist youth in crisis and gather that community round table to deal with those youth at risk in a manner that's responsive to their needs at that time.