Dear Friends,                                                                             March 2008

As the current board president of the Children’s Advocacy Center, I am always trying to evaluate where we have been and where we would like to go.  While thinking about these things, I often find myself wondering if our many wonderful friends understand the gravity of the cases that come through the Center.  2007 brought us cases of children locked and living in closets, hideous sexual abuse cases where our victims parents’ offered them up in exchange for drugs, and brutal physical abuse cases that would be hard for most of us to ever imagine.  We also had newborn babies with casts and body immobilizers arriving at the Center and sadder still were the cases when no child arrived at all because they did not survive their abuse.  In the month of October, we lost two children under the age of two.

The work of the Children’s Advocacy Center is helping us to find children in abusive situations.  As more people learn about the Center and about the prevalence of child abuse in our communities, they are recognizing the signs of abuse and reporting.  Our prevention work is crucial.  For those children already caught in the nightmare of abuse, it is the multi-disciplinary team members made up of law enforcement, CPS, prosecutors, medical providers, juvenile services, forensic interviewers, advocates, professional counselors and social workers, who are the real heroes.  Our amazing team is responsible for assisting child victims in numerous ways and the work of this board, staff and numerous volunteers assist the team in offering all of the following services for child victims:

  • Providing a child-friendly setting that makes children feel safe and welcome

  • Providing a coordinated team approach to all investigations of severe abuse including sexual abuse, severe physical abuse, drug endangered children and child witnesses to homicide and other violent crimes

  • Providing Therapy Dogs to decrease anxiety in very stressful situations

  • Providing professional forensic interviews of child victims

  • Providing immediate and on-going crisis intervention, individual, family and group counseling.  Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing for children with post traumatic stress disorder and play therapy for youngest victims

  • Providing parenting classes and support groups

  • Providing youth self-esteem and goal-setting activities and classes

  • Providing youth mentorship

  • Providing resource referrals for families.  Many need assistance with employment, education, Medicaid, housing and relocation and many immediate physical needs.

  • Providing community education and awareness activities

None of this could happen without your support.  Cowboys for Kids is our sole fundraising event for the Center.  The success of this event absolutely determines what services can be offered to the many child victims and their non-offending family members who come through the Center.  Please know that every dime you give is applied carefully and thoughtfully to programs and efforts that we feel will assist in getting children safe, prosecuting their offenders and getting them on the road to healing.  So many victims arrive at the Center’s door with no hope.  Our greatest rewards come from seeing children returning for counseling with a smile on their face.  We know that the seed of change has taken root and that, once again, hope is sprouting in a young person’s heart.  Please consider how you can affect child victims’ lives with your donation.  It is a great legacy that you will have in the heart of a child.

Sincerely,
Amber Witte
CAC Board President