-   Safe Children Coalition Receives “Community Champion Award” -   Strong Kids Campaign raises more than $190,000 -   Create Programs that Keep Kids Safe: Support the YMCA Strong Kids Campaign

The Sarasota Family YMCA serves as the Lead Agency for Community Based Care in three counties on the West Coast of Florida - Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto. Under the leadership of the Sarasota Family YMCA, the Safe Children Coalition (SCC) is a collaboration between the YMCA and many local community entities who together provide a continuum of child welfare services for dependent children who have been abused, neglected or abandoned. Child protection services provided include case management, foster care, independent living and adoptions.

The Safe Children Coalition is a community coalition blending available resources to assist abused and neglected children and their families in reaching permanency in a safe and stable environment.

The idea to re-engineer the child welfare system in Florida began simply enough with a question of "what would you do if you could?"...and the answer "to have the community manage the foster care system". This question and answer came from the hearts of two compassionate leaders in Florida - Governor Jeb Bush and Sarasota Family YMCA President & CEO Carl Weinrich. Through these exchanges in 1994, the concept of Community Based Care (CBC) was born.