Clark County Youth Shelter to have cookout for Safe Place Program

Erik Hackman, The Evening News and the Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind.
·2 min read

Jun. 5—SOUTHERN INDIANA — Clark County Youth Shelter will have a cookout on Thursday to raise money for its Safe Place program.

The Safe Place Cookout will be at the Clark County Youth Shelter, 118 E Chestnut St, Jeffersonville, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the building.

For $5, people will be able to order a hamburger or hotdog, their choice of chips, a drink and a dessert with all proceeds going to their safe place program. The program is for both Clark and Floyd counties.

"What we raise the money for specifically is a lot of our outreach items," said Ashley Braswell, Clark County Youth Shelter's assistant director.

Throughout the year, their safe place coordinator goes out into the community to schools and different events to reach out to as many youth as they can and inform them about the Safe Place program, Braswell said.

Safe Places are areas that the youth can go to when they are experiencing family, school and other problems they may have in their life.

"Physical abuse, mental abuse, that sort of thing also can be reasons kids may access the program," Braswell said. "Kind of the goal is just letting the kids know that they can come to us in a time of need and help get the proper calls made."

The problems youth face now are evolving with the increase of social media and the internet in their lives.

"We have to evolve with that as well," Braswell said. "How do we reach those kids, how do we address those issues that are going on in those mediums?"

With this outreach, they can better help the youth of Southern Indiana by learning where these problems and issues are coming from.

"It's not really a thing of increasing or decreasing, rather it's just the evolution of things," Braswell said.