Family
Advocacy
Client Services Specialists and Family Advocates serve as victim advocates for CSH.
Victim support and advocacy is routinely made available to the children and their non-offending caregivers as part of the multidisciplinary team response. The goal of victim advocacy is to help reduce trauma for children and families and to improve outcomes by providing and/or facilitating access to comprehensive support services. Coordinated, comprehensive victim advocacy services encourage access to and participation in the investigation and prosecution as well as treatment and other support services for children and families.
Our Family Advocates work directly with the children and non-offending caregivers seen at our children’s advocacy center. Family Advocates ensure that non-offending family members have the necessary resources to navigate the civil and criminal justice systems. Family Advocates can assist with referrals for mental/medical health needs, support groups, and other community resources.
Our Family Advocates play a key role in helping to support the child victim and the non-offending caregiver throughout the healing and justice process.
What Parents Tell Us They Need the Most:
- To have someone to talk to
- To know what are the next steps for them and their children
- To be treated with respect and compassion
- To regain control of their lives
Family advocates meet with the non-offending caregivers and provide extensive education about the coordinated MDT response, rights of a crime victim, dynamics of abuse, the criminal justice system responses to child abuse, and the local community resources available to assist traumatized children and their families. Family advocates provide crisis intervention, follow-up, and on-going support for children and families. and siblings which may include court accompaniment, case management information, community referrals for housing, medical care, legal services, crime victims’ compensation, Biker’s Against Child Abuse (BACA) and information regarding the service delivery system of CSH.
