Summer at Boys & Girls Clubs: Safety First, Safety Always

If you have kids or work with them, you know they’re professionals at finding new and creative ways of injuring themselves and others. Ask any family pediatrician, “What’s the weirdest reason a child has come to see you?” and you’ll hear stories of objects extracted from nostrils, bruises from climbing things that shouldn’t be climbable. A personal example? As a child, I may or may not have stacked boxes in my backyard in an attempt to touch the moon.

In 1996 I was leading six Boys & Girls Clubs in Greensboro, North Carolina serving 1,700 young people and spending my afternoons and summers thinking about their safety all the time so that year, when the National Safety Council declared June National Safety Month, I have to tell you that I didn’t need the invitation. I already knew that true safety was the combination of secure environments and supportive relationships.

Across Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide and overseas, safety is treated as the foundation for everything that follows. It begins with robust, consistent protections designed to safeguard young people physically. Starting with background checks and the strictest reporting guidelines for all Club staff, volunteers, and board members, each Club is guided by a board-led Safety Committee, conducts mandatory annual safety assessments and follows strict policies around hiring.

These measures are continuously strengthened through partnerships with third-party experts and safety organizations, ensuring that policies align with the most current standards in prevention, response and care. Club facilities are regularly evaluated to ensure that safety hazards, such as unsecured doors, broken exit signs or poorly lit stairwells, are remediated before they can lead to an accident. This commitment reflects a core tenet of safety research: effective systems require constant evaluation, adaptation and accountability.

To protect young people emotionally, Clubs invest in training and resources that support mental health and social-emotional development, equipping staff to build strong, trusting relationships with young people. They ensure that youth have access to visible resources like the Child Safety Helpline and Crisis Text Line (text the word CLUB to 741741), reinforcing that support is always available. Families are informed about safety policies from the moment they engage with a Club, fostering transparency and trust.

But for kids and teens, safety is not limited to locked doors, supervised spaces or verified adults. Research shows that safety is something deeper and more foundational that lives not only in the structure of a space, but in how young people feel within it.

The 2024 paper “The Role of Socio-Emotional Security on School Engagement and Academic Achievement” defines socio-emotional security as the sense of safety, belonging, and support a young person experiences in their relationships and environments, and their research shows something so profound that I need to say it twice:

The feeling of safety is predictive of a young person’s success.

The feeling of safety is predictive of a young person’s success.

When children feel emotionally secure with their caregivers, peers, and trusted adults, they are more engaged in school, more motivated to learn and more capable of navigating challenges. That means that the safety of young people is not just protective, it is predictive, it is empowering and it is the factor that enables them to achieve their full potential.

What emerges from this research is a clear pattern: when young people feel unsupported, disconnected, or unsafe in their relationships, their risk of negative outcomes increases. When those same environments become supportive, warm, and structured, that risk is reduced.

National Safety Month offers a moment to reflect on what that really means. For children and teens, safety is not just about avoiding harm; it’s about creating environments where they feel secure enough to take risks, confident enough to build relationships and supported enough to develop resilience. It’s about ensuring that every young person, regardless of circumstance, has access to spaces where they are protected, valued and heard.

Because before a young person can succeed, before they can lead, before they can imagine what is possible (touching the moon, for example), they must first experience the fundamental certainty that they are safe and valued, they must feel safe enough to TRY. I am so proud of the practices, policies and culture of safety at Boys & Girls Clubs that create that sense of care and belonging at Clubs every day.

For more on how Boys & Girls Clubs put safety at the heart of every decision, visit our Child Safety page and please consider contributing to this work with our incredible and deserving young people here.

Works referenced:
Dias, Pedro & Veríssimo, Lurdes & Carneiro, Alexandra & Duarte, Raquel. (2024). The role of socio-emotional security on school engagement and academic achievement: systematic literature review. Frontiers in Education. 9. 10.3389/feduc.2024.1437297.

Tsomokos, D.I., Slavich, G.M. Bullying fosters interpersonal distrust and degrades adolescent mental health as predicted by Social Safety Theory. Nat. Mental Health 2, 328–336 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44220-024-00203-7