Health and Wellness

1. (i) The strategic approach for violence prevention implemented by the Western Cape Government is found in the Provincial Strategic Plan (PSP). The current strategic approach is reflected in the 2019-2024 PSP, which emphasises a whole-of-society approach to safety, integrating law enforcement with violence prevention strategies that target the underlying risk factors for violence through a public health approach. The 2024-2029 PSP is being developed and will be finalised in March 2025. The 2024-2029 PSP will continue to prioritise a holistic approach to safety and emphasise the importance of area-based approaches to tackling crime and violence.

The strategic approach to the Violence Prevention Unit (VPU) has been unpacked in the past twelve months and is a core component of the Western Cape Government’s broader violence prevention strategy. The VPU is an enabler of localised and system-wide evidence-informed responses to drivers of crime and violence across the life course, using a public health approach.

The VPU has two pillars. Firstly, it facilitates collaborative multi-sectoral action to address drivers of violence in high-crime areas. This is done through an area-based approach to safety, which is a place-based approach that aims to bring different stakeholders together to address local drivers of crime and violence across the life course, using and leveraging existing resources and assets, thereby improving individual and societal well-being. A strategic framework for an area-based approach to safety in the Western Cape is being developed and will be finalised towards the end of the 2024/25 financial year.

Through its second pillar, the VPU seeks to pilot or support partners to be more evidence-informed in the design, delivery and/or evaluation of their approaches and interventions to reduce violence across the life course. Both the ABT approach and the evidence-informed violence prevention intervention approach build on and can be linked to the Community-Oriented Primary Care (COPC) approach.

The VPU motto is “Growing Safer Communities Together”. Overall, the development of the VPU strategy has made significant strides in establishing a robust, adaptive, and collaborative framework that is responsive to the local contexts of violence across the Western Cape. The first year of the VPU’s operations has been focused on developing its strategic approach and on laying the foundation to activate collaborative action.

(ii) Since its establishment, the VPU staff has been trained on stakeholder engagement, problem statement development, data analysis, developing area profiles, and mapping resources tools to enhance the effectiveness of the area-based approach to safety. These sessions encourage peer-to-peer learning exchanges on collaboration, inclusivity, reflection and effective communication while equipping the team with practical stakeholder engagement tools.. The process has also purposefully enabled learning to allow adaptation of the area-based approach to safety. The Western Cape Economic Development Partnership is an important learning partner in the VPU capacitation process. Furthermore, the VPU has organised webinars on data and evidence to capacitate stakeholders with expert knowledge that will assist them in tackling drivers of violence.

2. Below is the status of areas where an area-based approach to safety is being implemented:

• Atlantis: active
• Beaufort West: active
• Bishop Lavis: active
• Delft: active
• George (Thembalethu): active
• Gugulethu: active
• Harare: inactive
• Khayelitsha: inactive
• Kraaifontein: active
• Mfuleni: inactive
• Mitchells Plain: active
• Nyanga: active
• Philippi (Hanover Park): active
• Philippi East: active
• Samora Machel: inactive
• Swartland (Malmesbury): active
• Theewaterskloof (Grabouw): active
• Witzenberg: active

3. (i) and (ii) The VPU enables local platforms for collaborative action to jointly address drivers of crime and violence through an area-based approach to safety. The approach plays a crucial role in the VPU and WCG's overall strategy to reduce violence across the Western Cape. These allow stakeholders (i) to better understand local drivers of crime and violence by sharing data and information, (ii) to better understand stakeholders’ needs and priorities, (iii) to better leverage respective resources to ensure that interventions are more effective, and (iv) to identify opportunities for joint action.

The VPU does not create new programmes and services but rather seeks to leverage existing programmes and services, avoiding duplication of efforts and ensuring that all relevant stakeholders are working towards a localised common goal. The latter has led stakeholders to jointly examine specific drivers of violence such as gender-based violence, alcohol harms reduction, school drop-outs, teenage pregnancies, youth community involvement in safety initiatives, or training on transversal areas of interest such as POCA legislation or first aid training to first respondents.

4. (i) and (ii) The Department of Health and Wellness has significantly benefitted from the area-based approach to safety, primarily through its integration of public health principles into the province’s broader violence prevention framework; by focusing on addressing several social determinants of health, increasing the focus on early intervention and prevention which will help reduce the burden on the health system in the medium- to long-term.

By aligning the area-based approach and the COPC approach, a lot has been learnt about engaging with local communities to address their concerns. By sharing health data with other government stakeholders to improve their planning and operations, inter-governmental responses to crime and violence has improved. By working in partnership with other agencies, a lot has been learned about collaboration in action. 

The VPU has enabled the department to expand its role in addressing violence beyond healthcare, enabling multi-sectoral efforts to address drivers of violence across the life course.