In February of 2001, a small group of six volunteers formed a Steering Committee for the purpose of creating a Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) in Iredell County, North Carolina. This action was compelled upon discovery of multiple incidents of sexual assault against the 4-year-old son (by a neighbor) of one of our Committee members, which was responded to in an uncoordinated, less-than-satisfactory manner from many well-intended agencies within our community. Through research, our Steering Committee learned of the CAC concept and discovered that Children’s Advocacy Centers across the country have largely eliminated the problem of uncoordinated, less-than-effective response to rising incidents of child sexual assault. This small group of concerned citizens immediately developed a 3-phase Implementation Strategy, confirming their determination to strive for the development of Dove House, a CAC for Iredell County. Statistical research at that time revealed to us that in the year 2000, in Iredell County alone, there were 153 reported cases of sexual assault against our children, where the perpetrator was the parent or caretaker of the child. This disturbing statistic did not include incidents where the perpetrator was not a family member. We discovered that statistics on cases involving non-family member perpetrators were not accessible in our county, so we also became determined to become a central repository for child abuse related data for Iredell County.
The Dove House Steering Committee spent many weeks in the spring of 2001 meeting with top county officials to confirm the need for, and assess the support of, a Children’s Advocacy Center. Our first meeting was with our District Attorney of the NC 22nd Judicial District, whose positive endorsement propelled all of our other meetings with top agency executives. With our DA’s leading sponsorship, our executive meetings culminated in the Steering Committee’s hosting of an Interagency Forum on May 16, 2001, and, based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback from this Forum, by early Fall 2001, it resulted in the execution of an Interagency Agreement, signed by the highest management level in the District Attorney’s office, the Department of Social Services, four (4) law enforcement agencies, and many other medical and mental health agencies. Multi-disciplinary commitment was now in place. The consistent support of the creation of Dove House made it abundantly clear that this community was ready, willing and able to dramatically improve our response to victims of child sexual abuse. We occupied a leased facility in July 2002; opened our doors and began receiving clients in September 2002.
In 2005 we were approached by several community agencies in neighboring Alexander County, and soon after we began officially serving clients in Alexander County as well as Iredell County.
In 2006 our Board of Directors met a medium-term goal by purchasing land in Statesville on which we intended to eventually build, and own, a new facility that would be designed specifically to meet the needs of our clients, our staff, and the multiple MDT (multidisciplinary team) members of our partner agencies. In 2008 construction began, and in November 2009 we occupied our current "miracle house" -- made possible only by the gracious and overwhelmingly generous support of the community that we serve. Lead by the amazing Spivey Construction company, donations poured in and by the time we occupied our current 6,400 square foot facility, it was 93% paid for through massive donations of labor, materials and cash support.
