FORT WORTH -- The city won approval for a Safe Communities designation Wednesday, signifying its attentiveness to reducing injuries and joining 23 other U.S. entities and 299 worldwide with the status.
Fort Worth will officially receive the designation in a local ceremony early next year. Evaluators completed a two-day site visit Thursday by announcing that they approved the city."This is a community that works together," said Donna Stein-Harris, senior director for Safe Communities America, based in Itasca, Ill., to members of the Fort Worth committee that worked on the project for a year. "Nobody has to teach you how to do it. It's in your DNA."Safe Communities America confers the designation on behalf of the World Health Organization's Collaborating Centre on Community Safety Promotion in Stockholm. The organization is a program of the National Safety Council, and it is intended to encourage injury reduction in communities nationwide.Dallas is the only other Texas entity that has the Safe Communities designation, winning it 10 years ago. The award was launched in 1986 in Canada.A 130-member Fort Worth steering committee, organized by the Fort Worth Emergency Services Collaborative, made its application to Safe Communities in October after nearly a year of work.Programs launched by its task forces, and highlighted in the application, included educating nurses to screen patients for possible domestic abuse, placing emergency contact cards in the bathrooms of the city's One Safe Place center for domestic violence victims; educating Little League coaches to recognize symptoms of concussion and heat illness and to begin chest compressions in case of cardiac arrest; placing "Take Back" medication boxes at three police substations in neighborhoods with high incidence of drug overdose; and training in prevention of falls.Neighborhood patrol officers, in another program, offer coupons for free ice cream to children that they spot wearing bicycle helmets, and free helmets to kids who aren't wearing them."It's been a very broad-based coalition of people that came together," said Dr. Terence McCarthy, medical director of the Emergency Services Collaborative.Stein-Harris called Fort Worth's application the "gold standard" among applications and said the evaluators had no recommendations for improving it.Criteria for the designation centered on collaboration and communication, including the involvement of community leaders, and an understanding of the community's "vulnerable groups."The Fort Worth steering committee's task forces included domestic violence, child abuse, drug overdose and abuse, motor vehicle crashes, disaster preparedness, sports injuries and leadership.Whether Fort Worth gets to enjoy being the official 300th Safe Communities entity -- a status the Fort Worth committee wants -- is up in the air: Evaluators are visiting Murray State University in Kentucky next, and about 15 applications are in the pipeline, Stein-Harris said.Scott Nishimura, 817-390-7808Twitter: @JScottNishimuraHave more to add? News tip? Tell us
