Statements
Mission
To provide investigative, advocacy, family support, and therapeutic services to children who have experienced sexual or significant physical abuse or other traumatic events, as well as trauma-informed community education, designed to guide our towns and civic spaces to be safer and more resilient for children
Background
The Williamson County Child Advocacy Center Task Force was formed in March 1999 under the leadership of Ronald Davis, District Attorney General for the 21st Judicial District. The initial meeting was held on March 1, 1999. The Task Force consisted of caring, concerned professionals who saw a need to improve services offered to child abuse victims in our community. After a year and a half of planning, the Williamson County Child Advocacy Center (WCCAC) opened its doors in September 2000. The WCCAC was developed according to National Children's Alliance guidelines, which are considered best practices for Child Advocacy Centers across the country. In October of 2010, WCCAC became a fully accredited member of the National Children's Alliance. In early 2016, we were approved for re-accreditation, maintaining our Accredited Member status for another 5 years. For 20 years, WCCAC has been providing comprehensive services such as forensic interviews, case management, victim advocacy, counseling, court support and court orientation to child abuse victims and their non-offending family members. We also provide leadership, coordination, and staffing for the Child Protective Investigative Team (CPIT), a multi-disciplinary team consisting individuals from local law enforcement, District Attorney General's office, Department of Children's Services, WCCAC, and juvenile court officers. Additionally, the WCCAC provides education and training designed to train adults in our community how to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. Davis House Child Advocacy Center is a warm, welcoming place where abused children and their families in crisis can receive all of the help, support and services that they need. Our first year, we saw 61 clients in Williamson County. We served over 1,000 clients in our first eight years of operation. Last fiscal year (FY 2019 ended June 30, 2019), we provided almost 3,500 services to 525 new child clients and 403 non-offending caregivers or parents in Williamson, Hickman, Lewis and Perry Counties. In 2006, we opened a center location in Hohenwald in Lewis County so that clients in that area could more easily access the services of the CAC. With a continued growing client caseload in Hickman County, we opened our third facility in early 2016 in Centerville, TN.
Impact
In fiscal year ending June 30, 2019 the Williamson County Child Advocacy Center dba Davis House Child Advocacy Center 1) provided almost 3,500 services to 525 new child clients and 403 new non-offending parents or caregivers; 2) trained 1,207 parents and adult caregivers in either Stewards of Children, a program that has been shown to help prevent child sexual abuse, or Signs and Symptoms of Child Abuse; 3) presented awareness programs to almost 1500 people; and 4) provided 983 counseling sessions to 95 abused children who exhibited signs of trauma. Our goals for this year are to continue to grow our relationships with donors so that we can maintain all our programs and grow as needed to serve the children in our district. Additionally, we want to train more adults to better protect the children in their lives from child sexual abuse. We opened a new facility in Centerville to better serve our clients in Hickman County, and have added additional staff and staff hours to serve both our new Centerville facility and our existing Hohenwald facility. In early 2016, Davis House received approval for re-accreditation with the National Children's Alliance, which provides accreditation standards and best practices, ensuring that our operational activities meet national standards. This re-accreditation maintains our Accredited Member status for another 5 year time period.
Needs
Davis House Child Advocacy Center provides 3 direct service programs: Forensic Interviews; Child and Family Advocacy ; and Counseling; and two non-direct service programs: Child Protective Investigative Team (CPIT)/Case Management; and Prevention. Serving four counties, the need for our services in the communities we serve continues to grow. Last year we served 928 new clients, and provided significantly more services than the prior year. This requires continued additional funding for general operating and specific program expenses. Our budget increased to over $700,000, necessitating increased funding for our direct service programs. Increased demand for our Prevention Program (training to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual and/or severe physical abuse) necessitates increased funding for personnel costs. COVID has forced us to expand our prevention training online. We need funding for non-direct service personnel ($90,000) - key additions we need include are a director of development and a trauma specialist. Of great immediate need is an expanded facility in Franklin and facility improvements in Hohenwald.
CEO Statement
When any of us work in social impact spaces--those places in our communities where we endeavor to make life better for all people in our midst; where we tend to the world that surrounds and sustains us; and when we focus to imagine the world-as-it-should-be because we are dissatisfied with the world-as-it-is, we live in this space that, as Frederick Buechner posited, "the place where [our] gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." I could not be more honored and stirred to have discovered that intersection at Davis House Child Advocacy Center.
How do I intend to lead Davis House? The answer to this question comes from my philosophy of community-based leadership. I am genuinely interested in the culture and society around me. I believe our networks should join together from positions of influence to inspire and enact change. I hold firmly to the notion that leaders should be interested in all parts of the community, not just those which are the easiest to impact or be part of from an individual standpoint. Leaders in public life should embrace opportunities to learn about all facets of the world in which they live and seek to be part of it, while maintaining faithful integrity as well as the credibility to lead and work within the society itself. I am excited to have found such a place as Davis House and such a community as that which we have in middle Tennessee.
In a perfect world, places like Davis House do not exist. But that is not the environment we have. As we work together to create a better, more just and safe community, Davis House is uniquely positioned to convene stakeholders from across the community to protect our children, to raise the standards of our community caregivers, and to serve families in need with excellence and conviction. I could not be more honored to work with the Davis House team to facilitate deeply transformational differences in survivors' lives and to co-create a space in our community where survivors can enthusiastically pursue their own "gladness and hunger" crossroads, not the one which the crimes and horror inflicted by someone else would dictate for them. For any of us in vital social impact work, as we seek to be part of changing others' lives, it is true that our own are changed as well. What an honor.
Service Categories |
|
| Primary Category: | Human Services - Children's and Youth Services |
| Secondary Category: | Mental Health & Crisis Intervention - Sexual Assault Services |
| Tertiary Category: | Crime & Legal - Related - Child Abuse Prevention |
Areas Served
Williamson, Hickman, Lewis and Perry Counties.
| TN - Hickman |
| TN - Lewis |
| TN - Perry |
| TN - Williamson |
