To help children be safe from child abuse, including sexual abuse, Kidpower teaches parents, teachers, and other caring adults:

• child protection strategies to protect children from abuse
• age-appropriate safety skills adults can teach to children without scaring them
• coaching strategies to practice the skills with kids in ways that can reduce fear and build confidence

To protect children in your personal or professional life from abuse and other harm, see our:

• Resources to stop child abuse
• PreK-12 sexual abuse prevention resources and trainings for schools and agencies
• Parentpower programs and resources.
• Self-Paced Kidpower Child Protection Online Institute
• Child Protection Advocates’ Workbook
• Child Protection and Advocacy Resources

Our abuse prevention trainings and resources include extensive boundary setting practice because boundaries are a powerful prevention tool – and, they are also powerful skills for strong, healthy relationships! See Kidpower Skills to Persist in Protecting Personal Boundaries Through the 5 Levels of Intrusion™

To explore workshop options, visit our Workshops page or contact us!

Kidpower is an Erin’s Law Law child abuse prevention recommended resource.

To prevent and stop bullying, we teach:

• teachers, administrators, and other youth-serving staff, because even at the high school level, staff – not students – are the ones responsible for ensuring that everyone in a school or agency is safe from bullying and harassment.
• parents and caregivers, so they can protect and empower their own kids; advocate for kids being bullied at school, online, or anywhere else; and ensure that people in their own homes are safe from bullying.
• youth ages 3-18 together with their adults, so they can learn age-appropritate skills together with adults – such as parents and teachers – who can help them continue to practice and adapt the skills over time.

Depending on their ages and their roles, participants learn:

• Social-emotional safety skills to be safe from bullying and cyberbullying, adapted for students’ ages and life situations
• Safety leadership strategies for staff, administrators, agency leaders, parents, and other caring adults to teach safety skills to young people; to ensure that their own actions consistently reflect their commitment to bullying and harassment prevention; and to ensure that everyone in their homes, schools, and workplaces is safe from bullying and harassment
• Positive intervention and coaching skills that parents, teachers, coaches, and other youth service providers can use to guide those using bullying behaviors to replace them with pro-social behaviors
• We provide tailored support for dealing with specific types of bullying such as social aggression, cyberbullying, adult-to-adult bullying, and prejudice-based bullying and harm. Use our bullying prevention resources – and learn more about our preK-12 SEL school programs and curriculum.
• Learn online with our workshops and resources, check out our services for schools – or contact us about your needs!

To protect young people from kidnapping and abduction, we teach:

• Child protection strategies for adults
• Stranger safety strategies for young people

Through our proven approach designed to reduce fear while building skill and confidence, participants learn how to:

• act aware, calm, and confident
• make family safety plans for being safe in public
• use voice as a safety tool, such as to yell for help or to set boundaries
• recognize possible trouble early – and move away from trouble toward safety
• get help in public if kids get separated or are being bothered when their adults are not there to help
• follow safety rules about talking with strangers, taking things from strangers, or going with strangers
• follow safety plans for getting help in emergencies if they cannot get help from their own adults
• use emergency-only physical self-defense to use as a last resort for escaping an attack and getting to safety. (Note: our in-person full-force self-defense skills workshops are paused during the pandemic. Online workshops can include coaching in physical self-defense skills)

We have more than three decades of experience adapting physical self-defense skills for people ages six and up of all abilities – including people with low vision; people who are deaf/hard of hearing; people who use wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and other mobility tools; and neurodiverse people representing a broad range of cognitive abilities.

To learn more, see:
Stranger Safety – Assault and Kidnapping Prevention
Kidpower Child Protection and Advocacy Resources
Self-Paced Kidpower Child Protection Online Institute

Related resources include:
One Strong Move: Cartoon-Illustrated Self-Defense Lessons
How to Pick a Good Self-Defense Program

To bring Kidpower Stranger Safety skills and programs to your school, see our preK-12 SEL school programs and curriculum.

Technology changes, but Kidpower’s core principles for safety with people are timeless, preparing people for safety online now and throughout their online lives. We teach:

• Awareness to prevent problems before they start
• Assessment to avoid, de-escalate, or end unsafe situations
• Moving away from trouble emotionally and digitally
• Boundary setting to stop unwanted attention
• Disengaging to leave activities skillfully
• Assertive advocacy to get help with safety problems
• Safety planning for individuals and for groups of peers online together.
• Emotional safety to stay safe, calm, and effective in the face of threats, harassment, intimidation, peer pressure, bullying, or other emotional attacks.

To be safe online, youth need caring adults involved in their online lives.
Without adult guidance, youth online are more vulnerable to abuse, coercion, bullying, manipulation, and other harm. This is true even for digital natives more skilled with technology than their adults. See:

• Kidpower Strategies for Safety Online – and Everywhere Else
• Digital Citizenship & Safety Agreement Template
• Preparing Kids for Good Digital Citizenship

To explore workshop options, visit our Workshops page or contact us!

Kidpower makes safety accessible for people of all abilities.

We have more than three decades of experience adapting safety education to protect and empower people with disabilities – who face a high risk of bullying, assault, harassment, and other harm at all ages.

The success of our Unlimited Adaptability approach to safety education grows from our our focus on possibilities rather than limitations and the proven Kidpower Positive Practice Teaching Method use in our services for all ages.

Additional relevant resources include:

• Kidpower Safety Signals for Everyone, Everywhere
• Managing Wandering for People With Autism
• Self-Protection for People with Disabilities
• Kidpower Safety Plans for Children with Disabilities
• What Educators of Kids With Disabilities Can Do to Reduce Their Risks of Maltreatment

Read more about our services for people with special needs!

Long before they can talk or move on their own, babies are learning from their adults about what it means to be safe and to be important.

Our job as adults is to provide nurturing, love, guidance, and protection – and, to remember that babies are also aware of how we speak and act. When we speak and act in safe and respectful ways, babies are learning lessons about safety and respect!

As young children start to develop more mobility, understanding, and language, our job is also to start teaching them how to be safe in their world and with other people – in addition to remembering that our own words and actions are also teaching lessons about safety and respect.

Learn more about Kidpower Early Childhood Safety for Ages 0-6!

Adults often struggle to find the balance between giving young people more independence while also keeping them safe.

Instead of taking an ‘all-or-nothing’ approach to having children do different activities – in person or online – without adult supervision, Kidpower recommends a five-step plan:

1. Make realistic assessments about each child in each situation.
2. As a family, learn and practice skills for taking charge of safety – in person and online.
3. Field-test the skills in real world and online spaces by co-piloting, so youth can practice their skills with ‘adult back-up’
4. Conduct trial runs to rehearse independence in lower-risk, ‘low stakes’ situations with adult backup.
5. Keep communication open with listening, ongoing checking in, and review.

Our Parentpower and Familypower Workshops these skills tailored to situations, depending on the class and the group. Contact us about organizing a workshop for your own group!

These resources offer strategies you can learn, use, and teach right away:

Preparing Children for More Independence
Balancing Independence with Safety
How to Tell When a Child is Ready for More Freedom or New Privileges
Helicopters or Protectors? How to Keep Kids Safe without Unhelpful Hovering

Use and teach Kidpower skills to support safe, strong relationships for your children with peers, family members, teachers, and others.

Boundary and advocacy skills – which include skills for consent and body autonomy- are powerful tools for improving communication and building trust and understanding in meaningful relationships. These skills also help keep relationships of all kinds safe and healthy. So, all Kidpower boundary and boundary resources will prepare adults to empower youth with powerful relationship skills!

Here are some specific resources focusing on friendship issues:

Best Friends and Mistakes: A Teaching Story from Kidpower
Acting Friendly or Truly Being Your Friend? How to Tell the Difference
Social Aggression and Relational Aggression: Kidpower Skills for Recognizing the Problem and Staying Safe
Suicide Prevention Success Story: The Opposite of Cyberbullying

Here are some specific resources focusing on family relationships:

Advocating for Your Kids with Adult Family Members and Friends
How to Make Family Gatherings Great Instead of Awful
Grandparenting: Supporting Strong Family Relationships

Here are some specific resources about relationships with teachers, coaches, and others in a professional or volunteer support role:

Most Teachers Are Heroes!
Youth Sports Safety Resources
Choosing a Therapist for Your Child or Yourself

Our core social-emotional safety skills help people of all ages and abilities take charge of safety and well-being – online and in person. Skills include how to:

• Act aware, calm, and confident
• Protect yourself emotionally from hurtful words or behavior
• Manage emotional triggers to stay in charge of what you say and do
• Recognize what is and is not safe
• Move away from trouble physically, emotionally, and digitally
• Assess – and think first or check first before acting
• Set powerful and respectful boundaries
• Apply safety principles about touch and attention in healthy relationships
• Advocate assertively and persistently for help with safety problems
• Use your voice and body to stop an attack and get to safety

We teach age-appropriate, ability-appropriate adaptations of these skills using examples and activities relevant to students’ ages and life situations.

Our trainings for parents and professionals teach adults how to teach these skills to others in their personal and professional lives.

Learn online with our workshops and resources – or contact us about your needs!