1. Leadership & Collaboration:  Demonstration of leadership by coalition or group focused on improving community safety.  
2. Programme Reach:  The range and reach of community safety programmes operating throughout your community/region, including an indication of the extent to which they are based on proven or promising intervention strategies.
3. Priority Setting:  Demonstration of programmes that target and promote safety for high risk/vulnerable groups and environments.
4. Data Analysis & Strategic Alignment: Analysis of available safety (injury, violence, crime and perception) data for your community/region and how they align with established national/state/regional priorities and action plans.
5. Evaluation: Outline of expected impacts and how they are being measured or evaluated.
6. Communication & Networking:  Demonstration of community engagement with relevant sectors of your community/region and ongoing participation in local, national and Pacific Safe Communities networks is required.

Starting the Process for Pacific Safe Community Accreditation:

• Send formal letter to SCFNZ stating that your community is aiming to achieve the criteria for Pacific Safe Community accreditation within the next 3-12 months.
• Following receipt of this letter, SCFNZ will invoice the community for prepayment of the Pacific accreditation fee ($2000 for New Zealand applicants: $4000 for applications from outside of New Zealand) and appoint a peer support person to provide ongoing practical advice to your community.
• Prepare short text version of your application for inclusion on the SCFNZ website.
• Complete application demonstrating how your community has achieved each of the criteria for Pacific Safe Community Accreditation and send electronic version to SCFNZ.
• SCFNZ will acknowledge receipt of your application and will conduct a preliminary assessment.  If the preliminary assessment deems that the application is not ready for formal review, SCFNZ will notify the community and outline the deficiencies, for example, criteria not covered or not adequately documented etc.
• If SCFNZ is satisfied that the application is ready for formal review, the community will be notified and peer reviewers will be appointed and the formal review process will commence.   At this point SCFNZ will require 3 hard copies of the application and any supporting documents.  Following receipt of all relevant materials, the peer review team will have three weeks to study and assess the application and any supporting documents.
• Each peer reviewer will submit a written assessment identifying the strengths and weaknesses in the application. SCFNZ will assess each of these reports and at a mutually agreed time, will host a teleconference with the peer reviewers to determine whether the application has achieved each of the criteria for accreditation.  If the answer is yes, SCFNZ will notify the applicant community and inform them of the next steps. This call should take place within a week of the completion of the formal review.
• SCFNZ will then provide the community with a formal report demonstrating how the community has met each criteria and recommend that it be accredited as a Pacific Safe Community.  The formal report will be vetted by the peer reviewers in advance of its submission to the community.
• If the peer review team deems that the community is not ready for accreditation, SCFNZ will inform the community of this decision and outline the steps it must take in order to become ready.

Conducting the Site Visit/Accreditation Ceremony:

• As a means for controlling the applicant community’s expenses, there will be joint site visit/accreditation celebrations for all Pacific Safe Community accreditations.  This ceremony should take place within two months of the completion of the formal review and should last a minimum of half a day.  Working with the community, SCFNZ will arrange a date for the site visit and for a public and celebratory accreditation ceremony.  Costs associated with hosting the site visit and accreditation ceremony are the responsibility of the community.  SCFNZ will cover the costs of attendance at the site visit and accreditation celebration for two representatives for all New Zealand community applicants. Applicants from outside of New Zealand need to cover all travel costs. SCFNZ will also supply the following: Certificates of Agreement to be signed by the community  and a  Safe Community Plaque.  The costs for the certificates and plaque are covered in the application fee.

• The purpose of the site visit is to allow the peer review team to meet face-to-face with the leadership group, to verify how the community has fulfilled the requirements for each criteria, to review and discuss the formal report, and to clarify the ongoing involvement of the community in relevant local, national and Pacific Safe Community networks www.ppscn.org.

• SCFNZ encourgaes communities to ensure active involvement of all relevant community stakeholders and members of the public in the accreditation celebration.

After Accreditation:

• SCFNZ will ensure that the formal application and the web-site summary are posted on the SCFNZ website.
• The community is responsible for submitting annual reports to SCFNZ in March each year.  A template will be provided to each community by SCFNZ in December of the preceding year. Annual reports are posted on the SCFNZ website.

Advantages of Safe Community Accreditation:

Community based safety promotion has been nationally and internationally proven as an effective intervention to both promote safety and reduce the injury burden.  Promoting safety and preventing injuries is important as the benefits of staying injury free are considerable.

• For individuals and families there is continued quality of life, ongoing participation in work, leisure and educational activities, and preservation of income and assets.
• For organisations and businesses the benefits of injury prevention include reduced disruption to their operations, increased productivity, retention of valued staff, and reduced levies. 
• The wider community has a lot to gain from having a safer, positive and more productive population, and from less demand being placed on the health care and justice systems due to injury and violence.

For further information about Safe Community Accreditation, please contact us contact@scfnz.org