Children at HomeSafe are here because they have lived through heart-breaking circumstances. They have endured abuse, neglect, abandonment, and other horrors that have deeply affected their emotions, hampering their ability to trust.
At HomeSafe, we see their behaviors and emotions through a lens of understanding. We never ask “What’s wrong with you?” Rather, with kindness and love we ask, “Tell us what happened to you?” This empathetic approach offers our kids a safe space – often for the first time – to open up, to relax their protective defenses, and to share their deepest hurt. Over time, through this process, they learn to trust and connect with others.
We want our kids to live happy and productive lives – to build up their self-esteem and their resilience, to develop coping and life skills, and to understand that they are so much more, and can be so much more, than the things that happened to them.
In order to best care for these kids, HomeSafe is building and renovating four campuses to create uplifting home-environments that remove the environmental barriers that prevent healing. Because of our community’s generosity, we have opened three of the campuses located across Palm Beach County, and recently broke ground for the fourth in Boca Raton.
The campus in east Boca will be home to children, ages 6-12. Though it will accommodate twelve children at a time, the average number served each year is 25. These kids are too young to understand what’s happened to them, and they don’t know that life can be different. Amid their trauma they are grappling with the heartache and confusion of missing the adults who hurt them. These children need a home purposefully designed with therapeutic, social, and enrichment spaces, as well as play spaces where they can have fun and just be kids – safely.
Having twelve young children living together in the same space can be challenging in the best of circumstances. For a group of kids with emotional and mental health challenges, it is ripe for conflict. The new design accounts for this, offering everyone their own private space to cool off, practice their coping skills, and feel safe. The Boca campus offers spaces where our kids can build their confidence while being introduced to music, literature, and technology. It will also offer multiple play spaces including a basketball court, swing set and sensory playroom, where everyone can have fun and be active, normal, goofy kids.
HomeSafe will open the new Campus in late 2024. While we reached our original construction fundraising goal thanks to the Bernstein Family Foundation and other generous donors, the extraordinary increase in prices for materials and transportation have significantly increased construction costs. As such, we have extended our fundraising campaign into the new year. Though we are closing in on our goal – securing over 80% to completely cover construction of this campus, we continue to reach out to the community to connect with those who would like to be a part of this important endeavor to help our kids.
You can come meet our children and learn more about the transformative impact you will have on their futures by contacting Laura Barker, Chief Philanthropy Officer at (561) 383-9829.
Do you want to help change a life today?
