Clark County, Nev. at forefront of helping abused kids

Key Takeaways

The following was submitted by Clark County, Nev., host of the 2019 NACo Annual Conference, set for July 12-15.

One in five girls and one in 20 boys will be the victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation.  The abuse these children endure can cause them to feel guilt, shame and to distrust adults.

If the children do not talk about the abuse they have suffered, our community’s ability to protect child victims and stop the cycle of abuse is greatly diminished.

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Southern Nevada Children’s Advocacy Center

Before the Southern Nevada Children’s Advocacy Center (SNCAC) was established by Clark County, sexual abuse and exploitation investigations were handled in a way that made the process more challenging for these children because the children would go to multiple locations, telling their story to various service providers including law enforcement, Child Protective Services and medical personnel. Children would have to repeat traumatic and embarrassing details over and over again to different strangers. This was not good for the children and not good for their cases.

The SNCAC seeks to make this process easier on the children and their families. The SNCAC houses a team including child protection workers, law enforcement officers, medical providers, prosecutors, family/victim advocates, forensic interviewers and mental health professionals.  This team works collaboratively to provide a safe, child-friendly environment and to minimize the number of times the child must tell their story.

In 2017, in response to a growing national and local awareness around sex trafficking of children as a public health and safety concern, the SNCAC created a specialized team to meet this need.

The SNCAC took its expertise in preventing sexual abuse and exploitation intervention and fine-tuned its approach to better meet the needs of this population.

Like child victims of sexual abuse, child victims of sex trafficking need to be made comfortable to tell their story so that they can be better protected and so that they can be connected with the service providers that can best help them overcome the trauma they have suffered.

The children need to tell their stories so that their abusers can be held accountable. As this sex trafficking victim response is an emerging field, the SNCAC is at the forefront of innovation as our community learns more and more about how to identify and respond to help these children.