City of Calgary Wins Minister’s Awards for Municipal Excellence
City of Calgary Wins Minister’s Awards for Municipal Excellence
For release November 21, 2013
Calgary, Alberta. The City of Calgary was presented today with two separate awards for Municipal Excellence by the Honourable Doug Griffiths, Minister of Alberta Municipal Affairs.
The City is winner of an Innovation Award Honourable Mention and overall winner of the Safe Communities Award, both presented at the annual conference of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA).
The Innovation Award Honourable Mention was presented for the 311 Mobile App, developed by Customer Service & Communications. The award recognizes creative solutions for improved services, governance, productivity, or conditions in the community.
The 311 Mobile App allows citizens to submit service requests using their smartphones. The app uses a smartphone's Global Positioning System (GPS) to detect the location of the request. It also allows citizens to attach a photo to the request, view their previously submitted requests and track the status of publicly shared requests. The information, attached photo and location citizens provide allow City employees to assess, prioritize and efficiently respond to requests.
“I’m proud that my colleagues at The City are being recognized for ingenuity in making services more accessible to citizens,” says Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “The 311 Mobile App contributes to the transformation of government, and it provides a quick and cost effective way for citizens to directly improve their community.”
The 311 Mobile App was launched May 7 and five new services were recently added bringing the total to 22 services available on the app. Additional services, including catch basin and graffiti concerns, are planned to be added by year end.
The Safe Communities Award was presented to the Multi-Agency School Support Team (MASST), a unique partnership between the Calgary Police Service, The City of Calgary’s Community & Neighbourhood Services business unit, Calgary Board of Education, Calgary Catholic School District and Alberta Health Services.
The Safe Communities category focuses on law enforcement and prevention of criminal activity, including addressing root causes and providing learning opportunities to high risk groups.
MASST teams consist of a police officer and City social worker based in various Calgary schools. They work directly with children, their families, schools and community agencies to identify problems quickly and deliver prevention and intervention services to children aged 5-12 years. “We are very honoured our MASST program was selected for the Safe Communities Award,” says Community & Social Development Manager, Cheryl Joynt. “If we intervene early in the lives of children demonstrating at-risk behaviour, we know we have a better chance of making a difference to that child’s long-term success – and that benefits everyone.”
“Thank you to the Provincial government for acknowledging the importance of early intervention programs such as MASST,” says Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson. “MASST pairs a police officer and social worker to work directly with at-risk youth and their families. By addressing risky behaviour early, we are able to steer kids away from crime to where their chances of success are far greater.”
The Minister’s Awards for Municipal Excellence involve a rigorous process of application, documentation and review, and the awards are open to municipalities across Alberta.
Spokespersons (Media Line: 403-828-2954):
311 Mobile App: Clarke Bellamy, Business Coordinator, 311 Citizen Services, City of Calgary
MASST: Cheryl Joynt, Community & Social Development Manager, City of Calgary
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