Today is Good Day for a Good Day…..for Everyone.
I very much delayed writing this post. I sat on it. Let it marinate and stew. Blogs (at least this blog) is a place to look at pretty pictures, a reprieve from the demand of life, a fun place to spend a few minutes and learn about places in the community you may have not known exist. Blogs by their nature are an escape. But what I know is that when I brainstormed this blog for quite some time I knew I wanted a place for people to go read and learn about ways to help make our community a better place for all of us; because at the end of the day, this blog is about community and home. I literally do not know one person who doesn’t want the best for their family, friends, community, and city. I want those things too for everyone, especially the children in our community. Kids grow up. They become adults. The healthier, better educated, and more secure they were as children impacts all of us but most importantly impacts them, their families, their legacies. We are all connected.
For the last 2-3 years, I have had the great fortune of working with community leaders, law enforcement, therapists, counselors, and physicians at the Southern Nevada Children’s Assessment Center. The work they do, the things they see and hear would make most of us want to shut down but they don’t stop and we are lucky to have them. Below is an explanation of what a children’s assessment center is. They are all over the country. They are unique places that need support. We are working to emulate the Houston facility that is a beacon, a light leading the way for everyone working in the space and everyone wanting to help. It really isn’t hard to make a difference. Sometimes you just need to know where to look.
WHAT IS A CHILDREN’S ASSESSMENT CENTER?
About twenty years ago Children’s Assessments Centers started popping up all over the country. CACs provides a multidisciplinary team approach in the prevention, assessment, investigation, and treatment of child sex abuse.
Before the creation of CACs, sexually abused children had to recount the memories of their abuse again and again to numerous professionals involved in the investigation and prosecution of their case. They often sat in office buildings or police stations for hours as an investigation was ongoing, sometimes riding in elevators or sitting in a waiting room with their alleged perpetrator. Without appropriate and affordable mental health services, families were left on their own to deal with the trauma of abuse. In the late 1980’s a group of professionals serving these victims recognized that they were being further traumatized by the system that was meant to help them and began studying how the system could change.
The CAC programs are designed to provide seamless collaboration to minimize trauma, break the cycle of abuse and empower families to protect children. The CAC provides services designed to meet the physical and emotional needs of sexually abused children, their siblings, and non-offending caregivers. Services are initiated when Children’s Protective Services or a law enforcement agency refers a child alleging sexual abuse to the CAC.
THE SOUTHERN NEVADA CHILDREN’S ASSESSMENT CENTER
Founded in 2001 and operated by Clark County, the Southern Nevada Children’s Assessment Center (SNCAC) brings together child abuse professionals in one location where they work collaboratively to:
- Reduce the amount of trauma children experience
- Enhance response to child maltreatment
- Support the needs of child victims and their families
Staff at the center are highly skilled professionals who comprise a multidisciplinary team including child protection workers, law enforcement officers, medical providers, prosecutors, family/victim advocates, forensic interviewers, and mental health professionals. This team works collaboratively to provide necessary services to the child with the least amount of negative impact. The forensic interview is the cornerstone of the process, done by trained forensic interviewers while key team members observe from a separate location, the forensic interview is child-friendly, supportive, and designed to reduce the number of times a child is interviewed about abuse.
Vision
We promote and deliver excellence in child abuse response and prevention through service, education, and leadership.
Mission
Our mission is to provide a compassionate, safe and developmentally appropriate environment for children who are possible victims of abuse by coordinating an extensive range of multi-disciplinary services to meet the needs of the child and his or her family. We strive to provide outreach to better educate our community on how to prevent abuse and to identify and locate help for those who may be victims of abuse.
For more information on what we do at the Southern Nevada Children’s Assessment Center and how we make a difference in a child’s life please view our and assessment process.
Accreditation
The center has completed an intensive yearlong re-accreditation process and received the highest rating possible by the Washington, D.C. based accreditation agency – the National Children’s Alliance. This re-accreditation is akin to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval of best practices for children and families of sexual abuse.
Partnerships
General partners of the SNCAC include staff from the following agencies and county departments:
- Clark County Family Services
- Clark County Manager’s Office
- Clark County District Attorney’s Office
- Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
- Henderson Police Department
- North Las Vegas Police Department
- Boulder City Police Department
- Mesquite Police Department
- United States Federal Bureau of Investigations
Limitations
The SNCAC is out of room. As Southern Nevada’s population exploded over the last 15 years, the need for the SNCAC has increased significantly while the space has remained the same. Police officers, forensic interviews, therapists, and other personnel are crammed into offices attempting to make sensitive phone calls and complete their work while others are within elbow distance doing the same thing. The unfortunate reality is if the SNCAC had more space and funds, they would fill the space, and be able to serve the growing populations of sexually abused children.
WHAT IS THE CHILDREN’S ADVOCACY CENTER FOUNDATION?
Purpose:
The Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) was organized for the sole purpose of fundraising, advocating, and raising community awareness for the SNCAC. County funds are insufficient to fund the growth of the SNCAC.
CAC Mission
To help and heal children who have been victims of sexual abuse and exploitation through community advocacy and supporting the work of the Southern Nevada Children’s Assessment Center.
The Children’s Advocacy Center exists to bolster and enhance the capacity of the Southern Nevada Children’s Assessment Center (SNCAC). Children, when hurt, need the best from their community. The CAC tirelessly advocates and raises funds to support the SNCAC in investing in the welfare of children who have been traumatized by abuse or maltreatment and provide support to their families.
Adapting Existing CAC Model to Our Community
After extensive research, speaking with community leaders, and speaking with two executive directors of CACs in Dallas and Houston, we determined that the Houston CAC most closely mirrored the organizational structure of the Southern Nevada CAC. Elaine Stolte, the Executive Director of the Houston CAC and her Board have been extraordinarily informative, helpful, and gracious with their time and data. They have willingly shared lessons learned, best practices, and data to support every question the CAC has had. We are not looking to reinvent the wheel. We are looking to mirror a model that has proven effective in a similar demographic and population and go from there.
The Houston CAC and the CAC Foundation
The Children’s Assessment Center was founded in 1991 in Houston, Texas, to serve the needs of sexually abused children across Harris County. The CAC brings together social workers, physicians, attorneys and law enforcement professionals in one central location to provide a continuum of critical, coordinated services.
As a collaborative public/private partnership of Harris County Commissioners Court and The Children’s Assessment Center Foundation, The CAC represents a true partnership of the public and private sectors joining to provide the most effective service delivery to children and families.
Harris County provides a small amount of the annual budget for the Houston CAC, and private donations raised through the Houston Children’s Assessment Center Foundation make up the remaining amount of the annual budget.
Elaine Stolte and her team just finished raising 32 million dollars for the expansion of the Houston facility, more than doubling the square footage of the facility. The facility and organization are known throughout the City just as Opportunity Village is known throughout Southern Nevada. Elected officials and community leaders utilize the conference room space for media events. Continuing education and outreach are held in the facility on a regular basis. Children are provided with forensic services, family advocacy, therapy and psychological services, and medical services on a scale far exceeding what our Southern Nevada facility can accomplish with its current space and funding.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
THE NEED
PREVENTION
Beyond the physical and emotional toll, when a child is sexually abused everyone pays. Preventative measures that train adults to improve child-protective behaviors significantly cut immediate and long-term expenses.
- In Clark County, the direct and immediate costs of child sexual abuse are nearly ? annually.
- It only costs $10.53 to train an adult to improve their child-protective behaviors.
- Research suggests that the average trained adult will better protect at least ten children from sexual abuse in the years after training.
- The Houston CAC is one of the largest accredited advocacy centers in the nation, serving approximately 4,000 clients annually. In recent years, the Houston CAC assisted 24 advocacy centers through the U.S. and 6 child welfare programs in foreign countries.
- The CAC strongly believes that training is one of the key components of prevention. It is for this reason that we are committed to training people in our community and beyond. A new training space will enable us to expand training efforts, thereby making great strides in the prevention of child sexual abuse.
TREATMENT
Children who have been sexually abused are in desperate need of effective treatment and therapy. They are at great risk for severe emotional and physical difficulties if they do not receive comprehensive mental health and medical services.
- Abused children are 40% more likely to be arrested for a violent crime as an adult.
- Nearly 50% of women in prison state that they were abused as children.
- More than 75% of teenage prostitutes have been sexually abused.
- As Southern Nevada’s population has tripled and the needs for the CAC have kept pace, the building size and budget has remained about the same. Without additional space, the CAC cannot accommodate growth for critical services.
- Symptoms of unaddressed trauma include anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-injury and substance abuse. Unless victims of sexual abuse receive the proper intervention and treatment, they are at risk of severe psychological problems, including aggressive behaviors, sexual acting out, thoughts of suicide and diminished capacity
THE SOLUTION
An expansion will provide added capacity for therapy and psychological services, medical examinations, private advocacy rooms for families to discuss events privately with family advocate staff, increase space for partner agencies, and training rooms for teachers, counselors, parents, peers, and the community.
The expansion will increase focus on prevention, community outreach and education. Currently the CAC has no training space at all. Training facilities will play a vital role in the well-being of children, facilitating a multidisciplinary team approach towards healing child sexual abuse victims.
LOOKING TO DO A HOLIDAY DRIVE, KNOW SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMEONE, HAVE SOME EXTRA BLANKETS?
Lots of exciting potential locations are being scouted, but if you know anyone who has commercial space for sale, lease, donation, or land for the same purpose, reach out, let’s chat! You never know what you don’t know. Maybe there is something else out there that is perfect! Want to donate to the CAC, do a holiday drive? Reach out, let’s do it! Doing something as simple as providing a child with a blanket of their own will make a lasting impression in a way most of us have never even realized. Let’s do good today. It’s a good day for a good day…… for everyone.