Swift Current Safe Places and the RCMP announced this week that they were able to resume records checks for the youth certification initiative that began in 2016.

Originally put on hold as the RCMP closed their physical offices to the public with the rise of COVID-19 in April, effective immediately, organizations or individuals looking to become Safe Places - Youth Certified or to re-certify can now do so.

Kelly Schafer is the manager of Safe Places. She said that because many youth initiatives were placed on hold during the first months of the pandemic, the pause in records checks has not been too inconvenient, but with the economy and the community events opening back up, it's nice to get back up and running.

"Due to COVID, it has been a slower time for everybody, for the whole community. So luckily from that perspective, the demand hasn't been there. But now as restrictions have eased up and organizations are looking to get back to programming and offering youth services than the demand is there again."

Schafer says that there is nothing like Safe Places anywhere else in Canada. The homegrown initiative invites potential volunteers to take a voluntary training program and a criminal records check for certification to work with youth in sports and other initiatives.

"The benefit of this is that lots of organizations within the community now are accepting or recognizing Safe Places including some of the provincial sports bodies, for example. So it's great now that a person just needs one card and they can show the organization that they're volunteering with that they've gone through some steps to show that they're safe for kids."