Pilot program helping Butler County kids learn important safety issues

In Safety Town’s 52-year history, it’s believed this is the first time such a program has been implemented, said Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities spokesperson Patricia Dawson.

The objective of this pilot program is identical to the goal of Safety Town, the day camp that concluded a few weeks ago after running for seven weeks.

“These kiddos need to learn how to safely cross the road, what to do when there’s a fire, and police officers and firefighters are friends,” said Dawson. “All the kinds of stuff the kiddos are learning from the standard Safety Town courses.”

For the rest of this week, kids 4 and 5 years old will be at Safety Town at Officer Bob Gentry Park in Hamilton. Next week, beginning Monday, kids 6 to 8 years old will have their Safety Town.

The Family Focus Department created some visuals to assist the kids in learning the skills, and Safety Town program director Hamilton Police Officer Kristy Collins said she’ll incorporate them into the standard classes.

“I think that’s important,” she said, adding they reinforce the message. “It’s more than helpful.”

And the hope is that pilot program takes off, Collins said.

“It’s all about putting safety out to kids and when we have our regular safety town, I don’t want to deter parents who have kids with disabilities and not come,” she said. “This kind of opens up this program for them. I would never want someone to not bring their kid.”

Rhonda Shepherd, of Morgan Twp., brought her grandson Bentley to this week’s Safety Town. She’s also an intervention specialist at St. Joseph Consolidate on South Second Street in Hamilton.

“To me, it’s very, very important they learn some of these life skills like safety,” she said. “Sometimes these skills may be more important than some of the academic skills.”

Dawson said the hope is to one, grow, this pilot program next year, but incorporating some of the new visual components would lead to successful integration.

“I think it’s great to have something separate, if it’s needed, but it’s also really great to have classes fully integrated,” she said.

This program could lead to another expansion of Safety Town, where Dawson said she’d hope to have a similar offering with some of the Butler County Board of Developmental Disabilities adult clients.