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Sometimes kids just need a safe haven.

A refuge to get away from abuse and bullying. A no-judgment zone where they know they can seek advice and get help. A place where no one — not even the cops — will punish them for making a mistake.

As of now, however, such places don’t exist in Hawaii — at least not any whose purview extends beyond kids who’ve already broken the law.

wanted to change that by establishing a preliminary network of “safe places” for youth. The two-year pilot program would’ve made use of existing organizations such as the YMCA and the Boys & Girls Club. But the measure, which was the state ‘s top priority this year, died in conference committee Friday.

The bill’s last-minute deferral came as somewhat of a surprise to supporters, who saw it as a win-win proposal that, given its funding request of $250,000 per year to pay for a coordinator and emergency services, could’ve been implemented at little cost to the state. Moreover, SB 391 didn’t garner a single piece of opposing testimony.

But the decision ultimately came down to funding, with lawmakers from the finance committees agreeing to prioritize other initiatives geared toward housing and the elderly, according to Sen. Suzanne Chun Oakland, who chairs the Human Services committee and introduced SB 391.

Still, Judith Clark, who serves as the ‘s executive director and helped draft SB 391, said the deferral shouldn’t discourage advocates from continuing to push the safe places program.

“We’re not going to give up. It’s a good program, a good plan, and something that’s worth pursuing again next year,” she said. “New ideas rarely pass the Legislature the first time they’re proposed.”

Chun Oakland said that, because the measure has already been fine-tuned in conference committee, it could easily advance next session.

SB 391 was inspired by last year’s annual . Youth attendees, including several kids who were being housed at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility, voted to make the creation of “safe places” their top priority. The Keiki Caucus followed suit, convening a working group that ultimately came up with SB 391.

Last year’s summit marked the first time in the event’s history that safe places were made a priority.

“I was kind of surprised and in some ways sad that the young people actually felt that they needed safe places,” Chun Oakland said.

Hawaii State Student Council member Madeline Skrocki, who facilitated the summit’s Health and Human Services group, said that the safe places idea — the product of a day of brainstorming among 20 or so kids who had never met each other before — got significantly more votes than other issue areas identified by student participants.

“The kids were like, ‘Look, we know resources exist — we just dont know how to get access to them,'” said Skrocki, a senior at Radford High School. The group envisioned a yellow pages book of sorts listing various nonprofits that kids could consult after running away.

Skrocki served as the student legislative liaison, guiding lawmakers and the working group as they turned that vision into a reality, translating a hodgepodge of sticky notes into a bill that best served kids’ needs.

What they eventually came up with was a bill that would’ve required the state Department of Human Services’ to oversee a two-year pilot program involving a network of safe places where youth can “chill out” and get advice, guidance and other services.

According to Chun Oakland, because SB 391 only called for a pilot program, it wouldn’t have established any new centers. Instead, it would’ve harnessed organizations that are already out there — such as the YMCA and the Boys & Girls Club — creating a cohesive network of providers and services on on Oahu and another island, supporters said. Most of the requested $250,000 would’ve funded a coordinator position and some emergency overnight services for kids in crisis.

“It’s an effort to try and coalesce all the youth-serving organizations,” Chun Oakland said. “There are good resources in the community that young people may not know about.”

Safe Places Network Help At-Risk Kids Avoid Jail

Such consolidation is key to preventing at-risk kids — primarily runaways — from winding up in the justice system or getting exploited or abused by strangers, Skrocki said.

The majority — 61 percent, or nearly 48,000 — of the arrests for juvenile offenses committed in Hawaii between 2000 and 2010 involved running away, Office of Youth Services show. Twenty-two percent, or about 17,000, of the arrests for juvenile offenses involved truancy.

“I always hear about kids running away, getting arrested, then returning home. It’s the cycle of running away,” Skrocki said. “But that doesn’t really solve any problems.”

SB 391 aimed to break that cycle, advocates say.

“Every year, youth run away from homes where abuse, neglect, and domestic violence are commonplace, or from schools where intolerable bullying becomes a major barrier to educational achievement,” the . “Without access to safe places, youth in these situations are vulnerable and may be victimized by predatory adults who lure them into alcohol and substance abuse or prostitution.”

Kids could go to these safe places knowing that they won’t be judged or detained. These places would offer guidance for youth who have suicidal thoughts, who are looking to learn about pregnancy prevention, who want to quit smoking cigarettes or stop abusing substances.

But they would also provide a setting where kids can simply hang out and have fun — free from the harassment, bullying or pressure they may experience in the outside world. Instead of getting caught up in the wrong crowd after running away from home or abandoning school, at-risk or troubled kids would have the safe places to fall back on.

“We’ve been there. We’ve all been at a tough place where you just want a place to hang, see a guidance counselor who won’t point the finger and give you the lecture,” said Keiki Caucus member Rep. John Mizuno, who introduced the now-defunct House version of SB 391. “Society … can be brutal for our keiki.”

Mizuno stressed the importance of safe havens as opposed to other emergency intervention. Kids who are suicidal or on the verge of selling themselves for sex, for example, won’t want to seek help again if they’re put into a hospital or detention, Mizuno said.

“They need to speak with someone that’s armed with the ability to help you ensure this isn’t going any further, an able-bodied counselor to identify what it is you need help with,” he said.

According to Clark, if SB 391 had advanced and developed into a full-blown statewide safe places network, it would’ve made Hawaii a national model given the program’s scope and purpose.

Some Funds Set Aside To Decriminalize Youth Offenses

The concept behind SB 391 was in large part inspired by — a national outreach program that partners with community institutions such as fire stations and convenience stores to provide emergency shelters and other services for youth in crisis. Participating organizations are given a 24-hour number to call when a kid comes in for help, at which point a coordinator “does some triage over the phone to determine how urgent the situation is,” Clark said.

Hawaii’s safe places network, however, would’ve provided emergency services plus more, including ongoing support programs ranging from human trafficking resources and prevention to tutoring and career counseling. It would’ve also served youth as old as 21 years — a provision that Ivette Stern, director of the University of Hawaii’s , said could be key to ensuring troubled kids transition smoothly into adulthood.

“Nothing happens magically (at 18) where you already have all the skills as an adult,” Stern said. “What we know is that those who successfully transition into school or higher education, those are the ones that have the supportive network … It seems like the way (SB 391) is being structured could be a model for targeting a larger population of adverse kids.”

The pilot program would’ve expanded services already offered by the Office of Youth Services, whose core responsibility is to the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility. The office does oversee one safe house, but it’s designated for kids who’ve already committed crime, according to Chun Oakland.

Meantime, lawmakers have included a $400,000 appropriation in the state budget bill — — that would fund an Office of Youth Services initiative to decriminalize juvenile status offenses by giving offenders civil citations and sending them to youth assessment centers, according to Chun Oakland.

Still, advocates say the state needs a system that prevents kids from getting in trouble with the law in the first place.

“We don’t want children to feel like they can’t be supported so they have to run away from home or be truant,” Chun Oakland said. “A lot of those children (at the correctional facility), if they had something like this they wouldn’t be where they are now. They wouldn’t have had to be naughty and gotten to a point where you have to get kicked out of school.”

Grace Houghan, a former foster child who was neglected and abused by her mother, told Civil Beat she would’ve gone to safe places if they were around when she was going through tough times.

“They give kids an opportunity to get away from whatever they’re experiencing,” said Houghan, now 28 and about to graduate from college. “It that was in place back then I totally would’ve benefitted … It’s an opportunity to be somewhere safe instead of trying to be homeless on the beach or shack up with a stranger.”

The annual $250,000 appropriation, advocates say, would’ve been key to ensuring kids like Houghan know where to run in times of need. The bulk of that money would go toward a coordinator, who’d be in charge of consolidating the resources, making sure all the service providers are on the same page and getting the word out to youth through kid-friendly tactics such as social media.

“It’s about prevention and early intervention,” Clark said. “It’s about making young people and their families know that there is help out there before you get so desperate that you’re ready to kill yourself or drop out of school, so they can deal with these issues before they get to the crisis stage — but also to ensure that, when the problems do get that bad, there are resources for those people.”