National Children's Alliance Standards and The Berrien County Council for Children
You can rest assured that The Berrien County Council for Children meets the National Children's Alliance Standards.
National Children’s Alliance is a professional membership organization dedicated to helping local communities respond to allegations of child abuse in ways that are effective and efficient – and put the needs of child victims first.
National Children's Alliance provides training, support, technical assistance and leadership on a national level to local children’s and child advocacy centers and communities responding to reports of child abuse and neglect.
Accredited membership in NCA requires that programs meet ten standards. These standards ensure effective, efficient and consistent delivery of services by children's advocacy centers to child abuse victims throughout the country. The standards, which have been in existence since 1996, were revised to better meet the needs of child abuse victims in 2008. These national standards are:
1. Multidisciplinary Team (MDT)
A Multidisciplinary team for responding to child abuse allegations includes representation from the following:
•Law Enforcement
• Child Protective Services
• Prosecution
• Medical
• Mental Health
• Victim Advocacy
• Children's Advocacy Center
A functioning and effective multidisciplinary team approach (MDT) is the foundation of a CAC. An MDT is a group of professionals who represent various disciplines and work collaboratively from the point of report to assure the most effective coordinated response possible for every child. The purpose of interagency collaboration is to coordinate intervention so as to reduce potential trauma to children and families and improve services, while preserving and respecting the rights and obligations of each agency to pursue their respective mandates.
2. Cultural Competency and Diversity
Culturally competent services are routinely made available to all CAC clients and coordinated with the multidisciplinary team response.
Cultural competency is defined as the capacity to function in more than one culture, requiring the ability to appreciate, understand and interact with members of diverse populations within the local community. Cultural competency is as basic to the CAC philosophy as developmentally appropriate, child-friendly practice. Like developmental considerations, diversity issues influence nearly every aspect of work with children and families, such as welcoming a child and family to the center, employing effective forensic interviewing techniques, gathering information to make a determination about the likelihood of abuse, selecting appropriate mental health providers and securing help for a family in a manner in which it is likely to be utilized. To effectively meet clients’ needs, the CAC and MDT must be willing and able to understand the clients’ world view, adapt practices as needed, and offer help in a manner in which it can be utilized.
3. Forensic Interview
Forensic interviews are conducted in a manner that is legally sound, of a neutral, fact finding nature, and are coordinated to avoid duplicative interviewing.
Forensic interviews create an environment that provides the child an opportunity to talk to a trained professional regarding what the child has experienced or knows that resulted in a concern about abuse. Forensic interviews are typically the cornerstone of a child abuse investigation, effective child protection and subsequent prosecution, and may be the beginning of the road toward healing for many children and families. The manner in which a child is treated during the initial forensic interview may significantly impact the child’s understanding of, and ability to respond to the intervention process and/or criminal justice system.
4. Victim Support and Advocacy
Victim support and advocacy services are routinely made available to all CAC clients and their non-offending family members as part of the multidisciplinary team response.
The focus of victim support and advocacy is to help reduce trauma for the child and non-offending family members and to improve outcomes. Coordinated victim advocacy services encourage access to and participation in investigation, prosecution, treatment and support services and thus are a necessary component in the MDT’s response. Up-to-date information and ongoing support is critical to a child and family’s comfort and ability to participate in intervention and treatment.
5. Medical Evaluation
Specialized medical evaluation and treatment services are routinely made available to all CAC clients and coordinated with the multidisciplinary team response.
All children who are suspected victims of child abuse should be assessed to determine the need for a medical evaluation. Medical evaluations should be required based on specific screening criteria developed by skilled medical providers or by local multidisciplinary teams which include qualified medical representation.
6. Mental Health
Specialized trauma-focused mental health services, designed to meet the unique needs of the children and non-offending family members, are routinely made available as part of the multidisciplinary team response.
Children’s Advocacy Centers have as their missions: protection of the child, justice and healing. Healing may begin with the first contact with the MDT, whose common focus is on minimizing potential trauma to children. Without effective therapeutic intervention, many traumatized children will suffer ongoing or long term adverse social, emotional, and developmental outcomes that may impact them throughout their lifetimes. Today we have evidenced-based treatments and other practices with strong empirical support that will both reduce the impacts of trauma and the risk of future abuse. For these reasons, an MDT response must include trauma assessment and specialized trauma-focused mental health services for child victims and non-offending family members. Family members are often the key to the child’s recovery and ongoing protection.
7. Case Review
A formal process in which multidisciplinary discussion and information sharing regarding the investigation, case status and services needed by the child and family is to occur on a routine basis.
Case review is the formal process which enables the MDT to monitor and assess its effectiveness - independently and collectively - ensuring the safety and wellbeing of children and families. It is intended to monitor current cases and is not meant as a retrospective case study. This is a formal process by which knowledge, experience and expertise of MDT members is shared so that informed decisions can be made, collaborative efforts are nurtured, formal and informal communication is promoted, mutual support is provided, and protocols/procedures are reviewed.
8. Case Tracking
Children’s advocacy centers must develop and implement a system for monitoring case progress and tracking case outcomes for all MDT components.
Case tracking is an important component of a CAC. “Case tracking” refers to a systematic method in which specific data is routinely collected on each case served by the CAC. Today, case tracking systems are generally computerized, although in some communities with limited resources or small caseloads, case tracking may be done manually.
9. Organizational Capacity
A designated legal entity responsible for program and fiscal operations has been established and implements basic sound administrative policies and procedures.
Every CAC must have a designated legal entity responsible for the governance of its operations. The role of this entity is to oversee ongoing business practices of the CAC, including setting and implementing administrative policies, hiring and managing personnel, obtaining funding, supervising program and fiscal operations, and long term planning.
10. Child Focused Setting
The child-focused setting is comfortable, private, and both physically and psychologically safe for diverse populations of children and their non-offending family members.
Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) requires a separate, child-focused setting designed to provide a safe, comfortable and neutral place where forensic interviews can be conducted and other CAC services can be provided for children and families.