Fostering safe and healthy schools and communities can lead to positive outcomes for all children, youth, and families. The National Center for Healthy Safe Children offers resources, training, and technical assistance to support states, tribes, territories, and local communities as they promote overall wellbeing for students and their families.

The center, led by AIR, aims to support states, schools, and communities as they:

• Promote a comprehensive approach to mental health, school safety, and youth violence prevention
• Engage youth and families in this work
• Support trauma-informed approaches
• Provide culturally and linguistically competent services and programs
• Decrease disparities among racial, ethnic, and sexual minority communities
• Improve the delivery and financing of behavioral and mental health services
• Collaborate among and between systems at the local, state, and national level

Resources to Support Healthy, Safe Children

The center includes a wealth of resources and tools to help schools and communities build and support collaborations among education, behavioral/mental health, law enforcement, juvenile justice, public health, and organizations.

• The Safe Schools Framework Implementation Toolkit (FIT) was designed for school- and community-based teams at the local and state level.  The Safe Schools FIT is based on the experience of states, schools, and communities funded by the Safe Schools/Healthy Students grant program and includes evidenced-based guides, tools, and resources to help you plan, implement, sustain, and expand this unique approach in your school and community. The Safe Schools FIT is a fully customizable solution that allows any school district or community organization to create a safer, healthier, sustainable environment for learning.
• Project LAUNCH (Linking Actions for Unmet Needs in Children’s Health) is an early-childhood initiative for states, territories, and tribes aimed at promoting the physical, social, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral development of young children ages birth to eight. The project seeks to improve coordination across child-serving systems, build infrastructure, and increase access to high-quality prevention and wellness promotion services for children and their families.