About Play it Safe!® in Tarrant County

The Women’s Center has been providing Play it Safe!® in Tarrant County since 1983.

More than 30 years ago, following a child sexual abuse incident on an elementary school campus, school personnel approached The Women's Center seeking a program to help children stay safe. Since that time, The Women’s Center’s continuous research and curriculum development has resulted in an evidence-based, age-appropriate child sexual abuse prevention program for children, pre-school through 12th grade, as well as their parents, teachers and caregivers.

The Play it Safe!® curriculum teaches children how to reduce their risk of sexual and physical abuse and sexual assault. It teaches them to identify sexually abusive behavior, provides the tools they need to be safe including actions to take in threatening situations, and gives them a safe environment to disclose abuse. Play it Safe!® is taught one classroom at a time with a presentation and message tailored to each grade level, giving children a better opportunity to learn, to feel safe, to ask questions, and to come forward to disclose abuse.

Major achievements of Play it Safe!® include:

Over 1.5 million children have received Play it Safe!® since 1983. The Women’s Center provided
Play it Safe!® to 107,899 children during the 2021-2022 school year.
Every year children have outcried after participating in a Play it Safe!® program, revealing to a
Play it Safe!® presenter or other trusted adult that she/he has been or is currently being abused.
As a result, Child Protective Services and law enforcement can intervene, the abuse can be stopped,
and children can receive counseling to begin healing.
In 2018, The Women’s Center partnered with the University of North Texas Health Science Center of Fort Worth to establish Play it Safe!® as an evidence-based child sexual abuse risk reduction program.