Multidisciplinary Team

The Children’s Advocacy Center concept requires that a multi-disciplinary team, consisting of all community agencies / organizations that need to interview or interact with the child victim and non-offending family members, coordinate and conduct all of their intervention and investigation activities with the child at the child-friendly CAC facility, rather than dragging the child to multiple locations, for multiple interviews, with multiple people. Dove House’s multi-disciplinary team consists of: the four law enforcement agencies having jurisdiction in Iredell County (Sheriff’s Dept., Mooresville Police Dept., Statesville Police Dept., and the Troutman Police Dept.), Alexander County Sheriff's Dept., the District Attorney’s office, the Department of Social Services in both Iredell and Alexander Counties, medical and mental health personnel, and the Dove House staff.

Since Dove House opened in September 2002, our multi-disciplinary team (MDT) has operated under a jointly-developed Protocol in response to 100% of child sexual abuse reports in Iredell County.  In August 2005, we began also serving Alexander County.  Appropriate (jurisdictional) members of our MDT are gathered at Dove House each time a new report of child sexual abuse is received.  The child is interviewed at Dove House by our trained forensic interviewer, while the MDT team observes the interview via closed-circuit TV.  It is really a "team" interview, as the MDT has communication capability, through an earpiece, with the forensic interviewer, so that all disciplines’ requirements are met.  Every interview is videotaped; the videotape is available to be used in court if the case eventually goes to trial.

Our MDT meets bi-weekly to review all open Dove House cases.  These meetings keep all the team members informed about new information on each case, and allows the team to update their strategic direction on each case.  The information on each case shared across all disciplines represented on the MDT helps to reduce the amount of times family members’ lives are disrupted by the investigation since all team members are informed about what information has already been obtained.  Our case review meetings also ensure that no case, therefore no child, "falls through the cracks".  Our MDT also receives continuing training about the multi-disciplinary approach and other topics pertinent to addressing all aspects of a child sexual abuse intervention / investigation.

Beyond the obvious benefits of reducing trauma to child victims and their non-offending family members, the multi-disciplinary approach has also been proven to enhance prosecution against perpetrators.  Experiencing a less than 20% successful prosecution rate prior to Dove House, we are happy to report that we are now achieving about a 90% successful prosecution rate!  This is a direct result and benefit of the team approach through the multidisciplinary process of Children's Advocacy Centers!