About Safe Spaces

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Safe Spaces is a community information initiative designed to ensure that anyone feeling vulnerable, anxious, frightened or unsafe in Bedford town centre can access immediate, compassionate support.

This information is openly available to all local businesses and organisations, helping staff feel more confident and prepared to respond appropriately to situations they may encounter within their workplace or wider community.

Participating businesses – including shops, cafés, restaurants and venues – display a Safe Spaces sticker in their window. This shows that the staff inside can offer simple, practical help in the moment.

Safe Spaces are not a clinical. They are about community kindness, early support and connection. 

Safe Spaces are local businesses that have offered to support people that may be feeling unsafe, but are not affiliated with or monitored by Bedford Borough Council. 

Why Safe Spaces?

Feeling overwhelmed or unsafe in public can happen to anyone. It may affect:

• Children and young people
• People experiencing poor mental health
• Individuals living with dementia
• People with learning disabilities or SEND
• Those with physical or hidden disabilities
• Anyone facing a safeguarding concern

Safe Spaces strengthens Bedford’s role as a caring and inclusive borough. It supports the Stronger Communities building block of health within the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy by recognising that wellbeing is shaped not only by services, but by how safe, connected and supported people feel in their everyday environments.

When local businesses are confident in how to respond, communities become safer and more resilient.

What support can someone expect?

Staff in Safe Spaces venues are trained using a simple framework:

Recognise – Respond – Support – Signpost

They may offer:

• a quiet place to sit
• a drink of water or a warm beverage
• help contacting a friend, family member or taxi
• clear directions
• information about further support

If someone requires urgent or specialist intervention, our ambition is that people working in and around the borough are able to signpost appropriately.

Part of a wider commitment

Safe Spaces contributes to Bedford Borough's preventative public health approach and supports the aims of the Joint Health and Wellbeing Strategy by:

• reducing isolation
• increasing early intervention
• improving community resilience
• promoting inclusive environments
• strengthening partnerships between public services, voluntary organisations and local businesses

This work reflects our shared ambition to make Bedford a place where everyone feels they belong - and where support is visible, accessible and rooted in compassion.

Get involved

If you are:

• a business interested in becoming a Safe Space
• a community organisation wanting to shape the training
• a resident who would like to learn more

Please email bmso.publichealth@bedford.gov.uk for further information.