A: We're a children's advocacy center that provides services to children who have experienced abuse, and to the families who have been affected.
Q: What sort of services?
A: Typically, when a child discloses that they've been abused, or when abuse is suspected, a variety of different organizations and responses kick in. Child protective services, law enforcement, medical services all get involved — and the end result is that a child and his or her family can get a very fragmented response to the outcry. A center such as ours is designed to bring all those services, people and organizations together so that the child gets a coordinated response. That reduces the number of times the child has to talk about their experiences and closes a gap in services so that there's a stronger, more effective way of dealing with the situation.
Q: Does that mean your agency has the authority to compel action from these other organizations?
A: No, we don't have any sort of deputy-type authority, but it works because we are a partnership. CARE House was founded by the Montgomery County prosecutor's office, the sheriff's office, the Dayton Police Department, the Department of Job and Family Services' Division of Children's Services and Dayton Children's Hospital. They all came together in 1998 to form this community partnership, so that this coordination of services and response could happen. And CARE House is now the accepted community protocol that's followed when there is an outcry of child abuse in Montgomery County. We fall under the non-profit umbrella of Dayton Children's, so I'm an employee of the hospital — but we have representatives from all these organizations on site at CARE House, which works very well.
Q: What is the staffing?
A: The CARE House staff is myself and three people — very modest. But the people under this roof include three Dayton Police detectives, two victim advocates from the prosecutor's office, an assistant prosecuting attorney and five case workers and a supervisor from Children Services. It's totally a multi-disciplinary team and approach — my staff is the hub, and those organizations are the spokes.
Q: You talked about one benefit being that this allows the child to relate their abuse story fewer times — why is that important?
A: It's very, very important to the child, and important to the strength of the case. Child Advocacy Centers were first developed in Huntsville, Ala., in the 1980s when a district attorney there realized his cases were compromised by the number of times a child had to relate their story — by the time the case was ready to move forward, the child would say, "I don't want to talk about it anymore." It's traumatizing and difficult for a child to come into an environment full of grownups and talk about something that would be unspeakable, for you and me. And if they keep having to repeat it for our purposes, because the system isn't working together, it's just more trauma to the child. We have people here who are trained in forensic interviews, who know how to talk to children about their abuse experience so that the integrity of the case is kept intact and the child is not further traumatized.
Q: How prevalent are these centers?
A: There are over 700 around the country. In Ohio, there are about 25. We're one of the oldest in the state. There's empirical evidence supporting the practice, and it's now the proven model.
Q: How did you come to the work?
A: I'm the founding director. In the early 1990s, I was a social worker at Dayton Children's in the emergency department, so I was exposed to a lot of the fragmented old ways the system worked. Brother Raymond Fitz, the president of the University of Dayton at that time, was heading a task force looking at why children were being killed at the hands of their parents, after we'd had some very high-profile cases here. The community realized we needed the Children Advocacy Center model, and CARE House was created. We were at 741 Valley St. closer to Children's for many years, and after 15 years outgrew the space. We moved into our wonderful new building at 410 Valley in February. We had amazing community support in donating money to get it built. We have more space for mental health services, soundproof rooms for interviews, and better space for observation of interviews, to help with investigative work. And it's just an amazingly bright, sunny, warm environment for children and their families to come to.
Q: What is your caseload?
A: We see about 600 children a year. We work with those who need both a safety plan and a child protection response and a law-enforcement response. Children's Services sees more, but many are not criminal in nature; they may require supportive case work service, say.
Q: Sometimes a family member is involved in the abuse. How do you disentangle that?
A: That's correct. It's usually a family or household member, or a person known to the child who is responsible. We are a place for children and their non-offending family members. The offender is not welcome at CARE House.
Q: How long might you work with a child?
A: Every case is individual. We have had some who come to CARE House for therapy for years after their intake. Some only come here once because there's no need for additional services, or the case is unfounded, or it may be referred to other services or clinicians who are trained in trauma-focused services.
Q: Do you also work on prevention?
A: Yes, we have a full-time employee, Denise Uhl Jenkins, dedicated to prevention and community-level education. She teaches a curriculum designed to help adults recognize children at risk and act appropriately. Education is every bit as important as the acute day-to-day work we do in order to prevent this for future generations.
Q: Is this something that you think can improve or lessen over time?
A: National statistics do show that child sex abuse is in decline, so are we making a difference by breaking the cycle of abuse? It is a very cyclical pattern in families, and until it's broken it will usually continue. That's where our prevention and education efforts really are important. I'm not so cynical as to say that abuse is a condition of humankind that can never get better. But this is not someone else's problem — it's ours, and it's true that it takes a village to protect a child. We are all that village.
Q: It might be the wrong word to ask if you enjoy the job, but do you?
A: I do. I'm very passionate about this work. I'm convinced we're making a difference in the lives of these children, we're keeping them from future harm, and we're preventing future generations of children from being abused. If these children are courageous enough to come in and tell their trauma experiences, I can be here with this program for them.
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