Boys & Girls Club is a safe and fun place for youth to go after school and during the summer. We make sure staff are trained and capable of helping kids in the best way possible by implementing a code of conduct. This code of conduct covers interactions between staff and youth, transportation, incident reports, technology use, and more. Learn more about the code of conduct, safety plans, and other steps your Club takes to keep kids safe.

Read our Child Abuse Prevention Policy

Saprea Consent Guide for Teens

Practicing and honoring consent is essential to navigating our most important relationships and to reducing the risk of us harming others or being hurt. It is easy to think, “something like that will never happen to me.” However, research shows that you (or someone very close to you) will be directly affected by sexual assault. Practicing consent in small ways will prepare you for times when the stakes are higher.

Learn About Consent

Kids in Need of Defense

Provides guides and materials specifically designed to help adults communicate effectively with children about their immigration experiences.

Immigrant Legal Resource Center

Offers resources that explain complex immigration issues in child-friendly language

Talking to Children When Scary Things Happen English Version

Hablar con los niños cuando suceden cosas aterradoras Versión en español

How to Talk to Teens About Traumatic Events

National Alliance on Mental Illness | Suicide Prevention Guide

QPR stands for Question, Persuade, and Refer — 3 simple steps that anyone can learn to help save a life from suicide. Just as people trained in CPR and the Heimlich Maneuver help save thousands of lives each year, people trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade, and refer someone to help.

QPR is a 60-90 minute training. Free online workshops run on the 2nd Wednesday of each month, from 11:30 am - 1:00 pm through NAMI Utah.

Stabilization and Mobile Response (SMR) Services 

Provided to you in your home to ease an immediate challenge and provide support. These services can help minimize the impact of the challenge on you and your family. Help you create safety plans and connect you and your family to other helpful resources. Short-term services may be provided in addition to mobile response to help ensure your family’s long-term success. 

These services could be helpful to you if your child: Is verbally or physically aggressive, uses substances, destroys or steals property, is withdrawn from friends and peers, experiences depression or anxiety, has difficulty in school, often runs away, bullies or is bullied, demonstrates severe changes in mood, experiences challenges at home related to a developmental disability.

Odyssey House School-Based Theraputic Program

For students in Salt Lake, Granite, Canyons, Jordan, and Murray School Districts, Odyssey House provides theraputic services in school. Services include individual therapy, family therapy, community education, child psychiatric evaluations, and medication management.

The main goal is to help youth identify issues early, learn healthy coping strategies, and get them back on track quickly. School therapy is one of our most exciting programs, given that we have a chance to address kids' issues before they become more advanced, leading to suicide or drug addiction.

Boys & Girls Clubs of America Parent Safety Resources

We want to build layers of protection around youth by empowering the adults in their lives to talk about abuse, understand the signs of abuse and respond helpfully if a child should ever disclose abuse to them.

In this link, you’ll find six videos that discuss creating different layers of protection around children, from watching for signs of abuse to finding safe after-school environments. Each video comes with two companion pieces: a printable information guide for parents and an activity for children. We encourage all adults to explore these resources and find ways to integrate the lessons in their families and communities. Together, we can help all kids feel safe so they can learn, grow and thrive.

The Safety and Wellbeing of Young People is Our Number One Priority

We work every day to create a safe, inclusive and fun environment so kids can have every opportunity to be successful in life. We have no tolerance for inappropriate behavior of any kind, including child sexual abuse or misconduct, and we put resources behind that stance.

Culture of Safety: Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Salt Lake continually updates robust safety policies, programs and training for staff and volunteers to promote child safety and protect young people from threats in our society.

Safety Policies: Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Salt Lake maintains comprehensive safety policies that protect youth, including but not limited to policies on supervision, transportation, communication and prohibition of one-on-one contact.

24-hour Toll-free Child Safety Hotline: We encourage all staff, members and families to report any incident or situation they feel is unsafe. Through our national partnership with Praesidium, one of the nation’s leading safety experts, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Salt Lake members and staff have access to a confidential 24-hour toll-free Child Safety Hotline at 866-607-SAFE (7233) or SafeClub@Praesidiuminc.com.

Privacy and Confidentiality Policy: We employ strict confidentiality and privacy policies regarding the security of personally identifiable information and prohibit the release of that information to outside individuals or agencies.

Mandatory Background Checks: Mandatory criminal background checks are required upon hire and annually for every staff and board member at Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Salt Lake. In addition, criminal background checks are required for any volunteer who has direct, repetitive contact with children.

Required Immediate Reporting: Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Salt Lake staff and volunteers are all mandated reporters and are required to report any critical incident/safety concern to local authorities immediately. We are also required to report any critical incident to Boys & Girls Clubs of America within 24 hours.

Mandatory Annual Safety Assessments: We employ a multi-tiered safety assessment approach  to ensure we continually make improvements to safety at our Clubs.

Safety Trainings: Ongoing training and supervision of staff are critical. We participate in a wide variety of child safety training through online courses, seminars, conferences and webinars. We also engage leading third-party safety experts to provide guidance for our policies and approaches, including Praesidium, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the National Children’s Advocacy Center.

Safety Committee: Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Salt Lake has a dedicated Board-led Safety Committee to provide input and guidance on local policies and safety strategies across all our Clubs.

Mandatory Employee Reference: Any employee interested in moving to another Boys & Girls Club is required to have a reference from their previous Club, even if the Clubs are within the same community.

State and Local Laws: We comply with federal, state and local safety laws, including those impacting facilities and vehicles.

Safety Partnerships: Nationally, Boys & Girls Clubs of America works with leading experts in the areas of safety, security and technology to develop state-of-the-art solutions for Clubs. Partners include:

National Child Safety Advisory Task Force, made up of leading experts and organizations

Blue Ribbon Taskforce, composed of local Club leaders who provide input on safety direction and key safety initiatives

Mental Health First Aid, a national program that teaches skills to recognize and respond to signs of mental illness and substance abuse

Crisis Text Line, a confidential text message service for youth in times of crisis

Continued Commitment: In July 2020, Boys & Girls Club organizations voted to adopt additional safety measures to further improve safety within our Clubs. Though many of these practices were already commonplace across our Movement, this vote made them mandatory for all Clubs. These include more stringent reference and background checks, enhanced Safety Committee requirements, stronger communication of key safety resources and information, and more. With unprecedented majority, on July 26, 2021, local Boys & Girls Clubs voted in record number to adopt additional membership requirements that further enhance child safety, implementing recommendations from RAINN that began in 2020 and will continue over the next two years - a demonstration of our continued commitment to keeping kids safe.

Nationally, Boys & Girls Clubs of America has advocated for passage of the U.S. PROTECT Act to improve background screening systems and access. The national organization has also partnered with the FBI, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Centers for Disease Control to support the development of safety practices that benefit ALL youth-serving organizations.

America’s young people deserve nothing less than our constant focus on their safety and our firm commitment to protect every child who is entrusted to our care at Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Salt Lake. To learn more about our national safety policies and actions, please visit Boys & Girls Clubs of America’s Child Safety page.