Teamwork Award

Specifically, this team consisted of a diverse group of dedicated and talented members from this Regional Police Service, including both civilian and police personnel. The team was assigned to work on a complex, comprehensive groundbreaking and long-term project that would affect each and every member, as well as every area of the Service.

The scope of this project was of such great magnitude that the Vendor expectation for project completion was 12 – 18 months for one phase and 6 – 12 months for the other. The actual implementation however, took less than 1 year for both elements of the project and was met with great success. The process itself involved a system redesign of many business processes and workflow. It involved the training of every staff member in the Service. Additionally, the design and implementation of additional applications, as well as the integration between several previous disparate computer systems all had to be accomplished.

A total of 2700 members were trained in two phases over 40 days and 70 days respectively. This particular approach has also resulted in a fundamental change in the way technical and software application training is delivered to Service personnel. During the two go-live phases in July and November of 2005, staff worked around the clock to ensure the successful implementation.

Despite numerous challenges throughout the process, the team remained professional, strong and committed. Members contributed by providing expertise in their areas of specialty and took on numerous responsibilities for which they were often not subject matter experts. They were creative when necessary in dealing with problems and solutions, took risks as required, all the while, working on tight deadlines. As stated by their nominator, "Each and every member of the team achieved and surpassed the expectations of everyone in the fulfillment of their jobs and is well-deserving of the Team Endeavours Award."

The implementation of the York Regional Police Service Versadex CAD/RMS system resulted in significant change to how all users would complete their work and how data would be accessed and updated across the organization. It has been described as the single biggest change in York’s history and, this occurred with minimal interruption to service.

The winners of the OWLE Teamwork Award for 2006 from Project IMPACT, members of York Regional Police Service are:

• Bernadette Searle
• Leslie Burke
• Sandy Wilson
• Christine Lawrence
• Heather Orr
• Allison Appleby
• Greg Stanisci
• Cherian John
• Raymond Chan
• Julie Yuan
• Andrew Bidzinski
• Sgt. Paulo DaSilva
• PC Darius Sobkowicz
• PC Royce Ng
• PC Melanie Martin