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Safe Sitter®
The Safe Sitter® babysitting training program for 11- to-13-year-olds was founded by Patricia A. Keener, M.D., in 1980. Dr. Keener is a nationally known, board certified pediatrician and Emeritus Assistant Dean of Medical Service-Learning and Professor of Clinical Studies at the Indiana University School of Medicine. She is also the recipient of the American Academy of Pediatrics Ross Award for Lay Education.

Safe Sitter® was created to teach adolescents how to be better babysitters. Sadly, the idea behind the program arose from a tragic event. While working in the emergency room of an Indianapolis hospital, Dr. Keener tried to save the life of an 18-month-old girl. The girl was brought to the emergency room because she was choking. Her adult sitter did not know what to do. The situation was made even more tragic because the girl’s mother, a friend of Dr. Keener’s, worked as a nurse at the hospital.

That same year, Dr. Keener taught the first Safe Sitter® class at Park Tudor School in Indianapolis. Since then, over 500,000 adolescents have been taught how to be better babysitters at over 900 teaching sites across the United States.

Safe Sitter® is a train-the-trainer program. It holds one-day Instructor Workshops around the country. Organizations, such as schools, churches, synagogues, hospitals, fire departments, camps, parks and youth groups, send their staff to learn the Safe Sitter® curriculum. They take the program back to their organizations and offer it to their communities.

The program teaches life-saving skills, like choking child rescue and infant and child CPR. However, it also has a strong focus on teaching adolescents to be compassionate and nurturing caretakers to younger children. The program reminds babysitters to “always stay in control of the children” and “always stay in control of yourself.”

The Safe Sitter® motto is Better Sitters Today. Better Parents Tomorrow.™