The growing issue of senior fraud and abuse, how the police respond to mental health crises, and a variety of other topics are set for discussion through a new podcast created in partnership with OrilliaMatters and the Orillia OPP.
The plan is to promote public awareness and discussion on a variety of policing initiatives, crime issues and trends, as well as giving the public opportunities to weigh in and ask questions about local policing, through podcasts set to be published on the OrilliaMatters website twice per month.
“We're looking to enhance the community's awareness of our day-to-day work and our role in the community, and what's occurring in the community,” said Orillia OPP detachment commander Coyer Yateman.
Yateman said the podcast, tentatively dubbed Couchiching Cops in Conversation, will also aim to connect people with support resources, whether affiliated with the OPP or other organizations.
“We want to provide education and awareness for some of the incidents that are occurring, or some of the trends that we might be seeing, and provide support services or other alternatives for people to be able to get support," said Yateman.
Subject matter experts from the Orillia OPP detachment will hold discussions with OrilliaMatters reporters on a variety of topics, with each podcast exploring a different topic.
The hope is to provide people with a readily accessible platform to learn about local policing issues and initiatives, no matter their schedules, Yateman said.
“As we know, a lot of people are in tune with social media, and this is an opportunity for us to go to a platform that they can identify, they can locate, and they can access from anywhere,” he said. “Having a podcast that's available to be listened to at any time just really allows the accessibility of our community, and to have that information at their fingertips,”
Once established, the podcast will also dive into questions submitted by OrilliaMatters readers – presenting the opportunity for the public to weigh in and pose questions about local issues and policing work done in the region.
The first episode, slated to be released early next week, features discussions on elder fraud and abuse.
Future episodes will discuss mental health and the Orillia Mobile Crisis Response Team, impaired driving and boating, and more.
