A new advocacy center for child victims of crime opened in Clearfield County.
We have more on how the center is taking advantage of current trends in investigations.
Officials held a grand opening for the new Child Advocacy Center of Clearfield County and a special guest was here.
The Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency chairman Josh Shapiro attended and said they gave $200,000 to open this center.
Workers say they’ve already done 120 interviews since last August, some of them kids who were sexually or physically abused.
“We have the typical demographic information we ask them, such as their name, age. where they live, where do they go to school,” says forensic interviewer Christine Semelsberger. “Then we talk to them, build rapport about their likes and dislikes, and then we go into their disclosure, what they’re ready to disclose.”
District Attorney William Shaw says it took a few years to start this center, which is in a Graham Street portable classroom building owned by Cen-Clear.
The CAC budget is coming in at $133,000 per year, Cen-Clear CEO Pauline Raab said. Its approach is different than in the past.
“Three, four, five interviews from the police, the mental health, the victim advocates, CYS,” says Shaw.
Now, there’s just one interview, in an environment designed to be neutral and comfortable, the CAC’s CAC/MDIT (Multi-Disciplinary Investigation Team) coordinator Mary Tatum said.
“When people do come in, it helps them calm down. It’s more of a kid setting. We have kid artwork,” says Tatum.
“It’s recorded with state-of-the-art equipment that we were able to obtain through the generosity of Mr. Shapiro and the PCCD,” says Shaw.
“One of our key priorities was making sure that we have a child advocacy center within a 1-hour drive of every Pennsylvanian,” says Shapiro, adding that they’re 83-percent of the way to that goal.
“It also opens the opportunity for them to have healing begin,” says Tatum.
the center has a director and 3 part-time interviewers, Tatum said.
“It’s not for everyone, but if you have a real passion for helping children, and for helping families in your community, it’s something that’s very rewarding in the end,” says Semelsberger.
Shapiro says child abuse is a big problem in Clearfield County, with 239 cases reported in 2014.