“If I’d known … I never would have reported it.”

“If I’d known what my child was going to go through, I never would have reported it.”

That was the sentiment of one mother in Alabama, decades ago, after her child was the victim of sexual abuse—and was re-traumatized by the system that was supposed to protect her.

But tremendous good eventually came out of their horrible experience. The prosecutor on that case fought for change in the way child sex abuse victims are treated by the system—and a new model developed nationwide, one that reduces the trauma of criminal investigations and compassionately meets the needs of sexually abused children in a child-oriented, neutral environment.

The United Way-funded Children’s Advocacy Center of Southwest Michigan is an example of this vastly improved model. It facilitates and coordinates the work of organizations responsible for the investigation of sexual abuse of children between the ages of 3 and 18 in Berrien, Cass, and Van Buren Counties. The need is certainly great: One in 10 children will experience sexual abuse or exploitation before age 18.

The St. Joseph-based Children’s Advocacy Center provides consistent and timely response to abuse reports, dramatically reducing the number of interviews a victim must undergo while ensuring the child obtains effective medical and mental health services or referrals to professional support services immediately. Because of its multidisciplinary approach, the nonprofit has increased successful prosecutions. More important, the Children’s Advocacy Center delivers critical hope and healing for children and their non-offending family members to move forward with their lives.

The center has also developed age-appropriate prevention programs for children—to teach them how to reduce the risk of abuse and assault—and for adults—to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. “If you can spare one child from abuse, it’s worth it,” says Allie Kibler-Campbell, prevention and outreach specialist at the Children’s Advocacy Center. “The whole program is worth it.”

Prevention 

Allie spends most of her time in classrooms in six school districts, including Bridgman, Brandywine, New Buffalo, Niles, River Valley, and St. Joseph, as well as at Lake Michigan Catholic Middle and High Schools. She visits every classroom once a year, talking to about 5,000 students annually.

“All kids have a right to feel safe,” Allie says. “If someone is making them feel unsafe or uncomfortable, they have the right to tell them that and to get away and talk to someone else about it. We teach kids they don’t have to keep secrets and they can look out for each other. The more awareness there is, the safer kids will be.”

Some parents have expressed concern about what exactly Allie is teaching, but she explains to them, “It’s not sex ed, it’s safety ed.” She’s teaching kids about healthy and appropriate personal boundaries, both physical and emotional. “We have a K-12 curriculum about body ownership, that they can tell people no. When we get to older grades, we talk about healthy relationships versus the cycle of abusive relationships, which follow a predictable, recognizable pattern, and we talk about what harassment and bullying look like, and Internet and cell phone safety,” Allie says.

The kids find Allie’s lessons empowering. “The kids surprise me,” she says. “They’re really smart and catch on fast. They like someone telling them that they have rights.”

One unexpected result of the prevention program is that some kids have used it as an opportunity to disclose sex abuse. In the last school year, 22 kids have come up to Allie after lessons and made disclosures of abuse that were then reported to law enforcement. Eleven of those came to the center, and eight of them participated rigorously in its free therapeutic services. Because of those disclosures, two perpetrators have had criminal charges filed against them. “Those kids may have never said anything if it wasn’t for us being in the classroom talking about prevention,” Allie says.

Forensic interviewing

When a child is referred to the Children’s Advocacy Center by law enforcement or the Department of Health and Human Services, a highly trained staff interviewer, who has knowledge of the child’s developmental and emotional stage, conducts legally sound, non-leading and neutral interviews. The group uses an unbiased approach to seek the truth and to support fair decision-making in the criminal and child protective services system. The forensic interviewer interviews the child one-on-one in a room separated by one-way glass, following strict protocols to ensure the child is able to participate. The multidisciplinary investigation team meets in the observation room, unseen by the child. This approach dramatically reduces the number of times the child has to tell the story, therefore reducing the trauma to the child.

“The way it used to be—and still is in some places—there would be several interviews: first Child Protective Services did one, then law enforcement, then a nurse, then the prosecutor,” says Brook Thomas, a forensic interviewer and licensed clinical social worker at the center. “The process was oriented around the professionals involved, not what was best for the child.”

Retelling their story is obviously painful for children, and can result in inconsistencies in the story—”not because the child is lying, but perhaps because the interviewers are asking about different incidents or because the interviewers are recording the details differently,” Brook says. “It’s an example of the telephone game.”

Another problem with the old model was that the interviewers often had no training in how to interview children. “You interview children who are 3 differently than children who are 6,” Brook explains. What’s more, lack of training led to “in some cases, biased interviewers asking leading questions that led to false disclosures.”

To further reduce trauma, the Children’s Advocacy Center provides medical examinations and evaluations of sexual assault victims on site in its child-oriented environment. Through collaboration with Spectrum Health-Lakeland, the organization utilizes Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners who are well-trained and knowledgeable in how to interact with assault victims to collect evidence while preserving body integrity.

The fact that everything is conducted in the same familiar place at the center—forensic interviewing, then medical examination, and later therapy—eases stress for the kids and families.

The center’s support dog, Pawnee, provides support to children and caregivers waiting for forensic interviews and is available to go to therapy sessions with children. A 60-pound Chocolate Labrador who is always on a leash and controlled by a handler, Pawnee loves to play with kids and provides distraction and comfort.

Therapy

The center also provides crisis counseling services and ongoing therapy to victims of child sexual abuse, their non-offending family members, and to adult survivors of child sexual abuse.

Kaitlin Sieber, LMSW, a therapist at the center, says they use a type of treatment model called trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, which is heavily based on play therapy and art therapy. “We engage many different ways for kids to heal and learn to cope through that model,” Kaitlin says. Children meet with a therapist weekly for an hour session for 12 weeks on average, and their caregivers are involved in the sessions. Therapy begins as soon as the day after the interview.

Therapists also help with preparing children to testify in court with a mock courtroom that looks exactly like the county courtrooms. “We hope perpetrators get prosecuted, but that’s not our focus,” Kaitlin says. “Prosecution unfortunately doesn’t help much with healing—not as much as people think it will. Sometimes victims come back later for more help once they realize that unresolved trauma has not been dealt with.”

Non-offending family members need therapeutic help too. “About 90% of perpetrators are known to the victim. They are often a relative or partner of a caregiver, so family relationships are very challenged by this experience,” Kaitlin says. “There’s blaming, sometimes resenting the victim, for what happened to the whole family.”

According to executive director Jamie Rossow, the center’s goal is to expand the reach of its services and increase its staff to meet needs they know exist in every community of Southwest Michigan. As much as people don’t want to believe child sexual abuse occurs in their midst, Rossow says they help victims in all types of families, in all socio-economic groups, from all racial and ethnic backgrounds, in all kinds of neighborhoods.

“We are the only children’s advocacy center in our tri-county area,” Jamie says. “We want to make sure all children are able to receive the services they need and deserve.”

Learn more about what United Way of Southwest Michigan is doing in HEALTH at uwsm.org/health.

The center’s support dog, Pawnee, provides support to children and caregivers waiting for forensic interviews and is available to go to therapy sessions with children. A 60-pound Chocolate Labrador who is always on a leash and controlled by a handler, Pawnee loves to play with kids and provides distraction and comfort.

"The way it used to be—and still is in some places—there would be several interviews: first Child Protective Services did one, then law enforcement, then a nurse, then the prosecutor,” says Brook Thomas, a forensic interviewer and licensed clinical social worker at the center. "The process was oriented around the professionals involved, not what was best for the child.”

Hear from the women who do this amazing work for children in our community. Video by Josh Kirshman.

"All kids have a right to feel safe,” says Allie Kibler-Campbell, prevention and outreach specialist at the center. "If someone is making them feel unsafe or uncomfortable, they have the right to tell them that and to get away and talk to someone else about it. We teach kids they don’t have to keep secrets.”

Kaitlin Sieber, LMSW, a therapist at the center, says they use a type of treatment model called trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, which is heavily based on play therapy and art therapy. "We engage many different ways for kids to heal and learn to cope through that model,” Kaitlin says.