ANNOUNCEMENT!

Healthy Families of Clallam County proudly announces our Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) has been accredited by the National Children’s Alliance (NCA). Accreditation assures the highest standard of effective, efficient, consistent care is provided to all victims.

The NCA is the accrediting body for Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs). Formed in 1988, NCA has been providing support, technical assistance, and quality assurance for CACs, while serving as a voice for abused children for more than 25 years.

A Children’s Advocacy Centers is a child-friendly facility in which law enforcement, child protection, prosecution, mental health, medical and victim advocacy professionals work together to investigate abuse, help children heal from abuse, and hold offenders accountable. These efforts are critical in minimizing the trauma child victims face following abuse.

Why is the Children’s Advocacy Center model so important? At its core, the model is about teamwork – bringing the agency professionals involved in a case together on the front end – and about putting the needs of the child victim first. So rather than having a child taken from agency to agency throughout the law enforcement and child protection systems, and having to endure multiple, sequential interviews, the CAC model brings the system to the child, and brings the agency professionals together to work in a collaborative approach that results in effective, efficient and child-centered casework.

Healthy Families’ Children’s Advocacy Center opened in April of 2012 and in the 148 weeks since then have conducted 162 child interviews by local, trained law enforcement officers.

Thank you to all who participated and supported us during the accreditation process!!