Invitation

As Chair of the Ballarat Community Safety Advisory Committee I have great pleasure to invite you to the inaugural Rural and Regional Safety Conference 2011. This free conference will be held on Wednesday 19 October, 2011, during Community Safety Month and will showcase current evidence and practice of key community safety issues affecting Victorian rural and regional areas.

The conference program promises to be engaging and Council has been fortunate to secure high calibre speakers who will talk about alcohol related harm; driver-cyclist interaction; women’s violence prevention and urban design.

With more than 100 delegates expected to attend, representatives from rural and regional councils will be a priority group for the conference. Recognising that rural and regional workers are often impacted by issues of isolation and resourcing; one of the primary aims of this conference is to provide participants with opportunities for networking, capacity building and to informally share learnings from their communities with other councils.

To be held in the Annexe, a recently completed contemporary conference venue within the Art Gallery of Ballarat; this event provides both local and regional delegates with the added opportunity to explore the Art Gallery of Ballarat while they are here.

I look forward to seeing you in October.

Yours sincerely

Councillor Des Hudson and Chair Community Safety Advisory Committee

When: Wednesday 19 October, 2011

Time:  Conference: 10am-3pm - registration and morning tea from 9.30am

Where: Art Gallery of Ballarat, 40 Lydiard Street North, Ballarat

Audience

This conference is intended for all those with an interest in community safety issues including representatives from:

• Regional and rural councils
• Health and welfare sector
• Social, strategic and transport planners
• Sporting organisations (committee of management/board, interested members)
• Members of the broader community with an interest in both health and safety

To download the conference brochure click here 

 Conference speakers

• Geoff Munro, Policy Director, Australian Drug Foundation

A former secondary school teacher, Geoff Munro has worked in the drug field for over twenty years specialising in drug prevention and community development for government and non-government services.

He has led numerous projects, published on policy and practice in peer reviewed journals and presented papers at conferences, drug summits and parliamentary inquiries. Geoff's recent publications include co-editing Drug Education in Schools: Searching for the Silver Bullet.

He has convened five International Conferences on Drugs and Young People since 1998 and two Thinking Drinking Conferences in 2005 and 2007. His current role involves policy development and its advocacy on behalf of the Australian Drug Foundation.

• Dr Cameron Munro, Sinclair Knight Merz

Dr Cameron Munro is a transport planner with consulting firm Sinclair Knight Merz.  Cameron has expertise in bicycle and pedestrian planning and road safety. His primary interests are in the evaluation of active transport projects, particularly with regard to the influence infrastructure can have on cyclist safety and road user interactions.  Among recent projects have been the evaluation of enhanced vertical separation of on-road bicycle lanes, shared path design requirements to reduce cyclist-pedestrian conflict and research into the driver-cyclist relationship.

• Janelle Cribb, Project Manager, Sports & Gender Equity, VicHealth  

Janelle Cribb is the Project Manager, Sports and Gender Equity at VicHealth.    Her role supports and contributes to the goal of increasing safe participation for women across sporting codes; promoting gender equitable practices and environments in sport and active recreation; and building workforce capacity to design and deliver health promotion activities.

Janelle has worked for eighteen years in the areas of family violence and homelessness.  Prior to joining VicHealth she worked for four years in a policy position within Housing & Community Building at the Department of Human Services.   She has undertaken case work, community development and management roles.  She has lectured in the TAFE sector to community development and welfare studies students and has a Bachelor of Arts and post graduate qualifications in education and housing management and policy. 

Her main sporting interest is football where she was successful as a premiership player and premiership winning coach in the Victorian Women’s Football League.   She also coached the Victorian Women’s County team to victory against Vic Metro. 

Janelle has a strong interest in collaborative working relationships to progress new initiatives to prevent violence against women and children and is excited about the opportunities sports settings present to continue this work.     

• Stephanie Knox BA MTCP LFPIA CPP, Planning Institute of Australia

Stephanie is an urban, regional and social planner, a Life Fellow of the Planning Institute of Australia and a Certified Practicing Planner.  She has a Bachelor of Arts and a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning, from the University of Sydney.  She has extensive experience in social planning, community safety, community consultation and strategic planning, having worked at all levels of government and in private consultancy, in Australia and overseas. She has managed numerous strategic planning studies and planning projects in Australia and overseas, including healthy urban planning projects, urban design framework plans, safer design guidelines, social and community facilities studies and a post tsunami planning support project.  She was the inaugural Planning for Health and Wellbeing Project Officer with the Planning Institute of Australia – Victorian Division from 2002 to 2005 and has been a consultant on the National Healthy Spaces and Places Project from inception in 2007. She is member of the Premiers Council for Physical Activity (Tasmania) and the VicHealth Advisory Committee on Physical Activity.

• Katrina Leason - Manager, Fair Game Respect Matters, AFL Victoria

Katrina Leason  has  been  committed   to working  in violence against women services for twenty five  years.  She has a background in community and social work and teaching within  TAFE.  Her  educational qualifications  are  in Social Work and she has a Master of Arts in Social Policy. Katrina has a high level of  interpersonal and communication skills.,  and  was  recognised as an initiator of cultural  change as demonstrated in her  work with Victoria Police as a specialist consultant . In this  role, she was required to  develop and deliver  a' train the trainer' program in relation to the Family  Violence Act (2008) to  Senior Sergeants  across Victoria.  She has an understanding of the football industry through her work  as  a training consultant  with the AFL  'Respect and Responsibility Program ' where she assisted in the development and delivery of  a  training program.   Her more recent  work with the Fair Game: Respect Matters Program has enabled  her to utilise all her skills to ensure that  the principles of primary prevention in violence against women are  adopted within the football league and  with its volunteers. 

As manager of the program,  Katrina has shown a high level of leadership,  and  skill in engaging key stakeholders,  the club officials and club members. She has also developed strong working relationships and gained respect from  the staff within the Football Leagues  and  AFL Victoria. 

She has conducted several educational forums (Department of Justice, Club Volunteers, Players) and has utilised her extensive experience when facilitating the educational sessions in workshop style to

Parking

Street parking in the vicinity of the Art Gallery of Ballarat is metered and restricted to one or two hours. Disabled parking spaces are available in Lydiard Street, just south of the Art Gallery of Ballarat and across the road by the Ballarat Visitor Information Centre.

All day parking close to the Art Gallery of Ballarat is available at the following two locations:

• Civic Hall/Library, enter via Armstrong or Doveton Street. Grid reference A1. Cost $4.50 per day.
• Central Square, enter via Dana Street. Grid reference A4. Cost $4.50 per day.
• Field Street car park, off Camp Street. Grid reference D2. Cost $4.50 per day.

Click here to download a map.

Click here for the Program Outline.

Registrations:

To download a registration form for submission online click here

For more information:

Contact Council’s Community Development Support Officer Sandra Kennedy on 5320 5746 or email sandrakennedy@ballarat.vic.gov.au