Identifying Successes and Barriers in a Child Advocacy Center: An Examination of Five Service Areas

Abstract

Despite widespread support for coordinated responses to child maltreatment, little research examines the successes and barriers faced by child advocacy centers (CACs). The current study examines perspectives on program operations within a large CAC in the Midwest across 14 focus groups, including both internal CAC staff (N = 32) and external agency partners (N = 37). Universal successes and barriers were identified across all service areas. Still, the findings indicate a need to also consider the unique factors affecting each service area. The importance of these findings is discussed for those working in arenas that provide services to youth and families exposed to trauma.

Keywords:

• Childhood maltreatment
• evaluability assessment
• external agency partners
• focus group sessions
• internal agency staff

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the CAC Executive Leadership and staff, as well as external agency partners, for their support, effort, and responses, which provide the data analyzed here. We would also like to thank the entire data and research team at Project Harmony, Dr. Debra Anderson, Dr. Megan Davidson, and Michaela Ring for their support in the implementation of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by Award No. 2019-V3-GX-0007, awarded by the National Institute of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice.