Safe Place article

“Don’t bother the bus driver,” we were told as kids. Now, a new collaboration involving LMM’s Next Step / Westhaven program, the Regional Transit Authority (RTA), the National Safe Place program and the Bellefaire Homeless Youth Program aims to send a different message to youth:  By all means bother the bus driver.

The National Safe Place program provides access to immediate help and safety for youth in crisis. Its recognizable yellow and black diamond-shaped logo displayed on buildings invites youth in trouble to come in and ask for help. The Cleveland collaboration with National Safe Place is unique in that, unlike in other communities where local businesses and community buildings are the identified safe places, here RTA buses and trains will assume that role.

Next Step / Westhaven, RTA and Bellefaire will promote the new program as they engage in community outreach at schools, libraries and other locations frequented by youth. The goal is to get young people to identify the Safe Place logo that will be visible on the both the inside and outside of RTA vehicles as an invitation to ask for help if needed. When approached by a youth for assistance, RTA drivers will make a call and appropriate personnel will be dispatched to meet the youth at a designated RTA stop and transport the child to either Next Step / Westhaven or Bellefaire.

Working together with the RTA will allow Next Step / Westhaven to reach more deeply into the community to locate and serve youth in need of shelter—youth like the two brothers who spent almost two months at Next Step / Westhaven after living in a minivan with family members following the loss of their home, or like a recent resident who had been thrown out of her home by her parents, or the young girl from southern Ohio who ran away to meet a man she met online.  These youth come from varying circumstances and places, all in need of getting to safe shelter and caring people.

By all means bother the bus driver.