Safe & Sound’s TALK Line provides 24/7 support for parents and caregivers in a moment of need. No matter the time or circumstance, caregivers in need can call and connect with a trained volunteer who offers immediate support.
Sometimes, a couple of calls can make all the difference. That was the case for *Darlene, who was experiencing power struggles with her two-year-old daughter being oppositional—like refusing to put on her pajamas and having a bit of a meltdown. Having first heard of TALK Line as a recommended resource during her social work training, Darlene reached out, seeking ways to address her daughter’s behavior with patience and understanding. The volunteer’s judgment-free approach made Darlene feel comfortable to share, and his ‘unconditional positive regard’ reinforced her strengths as a parent.
It was ten years before Darlene called the TALK Line again—this time, her need was more acute. Darlene’s daughter was now twelve years old and experiencing significant issues, including self-harm. Being part of Safe & Sound means our call operators can refer callers to our other programs and services, which may benefit them. Darlene chose to attend weekly in-person therapy sessions with Safe & Sound to explore her complex emotions as a mother and process her grief.
She recalls a poignant moment early on when she was grief-stricken and in shock, and her Safe & Sound therapist provided unwavering support. After a period of in-person therapy sessions, Safe & Sound gave Darlene the option of setting up an ongoing relationship with Sheila, a TALK Line volunteer. For the last five years, they have spoken every week about practically everything. Through her experiences with the TALK Line, Darlene has developed new ways to navigate challenges and support her daughter with compassion and resilience.
This relationship has been a constant during some tumultuous years, during which Darlene’s daughter was a resident at different adolescent treatment centers, some out of state. Though not a therapist, Sheila offers a kind of support that feels therapeutic. As a mother herself, Sheila brings wisdom and insight, creating a space where Darlene feels understood. Their weekly conversations have become a source of reflection and encouragement, reinforcing Darlene’s confidence and resilience as a parent.
Darlene’s daughter is now 18 and continues to face challenges—but she’s not facing them alone. With her mother’s unwavering support, she is moving forward. Through ongoing commitment to the TALK Line and therapy, Darlene has strengthened her skills and resilience as a parent, tackling everyday struggles and complex situations with determination. And she still calls Sheila every week, who will be there for her as long as she needs it.
*Name has been changed for confidentiality purposes.
Last year, our TALK Line volunteers provided 4,000 supportive conversations, serving as a lifeline for caregivers whenever they needed help—day or night, regardless of the situation. This 24/7 service is critical in preventing child abuse, neglect, and trauma—ensuring no caregiver feels alone.
With your generosity, Safe & Sound can reach even more families, providing the guidance and reassurance that help keep children safe and families strong. Every gift makes a difference. Your support enables us to continue to support children and families in the Bay Area.
Friday, October 17th
6:00 pm – 11:00 pm
Palace Hotel
2 New Montgomery Street
San Francisco
Cocktail Reception, Seated Dinner, and Dancing!
Join us as we celebrate our achievements and impact with our community of supporters!
Please join us to celebrate and fundraise for the families we serve at Safe & Sound! For more than 51 years, we have been at the forefront of providing programs that keep children safe and families strong. Support our mission at our 28th Annual Blue Ribbon Celebration and help us build brighter futures for our families and community!
Starting as the San Francisco Child Abuse Center in 1973, and now a statewide leader on prevention and family wellness, we are proud of the work we have done for and with children and families. Let’s shape the next 50 years of safe children and strong families…together!
The Blue Ribbon name and symbol are used to show support of child abuse prevention. When the Blue Ribbon Celebration started 28 years ago, Safe & Sound chose the name as a way to honor the vision of a future free from child abuse and neglect.
If you are interested in joining the event host committee, please email Erin.Reeser@safeandsound.org.
We are grateful to our generous sponsors for everything they do to ensure a safe & sound future for children and families!
The Honorable Farah Makras & Victor Makras
Tracy Chen & Tom Schoenherr
Casey Family Programs
Jillian Manus & Rob Chesnut
Hilary & Jamie Mendola
Kaiser Permanente
Liz Moress & Carolyn Otis Catanzaro
Polsinelli
Safe & Sound is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. A Blue Ribbon Celebration Ticket is valued at $195.
Federal Tax ID number: 94-2455072
Read our Donor Privacy Policy.
The Family Violence Council (FVC) provides a comprehensive view of family violence and its consequences and recommends programs, policies, and coordination of City services to reduce the incidence of family violence in San Francisco. A coalition of 28 member agencies, spanning multiple City departments and community organizations, the FVC is now housed within the newly established Mayor’s Office for Victim Rights (MOVR), and provides guidance to the Board of Supervisors and Mayor on issues of child abuse, domestic violence, and elder abuse. As lead of the SF Child Abuse Prevention Council and a tri-chair of the Family Violence Council, Safe & Sound brings its expertise in child abuse prevention to this broader mission while working alongside the other chairs representing the Domestic Violence Consortium and the Consortium for Elder Abuse Prevention.
The Council’s effectiveness stems from the collaboration between child abuse, domestic violence, and elder abuse services. This integrated approach recognizes that family violence has cross-sectional impact. For example, in San Francisco and throughout California, survivors of domestic violence can face challenges as child welfare agencies may view them as failing to protect their children from exposure to violence, potentially leading to custody loss under “failure to protect” policies. Survivors can face the devastating possibility of losing custody of their children due to their own experience of violence.
*Substantiated definition: child welfare has determined that there is sufficient evidence to support a finding that more likely than not child abuse or neglect occurred
The Council has just released its comprehensive FY ‘22 – ’23 report examining family violence trends across San Francisco. Drawing data from over 10 city agencies and 27 community organizations, the report serves as the foundation for understanding the current status of family violence in San Francisco. This data-driven approach helps track trends, identify service gaps and shape policy recommendations. The report’s key recommendations focus on:
With the FVC tri-chairs and MOVR, Safe & Sound has begun working collaboratively with members on these recommendations. Currently, we are ensuring a seamless transition of the Council’s backbone support from DOSW (Department on Status of Women) to MOVR, advocating for sustained funding of direct service organizations in the upcoming budget cycle, and addressing staffing shortages in the Special Victims Unit (currently operating at 75% capacity). Collaboratively, we will continue implementing survivor-centered solutions across all remaining focus areas throughout the year.
Safe & Sound’s leadership in tri-chairing the Family Violence Council and driving its data-backed initiatives underscores our pivotal role in unifying San Francisco’s fight against family violence. By bridging critical gaps through cross-sector partnerships, structural reforms, and survivor-centered advocacy, Safe & Sound’s collaborative model ensures San Francisco’s families receive holistic protection against violence’s cascading harms.
We are pleased to share a new publication co-written by TONIC, a cross-sectional workgroup dedicated to preventing and treating toxic stress in San Francisco’s children. Safe & Sound is proud to represent child- and family- serving community based organizations in this group. The paper, titled New Opportunities with Enhanced Care Management: Increasing Success for San Francisco Families with Children Ages 0–5 in Family Maintenance, demonstrates the value of TONIC’s approach of breaking down silos and bringing together leaders across health care, county and city departments, and CBOs to grapple with how we can better keep children safe.
About the paper
The paper describes how Enhanced Care Management (ECM), a new benefit available to high-risk Medi-cal recipients might look like for a Family Maintenance case involving children aged 0–5 in San Francisco.
The hypothetical scenario prompted a valuable conversation among key partners to identify implementation challenges and key questions, such as how ECM can be additive and not duplicative to services provided today, who should make referrals, how they should do it, and what information should be shared with whom.
TONIC participants provided insights on current barriers to making ECM more widely available along with some recommended next steps.
What is TONIC?
The UCSF Center for Child and Community Health’s Toxic Stress Network Improvement Collaborative (TONIC) has been working since 2019 with the goal of grounding care coordination systems in San Francisco for children aged 0–5 in lived expertise and aligning sectors around the following goals:
Safe & Sound is proud to represent child- and family- serving community based organizations in this group.
Last week Safe & Sound hosted our annual Holiday Toy Store, providing gifts for over 500 children over a three-day window.
This annual initiative has been in effect for many years and grows year over year. Having received generous donations from individuals and businesses, we built a magical toy store within the Safe & Sound office in Bayview, with toys, books and clothes for children of different ages. Parents and caregivers are then invited to book a shopping appointment, leaving their children in the therapeutic playroom if they wish, so that they can take the time to select the perfect gift for their child.
We stock the store with items we have heard are popular with the children and families we work with throughout the year, to make sure there is an appealing selection on offer. However, we do not presume to know what each child wants or give them presents directly, and instead allow the parents the autonomy and independence to choose, wrap and present their own children with gifts.
All of this is made possible with a team of volunteers, staff and donors – it’s a big undertaking to secure enough inventory, set up the store, decorate the entranceway, and then staff the store during the browsing time to enable a stress-free and efficient process for the shoppers. But it’s so worth it to see the magic of the festive season come to life for the children and ease some of the pressure for their parents and caregivers.
This year the store had a special helper on its third and final day when Mayor-Elect Daniel Lurie, in partnership with the Child Care Planning and Advisory Council (CPAC), attended to see the work we have been doing in our community. It also gave us the chance to discuss with him some of the broader systems change we advocate for to support families in San Francisco.
The holiday toy store initiative is entirely funded and stocked by generous donations. If you would like to support us this holiday season so we can continue our vital work and give even more offerings next year, please donate today.
The San Francisco Family Services Alliance (FSA), supported by Safe & Sound, successfully co-hosted the Bay Area California Family Resource Association (CFRA) Town Hall Meeting at the The Women’s Building, a non-profit hub in San Francisco. The California Family Resource Association (CFRA), a statewide network representing over 300 Family Resource Centers, hosts these town halls throughout California to discuss local advocacy priorities and shape statewide policy efforts that help families and communities thrive.
The hybrid event brought together the Bay Area’s parent leaders, Family Resource Centers, family support organizations, and policymakers. Parents’ lived experiences were central to the discussions – eleven parents, including five Spanish-speaking participants, shared their needs on virtual and in-person platforms, highlighting topics such as cross-county housing coordination, barrier-free services, cyberbullying prevention, free self-defense classes, emergency drop-in child care, and improved data management. Thanks to Crankstart, parents were compensated for their time and expressed appreciation for being heard. One parent shared, “I loved learning about the important issues in our community“, while another added, “Thank you for listening to my voice“.
CFRA will compile a summary of all the information gathered at this event to include in an overall report about all the regional town halls.
Special thanks to The Women’s Building for providing a welcoming space and interpretation headsets, to Crankstart for making it possible to compensate parents for their time, and to the California Family Resource Association (CFRA) for coming to the Bay Area. We also extend our gratitude to all the parents and organizational staff who participated. Together with the Family Services Alliance, we continue to collaborate to ensure families have the resources and support they need to thrive.
The San Francisco Examiner has published an article covering our work to support families, and how we hope to minimize their stress this holiday season.
In the wide-ranging piece, reporter Greg Wong uncovers why this is a critical week for Safe & Sound, featuring our annual Toy Store as well as our Blue Ribbon celebration. Safe & Sound’s CEO Pegah Faed and Chief Development Officer Brian Byrdsong also discuss the organization more broadly and what drives our work.
You can read the full article on the San Francisco Examiner website.
Safe & Sound brought together 300 guests to the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco on Saturday 7 December for their annual Blue Ribbon Celebration event. Guests were invited to ‘light up the night’ to recognize the importance of Safe & Sound’s critical mission and raise funds so they can build and expand on their work in the community.
For the last half-century, Safe & Sound has supported children and families in San Francisco, committed to their mission to prevent and reduce the impact of childhood abuse, neglect, and trauma. The families they serve are facing significant challenges, often living in San Francisco’s lowest-income neighborhoods so the support provided can be a lifeline for them.
Safe & Sound’s programming has achieved remarkable results—reaching over 200,000 individuals in the last 20 years, and creating systems-change, contributing to a 64% reduction in the rate of child abuse and a 51% reduction in entries into foster care in San Francisco.
In 2023 Safe & Sound continued to meet the direct needs of Bay Area families, serving 16,925 individuals, which represents a 47% increase over previous years.
Safe & Sound’s unwavering advocacy for a reimagined child and family well-being system has led to important changes, including an update to the state-wide reporting criteria for Children and Family Services to reduce the number of unsubstantiated and unnecessary reports which traumatize over 350,000 children a year. The work in this area is ongoing and its impact will be profound.
Safe & Sound is deeply grateful for the support from the generous community that attended this event and those that provide ongoing donations. They are helping to shape the future of their community by enabling this critical work to continue and its impact to be felt for generations to come.
Chief Executive, Pegah Faed, said: “We were delighted that this event enabled us to share the impact of our work with our guests, who between them raised $936,000 in donations so that we can build and expand on this critical support to our community.”
One way people can engage with Safe & Sound this holiday season is by participating in the Holiday Gift Program, which will make a meaningful impact on families with children in need. The annual Holiday Toy Store brings hundreds of Bay Area children joy, turning holiday wishes into reality. Each contribution helps to create a joyful, welcoming space for families where children can receive toys, clothes and books.
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About Safe & Sound:
Using a coordinated, multi-generational approach that spans the entire spectrum of prevention, Safe & Sound aims to break the cycle of childhood trauma and improve outcomes for at-risk children. They provide direct, evidence-based services to families, educate children, caregivers, and professionals to understand and respond to trauma and abuse, and collaborate with government and community organizations to transform the child welfare system into one centered on child and family well-being.
On Wednesday, November 20th Safe & Sound hosted its third and final Lunch and Learn for the year. This webinar continued the theme of the previous event held in August about ensuring lived experience and expertise are systematically incorporated, analyzed, and referenced when we are evaluating and creating strategies for our work, just as we do with other data. In this session our expert panelists explored how we can move to the next level of engaging lived experience.
Our speakers talked with experience and passion about what excites them about the idea of moving toward lived expertise as data, explained some of the important challenges and considered how these can be addressed.
In Safe & Sound’s own work, the data team ensures lived experience is gathered effectively by working with clients to form the questions themselves, making sure we are asking the right things to get the most useful answers to inform our work. However, we are mindful of the bias even in this approach, that the people who choose to be on our committees might not represent the full population of families that encounter Safe & Sound.
Our expert panelists:
Resources referenced during the webinar:
Drawing from experience writing her dissertation titled, From Mandated Reporter to Community Supporter: Reimagining Schools as the Nexus to Address Intersectional Social Justice, panelist Dr. Charity Chandler-Cole offered ideas and personal experience on how to build a new research framework that engages lived expertise from beginning to end.
Panelist Jess Mussadi discussed a set of toolkits used in other industries to create a trauma-informed environment to engage with communities in a meaningful way in research, without sacrificing rigour:
Watch the video to see the full conversation, and stay tuned for our 2025 Lunch and Learn series commencing in April.
When I first came to Safe & Sound, I felt overwhelmed as the sole provider for my family, caring for three children and my wife, who requires extra support. Safe & Sound provided me with the support I needed while my kids participated in fun activities in their playroom. I enrolled in the Integrated Family Services and, with the support of my care coordinator, set goals for my family. Safe & Sound provided parenting classes and helped me focus on individual therapy, giving me the tools to make my family stronger and become an active father. After two years, we were in a much happier place when we finished the program.
However, financial stress made it hard to focus on anything else. As the sole provider for my family, the pressure was on my shoulders to leave the job I had always done in search of something that provided more financial stability. Safe & Sound welcomed me a second time when I sought their help with job searches, resume building, and submitting applications. They gave me the confidence to pursue a training program that could change my career, and during the process, they helped us meet our basic household needs for my family.
“Without Safe & Sound assistance, I wouldn’t have been able to seize this opportunity for a better future.”
I’m thrilled to share that today, I work full-time as a school bus driver and earn enough to support my family! My son graduates high school in the next two years, and I’m excited that the Safe & Sound team is already thinking about how to help him achieve his educational goals. I know that with their support and mine he will go on to achieve great things.
Thanks to your generous support, Safe & Sound has been able to provide vital services to families like mine. In 2023, more than 16,000 children and caregivers were served through Safe & Sound programs and supportive services.
Today, I want to ask you to spread holiday joy by making a contribution to Safe & SoundYour kindness gives us the assurance that Safe & Sound will be there to lend a helping hand when we are facing life’s biggest challenges, empowering us to dream and work towards a better future.
Safe & Sound has been a reliable place for parenting support, but it also felt safe, caring, and compassionate, which helped strengthen my family during tough times. Every family that walks through the doors has their own struggles, but it’s possible to turn things around. Safe & Sound creates a unique connection with each family and being participant-centered and participant-led allows families to access the services that will best support them. Whether it’s immediate assistance to help meet basic food and household needs, help with parenting skills, a caring voice at the other end of their 24/7 parental stress call-in line, or individuals to share your challenges and hopes with either one-on-one or with a group of other parents, Safe & Sound knows how to help families thrive.
Your gift as a Safe & Sound community member wraps all of this support around every family that comes to Safe & Sound with hope of a better future for themselves and their children. I know this incredible resource for families is possible because of the contributions made by people like you and, for this, I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart, for partnering with Safe & Sound mission to prevent and reduce the impact of childhood abuse, neglect and trauma.
Happy Holidays,
Ramon E. Rivera
Parent & a Client of Safe & Sound