The Children’s Advocacy Center is a child-friendly, safe place for child victims of sexual and physical abuse. Children, along with their non-offending family members, receive necessary services at the Center for return to optimal functioning. The Center is designed to be the “child’s office,” where multiple agencies and professionals convene to coordinate and deliver services in one place so the child only tells their story one time.
There are more than 500 Children’s Advocacy Centers worldwide, and more than 300 of those are connected via accreditation through the National Children’s Alliance, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to assist communities seeking to improve their responses to child abuse by establishing and maintaining Children’s Advocacy Centers.
In Tennessee, there are 31 centers connected via membership with the Tennessee Chapter of Children’s Advocacy Centers. Both state and national organizations maintain membership standards, which all centers must meet and maintain.
The Blount County Children’s Advocacy Center
is dedicated to serving children
who are victims of sexual and physical abuse
through prevention, education, and intervention.
Vision
Our vision is that all children are loved, protected, nurtured and educated.
Mission
Bringing New Hope to child abuse victims…
It is the mission of New Hope Blount County Children’s Advocacy Center to
lessen the trauma experienced by the child victim of abuse by providing a child-
friendly center with a warm, home like, supportive environment where
intervention efforts are offered to reduce stress to the abused child and
the non-offending parent or adult caregiver. The Center further commits to raise
public awareness for the need to stop and prevent physical and sexual abuse
against innocent children.
Objectives
The Blount County Children’s Advocacy Center is dedicated to serving children who are victims of sexual and physical abuse through prevention, education and intervention.
Our primary objectives are:
- Provide team forensic interviews
- Provide medical examinations
- Provide advocacy services
- Provide counseling services
- Coordinate the state-mandated team of professionals responsible for the investigation, intervention and treatment of sexually abused children and their family members.
- Provide community education programs for children and adults in the ways to prevent child abuse.
- Provide community education for professionals on child abuse related topics
History of Blount County Children’s Advocacy Center
The Children’s Advocacy Center formed as a result of the 1985 Tennessee Sexual Abuse Law. This law mandated that the district attorney, the Department of Children’s Services, law enforcement, medical personnel, and mental health professionals (hereafter called the “Team”) work together in the intervention, investigation and prosecution of child abuse cases, and to provide mental health counseling to assist the child victim overcome the trauma of the abuse.
The Blount County Children’s Advocacy Center Task Force, comprised of local professionals and community volunteers, recognized that children were often re-traumatized by the very system designated to help them. The Task Force, established in 2000, set out to create a child-friendly, home-like setting based on the national model of Children’s Advocacy Centers located in Huntsville, Alabama. Like the national model, our Center is a private not-for-profit agency that facilitates the teamwork essential for effective intervention and healing.
Involved in that initial Task Force were:
- Beckie Timmons
- Margaret Ivens
- Hope Ingram
- Donna Alexander
- Judy Humphrey
- Bobbie Beckmann
- Bill Reed
- Linda Pucci
- Allen Bray
- Jules McCord
- Kay Everett
- Beverly Collins
The Importance of One Place.
Before the Center was formed, child abuse victims were often re-victimized by the very system designed to protect them. Children were re-traumatized when they were interviewed multiple times by several different adults. Interviews would take place at the police station, emergency room, professional offices, and even at the very location where the abuse occurred, all of which could be very scary places to a frightened child. Consequently, children would often recant their story or refuse to cooperate which would stifle the investigation.
Through the establishment of the BCCAC, the Team response to allegations and the mission of the center will be met. Through the interviewing, counseling, and medical services provided, along with the increased team collaboration and response in working child abuse cases, there will be an increase in the number of child abuse cases that are successfully prosecuted. This is largely due to the fact that when the team works together, the child victim is not interviewed multiple times, case management is effective in helping access services to meet the child’s needs, and the disposition of the case is swifter. Since these services will be provided at a single, child-friendly location, the child is generally more cooperative because he or she simply feels safer.
The Center’s impact on the children served and community as a whole can be unlimited. Primary prevention education activities will reveal cases of attempted abuse that were stopped because a child had the knowledge and skills to protect him/herself and ask for help. Children who have been abused or are being abused will be provided a safe place to talk about their “secret” and be protected from further harm. Studies have revealed that without intervention, the abuse of the child will continue.
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