SAFE HAVEN BABY BOX NOW AVAILABLE IN FENTRESS COUNTY
Safe Haven Baby Boxes announced over the weekend that a new 24/7 installation was made available in Fentress County at 310 South Main St. in Jamestown.
Safe Haven Baby Boxes (SHBB) is a non-profit organization founded in 2015 by Monica Kelsey, a former firefighter and medic from Indiana, who was inspired by her own experience of being abandoned as an infant. The organization aims to provide a safe, legal, and anonymous alternative to infant abandonment by installing climate-controlled, electronically monitored baby boxes at designated locations like fire stations and hospitals. These boxes allow parents in crisis to surrender newborns without fear of prosecution, as permitted under state Safe Haven laws.
Operating under state Safe Haven laws, which permit anonymous surrender of unharmed infants (typically up to 30–45 days old) without prosecution, SHBB has placed around 192 boxes across states like Indiana, Kentucky, and Arkansas, with 54 infants surrendered since 2017 and over 150 additional handoff surrenders facilitated via its 24/7 National Safe Haven Crisis Line.
The boxes ensure infants receive prompt medical care and placement in foster or adoptive homes, with notable success in states like Indiana, where no abandonment-related infant deaths have been reported since 2016.
