Lorene Cary, a senior lecturer in the English Department in the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts & Sciences, is leading a new initiative called Safe Kids Stories, a website and social movement designed to promote Philadelphia programs that create safe havens for children and youth. 

Writers, artists, teachers and community leaders will come together to launch the initiative on Saturday, Jan. 24, at the Slought Foundation at 4017 Walnut St. from 3 to 5 p.m. Speakers will include John Jackson, dean of Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice, and Peter Conn, emeritus professor of English and professor of education at Penn.

Safe Kids Stories grew out of Cary's experience convening the Philadelphia School Reform Commission's first Safety Committee in 2012. As chair, she heard hundreds of stories of programs and strategies to make a school, classroom or relationship between student and teacher into “the refuge that beleaguered communities need and caring educators yearn to provide.”

Cary said, “The culture change Safe Kids Stories intends to make is to notice, study and celebrate safety. I'm talking relationships, emotions, social life, as well as physical security. We want to pay attention to urban children's safety the way that Dr. Andrew Weil and alternative medicine have taught us to pay attention, not only to Americans' sickness, but to their health."

In September the initiative’s SafeKidsStories.org site will launch. Each week it will focus on a subject or theme that answers the question: What makes children safe? A lead essay or additional material, links, videos, artwork, music, games and curricula, will be curated by the Safe Kids Stories editorial group as well as members of the wider virtual community.

Using a wide range of contributors, including college writers, K-12 students, professional journalists and artists, SafeKidsStories.org will describe, report and illustrate safety.

The event will be managed by students in Cary’s two academically based community service courses, “Creative Non-fiction” and “Writing for Children” in the English Department, the Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing and Africana Studies. The site will feature work written by students enrolled in each course.

The School of Social Policy & Practice at Penn is a sponsor of Safe Kids Stories, providing seed funding and advice. Safe Kids Stories will seek to provide a field location for students in the school.