Child Advocacy Centers

What is a Child Advocacy Advocacy (CAC)?
While CAC’s look different in every community each one serves children when allegations of criminal abuse arise by providing team based investigation and treatment in a child-friendly facility. Our CAC’s strive to implement the standards set forth by National Children’s Alliance. These standards include:

Multidisciplinary Team: A multidisciplinary team for response to child abuse allegations includes representation from the following: law enforcement, child protective services, prosecution, medical, mental health, victim advocacy and Children’s Advocacy Center.

Cultural Competency and Diversity: Culturally competent services are routinely made available to all CAC clients and coordinated with the multidisciplinary team response.

Forensic Interviews: Forensic interviews are conducted in a manner that is legally sound, of a neutral, fact finding nature, and are coordinated to avoid duplicative interviewing.

Victim Support and Advocacy: Victim support and advocacy services are routinely made available to all CAC clients and their non-offending family members as part of the multidisciplinary team response.

Medical Evaluation: Specialized medical evaluation and treatment services are routinely made available to all CAC clients and coordinated with the multidisciplinary team response.

Mental Health: Specialized trauma-focused mental health services, designed to meet the unique needs of the child and non-offending family members, are routinely made available as part of the multidisciplinary team response.

Case Review: A formal process in which multidisciplinary discussion and information sharing regarding the investigation, case status and services needed by the child and family is to occur on a routine basis.

Case Tracking: Children’s Advocacy Centers must develop and implement a system for monitoring case progress and tracking case outcomes for all MDT components.

Organizational Capacity: A designated legal entity responsible for program and fiscal operations has been established and implements basic sound administrative policies and procedures.

Child Focused Setting: The child-focused setting is comfortable, private, and both physically and psychologically safe for diverse populations of children and their non-offending family members.

What does the Child Advocacy Center do?
In addition to coordinating the use of the team’s use of the two (2) child friendly interviewing facilities, we provide the following:
· advocacy and support to children and their non-offending caregivers on the day of the interview
· on-site advocacy (hospitals, police departments ect.)
· follow-up advocacy
· case tracking
· court support and accompaniment
· specialized therapy
· forensic interviews
· extended interviews
· video and audio taping capabilities

How does this help?
In the past our response to investigating child abuse and treating victims has been fragmented. Coordinating our response in a child-friendly facility sends the message that the children are our focus. Child victims of criminal abuse come into contact with many systems: criminal justice, child protection, family court, advocates, therapists, medical professionals ect. Sometimes a child cannot be helped by the criminal justice system but can be helped by child protection, advocates and therapists. Sometimes child protection cannot help a child but law enforcement, advocates, and therapists can. Sometimes law enforcement and child protection cannot help a child but therapists and advocates can. Coordinating our response from the very beginning helps ensure that the child and their protectors can get access to all the types of help that they might need. Using this model many have found that:
· Trauma to children is reduced
· More offenders are held accountable
· Children and families get the help they need to recover

What doesn’t the CAC do?
A child advocacy center DOES NOT conduct independent investigations. CAC services can only be activated by law enforcement or Child Protective Service Workers. Interviews are conducted in the presence of the investigative team and the investigative team guides the interviewer. The investigative team makes the decisions on the direction of the investigation and the treatment.