What is Safe Passage?
Since 2015, Safe Passage has provided active place guardianship, community and youth engagement, and increased access to services through the Seattle Youth Violence Prevention Initiative (SYVPI) to decrease and de-escalate fight disturbances, reduce property damage and violent crime on the Rainier Beach Campus, an area encompassing the community center and several elementary, middle, and high schools.
Safe Passage, a program of the Boys & Girls Club of King County, actively engages school administrators and teachers, community center staff, youth, and neighboring business owners to create and promote a “zone of safety” on the campus after school hours.
Team members, affectionately named “Be Safe Bros” or the “Blue Coats,” are trained to de-escalate situations that may lead to fight disturbances, build positive relationships that engage youth in pro-social activities, and refer youth to employment, case management, and other resources as needed.
Safe Passage is loosely modeled after programs with the same name in Chicago and Los Angeles, and is one of our non-arrest/intervention approaches to community building in the Rainier Beach neighborhood.
