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are facing.
Some young people prefer group counseling over individual. Our
newest group targets middle school to high school age youth and is
called “To Thine Ownself Be True”. Group
counseling is also great for parents and guardians. Many times
our parenting classes become group discussions where each
parent/guardian is allowed to share their joys or struggles with
the group and they get group feedback. They hear what has worked
for the other parents/guardians and what has not worked. It is
very solution oriented.
Play Therapy:
Often times society will
stereotype “counseling”. People picture a very serious doctor
figure asking you to give every detail of the offense that occurred to
you
That is not how the Center works.
All of our counseling programs are designed to address the issues that
may arise from abuse not to have you relive it every time you are at
the Center. In our Play Therapy program children’s behavior in
play is observed. You can often learn a lot about what a child
is struggling with by the way they play. A young child might
line up a whole army against one guy and tell you that the one
individual guy is the bad man. This can lead to healthy
conversation surrounding the play. In time, the child may not
line the army up against the one man. He might just set him
aside. By this play you can come to the conclusion that the
child is learning to deal with the situation. In our Play
Therapy Room we use sand and water trays, puppets, mini-theatre,
dress-up trunks, arts and crafts, and board games. We also have a
Certified Play Therapist that works with parents to teach them how to
use techniques in play at home. This is called Filial Therapy.
Parents can sign up for classes that will be offered on every Tuesday
during the day.
Court School and Court
Accompaniment:
It will often take over a year for a case to be scheduled to go to
trial. We are fortunate that the vast majority of our cases end up in
a plea agreement, but for those children that do end up going to trial
there is further trauma added to their life. Just about the time a
child has been able to deal with the issues surrounding their abuse
and they begin to move on with their life, their trial is set. At
that time they have to relive their abuse all over again. Court is a
scary process for most adults, and it can be terrifying for
children. This is why the Center feels so strongly about providing
Court School for child victims and their non-offending family
members. Staff from the Children’s Advocacy Center will prepare the
child in various ways. The child and their family members may have a
couple of counseling sessions that deal directly with the anxiety of
going to trial. Court School workbooks will be given to the children
to help them understand how everything works in a trial. It explains
the job of everyone in the courtroom. It also tells the child that
their only job is to tell the truth. We also provide a parent’s guide
to court. Many parents have questions regarding how everything is
going to work. We don’t take for granted that families know
anything. We try to cover everything from A to Z. We don’t talk
about the questions that will be asked regarding abuse. We leave that
to the prosecutor’s in each case, but we do offer support to the child
and their family at all times. We will always have a staff member
present for the child and their family members during Court School and
during their court proceedings. Children will often face their
perpetrator for the first time since reporting the abuse at a trial.
This causes great anxiety and fear. These are the issues that we
prepare the child to face. We let them know that there will be an
armed officer in the courtroom at all times and that the Judge will
not allow anyone to be mean to them. We let them know that there will
be very difficult questions asked and who will be asking those
questions. If a child can handle the stress of trial, they are often
very proud of themselves in the end for preventing this perpetrator
from harming another child. We continue to look for ways to help
children deal with the enormous pressure of a criminal trial. You can
read more about our new initiatives under the Therapy Dog Program.
Resource Referrals:
In many of our cases
that come through the Center, the perpetrator is often the bread
winner in the home. This situation causes great hardship for the
family. Often times the other parent will find that they are in a
situation where they have to find a job and child care. They might
not be able to afford the current resident where they are living and
need help finding a more inexpensive place to live. The Center has a
Community Resource Coordinator that works to aid parents/guardians
that find themselves in this situation. The Center also works very
closely with many churches and social services agencies in the area
that can help families. We refer families to these resource agencies
on a regular basis. We also refer children needing child abuse exams
to Cook Children’s Medical Center CARE Team. This team specializes in
child abuse medical exams.
Assistance with Crime Victim’s Compensation Paperwork:
When a child makes an
outcry or tells someone in the course of a forensic interview that
they have been abused, the family is allowed to file for Crime
Victim’s Compensation. This paperwork is filed with the Texas
Attorney General’s Office. This fund allows parents/guardians to
be compensated for loss of wages, counseling and medical costs, fuel
costs, or any cost that is directly related to the crime committed
against the child. We assist the families in filling out
the initial paperwork so they can be entered into the system. We
also explain the length of the turn around
time for compensation.
Personal Advocacy:
This involves answering
questions for families, listening to their concerns, keeping
them updated on their case as it moves through the system, making
phone calls for families to get specific questions answered, and
following up with families when they miss appointments. Many
times we are the only ones offering words of encouragement and support
to these families. Depression is a problem that many of them
struggle with as they move through this difficult time. Personal
Advocacy is the only thing that helps us to know if a family is doing
okay with the issues they are facing or not. Personal Advocacy
is largely responsible for the large number of counseling appointments
that we set. Many parents that initially think that they are
fine will end up asking for help when we check up with them.
Case Tracking:
Once a month the Multi-Disciplinary
Team of the Children’s Advocacy Center meets to staff all new cases
and to re-staff all problematic cases or those cases that have not
reached final disposition. It is during these meetings that the
Center staff is made aware of any case action that has taken place.
Information gathered at these monthly meetings keeps the whole team
working together and
helps the Center staff to be able to keep families informed of any new
case activity.
Power in Positive
Parenting Program:
The Children’s Advocacy
Center offers parenting classes twice
a month on every other Tuesday. The Center also provides a meal
for those parents/guardians in attendance. We meet from
6:00-8:00 p.m. at the Center. This program covers everything
from establishing healthy rules and guidelines for children to
learning how to give children choices in their daily lives.
Different types of discipline styles are studied so parents can
identify which style they currently use and how they incorporate other
positive components of other styles into their parenting. The
parents/guardians that we work with are all ages and come from a
variety of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. Our parenting
classes are designed to fit anyone who has a desire to be a better
parent. What makes our classes unique are that they also address
the issues that arise because of abuse. Many of our families
have experienced multi-generational abuse. We want to end that
cycle of abuse in their lives.
Power in Positive
Choices Youth Program:
This is also a new program for the
Center. This group meets at the same time as our parenting program,
every other Tuesday night from 6:00-8:00 p.m. at the Center. This
program addresses all the current issues that young people have to
deal with on a daily basis. It also includes guest speakers and the
assigning of mentors for those youth who are without a positive adult
role model in their life. Many of our youth come from single parent
households and have no positive male role model in their lives. We
have found that many of our young people love having the opportunity
to receive support and encouragement from a mentor outside of their
home.
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Therapy Dog
Program: The
Children’s Advocacy Center is extremely pleased to announce that
the Therapy Dog Program is doing very well! Dogs act as official greeters for children entering the Center for
the first time. They are also a part of their counseling and
play therapy sessions. The greatest news about this new
program is that all of our Judges have granted permission for the
dogs to accompany the children in the courtroom. National
clinical studies have shown time and time again that petting,
touching and talking with animals lowers blood pressure, relieves
stress and eases depression. CLICK
HERE FOR MORE ON OUR THERAPY DOG PROGRAM! |
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