Children’s Advocacy Center of Collier County

HOW WE CHANGE THE TRAJECTORY OF A CHILD’S STORY

When you enter the CAC, one of our Child Advocates will greet you. The Child Advocate is here to make sure you understand why you are at the CAC and explain the services that are available to you. Advocates can provide a voice for children when they may not feel like they have one. Advocates also coordinate community services to help mitigate the traumatic effects of abuse.

Child Advocates:

• Explain the process and services provided
• Case management/interagency coordination
• Inform & link families to resources in the community
• Help families apply for victim compensation
• Help children through the whole court process – from the initial arrest to depositions to facing their abusers in the courtroom
• Provide Trauma screenings
• Administer satisfaction surveys
• Conduct training in the community

The Advocates will then direct you to one of the other four programs provided here at the CAC. One of these programs is our Child Protection Team. When child abuse is suspected, our Child Protection Team is here to get the whole story. To do this, we bring together experts in many different fields to figure out exactly what happened and to better protect the children we serve. The Child Protection Team includes our Medical Director, who is a board-certified pediatrician, our team of Forensic Interviewers, and our licensed Psychotherapist. Our team works closely with the local Sheriff’s offices, the local Police Department, the Department of Children and Family Services, and the State Attorney to help supplement investigation activities. The Child Protection Team provides expertise in evaluating alleged child abuse and neglect, assessing risk and protective factors, and providing recommendations for interventions to protect children and enhance a caregiver’s capacity to provide a safer environment when possible.

Child Protection Team Provides:

• Child and family assessmentsMultidisciplinary staffing
• Psychological assessment
• Specialized and forensic interviews
• Expert court testimony
• Training for emergency room staff and other medical providers about how to identify abuse
• Medical diagnosis and evaluation

If the Child Protection Team determines that abuse has indeed happened, the victim and their non-offending caregiver(s) are encouraged to receive therapy through our Counseling Services. Our counseling services provide the only specialized treatment services for children who are victims of abuse, as well as their families through a combination of group, family, and individual counseling. Our Counseling Services reduce the trauma caused by child sexual abuse, assist the family in crisis, prevent further abuse from occurring, and enable families to have healthy, non-abusive relationships. Our Counseling Services operates on the belief that specialized treatment services provided to children and families will prevent long-term psychological effects of child abuse.

Counseling Services Provide:

• Prompt intake services
• Multidisciplinary assessments
• Thorough treatment planning
• Specialized individual and group therapy for child survivors, siblings, and non-offending caregivers
• Crisis Intervention
• Personal safety education
• Peer support
• Community resources and referrals when appropriate
• Proven therapeutic strategies that work

We believe that most parents genuinely love their children and want to become better parents. It is with this belief that our Parenting Education Program provides both voluntary community parenting classes and comprehensive in-home court-ordered parenting classes. Each session is experience-based and focuses on the development of nurturing parenting skills that help prevent child abuse and neglect from occurring.

Parenting Education Focuses on:

• Understanding the appropriate developmental expectations of children
• Developing empathy for their own needs and the needs of their children
• Appropriate discipline strategies
• Understanding appropriate parent-child roles
• Developing a child’s age-appropriate power and independence

The separation between two parents is never easy, especially for children. Through our Family Safety program, the CAC allows for managed exchange and supervised visitation of children between parents with a history of, or potential for, domestic violence.

Family Safety Program Provides:

• Safe, neutral site for regular custody exchanges to spare children from witnessing ongoing strife and further victimization
• Staggered arrival and departure times
• On-site security

Child abuse and other forms of childhood trauma can have lifelong adverse effects on children, families, and communities. But we can prevent this by helping to increase a child’s resiliency. You can help change the trajectory of these children’s stories by supporting our effective services. With your support, together, we can build resilient children and help them to recover from these traumatic events and the lives of children in our community can be transformed.