Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime
Heard. Respected. Victims First.
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Special Report:
What More Needs to be Done—Recommendations
6. Helping Victims Heal
“A nine year old girl was abused by her uncle and the only reason she agreed to come to the centre was because her mom told her she would only have to tell her story once. That was one Friday afternoon. On Monday afternoon, after school, she cleaned out her piggy bank and asked her mom to take her to Toys R Us. She had enough money to buy three stuffed animals. She dropped them off at the front counter here and said, ‘These are for the next three kids who come to Zebra.’”108
–Barb Spencer, Executive Director, Zebra Child Protection Centre
“Not having such a centre available in other major cities defies belief; it is like the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul for the children who need this protection….”
–Mother whose son was sexually abused and who attended the Zebra Centre
Child advocacy centres: A model for success
First developed in the U.S. in the 1980s, Child Advocacy Centres (CACs) were designed to reduce the stress on child abuse victims and families created by traditional child abuse investigation and prosecution procedures and to improve the effectiveness of the response.109
A victimized child and his or her family can go to more than 10 different locations and see multiple professionals before getting help.110
These professionals are often working in isolation and do not communicate efficiently or effectively with the child and family, or with each other. The result is a fragmented, confusing, inefficient and expensive process. CACs, on the other hand, provide an integrated approach to helping children who have been victims of abuse by bringing together key victim services, such as statement collection and counselling, in one child- and family-friendly location.
The National Network of Children’s Advocacy Centers, now called the National Children’s Alliance (NCA), was formed in 1988. It is a U.S. nationwide not-for-profit membership organization whose mission is to promote and support communities in providing a coordinated investigation and comprehensive response to victims of severe child abuse. There are over 900 CACs and over 600 are certified with the NCA.111
Although the services offered vary, there are some key elements necessary to gain accreditation from the NCA:
- Child-appropriate/child-friendly facility: The CAC provides a comfortable, private, child-friendly setting that is both physically and psychologically safe for clients.
- Multidisciplinary team: This multidisciplinary team for response to child abuse allegations includes representation from law enforcement, child protective services, prosecution, mental health, medicine and victim advocacy.
- Cultural competency and diversity: The CAC promotes policies, practices and procedures that are culturally competent; cultural competency being defined as the capacity to function in more than one culture, requiring the ability to appreciate, understand and interact with members of diverse populations in the local community.
- Forensic interviews: Forensic interviews are conducted in a neutral, fact-finding manner and are coordinated to avoid duplicative interviewing.
- Medical evaluation: Specialized medical evaluation and treatment are to be made available to CAC clients as part of the team response, either at the CAC or through coordination and referral with other specialized medical providers.
- Therapeutic intervention: Specialized mental health services are to be made available as part of the team response, either at the CAC or through coordination and referral with other appropriate treatment providers.
- Victim support/advocacy: Victim support and advocacy are to be made available as part of the team response, either at the CAC or through coordination with other providers, throughout the investigation and subsequent legal proceedings.
- Case review: Team discussion and information sharing on the investigation, case status and services needed by the child and family are to occur on a regular basis.
- Case tracking: CACs must develop and implement a system for monitoring case progress and tracking case outcomes for team components.
Research suggests that these centres are having a real impact that is measurable not just in terms of its benefits to victims and their families, but in dollars.
The National Children Alliance Annual Report states that an investigation into a child abuse case in a community with a CAC is 45 percent less expensive than in a community without a CAC.112
Similarly, evaluations from the Crimes Against Children Research Center found jurisdictions with CACs allow for more coordinated investigations, higher rates of referrals for mental health services and suggest parents are more satisfied and children are less scared.113
The United Nations Resolution on Guidelines on Justice in Matters involving Child Victims and Witnesses of Crime, which Canada spearheaded, reflects many of the same principles that guide CACs. For example, the resolution recognizes that children are particularly vulnerable and “need special protection, assistance and support appropriate to their age, level of maturity and unique needs in order to prevent further hardship and trauma that may result from their participation in the criminal justice process.”
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The guidelines stress that:
- To avoid further hardship to the child, interviews, examinations and other forms of investigation should be conducted by trained professionals who proceed in a sensitive, respectful and thorough manner. Special services and protection will need to be instituted to take account of gender and the different nature of specific offences against children.
- Professionals should make every effort to coordinate support so that the child is not subjected to excessive interventions. The child should receive assistance from support persons, such as child victim/witness specialists, commencing at the initial report and continuing until such services are no longer required.
Child advocacy centres in Canada
In a report prepared for the Law Commission of Canada, researchers estimated the cost of child abuse for Canadian society in 1998—including judicial, social services, education, health, employment and personal costs—was $15,705,910,047.115 They also found that in general, the major costs of child abuse are not borne by the Government, but instead are personal costs to the victims. “Our research strongly suggests that it is false economy to save dollars in the short run by ignoring abuse or by cutting programs designed to help families. There is a tremendous imbalance in what we as a society allocate to reduce the effects of abuse and the costs themselves.”
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“Even a relatively small increased investment in effective prevention and treatment programs could yield huge dividends for society. In fact, the earlier the intervention, the lower the overall costs and the greatest chance there is for a reduction of the multiplier effects consequent to abuse.”117
In Canada, only a few programs offer services similar to those of the CAC model. The Edmonton Zebra Centre (2002) is the only program currently affiliated with the NCA. Other examples of similar programs include the newly created Niagara Child Advocacy Centre (2008)—which hopes to receive accreditation from the NCA—the Regina Children’s Justice Centre (1994), the Gatehouse and the BOOST Centre in Toronto. Several other communities are exploring CACs for their jurisdictions but in some cases funding has been identified as a barrier.
The benefits of CACs in the U.S. are also being seen in Canada. The Edmonton Zebra Centre has specially trained forensic interviewers who conduct the interviews with children. Police and child welfare officers observe the interviews but do not question the child. The centre has proven that the CAC model and coordinated investigations get proven results. Specifically, it has found that the CAC model leads to a reduction in system-induced trauma for victims, an increase in charges laid, better quality of evidence, more guilty pleas and higher convictions rates with more appropriate sentences.118 On top of that, the Zebra Centre has also found that families are generally more willing to access services if they are on-site.
Conversely, the BOOST centre warns that, “…a lack of coordination and organization negatively affects victims who do not receive the maximum amount of benefit from services and the legal system.”
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How child advocacy centres can help victims of Internet-facilitated child sexual abuse
Given the unique dynamics surrounding child sexual abuse images and the benefits of a coordinated approach, CAC models could be particularly relevant in investigations involving child sexual abuse images. They could help to obtain more information from children (i.e. existence of photos), recognize the signs of when a child may not be disclosing, and provide guidance on how to handle a situation where images have been found but the child is not disclosing or not aware, and more.
According to BOOST, interviewing victims of child sexual abuse imagery crimes may require a different strategy, compared to conventional sexual abuse:
“Due to the fact that abuse imagery on the Internet is a permanent record of maltreatment, children in these situations often do not disclose full details of the abuse until they have recovered from the initial trauma of realizing that others will see the pictures in the future. In addition, child abuse imagery is physical evidence of a crime scene, and thus, investigators aim to acquire knowledge about the offender(s) and not the crime itself. Consequently, when investigators (and treatment providers) speak with children, interviews should span over a period of weeks to months. Questions should be general in nature, focus on the offender(s)’ identity, and the possibility of other children currently being victimized; they should not discuss details of the abuse; and, they should not focus on the nature of the abuse, as those working with the children will already know what has happened, and discussing the abuse will be psychologically harmful for the child.”120
Some of this work is already underway. The Northern Alberta Integrated Child Exploitation (ICE) Team actively works with the Zebra Centre to help victims of child sexual abuse.
It is clear from the evidence that CACs are a proven, results-oriented and victim-friendly way to ensure better victim care, higher conviction rates and lower systemic costs.
For that reason, the Federal Ombudsman for Victims of Crime wrote to the Minister of Finance in advance of Budget 2009 to request that $5 million be allocated toward the support of these centres across the country. While the recommendation was not included in the January budget, there is still an opportunity for the federal government to take action.
RECOMMENDATION 6—That the federal government, in conjunction with provincial and municipal governments, develop a national strategy to expand the network of Child Advocacy Centre models in communities across the country.121