Sense of Safety

Abstract

The Sense of Safety scale is an 11-item instrument designed to assess the subjective feelings of safety experienced by children and young adolescents across critical environmental domains. These domains include the journey to and from school, the school environment itself (classrooms, grounds, lunch, gym), the immediate home surroundings, and the broader neighborhood. Developed primarily for use in evaluation projects concerning violence prevention, this measure provides a quantifiable metric of perceived security among youth.

Keywords

Sense of Safety, Perceived Security, School Safety, Youth Violence Prevention, Personal Attitudes and Beliefs, Neighborhood Safety, Child Health.

Authors

Henry D.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Sense of Safety scale is to quantify an individual student’s perception of security within various contexts central to their daily lives. This tool was specifically utilized in the Pilot Study for the Evaluation of the SAFE TO LEARN Demonstration Project, suggesting its role as an outcome measure for interventions aimed at improving school and community environments.

By measuring feelings of safety across home, school, and neighborhood settings, the instrument provides researchers and practitioners with data necessary to evaluate the efficacy of violence reduction programs and identify specific environmental factors contributing to or detracting from a child’s overall well-being and peace of mind.

Construct

The psychological construct measured is the subjective Sense of Safety, defined as the individual’s internalized feeling of security and freedom from threat or harm in specific physical and social settings. This construct is crucial in developmental psychology as perceived safety significantly impacts mental health, attendance, and academic engagement.

The scale operationalizes this construct by sampling feelings across three key areas: school environment (items 1–7), home environment (item 9), and the immediate community or neighborhood (items 8, 10, 11). It captures Personal Attitudes and Beliefs regarding vulnerability and security, differentiating it from objective measures of crime or physical safety.

Validity

Specific detailed psychometric data regarding the formal validation of the Sense of Safety scale (e.g., convergent, discriminant, or criterion validity coefficients) were not provided in the source material derived from the initial pilot report. However, its inclusion in a major compendium of assessment tools used for measuring violence-related behaviors among youth suggests initial content validity aligned with established research practices in the field of public health and school psychology.

The items demonstrate strong face validity, directly addressing situations where students might feel vulnerable, such as transitional times (to/from school) and unstructured settings (playground, neighborhood park).

Reliability

Reliability estimates, such as internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) or test-retest reliability, are not explicitly documented in the provided summary information. Given that the scale originated from a pilot study, subsequent research or full technical reports related to the SAFE TO LEARN Demonstration Project would typically contain these essential psychometrics. Researchers intending to use this scale should consult the primary technical report (Henry D., 2000) for full details on reliability coefficients calculated during scale development.

Factor Analysis

Information regarding the specific factor structure of the 11 items is absent from the summary. Although the items clearly cluster conceptually into school, travel, and neighborhood settings, formal exploratory or confirmatory factor analysis results are required to establish whether the scale measures a single, unitary construct of global safety perception or if it comprises distinct sub-factors corresponding to these environmental domains.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report psychometrics instrument designed for youth.

Format: 3-point Likert scale (Never, Sometimes, Always).

Language Available: English (as presented in the source materials).

Population Group: Children and Young Adolescents.

Age Group: Typically 6 to 14 years old (corresponding to Grades 1–8).

Population Details: Students in grades 1-8. The scale is designed to be easily understood by young children, focusing on concrete experiences related to school and community access.

Test Methodology: Respondents indicate the frequency of their feeling safe in 11 specific situations. Scoring is based on assigning point values (Never=0, Sometimes=1, Always=2). The total score is the mean item response of non-missing items. A minimum of six items must be completed for a valid score calculation. A higher mean score indicates a greater Sense of Safety.

Keywords

Violence Prevention, Child Development, Subjective Perception, School Environment, Likert Scale, Personal Security, Youth Well-being, Psychosocial Assessment.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not available in source material.

Affiliation Email addresses: Not available in source material.

Correspondence Address: Henry D. was affiliated with the Child Health Data Lab, Chicago: Children’s Memorial Hospital, 2000.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was documented in 2000, stemming from the Pilot Study for the Evaluation of the SAFE TO LEARN Demonstration Project. Specific information regarding current copyright, licensing fees, and permission requirements must be sought directly from the original author or the publishing institution (Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago, as of 2000).

The instrument is publicly accessible via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) compendium, Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools. The original PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf

Reference’s

Henry D. Initial report of the Pilot Study for the Evaluation of the SAFE TO LEARN Demonstration Project. Technical Report, Child Health Data Lab. Chicago: Children’s Memorial Hospital, 2000.

Items of the Sense of Safety

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

1. I feel safe on my way to school in the morning.
2. I feel safe on the school grounds before school starts.
3. I feel safe in my class at school.
4. I feel safe at lunch in school.
5. I feel safe in gym class at school.
6. I feel safe after school before I go home.
7. I feel safe on my way home from school.
8. I feel safe at the park closest to my house.
9. I feel safe outside of my house.
10. I feel safe playing on my block.
11. I feel safe walking around my neighborhood.