In 2008, a small group of professionals gathered together to discuss the disturbing trend of unsafe sleep fatalities in Monroe County identified by the local Child Fatality Review Team. From that group, the Baby Safe Sleep Coalition was formed.
In January 2011, the Coalition, then a collaborative of 15 agencies, became a program of Jewish Family Services of Rochester, a 501(c)(3) non-profit agency. Baby Safe Sleep Coalition began as an entirely volunteer effort whose funds were and continue to be 80% privately raised.