The following publications produced by WISE are offered to the community to provide information to help you improve safety for yourself or for your community. In most cases, publications are offered as a free supplementary handout to our workshop series. Publications are available in English and French, and for many Personal Safety workshops, additionally in Spanish and Arabic. You can access the publications by contacting our office.
Please note that some publications are being updated. Check with our staff at 613-230-6700 or info@wiseottawa.ca with your inquiries.
Publications WISE is currently offering
The Women’s Safety Audit guide is the step by step instructions to communities about how to organize, and conduct a safety audit in their neighbourhood or public space of concern.
The Safety Audit guide is published in English and French and contains helpful tips about how to conduct a successful audit and who to involve.
In order to conduct an effective Community Safety audit, it is important to include residents who might be more vulnerable in the space. These tips in this manual will help you conduct a more complete audit.
Examples of a number of tools can be found in the guide: flyers, samples of criteria to use during a walk about, examples of action plans are all available for communities to follow.
The Women’s Safety Audit guide is available for download but do get in touch with WISE at 613-230-6700 or by info@wiseottawa.ca to reach our staff if you need assistance.
The Women’s Safety Audit Implementation Guide is a step-by-step set of instructions to guide groups about how to proceed once a safety audit has been done in your public space. It is available in English and French.
Building on the energy from the Community Safety Audit, once the community has heard back from city hall, or from the owner/manager of the space about how and when they will address concerns outlined in the safety audit, the community can construct concrete steps to move forward having their concerns addressed and remedial action implemented. Sample letters and plans of action are presented as easy-to-use templates to follow. If your group requires WISE support, please do get in touch with us at 613-230-6700 or by info@wiseottawa.ca.
This historical documentation highlights studies of OC Transpo bus & O’Train Stations detailing Safety audits conducted at each station over the past 20 years. Some bus stations are no longer in existence since the construction of the LRT.
In each report, documentation is available on individual stations with their concerns as identified by audit participants, and the recommendations for action plans to remedy the problem areas. List of stations is as follows:
Phase 1: Queensway, Iris, Lees, South Keys, Tunney’s Pasture, Westboro, Place d’Orleans, St. Laurent and Billings Bridge.
Phase 2: Lebreton, Baseline, Campus, South Keys, Greenboro, Carleton, and Bayshore.
Phase 3: Carling, Confederation, Fallowfield, Lycée Claudel, all four stops along Slater St. eastbound, all four stops along Albert St. westbound, Riverside, and Pleasant Park.
Phase 4: Trim Road, Montreal Road & Jeanne d’arc, Mackenzie King & Laurier, Walkley, Baseline, Hurdman, Terry Fox and Lincoln Fields.
If you have a concern about any particular transit station including bus or train, you can still get in touch with WISE to assist you and we will conduct a Community Safety Audit.
This guide is also available in French and English. It is intended to focus on the safety concerns of professionals who work in the area of health care and social services and who provide home visits or one on one visits with clients. (click here to learn more about how to keep yourself or your employees safe while providing this critical service.)
The Study that was done, which resulted in this manual, looked at safety procedures in professionals’ workplaces to safeguard workers who provide service in private homes. The tips and personal stories were gleaned from providers who had experienced concerns about their own safety while providing service or while enroute to the client’s destination.
This manual provides a host of tips and safety information that healthcare and providers of social services can implement for themselves and generally for employees who work independently. Although done a number of years ago, the manual is still current and flush with useful valid information for professionals working on their own.
WISE does conduct workplace safety audits and would be happy to assist any individual or agency to share our expertise and to assist with the safety of workers. Please do get in touch with us at WISE at 613-230-6700 or by info@wiseottawa.ca to reach our staff if you wish a copy.
Personal Safety workshops: WISE has numerous Personal Safety Workshops designed for various groups from youth to seniors. Each workshop will have some common themes, but is also tailored specifically with safety items to address particular concerns of each group. Manuals are supplementary to each workshop often in numerous languages that contain specialized information and resources useful to the group. Workshops are all tailored and specifically designed for your group.
- Personal Safety Workshop for Women and Girls: The workshops can be conducted in English or in French and manuals contain information on self defense.
- Personal Safety for Seniors: The manual focus on helping the senior learn effective strategies to interact safely with caregivers to avoid being taken advantage of. The workshop and manual cover current fraud schemes that seniors should be aware of making them more vulnerable. Some very popular basic self defense principles are shared and provide a boost in self confidence.
- Personal Safety for Youth: We look at and provide tips on cyber safety to prevent stalking, cyber blackmail and bullying as well as a host of other topics. The manual is colourful, packed full of fun items like search words, and cartoons.
- Personal Safety for Immigrant and Refugee Women: the manual contains resources and supports for newcomers to Canada if they find themselves in difficult circumstances
- Personal safety for Women who are Blind or Visually Impaired:
- Personal Safety for Women who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing: In the manual, you will find some valuable tips on safety strategies and available accessible equipment such as the installation of visual alarms.
- Personal Safety for women who use wheelchairs or Mobility devices: In our workshop, we demonstrate what can be done regarding self defense by women in chairs or on walkers, with little required strength and leads to women feeling more positive about maintaining control of their own safety.
If you wish to book a workshop and access the manuals, give us a call at WISE 613-230-6700 or write to info@wiseottawa.ca
This is a personal safety workshop designed to provide relevant and important information to survivors – women living in abusive situations or for women who have just left which we know is a most dangerous time in their lives. The workshop is a multi-part workshop – covering more specific resources and tips for women fleeing abusive and sometimes extremely violent partners who may be stalking them.
The workshop and manual contain information on keeping yourself safe at home, when you’re out, using public transit, preventing stalking and intimidation from ex-partners. The manual covers advances in technological person-finding techniques and discusses strategies that women might use to deal with these potentially life-threatening situations. It provides self-defense tips which helps boosts confidence and results in women having some increased levels of self esteem in some areas of their lives.
Please do contact WISE if your group has the need for a Personal Safety Empowerment multi-part workshop and manual. We would be pleased to book that for you. Call us at 613-230-6700 or write to info@wiseottawa.ca The manual is available in English, French, Arabic, and Spanish.
Patient Privacy in Medical Waiting Rooms is the prime topic of this paper. Women experiencing abuse and who may have recently left a domestic living arrangement, are concerned with keeping their personal details confidential and in many of these environments this is not the case.
Breaches in a patient’s confidentiality and privacy commonly occur in medical waiting rooms in many of the following circumstances:
- Patients registering with reception are required to confirm their name, address, date of birth, reason for visit, or other identifying and personal information within earshot of other patients or individuals in the waiting room.
- Sensitive information about tests results, medications, or medical conditions is discussed in the hallways of the office or at the reception counter, and is overheard by other individuals.
The paper reveals many more ways this happens and explores why, and what we can do to alleviate the problem and make this a safer environment for everyone. Download the confidentiality in Medical Waiting Rooms and speak to your medical facility if you have a concern. Call WISE if you need support.
Community Articles on Women’s Safety
Browse the articles presented to local community papers dedicated to certain safety topics for women. Give yourself a refresher on some common sense techniques. To access the tips:
WISE Safety Tips for Women
Dating Safety Tips
Personal Workplace Safety
Protect Your Privacy
Safety For Women On Wheels
Safety Tips for Seniors