Keep Safe

What is Keep Safe?

Keep Safe is an award winning initiative developed in partnership with Police Scotland and I Am Me Scotland.

The initiative works with a network of local businesses to create ‘Keep Safe’ places in the community for anyone feeling lost, frightened or who has been a victim of crime. Keep Safe staff are trained to offer assistance if required.

What is the aim of the initiative?

The initiative aims to ensure that people feel safe when participating in community life. Many people can feel scared, frightened or vulnerable when out in the community and this can in many cases lead to social isolation.

Keep Safe aims to offer a network of safe places to help encourage people to participate in daily community life free from the fear of harassment and abuse.

Sometimes due to disability or age related illness, people can easily become disorientated, lost or become confused, especially in and around unfamiliar surroundings. Keep Safe can offer a reassurance that there is somewhere people can seek assistance if required.

What is the Keep Safe Card?

Keep Safe cards are available for elderly, disabled and vulnerable people. The cards detail information such as communication requirements, health concerns and who to contact in the event of an emergency.

The cards are particularly useful for people who have a learning disability or have dementia/Alzheimer’s.

How can a business become a Keep Safe place?

If a business wants to become a Keep Safe place, they can either contact their local Police Office directly to ask if they are supporting the initiative or they can contact I Am Me project on iammeproject@yahoo.co.uk.

What is involved?

If a business wants to become Keep Safe, a criteria form is completed and sent to Police Scotland to check that the premises are suitable to become Keep Safe. If approved, a training date will be arranged.

This can be tailored to suit each business and can be anything from 20 minutes to 2 hours depending on what the business would like delivered.

When staff training is complete, the Keep Safe sticker will be displayed in the window and the business will be advertised on I Am Me Scotland webpage and the new Keep Safe App.

A business pack is left with each Keep Safe place to ensure that any new staff can be made aware of the initiative.

What is the Keep Safe App?

A phone app called ‘Keep Safe Scotland’ has been developed and is available to download. The app maps out all Keep Safe places across Scotland and can help people to plan routes, highlighting Keep Safe places along the route.

The app also enables people to report hate crimes directly to the Police if they have been a victim or have witnessed an incident.

It is available via iTunes or Google Play.

Is there any cost involved?

There is no cost for participating businesses and all resources for the initiative are provided free from iammeproject@yahoo.co.uk.

Are there any restrictions?

A criteria form must be completed and all new Keep Safe places must be approved by Police Scotland. This is to ensure that Keep Safe places are safe and accessible places for people to seek assistance.

The Keep Safe premises information must be sent to the I Am Me project to ensure that there is a national database of Keep Safe places and that all Keep Safe places can be identified on the phone app.

The Keep Safe logo and resources must remain unchanged as this will ensure recognition when people are travelling across local authority boundaries. Local information and advertising can be inserted into the business packs, if required.

What is I Am Me?

I Am Me Scotland is a community based charity based in Renfrewshire. The Charity works with Police Scotland and Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Office to raise awareness of disability hate crime.

Although the focus of the charity and the training resources is Disability, Keep Safe has been designed and developed to support any person who may require support and assistance when out in the community.

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More information on the charity is available from www.iammescotland.co.uk or twitter @IammeScotland