Edition: January 2025
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The Team:
The Children’s Advocacy Center of Douglas County (CACDC) collaborates closely with the Lawrence Kansas Police Department’s Special Victims Unit (SVU) to address child abuse cases.
The Lawrence Kansas Police Department’s Special Victims Unit (SVU) members investigate sex crimes, sexual and physical child abuse, and domestic violence cases.
The Children’s Advocacy Center of Douglas County (CACDC) offers a comprehensive, child-centered program that provides an immediate and compassionate response to a child’s disclosure of abuse. The CAC model is focused on teamwork – bringing multidisciplinary professionals together, including but not limited to Douglas County Law Enforcement agencies, Douglas County District Attorney’s Office, Victim Witness Coordinators, Department for Children and Families (DCF), Children’s Mercy Hospital, Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Bert Nash Community Center, and the Sexual Trauma Abuse and Care Center.
Why it matters: This partnership ensures a child-centered approach in investigations that prioritizes the welfare and safety of children.
How it works: The CACDC provides a neutral environment for specialized interviews, while family advocates ensure ongoing support for victims and their families.
The CACDC brings specially trained professionals together to collaboratively to ensure an effective and efficient response to each case. They provide a neutral and child-friendly setting, away from the police department, to conduct specialized interviews with the child victim.
Family advocates at the CAC provide support to help connect everyone involved with resources, including high-quality medical care and therapy services. Advocates provide on-going support to children and their support systems throughout the investigation and criminal justice process to ensure services remain in place through the path towards healing.
The outcome: Communities with a CAC, like Douglas County, see improved child protection and better criminal justice outcomes, along with increased satisfaction from all involved parties.
In a published evaluation of the National CAC response to abuse cases, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention emphasized some of the benefits:
Higher levels of child protection
Higher rates of perpetrator confessions and improved criminal justice outcomes
Higher rates of specialized medical evaluations
Significantly more referrals to mental health services
Greater client satisfaction with the MDT response