The City of Escalon through eTrans has started a unique partnership with THE San Joaquin County Women’s Center - Youth and Family Services to provide a Safe Place for at-risk youth ages 12 to 21 years old in Escalon.

Starting this month, eTrans has placed the distinctive yellow-and-black, Safe Place sticker on all of its local transit service buses to alert youth and young adults (ages 12 to 21 years old) that they can board any eTrans bus in Escalon or Modesto and ask a coach operator for help. eTrans will then coordinate with Women’s Center - Youth and Family Services to transport the youth to their facility.

Safe Place is a national youth outreach program that educates thousands of young people about the dangers of running away or trying to resolve difficult, threatening situations on their own. This program allows youth to easily access immediate help through services in their community like eTrans.

Women’s Center - Youth and Family Services offers the Safe Place program as part of its wide range of services designed to foster healthy families and to help San Joaquin County women, youth and families build better lives for themselves and their community.

Besides eTrans implementation of this program in Escalon, San Joaquin Regional Transit District (RTD) has also implemented Safe Place on their local and regional buses throughout Stockton and unincorporated areas of San Joaquin County.

To learn more about the program, visit http://www.nationalsafeplace.org/ or call Joelle Gomez, Chief Executive Officer, at (209) 941-2611 or email jgomez@womenscenteryfs.org. For information on eTrans, call (209) 541-6645 or visit www.cityofescalon.org.