Kwanlin Dün First Nation

Published purpose

The Kwanlin Dün First Nation (KDFN) Community Safety Officer (CSO) project is a non-enforcement based program. The CSO Program aligns with Kwanlin Dün’s inherent right to self-reliance and governance. The CSOs are the natural and traditional safeguards in the community that were lost due to colonization and play a significant role in reconciliation, specifically helping to bridge and build trusting relationships with western counterparts and systems that have historically invoked harm. The KDFN CSO program is seen as a powerful and culturally relevant justice program for KDFN that speaks to a number of Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action, in addition to several Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Calls to Justice. The CSO Program is a preventative and wellness-based approach that draws on KDFN traditions, a robust training curriculum and a tiered recruitment model. While the CSOs work closely and collaboratively with the RCMP to enhance the effectiveness of existing policing services in terms of cultural relevance and responsiveness to the public safety needs of KDFN, the CSOs have no enforcement authority. The CSO’s understand the importance of allowing citizens to feel respected and understood. The CSOs work with children, families, and elders. They are not reactionary, but proactive. They are highly visible, known and trusted in the community. Contemporary and westernized interventions do not always make sense to KDFN citizens especially if they are hurting, vulnerable, angry, or scared. The CSOs are consistently the first call for assistance and help to meet and triage the immediate needs of the community and when necessary, bridge with other resources. Providing front line supports and services allow the CSOs and the KDFN community to foster the ability to work collaboratively identifying risks, act together to reduce threats, and to facilitate healing and wellness. Through the work of the CSOs and the partnerships they uphold, KDFN citizens have become empowered and justified in asserting their right to live and raise their children in a safe community.