SRQ Magazine | October 2025: Best of SRQ Winners Showcase - Safe Children Coalition

SAFE CHILDREN COALITION

GOLD WINNER

BEST LOCAL CHILDREN'S NON-PROFIT

SAFE CHILDREN COALITION (SCC) is the lead community based care agency in Sarasota, Manatee & DeSoto counties. Our mission is to protect children & youth, strengthen families & build community through critical, life-saving services including Foster Care, Adoption, and Prevention & Diversion Programs like Schoolhouse Link, supporting homeless and unaccompanied youth; Youth Prevention Services, providing school-based counseling; Emergency Response Assessment Team (E.R.A.T.), working with families at high risk of entering the child welfare system; Achievers, a program that empowers underserved and first-generation youth to graduate from high school and attend trade school or college; HIPPY (Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters), helping parents prepare preschoolers for learning, and more.

We are appreciative to have been chosen by our community as the Gold winner in the Nonprofit Children’s Category in the Best of SRQ competition.

SCC operates the only youth shelter for teens ages 10 - 17 in Sarasota and DeSoto counties for homeless, runaway, and truant youth. Our shelter serves teens from Manatee County, too. Since its inception in 1991, it has helped over 6,000 teens and provided more than 60,000 bed nights. SCC is currently in a capital campaign to build a new youth shelter, as the old shelter was built in 1959. Annually, the youth shelter serves up to 200 youth and provides up to 3,000 bed nights.

Our youth shelter is a place where youth experiencing homelessness for various reasons – like difficulty at home, truancy, ungovernability, a mental health crisis, disrupted foster care placement, and more – can find a new beginning. The new facility will maximize space and security for the youth in our care. Eight (8) two-person rooms and four (4) single rooms will allow for appropriate separation based on individual needs and limitations of youth and allow for accommodating youth with complicated backgrounds appropriately. For more information about SCC’s programs and ways to get involved, visit sccfl.org.

Phone Number: (941) 371-4799

Website: https://sccfl.org/

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