Comment on Cross, Fine, Jones, and Walsh (2012): Do Mental Health Professionals Who Serve on/with Child Advocacy Centers Experience Role Conflict?

Abstract

Cross, Fine, Jones, and Walsh's (2012) article “Mental Health Professionals in Children's Advocacy Centers: Is There Role Conflict?” challenges two recent publications' criticisms that child advocacy centers create role conflict for mental health professionals and explains how child advocacy centers actually work, describing the different roles for mental health professionals who participate in them. This commentary points out that more precise data would have helped to specifically address the critics' concerns. Furthermore, professional ethics and licensure issues may have served as an additional but unacknowledged check on the “spillover effect” that the critics have alleged comes with being associated with prosecution. This commentary also highlights three main strengths of the Cross and colleagues' article.

Keywords:

• child advocacy centers
• role conflict
• mental health professionals

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Colleen Friend

Colleen Friend, PhD, LCSW, is the director of the CSULA Child Sexual Abuse and Family Violence Institute in Los Angeles, California. She was the past director of both the Los Angeles County Child Abuse Crisis Center and Stuart House.