The Dash

Greetings!

Ed Burr

The Monique Burr Foundation for Children is very grateful for your continued support and involvement. With your help we have reached over 224,000 Pre-K through 5th grade students and received countless disclosures under the Good- Touch/Bad-Touch™ program (GTBT). GTBT is an evidence based safety and child abuse prevention education program that the Foundation provided to Northeast Florida and Tampa region elementary age children at no cost to schools from 1997 - 2009. In 2009, the Monique Burr Foundation made the decision to focus its resources on revising the GTBT program to encompass all forms of abuse (physical, sexual, emotional and neglect) and to update the curriculum based on input from child abuse prevention experts and increased awareness of new dangers facing children today, including bullying and internet safety.

We began working with Childhelp to raise funds in order to update GTBT. Childhelp subcontracted Arizona State University, a leader in research, to begin development of Speak Up Be Safe™, a comprehensive primary prevention program. The Foundation also worked with state agencies and other nonprofits to ensure all current tools available were being leveraged, including the Department of Education, the Department of Children & Families, Ounce of Prevention and the Education Cooperative Planning Team, among others.

The Monique Burr Foundation for Children was very excited to launch the Beta Phase of Speak Up Be Safe™ (SUBS) in December 2010. The Pilot Phase began in March for 1st, 3rd and 5th grade students. Second and 4th grade classes will be added in the fall of 2011. With this new curriculum fulfilling over 90 of the Sunshine State Standards and meeting the requirements of Florida Statute 39, it is our goal to provide this evidence based program to every 1st - 5th grade student in Florida by the year 2015. With your continued support, I am confident we will succeed in our mission to give hope in the life of a child!

Sincerely,

Edward Burr

The Beta Phase of our new safety and child abuse prevention education program is complete! The program was tested in six elementary schools from December of 2010 through January of 2011, three elementary schools in Pasco County and three elementary schools in Duval County. Approximately one thousand 1st, 3rd and 5th grade students participated in the Beta Phase of the program and the results were tremendous. In addition to eight on-site disclosures, we received valuable feedback from teachers, parents and guidance counselors. During the month of February we reviewed what we learned in the Beta Phase with Childhelp and Arizona State University and made necessary edits to the curriculum. The current version was released for the Pilot Phase of the program on March 1st.

As of today, over 15,000 students in Duval and Pasco County have signed up to participate in the Pilot Phase of Speak Up Be Safe™. We anticipate at least twice that number will participate in the program before the end of the school year. The four counties participating in the Pilot Phase (Clay, Duval, Hillsborough and Pasco) will be followed with the expansion of the program into eight more counties in the 2011-12 school year, spreading the Speak Up Be Safe™ program out from Northeast Florida and the Tampa regions and adding counties in the Tallahassee area. By 2015 we will be offering the Speak Up Be Safe™ program to all 1st through 5th grade students in all 67 Florida school districts.

Speak Up Be Safe™ is a comprehensive, research based, culturally and developmentally appropriate safety and child abuse prevention program. The universal education of children and the adults in their lives is the primary prevention strategy of SUBS. It is designed to engage the school, teacher, student and responsible adults in the protection of children.

Key concepts utilized by the Speak Up Be Safe™ program include:

A school-based program is in the unique position to reach most of the adults in a child's life and the community at large.
Children who go through an abuse prevention program show an increased awareness of safety issues and a greater knowledge of child abuse and neglect.
School personnel gain understanding of how abuse affects child development, learn the disclosure process and mandatory reporting rules.
Parents and caregivers are given access to support services and organizations that teach nonviolent responses to stress or conflict.
The community at large benefits from an increase in public awareness of child safety and abuse issues.

By focusing on providing a safety and child abuse prevention education program through the school system, the Foundation believes the short and long term consequences of abuse can be most effectively diminished, and the cycle of abuse can be interrupted.

Speak Up Be Safe Five Safety Rules

To find out when the

Speak Up Be Safe™ program will

be implemented in your area call

Lynn Layton at (904) 642-0210.

Call us to find out how

to bring the SUBS program to your school district sooner.