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About Safe Start
A question on the origination of the Safe Start program:To whom it may concern: I am a student at UC Berkeley conducting research for Professor David Kirp of the School of Public Policy. I am looking into the 1997 White House Conference on Early Childhood Development and Learning. I am specifically interested in finding out if the Conference led to the creation of the Safe Start Program. I am aware that the Conference announced the White House's plans to establish Safe Start, but I am looking for conclusive information about whether or not that announcement was the actual catalyst for formation of Safe Start. Any information about my topic, contact information for others who may be able to help me, or any point in the right direction would be a great help to my research. Thank you for taking the time to read my email and have a great day. Sincerely, Reply from Kristen Kracke: Dear Andrew: Thank you for your interest in the Safe Start Initiative.
As the National Safe Start Initiative Coordinator and one who participated
in the development of Safe Start and the White Conference on Safe from
the Start (as well as being a Berkeley Alumn!), I am pleased to address
your question. First point of clarification is that there were two White
House Conferences around the same time as brain development research took
a pivotal role in public awareness and policy development. The White Conference
in June 1999 was called Safe from the Start and focused on creating a
national action plan for children exposed to violence. It was at this
conference that the announcement of the Safe Start demonstration project
was announced. The competitive request for proposals for Safe Start was
released on June 14, 1999---same time as the conference. So......the answer
to your question is that the concept of creating/providing a safe start
for children exposed to violence formed in these years 1998-1999 and as
the concept developed--both the project and the conference were crafted--simultaneously--hand
in glove. With the release of the solicitation in June, a working group
had already spent 6-mo. to a year developing the content and details.
The White House Conference however officially engaged policymakers and
agency heads as well as practitioners and researchers across disciplines
and federal agencies to review and discuss the issues and compiling the
existing strategies for action into a summit summary which was published
in November 2000 capturing the full scope of dialogue from the Summit.
This publication is available through our clearinghouse at 1-800-638-8736.
Both the project and the conference were strategically coordinated to
be scheduled/released together. The concept was a catalyst for both---neither
served to direct the other but were both strategies developed out of a
recognized need, current research and practice. The National Center on
Children's Exposure to Violence was also born out of this effort and it
was housed at the Yale Child Study Center because of the center's pivotal
work in a promising project model called Child Development Community Policing
which has provided crisis response for children exposed to violence for
over a decade and was one of the few practitioner models/leaders in the
field at the time (and still is) that Safe Start was developed.
The Safe Start Demonstration Project is a five and a half year national demonstration project funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Department of Justice . Safe Start provides funding for eleven urban, rural, and tribal communities to address problems faced by young children exposed to violence within homes, schools and communities. The Safe Start initiative will offer these communities an opportunity to implement effective prevention and intervention strategies by strengthening already existing alliances and integrating service delivery systems (such as police/mental health/justice partnerships), with a focus on building collaboration and awareness of the issues surrounding children's exposure to violence to ensure a lasting effect on each of the eleven communities.
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