Tillsonburg Council has approved the updated Community Safety and Well-being Plan from Oxford County.
Jan 27, 2026 • Last updated Jan 27, 2026 •
Tillsonburg council has approved Oxford County’s updated Community Safety and Well-being Plan.
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Sarah Hamulecki, who manages strategic initiatives and intergovernmental relations for Oxford, along with Warden Marcus Ryan, spoke with the council about updates to the document at Monday’s town meeting.
“(Community safety) plans are quite unique in that they’re required by law, but they don’t really have much power on their own,” Hamulecki explained.
“It’s our community partners, service providers, and stakeholders who actually do the work to achieve the goals of the plan.”
The initial plan, called Safe and Well Oxford, was created in 2021 and had backing from all eight municipalities in the area. Provincial rules state that these plans need to be reviewed and updated every four years if needed. In May 2025, Oxford officials brought on Strategy Corp Inc. to help review and update the plan.
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“We learned a lot during the first few years of implementing the plan about what worked and what didn’t,” Ryan noted. He mentioned that Strategy Corp conducted a detailed audit of the previous document while talking extensively with community partners and residents before presenting their findings.
“The goal of this plan is for everyone to come together to collaborate so they can identify new opportunities for working together, address service gaps, and eliminate overlaps where they’re unnecessary-all making us more effective.”
Oxford has added one full-time position to assist in coordinating and managing this new document; Hamulecki described this as “much-needed support” for around 80 local partners involved in this effort.
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“At a recent summit it became very clear there is a need for both human resources as well as financial support among our service providers,” she said.
“While I love living and working here in Oxford County personally, it does pose challenges when we’re trying to meet everyone’s needs.”
“There’s plenty of room for improvement ahead as well as collaboration.”
The recent updates included new focus areas like gender-based violence issues along with affordability and economic stability concerns. Affordability is a pressing issue across Canada that can’t be fixed by just one document; however, Hamulecki expressed her eagerness to tackle it.
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“I’m not sure how we’ll address it exactly-but that’s part of what community safety well-being plans are meant for-we’ll use this plan as a way to foster connections among people while figuring out what’s happening already in our communities,” she stated. “I know there’s fantastic work being done related to food security among other things throughout our communities.”
“From there we’ll see how we can improve within our communities.”
Hamulecki went on to say that the latest version of Safe and Well Oxford now better meets both rural and urban residents’ needs across the county.
“Going through this process helped deepen our understanding significantly,” she remarked. “I believe it’ll improve how we implement this version moving forward.”
To view the plan, visit safewelloxford. ca.
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