Dove House Children's Advocacy Center is a non-profit organization that provides a safe and child-friendly facility from which a multidisciplinary team works together to support the investigation, intervention and successful prosecution of reported child sexual abuse cases in Iredell and Alexander Counties, North Carolina.  Our existence eliminates the need for traumatized child victims, and their non-offending family members, to go to multiple "scary" locations (such as police stations, District Attorney offices, hospitals, child protective services offices, etc.) for interviews and medical examinations.  All of the treatment and investigative activity takes place in Dove House's loving, non-threatening "home" environment, with the professional team members coming to the child instead of the child being taken to them.  One of the most important things we do is ensure that the child and non-offending family members are referred into appropriate therapy so that their healing process can begin.

When we receive a report of child sexual abuse, our goals are to protect the child from further harm, to minimize further trauma to the child, to ensure the child and non-offending family members receive appropriate therapy and intervention services, to protect society from the offender, and to assist in holding the offender accountable for his or her actions.  These goals require the involvement of many different community agencies and professionals.  Representatives from social services, legal, law enforcement, medical and mental health must respond to child sexual abuse cases with different roles in the investigation and intervention process.  The Dove House Children’s Advocacy Center model is designed to enhance coordination between these community agencies and professionals involved in this process.  This model promotes better understanding of and respect for one another’s roles and expertise, strengthens informed case management decisions, and most importantly, is designed to minimize the trauma which children and their non-offending family members can suffer during the investigation and intervention process.

Dove House Children’s Advocacy Center embraces a coordinated, comprehensive and systematic approach, which is child-focused, family-friendly, community-oriented and facility-based.  We are a resource designed to enhance the coordination among existing community agencies involved in the investigation and intervention process, while keeping the well being of the child as our central focus.  We exist in order to:

• Provide a child-friendly facility where investigation and intervention activities take place so that further trauma to child victims and non-offending family members is minimized;

• Facilitate investigations with all involved community professionals from initial case assessment to final disposition, with the goal of enhancing the legal system towards more successful prosecutions;

• Promote therapeutic interventions for child victims and their families in order to maximize their progress towards healing;

• Provide the child and non-offending family members with support and consistency in case activities, including the criminal prosecution process and overall case follow-up communications;

• Mobilize and train community agencies and professionals to better serve child victims of sexual assault;

• Maintain a central repository for all data concerning child sexual abuse in Iredell and Alexander Counties through maintenance of a child-focused data tracking system.

Last modified: June 10, 2009

© 2005 Dove House Children's Advocacy Center