Here is what is needed:
- A commitment to creating a comprehensive, community-wide youth outreach program
- 24 hour access to licensed or state-approved short term residential services for youth
- 24 hour access to crisis intervention and counseling services
How Safe Place works
- A young person enters a business, community location or gets onto a city bus displaying the yellow Safe Place sign and asks for help.
- The employee immediately contacts the Safe Place agency, makes the youth comfortable until a volunteer or staff member arrives.
- The Safe Place representative meets with the youth to determine the next step.
- If counseling or shelter is appropriate, the youth is transported to the youth serving agency.
Safe Place Benefits
- Youth can initiate and access help when and where they need it.
- Safe Place expands the reach of existing youth service agencies.
- Safe Place sites increase visibility for youth service agencies and awareness of youth issues.
- Safe Place provides opportunities for new community collaborations.
Steps to Beginning a Safe Place program
- Determine how Safe Place will complement existing community youth services and offer significant benefits to your community.
- Engage community leaders in dialogue to gain their support.
- Enlist the support of business leaders.
- Identify staff and resources necessary to successfully operate the program, providing adequate community outreach.
- Submit to the National Safe Place office a letter of intent including:
- Geographic area in which the program will operate
- Proposed budget
- Targeted Safe Place business and community locations
- Intended start up date
- Name/s of staff members who will coordinate and/or be involved with the program
- The National Safe Place office will provide your agency with documentation granting permission to implement the program and utilize the Safe Place logo.
- New Safe Place agencies are required to send staff responsible for coordinating Safe Place to one of the National Safe Place Training Workshops.
On-going Program Requirements
There is an annual membership fee beginning at $600.00 for each Safe Place agency. The membership fee is a sliding scale based on the number of Safe Place sites a program has. This fee covers:
- consultation services provided by National Safe Place staff
- free training webinars and tele-conferences
- compilation and distribution of annual reports
- availability of reduced-price promotional materials
- free outreach materials
- maintenance of national statistics via web based database
- maintenance of the National Safe Place website
- print newsletters and regular electronic program updates
- Safe Place networking opportunities and conferences
- legal protection of the Safe Place logo and more
In order to maintain national statistics, each Safe Place agency maintains their program information and enters monthly statistical information regarding outreach, youth served, number of volunteers and business involvement into a web-based database created especially for National Safe Place. This database offers agencies flexibility and ease in keeping program records and extracting valuable data through the numerous reports that it can generate.
For additional information about establishing a Safe Place program please email us at contactus@nationalsafeplace.org or phone us at 1-888-290-7233.
Help us as we continue Building a Safety Net for Youth.
How to Start Brochure (PDF) |
