Lakewood Ohio High School Students Teach Home Alone to Tweens

SOS 4 Kids is thrilled that the City of Lakewood Ohio has opted to use SOS’ Home Alone curriculum in a unique and exciting initiative. Home Alone Safety will be facilitated by volunteer Lakewood high school students and delivered to elementary children aged 9 – 12 in local schools. High school students will gain valuable leadership skills while younger kids will develop skills and knowledge for independence and safety. It’s a win-win collaboration.

According to the Lakewood Observer, Lakewood’s H2O (Help to Others) service learning program is expanding its student leadership to include Home Alone Safety awareness. A team known as the HOME ALONE Research and Development Team is currently working to create four events to be held during the winter of this 2019-2020 school year. It will be geared towards nine to twelve year old students, as well as their parents. Those attending will have the chance to learn from both high school students and local experts, such as firefighters, police officers, and internet crime detectives, on how youth can best stay safe when home alone.

The eleven member HOME ALONE Research and Development Team hosted a leadership retreat at Lakewood’s Garfield Middle School on Sunday, October 6th. Nearly thirty additional high school students learned about what roles they will have the opportunity to play in making these events impactful and successful. Through various techniques such as the utilization of technology and small group presentations, the attendees were able to learn about each topic being taught during the future H2O HOME ALONE events. The new leaders will eventually join and co-teach one of these groups, focusing on issues such as First Aid, Phone and Door Safety, Internet Safety, and more.

Home Alone program includes First Aid

The team worked hard over this summer to lay the foundation for bringing this amazing program to Lakewood. The team along with high school volunteers are excited to help kids in Lakewood prepare themselves for situations that may arise when home alone. They did a lot of research and learning over the summer and are eager to share it all with their younger peers in Lakewood this winter!

H2O’s R&D Team was honored to have Mayor Mike Summers attend the leadership retreat. He engaged with student leaders in discussing how to address resolutions to potentially unsafe situations that children might encounter when home alone.