KEYEYE: Making Kids Safe

KEYEYE is a spin-off of the Hands Off: Personal Safety for Women program designed especially for children and created by Judy Houghton and Robin Webb.

The women who attended the Hands Off seminars often asked if they could bring their daughters. Robin declined at the time, as a child's approach in handling assault would require a totally different strategy. The main concern was he did not want to teach children to be paranoid. The only answer was to design a program specifically for young children.

An outbreak of missing children struck the area in which Robin and his family lived in 1983. This prompted him to design and teach KEYEYE, an awareness program for elementary school children from grades four and up.

"Awareness is the KEY to opening your EYEs to danger."

The program was developed in three schools in Surrey, British Columbia. The principal of one of those schools Mr. Ed Vogt is responsible for the programs growth. As Robin puts it, "He blackmailed me". At the end of the course at South Surrey Elementary School (Mr. Vogt's school), the children were awarded certificates of achievement, at what Robin believed to be the last class.

Mr. Vogt asked Robin if he would be back after the Easter break. Robin told him that he thought the program was over. Besides the class was in the middle of the day and sometimes it interfered with making a living...

Mr Vogt, handed a letter to Robin that was from one of the students. It told of a man who had tried to coax the student and his friend into a car with , "DO YOU WANT TO BUY THIS CAR IT'S REAL CHEAP?"

The student remembered a story he had heard at a KEYEYE class, and told his friend "Let's go now!" The young boy took down the license plate number and handed it to Mr. Vogt, who promptly called the police. The police reported that the man was a known pedophile, recently released from prison. After Robin read the letter there was no way he could not come back...

Every time we receive a letter from a parent or a child who has avoided a situation by what they have learned in a KEYEYE class, we thank Ed Vogt.

The Formation of the KEYEYE Principles

In 1983 Robin and his daughter Claire held their first official KEYEYE class at Don Christian Elementary school in Cloverdale, British Columbia.

While walking into the school, Claire asked her father, “What are we actually going to teach, dad?” Robin answered, “I really don’t know.” He continued, “We’ve just got to get the message to the children that they should not talk to any adults.” (A man had attempted to coax children into his car while parked outside of the elementary school on several occasions.)

They opened their first class by teaching some very basic techniques of escaping a hold and then running away from their attacker. For the second part of the class, Robin gave the children a scenario and from that modment on KEYEYE became a program for to teach children.

Teaching Techniques for Real Life

KEYEYE is unique with positive results. Children learn of the methods used by molesters and kidnappers, who prey on children - emphasis is on what to do if, or when, an approach is made. Not only what a child should not do.

We have received letters from around the world from police organizations, parents, teachers and the children themselves detailing actual situations where children have utilized the KEYEYE system to actually escape harm.

Materials

KEYEYE is available on DVD and an accompanying book for children.

We have also produced a feature film for adults. In KEYEYE:The Movie we told the story of a group of children, abducted from a small town, to be carried across the border for sale. The film is the result of years of research into the various methods used by kidnappers to lure children into harm's way, and it takes a powerfully dramatic look at the mechanics of a sophisticated, organized child abduction ring. The children never lose hope, and it is through their ingenuity that they are finally saved. The way that they escape, every child should know, just in case the unimaginable happens.

Awards & Recognition

KEYEYE:The Movie won Best International film at the New York International Film and Video Festival

KEYEYE has received a special mention from Unicef for “Outstanding Contribution to the Cause of Promoting the Safety of Children”.