Safe Kids/Safe Streets

What is Safe Kids/Safe Streets?
Safe Kids/Safe Streets (SK/SS) is an initiative funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) within the Department of Justice. SK/SS applies comprehensive, community-wide strategies to achieve the ultimate goal of reducing the incidence of child abuse and neglect. These strategies are grounded in research about the causes and correlates of juvenile delinquency in addition to effective prevention and intervention techniques.

What is the goal of SK/SS?
This demonstration focuses on reforming those systems that prevent child abuse and neglect, prosecute offenders, and serve victims and their families. The approach involves strengthening community collaboratives working to comprehensively address child abuse and neglect and subsequent fatalities in five sites across the country. Being grounded in principles of collaboration allows SK/SS to effectively pursue the goals of broadening access to available resources, strengthening primary prevention efforts, improving services for families through empowerment, and maintaining accountability for actions.

How specifically does SK/SS work?
Advisory committees identify and prioritize needs in the planning stages. They then restructure and strengthen the existing system, as SK/SS desires communities to build on their existing resources. All of this helps to create a structure made possible through the collaborative efforts of community-wide stakeholders. Thus, SK/SS promotes community ownership and responsibility. SK/SS encourages a proactive, rather than reactive strategy. By establishing an integrated system with an emphasis on prevention efforts, the community should improve its response to the abuse and neglect of children and adolescents with the goal of breaking the cycle of childhood victimization and subsequent delinquent and criminal behavior.

Where are the Safe Kids/Safe Streets sites?
The five communities involved in the Safe Kids/Safe Streets initiative are Burlington, VT; Huntsville, AL; Kansas City, MO; Sault Sainte Marie, MI; Toledo, OH; and Washington, D.C.