On the one year anniversary of the Safe2Say program, Attorney General Josh Shapiro today announced Pennsylvania’s anonymous reporting system for schools, students and community members, “Safe2Say Something PA” has reached over 40,000 tips from across the commonwealth.

Safe2Say Something was created following the governor’s approval of Act 44 in 2018. The anonymous reporting system came online Jan. 14, 2019.

Pennsylvania was the first to deploy Safe2Say statewide and to train students and staff in all of the commonwealth’s 500 public school districts, including private, charter, and parochial schools.

Students and community members can submit tips via PA’s website, www.Safe2Saypa.org; through the Safe2Say Something PA app; or via telephone at 844-Safe2Say (844-723-2729). Most of the 40,382 tips were received through the app (32,998), while 6,512 tips came through the website, and 872 tips were telephoned into the crisis management center.

The top five categories of tips received during Safe2Say’s first year:

1.Bullying/Cyber Bullying,

2. Cutting/Self-Harm,

3. Suicide/Suicide Ideation,

4. Drug Use/Distribution/Possession, and

5. Depression/Anxiety.

As he has in the past, the Attorney General said the reality that most people who submit a tip to Safe2Say Something PA are about mental health means state officials should do more to address this growing concern.

“We need additional funding to ensure there is at least one mental health counselor in every school building in PA,” Shapiro said. “We must expand mental health services in our schools.”

Pennsylvania’s Safe2Say anonymous reporting system includes a partnership with the Sandy Hook Promise, a national non-profit organization based in Newtown, Conn., that formed following the school shooting at the Sandy Hook school in 2012. Sandy Hook’s founders and directors include people whose loved ones were shot and killed in that tragedy.

There are no costs to any school in Pennsylvania to participate in Safe2Say. The reporting system’s entire annual budget, including 24/7 staffing and technology, is funded in the General Fund at $1.6 million.

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