The Upper Valley SAFE initiative is a new undertaking designed to protect families and communities through awareness and education. Started by Dean and Kristen Coleman, the SAFE stands for Safety, Awareness and Freedom through Education. The SAFE task force members learn from trainings given by various professionals, then they abridge what they learned and customize it for the local community.
“We look at the risks that our community is facing, and then we look at how do we scale those trainings down and get the most important things that community members need to know, and we bring it to them in workshops free of charge,” Kristen Coleman said.
The program is comprised of volunteers who are professionals in various fields. Local law enforcement, internet crime specialists, educators, physicians and more all offer their services to support the SAFE initiative.
The SAFE initiative recently had its first public workshop — although the public attendance did not reach the numbers they had hoped — involvement from local leadership was high.
“The engagement from the community and our leaders was phenomenal,” Dean Coleman said. “We had the mayor in attendance, we had the county sheriff, the Rexburg police chief and the ICAC (Internet Crimes Against Children task force) representatives from the county and the city, and other law enforcement. People from different agencies, educators were there, a good cross-section of representation.”
The first workshop focused on family protection through digital safety. The next meeting in April is planned to be a repetition of that meeting’s topic, with stronger messaging to show the significance of the problem to the community.
“This issue is not going away,” Kristen Coleman said. “It is one of the most serious because it bleeds into trafficking, exploitation, all those different areas. So, you can't talk about it too much.”
To learn more about the SAFE initiative, you can find updates and information on their Instagram.