Building a Culture of Safety
Saint Paul Public Library
Innovation Synopsis
The enhanced Library Safety Plan is a key addition to the City of Saint Paul’s community-first public safety approach aimed at creating a safe and welcoming city that works for everyone. To create the plan, the Library hired local consultants SDK Communications, who brought together a team of safety experts with deep experience in both traditional safety and building management, neighborhood outreach, violence prevention, and restorative justice. The team also included community members and staff members. The new community-informed, updated public safety plan and approach aims to cultivate a culture of safety, deploy safe space management best practices, and create location-specific plans. KPIs include BIPOC patrons feeling welcome, safe, and comfortable at rates closer to patrons overall and staff increase understanding of their role in safe libraries.
Challenge/Opportunity
Everything that shows up in the community shows up in libraries, including the challenges neighbors are navigating daily. Library staff serve on the front lines, providing critical resources to our community members. Their work evolves as the needs of our community evolve. While the Library has taken significant internal steps to improve safety, safety challenges surrounding libraries, transit, parks, and other public spaces are evolving and new models emerging. The Library needed a new, enhanced safety plan that supports the Library’s welcoming, trauma-sensitive mission and culture while also protecting the everyday safety of patrons and staff. This enhanced safety plan also needed to align with the city’s community-first public safety approach (a nontraditional approach to fighting crime and violence) and create the optimal response for library spaces. While the library regularly engages patrons, the Library had not ever formally engaged with our community members about safety.
Key Elements of Innovation
The Library had taken significant internal steps, but realized that its expertise was lacking in creating an optimal safety response for its spaces. The City granted $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan funds to update and implement a new safety plan for the Library. Saint Paul’s community-first safety approach, piloted by the new city Office of Neighborhood Safety, set the vision. Building on this city strategy, the process made the plan. Throughout the summer SDK and the library conducted community engagement that set the priorities the advisory committee focused on. And, the diverse expertise of the team empowered solutions that come from traditional safety and building management, violence interruption, environmental design, and restorative justice. This holistic approach to building a culture of safety in the library mirrors community-first public safety aims and incorporates restorative practices for all patrons and staff.
Achieved Outcomes
The community told the library they see it as a safe place, a sheltered place, a place to do life. They defined “doing life” as technology, tools, and information needed to get programs, services, or something else, and this was especially important to our BIPOC patrons. These same patrons reported feeling less welcome, less safe, and less comfortable in library spaces than white patrons. The resulting safety strategy recommends three pillars of a safe library to implement that center the feedback of BIPOC patrons. The first is setting a positive tone through welcoming staff and safe designs. Second, optimal response to crisis including consistent management and developing new roles to add capacity. And third, restoring service and connection by implementing restorative alternatives to banning and practices to support staff well-being. Besides hiring a library safety manager and in-house safety specialists, KPIs include BIPOC patrons feeling welcome, safe, and comfortable.
