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Street Outreach
Street Outreach Programs "Safe Place Site List"
Seton Youth Shelters has operated its Street Outreach Programs since January 1999. It all began with collaboration between Seton Youth Shelters, Stand Up For Kids and the Virginia Beach United Methodist Church, which continues to this day. Working together, there was now a place and the needed trained professionals and volunteers to open a weekly teen drop-in center at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront for runaway, homeless youth and youth in crisis that found themselves in need of help. Since that time Seton Youth Shelters' Street Outreach Programs has developed a diverse, multi-faceted approach to filling the gap to ensure accessibility of crisis services to the youth of Hampton Roads and their families.
Today, our Street Outreach Programs assist youth up to the age of 21 years old and services offered include:
• Weekly Youth Street Outreach Center (affectionately known as "The Crow's Nest"). Each week, staff and volunteers open the 2nd story doors of "The Potter's House" on Tuesday Evening from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
At The Crow's Nest, youth up to the age of 21 years old can find a "safe haven" with caring adults that offer crisis counseling, food and drink, access to emergency shelter, clothing, hygiene items, substance abuse education, community referrals, written educational information, a G.E.D. study hall, employment posting board and Family/Runaway Message Board.
Our Youth Street Outreach Center is located on the 2nd Floor of The Potter's House which is next to Domino's Pizza on the corner of 18th Street and Pacific Ave. The building is easily identified through our building signs on Pacific Avenue and over the 2nd story door.
• Our Van Outreach Program travels through Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Hampton and Newport News accessing 400 square miles of Hampton Roads. The Van Outreach Program is a mobile unit equipped with two person teams, offering the same services as our Youth Street Outreach Center, but providing greater access to emergency youth services by traveling through these cities seeking areas of high risk where youth congregate.
• The Special Outreach Projects is the part of Street Outreach which generally addresses focused, short term activities and services to high risk youth. This includes intensive support services to an individual homeless youth in attempts to assist them in leaving the street; responding to a call for help from schools, churches, youth serving agencies and the community at large, and occasionally conducting youth educational activities for a specific high risk group.
• Safe Place: Seton Youth Shelters is a licensed Safe Place Agency, securing affiliation with the National Safe Place Organization, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky. Safe Place is a national youth outreach program that educates thousands of young people every year about the dangers of running away or trying to resolve difficult, threatening situations on their own. This community initiative involves the whole community to provide safe havens and resources for youth in crisis.
Safe Place creates a network of "Safe Place" locations - youth friendly businesses, schools, fire stations, libraries, YMCAs and other appropriate public buildings that display the distinctive yellow and black Safe Place sign. These Safe Place sites extend the doors of the youth emergency shelter or youth service agency throughout the community. Youth are easily able to access immediate help wherever they are.
