By Kasey Fowler, Staff Writer
Garfield County Child Advocacy Center and the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program have been helping abused children since 2001.
Since the beginning, Carole Wade, local advocacy center executive director, has been there helping.
“We’ve been here since June 2001. We’ve been working on it since 1997. I was a planner before I was hired. The board at CDSA let me bring the CASA program to the Child Advocacy Center,” said Wade.
Child Advocacy Center representatives help children from the moment abuse becomes known.
“We can go from when the child admits abuse all the way though court involvement to reunification with the family. When a child discloses sexual abuse it isn’t usually a violent rape that we usually think of. There are several steps someone goes through to groom the children. They want it to be ongoing,” said Wade.
Garfield County Child Advocacy Center is the only center in the state to go through the whole process with the child.
“We are the only ones in the state to have the reunification house with the Child Advocacy Center. We are the only advocacy center that goes from reporting to court to reunification,” said Wade.
Children who have been abused are taken to a house, next to the center, which has been designed specifically with their needs in mind, to speak with officials.
“The setting is very comfortable. We want it to be like going to grandma’s house. There are lots of stuffed toys. We made a place where it is safe and sound for them to tell the horrible things that happened to them, and they only have to tell it once. It preserves that interview. We have an observation area connected to the interview rooms,” said Wade. “You use different techniques to interview a child to get evidence than to interrogate a person to get them to admit a bad thing. We have some good interviewing people. It is very important for them to have a good repertoire with the child. I’ve seen them on the floor playing with cars. They do lots of picture drawing.”
CASA representatives play a big role. They are trained to volunteers who want to help the children.
“CASA is all volunteers. These are people who the majority are employed full-time. They find six to 10 hours a month to volunteer. These are people who want to help children. We’ve trained 168 people to be CASAs. We will be swearing in 11 new volunteers soon,” said Wade.
Wade said the volunteers are highly trained to help the kids.
“Your training goes with you wherever you go. You spend 40 hours in training, three hours every Thursday and eight hours on a Saturday. It is neat to see a nurse next to an accountant. They are using their own life experiences. We all have values. We don’t want to lose them, but we don’t want to make everyone have them. I grew up in a family where there was no question I was going to college, but I may be working with someone who is just working on getting their kids to school tomorrow,” said Wade.
CASA volunteers often are present during the interview and throughout the process to help these children.
“We supervise them every month. The court requires written reports from them. They have to visit the kids at least once a month. We go to court with them. We sit with them and are there with them if they have to testify,” said Wade.
Wade said the most important thing for her is keeping kids safe.
“The whole point is to protect the child, get them the best help and keep them safe,” said Wade. “Everybody has the responsibility to report anything they think might be child abuse.”
