The Children's Advocacy Center of Jackson County

Tag: Multi-disciplinary team

  • “My family survived” because of the CAC

     

    This is a speech by Lori Phillips

    The year was 1993. My oldest daughter, Jennifer, came to me one evening and disclosed a horrific truth.

    Her father had sexually molested her.

    She was 11 years old that year. The specific abuse had taken place many years before. She had blocked it out, only to remember on a cold and windy October afternoon.

    I believed her, but I didn’t want to believe that the one person I trusted most with her care, could commit such a vile act and hurt my child so deeply. I contacted the authorities. And I waited.

    Once she disclosed her abuse, the floodgates opened. Her memory, her pain began to spill over, threatening to drown us all. I took to my journal, and wrote:

    “We are hiding out at Mom’s, partially because I need the support. My sweet beautiful child has been hurt so deeply. The days pass and more is disclosed. I want to help her, to take it all away. I want to see him suffer. Death is too easy. How can anyone do this to an innocent child? Of course, he has taken that from her.”

    The next few weeks were wrought with anxiety and tension. Never sure what would be around the next corner. Sometimes the days seem so endless. I want so much to help my baby girl, but I don’t know how. I see a facade during the day, but in the evening when we are alone, I see the raw ugly truth.

    “I watch as she plucks out her eyelashes and brows. I place a pillow under her head as she bangs it against the hard floor. I want to scream, cry and vent my anger. I grieve for what is lost, for the innocence that was taken from her. She can never go back, will never have a normal childhood or adolescence. I’m angry, sad and frightened. How am I to deal with all of this?”

    Navigating the legal system is confusing and frightening to most of us. It is especially frightening to a mother trying to protect her child from further harm, all the while dealing with the emotional hurricane that had laid waste to our lives.

    The Task Force was a safe port in the storm directing us to the shelter of the CAC. Feeling confused, lost and alone, I placed my broken family in the capable hands of the CAC staff.

    Jane welcomed us with warm open arms and provided the knowledge and support that we so desperately needed. It was here we started our journey of healing. My questions were answered as the entire staff held us up through each step on the road to recovery – the road that takes each of us from being a victim, to that of a survivor.

    I became active in a parent’s support group at the Center. There I gained essential knowledge of the process we were to experience, from the Grand Jury to the courtroom and beyond. It was this amazing group, run by the CAC staff, that shared with me valuable insight into the world of not only the perpetrator, but the victim as well.

    I came to understand how it happened without my knowledge, and how to help my daughter.

    Therapy is a wonderful tool, and with a non-offending parent involvement, the path to healing can begin. It really does take a village to raise a child.

    I recently had the honor to tour the expanded facility of the CAC. I was excited to view all the new opportunities the center has to help those who pass through the doors. Yet it saddens me to realize there is still a need, and that there always will be. Child sexual abuse has always been present in our communities, hiding in the threads of secrecy.

    We need the CAC to help those who have been abused, their families and to educate those that have not.

    I am honored to tell my story. My family supports me now, as the CAC did so many years ago. They were my lifeline, my hope that someday I could say with conviction, “My family survived.”

    I am so grateful to the CAC and all its supporters, volunteers, staff, and sponsors. Because of them, my family is healthy and whole. They made the difference in our lives.

     

  • A child shares a secret-what happens next? Why CAC Matters

    By Tammi Pitzen, Executive Director of the Children’s Advocacy Center of Jackson County

    I often contemplate late at night, when I think of the children that come through the center, and worry if their needs are getting met or if they are safe or what could we do to make it better. Does the CAC matter?  Does it matter what services we provide?  Who does it matter to?  Why does it matter?

    Please for minute close your eyes and take an imaginary journey with me. 

    I will forewarn you it is not for the faint of heart and it could trigger emotions from the past.  Be safe as you take this journey and, if it becomes too much to take, please take care of yourself.

    Imagine a six year-old little girl. 

    She is happiest at school.   She is safest there as well.  She loves to spend recess jumping rope, playing wall ball or swinging high in the air.  She is not always clean.  She is not always accepted by her teacher or her classmates.  She is sometimes disruptive in class and always hungry and sleepy.

    She finds refuge with a school counselor and begins to trust her.  She shares with her a secret.  A secret so horrible that her counselor begins to get teary eyed, however assures the little girl that she will get her the help that she needs.

    The school counselor calls a Social Worker and asks for help for her.

    Several things have just been triggered. 

    A criminal and child protection investigation has been started. At six, she will be interviewed by a police officer or an interviewer.  The choice becomes where this interview will happen and how many people will interview her.  At six, she will need a medical evaluation and she will need therapy.  Where will she get these services?

    There is some urgency to gathering the information as the Case Worker needs to secure her safety.  She cries as she is led from the school to a car waiting outside.  Will she be able to see her Mom?  Will she be mad?

    There are choices to be made and those choices matter. 

    They matter to that six year-old little girl in the first grade.  They matter to her Mom.  They matter to the Police Officer.  They matter to the Case Worker.  They matter to the Medical Provider.  They matter to the Therapist.

    The CAC matters.

    The CAC does not erase what happened to that six year-old.  It only helps to wrap a safety net around her.  The CAC does not make it go away.  It paves a way to process what happened and to make that a part of her history, but not of her future.

    The CAC provides a holistic approach to child abuse investigations and interventions. 

    All under one roof, so to speak, you can have a forensic interview, a medical evaluation, a therapy assessment and find a support person to help you find a way through the system.

    These services start with an interview and hopefully end with a prosecution.  Everyone involved is specially trained to deal with child victims.  The Deputy District Attorney has a full picture of who was involved in what and there is a system in place to share information to insure that the child is receiving the best services possible.

    Or the old way can be chosen:

    The six-year old girl will be interviewed by a police officer, then a social worker, then a medical provider, then therapist, then a Deputy District Attorney.  Each of these interviews can take place in a separate building with different addresses.  Somewhere along the way, someone will call the mom to inform her that her daughter is at the Police Station being interviewed.  The interview may take place in the same interview room that the suspect might be interviewed in later.  Then after all of this takes place, the Mom will be instructed to take her child to the emergency room at a local hospital and there she can wait for her child to be examined.  No one will tell her the results of those exams right then.  They will be passed to an officer who will then pass that information on to the Mom.  There will, later, be a referral to a therapist made and at some point the child will be seen for an assessment.  After the assessment, the child may be assigned to a therapist that might be the same as the one who did the assessment or it might be someone different.  Eventually, if the information seems right and credible, the case may be presented for charges.  The child may have to testify at Grand Jury and then again in a trial.  They will meet a couple of new people…the Deputy District Attorney prosecuting the case and an advocate that will help notify the child and the Mom of their legal rights as a “victim” of a crime.

    No one is sharing information with each other, so no one has a full picture of what is going on and who is involved. 

    The Mom may even get conflicting explanations of what will happen next.  There is no “hand off” for lack of a better description of the case from the investigative process into the prosecution process.  There is no one checking in with the family in the meantime to see if the child is feeling safe.  The six year-old may even fall through the cracks of the system for a while — until she is rediscovered at a later point in time.

    The CAC matters. 

    The multi-disciplinary team matters. 

    The choices matter. 

    The six year-old matters.