‘Working together for a safer community’

Tuesday 24th November 2009, 9am to 5pm

Internationally, higher education institutions are facing the challenge of providing a safe environment for students and staff. The goal of this symposium is to provide expert and practical information to help institutions develop mechanisms to identify and respond to campus threats in a safe, fair, humane and legal manner.

The 2009 ‘Working together for a safer community’ national symposium held in Melbourne will bring together international and local experts in the fields of threat assessment, mental health, law and security to discuss the lessons learned from past experiences and how to apply them to mitigate threatening situations.

Student services managers, counsellors, security advisers, and others involved in managing threatening behaviour in the tertiary environment.


Cost: $295 per person or $245 per person for groups of 3 or more.

Australian Safer Community Awards

The Monash University Safer Community Program is the recipient of the 2009 Australian safer Community Award in the category of Education.

The Awards are sponsored by Emergency Management Australia (EMA), a division of the Australian Government Attorney-General’s Department, in conjunction with States and Territories. They recognise best practice and innovation by organisations and individuals that help to build safer communities across Australia. The awards cover all aspects of community safety in the context of emergency management including:

· risk assessment · research · education and training · information and knowledge management · prevention, preparedness, response and recovery

The Victorian component of awards were hosted by the Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner on 9 November 2009, and the judging panel included representatives from the Department of Human Services, the Municipal Association of Victoria, the Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner and the Department of Sustainability and the Environment. Nominated projects or initiatives were required to demonstrate that the project:

· was established in response to a specific trigger or need · included community representatives in its development · succeeded in improving community safety · has national applicability · is innovative· raises community awareness of emergencies

The Safer Community Program will now go on to be nominated for a National award the presentation of which will be conducted on December 4 2009 in Canberra.