History of the CAC and CFAC
Brief History of The CAC
In 1985 in Huntsville, Alabama the very first Child Advocacy Center was established. Before the CAC, a child was interviewed repeatedly by many professionals. With the CAC model all that has changed.
The amount of times the child must disclose the abuse is significantly decreased, sparing the child from re-traumatization.
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See Robin’s before and after CAC’s story.
Brief History of CFAC – the Rutland County CAC
During the mid 1990’s, the number of child sexual abuse reports greatly increased nationally. In 1995, a Rutland County multi-disciplinary task force convened to address the issue. The resulting team comprised of member of law enforcement, child welfare, children’s advocates, school personnel, medical, and the private mental health community. The task force determined that a Child Advocacy Center was the most comprehensive and effective solution.
Since 2004 the Child First Advocacy Center has been a fully accredited member of the National Children’s Alliance (NCA). CFAC is also a member of the Vermont Children’s Alliance (VCA); the statewide chapter of child advocacy centers. Together we share the passion to minimize the traumatic effect of child abuse upon the children and families of our community.
Legislation in Vermont was amended and adopted in 2009. The overall intent of the legislation was to provide all citizens of the state of Vermont access to Special Investigative Units to enhance prevention efforts, investigations and prosecutions of sexual abuse and improve supervision of sexual offenders.
The Special Investigation Units are designed to partner with child advocacy centers. The Rutland Unit for Special Investigations (RUSI) is co-located at the Rutland CFAC office.
Vermont Special Investigative Units are task forces dedicated to providing criminal investigations in response to reports of sexual assaults and serious child abuse. The professionals in the units are specially trained to deal with the unique and sensitive nature of the crimes. RUSI is the unit serving all of Rutland County. Three detectives are assigned to the Rutland Unit. Additionally, the Department for Children and Families has assigned a full-time investigator also located in the Rutland CFAC office. These co-located services ensures a dramatic reduction in the number of victim interviews, increased successful prosecutions and consistent and compassionate support.
The CAC Model
To understand what a Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) is, you must understand what children face without one. Without a CAC, the child may end up having to tell the worst story of his or her life over and over again, to doctors, cops, lawyers, therapists, investigators, judges, and others. They may have to talk about that traumatic experience in a police station where they think they might be in trouble, or may be asked the wrong questions by a well-meaning teacher or other adult that could hurt the case against the abuser.
By coordinating the response of agencies like law enforcement, child protective services, prosecutors’ offices, advocates, mental health and medical professionals CACs help ensure that when a child discloses abuse, they are not re-victimized by the very systems designed to protect them. CACs help coordinate care and investigation from first report to conviction and beyond, while keeping the child at the center of everything the team does.
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. CACs provide an array of compassionate, professional, trauma-informed services to children and their families.