A review into why Waterloo Region might surpass the national rate for declaring sexual assault cases as unfounded is nearing completion.

Dozens of community groups and organizations were invited to be part of the task force last year, after an investigation by The Globe and Mail found that 27 per cent of sexual assault reports made to Waterloo Regional Police between 2011 and 2015 were classified as unfounded. The national average was 19 per cent.

Chief Bryan Larkin says the task force was divided into two working groups. One group is focused on reviewing 78 sexual assault investigations to determine if police could have handled them better, and the other on creating a victim advocacy and third-party review model for sexual assault investigations that police can use in the future.

Sara Casselman, the executive director of the Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region, is part of the first group.

She says the group’s goal is to find “broad themes” in the 78 cases that suggest different approaches. The investigations themselves aren’t being reopened.

“You also have to be very careful about reopening wounds that survivors may have – and especially about reopening them if the end result might be the same,” Casselman says.

One of Casselman’s hopes is that the work done by the task force will help lead to more victims of sexual assault reporting their experiences to police.

“Over the last 30 years, there’s been no improvement in reporting rates (and) no improvement in charge rates,” she says.

“As much as folks things we’ve come a long way and the system has improved, the stats actually show us otherwise.”

The two working groups in the task force will share their results with each other in May. They will then prepare a report to be presented to the region’s police board in June.

“I’m very excited about the work,” Larkin says.

“I think that this is about looking to the future. It’s about doing business differently. It’s about supporting victims and survivors with greater strength from the police service, and building ongoing trust.”

With reporting by Nicole Lampa