Child Safety

Child Safety

The American Legion’s Committee on Children & Youth believes that child safety is everyone’s concern. Prevention through education remains the best way to keep children safe. To promote child safety, The American Legion publishes several useful brochures to educate children and parents and supports numerous national initiatives to keep children safe.

Gateway Drugs

Alcohol, tobacco, inhalants, and marijuana are often readily available and considered to be an entry point to a life of drug dependency and delinquency. They are called “gateway” drugs because they often lead to drug abuse, addiction, and use of other drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and LSD. The commission asks that all members of the American Legion Family educate parents and children in their communities about the dangers of gateway drugs.

Warning Signs

The Committee on Children & Youth recognizes the serious yet often overlooked problem that continues to plague our nation’s youth: suicide. Suicide is a tragic and senseless act of desperation. While it can be difficult and unpleasant to talk about suicide, it is important to communicate effectively about the subject, know the facts, dispel misconceptions, and learn the warning signs of youth suicide.
Halloween Safety
As long as Halloween activities are sponsored and promoted in our communities by duly appointed and elected officials, the Committee on Children & Youth believes children and parents should know how to make this observance as safe as possible. This publication continues to be one of our most popular.

Missing Children

The American Legion encourages posts to provide or assist in making available child-identification activities to give parents a means of providing this information to authorities should need arise. In addition, all levels of the organization are encouraged to increase public awareness of child victimization and its detrimental effects on children and youth, and to cooperate with credible organizations and agencies that seek to locate missing children in their states and communities.