photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Executive director Bev Turner explains the monitoring system used by law enforcement to watch forensic interviews with children who have been abused on April 1, 2025 at the Child Advocacy Center.

In isolation, children can suffer at the hands of abusers. But in the process of bringing those abusers to justice, isolation can play a key role too.

Children who have been the victim of sexual abuse or other trauma need a place to tell their stories in a protected environment, removed from the eyes and ears of anyone who might hurt them while advocates and law enforcement watch from afar.

Locally, the professionals often providing that protected environment are from the Children’s Advocacy Center in Douglas County. The interviewer who is in that room with a traumatized child can make a huge difference in whether a case gets resolved or remains unsolved.

But who is not in the room can also make a difference. Police officers and parents often aren’t in the room when a child is providing an account of the abuse. Often, interviews are conducted by a CAC staff member while law enforcement watches via video from another room along with another advocate. The law enforcement officer can communicate with the interviewer when necessary to ask follow-up or clarifying questions to get the whole story.

The process is designed to produce a thorough, accurate account that eliminates the need for the child to tell the story over and over again. Hopefully, the interview serves as the seed for a new relationship that the child can have with an adult they can trust.

Bev Turner, executive director for the CAC, said her organization can have long-term relationships with the children and their families.

“On average, it’s a year to two years for it to kind of go the whole cycle, but we will stay with the family, so there’s no time frame if they’re still needing therapy support,” Turner said.

Working with partners

At its core, the center conducts forensic interviews in a way that avoids leading questions with children who have been sexually or physically abused to find the truth of what happened, Turner said, but that’s far from the only thing the center does.

Turner started her work with the Douglas County Child Advocacy Center in 2021 and, since then, has made herself and her staff available to hundreds of crime victims and their families. She said the CAC offers holistic support to its clients from the moment a child reports sexual abuse, sooner if possible, through the years that follow.

“We’re doing a lot of information gathering from our partners so they can do their important work, but helping make sure that the family’s questions are getting answered to alleviate concerns,” Turner said.

The CAC also works alongside the Lawrence Police Department, the Kansas Department for Children and Families, the Douglas County District Attorney’s Office and numerous other organizations to walk families through the legal process and the fallout from sexual or physical abuse. They help pay for therapy and transportation and help families prepare for court hearings.

“We get to meet with the family, talk them through the process and explain what’s going to happen, what to expect. We provide mental health resources, and if a medical referral is necessary, we make those referrals. As far as if their criminal case is going to go forward, we’re also able to go to court with them,” Turner said.

Sgt. Jamie Lawson with the Lawrence Police Department’s Special Victims Unit has been working on child sex crime cases since 2006. He said while the Lawrence police have always had an excellent team working on these types of cases, the CAC has enhanced their ability to investigate crimes and support families.

photo by: Lawrence Police Department

Sgt. Jamie Lawson speaks at a ceremony recognizing Child Abuse Prevention Month on April 2, 2024, at Lawrence Police Department headquarters, 5100 Overland Drive.

“These guys are accessible to us 24/7 and it is not uncommon for Bev to answer the phone at nine o’clock at night and it may be something that we need it now, and the CAC has always come through in accommodating and putting those things first,” Lawson said.

He said the center takes care of things that might previously have taken a backseat to the officers’ work investigating, following up with victims and their families.

“(Officers) would go through the judicial process. It would affect us, it would be saddening, but we kind of had that one goal, and that was like to prove the case. One thing that was missing from that process is to have somebody to kind of provide them resources and advocacy throughout that process,” Lawson said.

Turner said that interviews are conducted by their staff in a bright room with toys and couches while law enforcement and another advocate watch via video from another room and communicate with the interviewer remotely. She said the parents are usually kept in a separate waiting room.

Lawson said the CAC provides a way for children to avoid the difficult task of telling the same traumatic story over and over again to police, school counselors, child welfare officers and others. Instead, a single interview is conducted and recorded, which can then be reviewed and preserved.

While the interview is designed to reduce trauma for the child, the information learned can produce extreme urgency for law enforcement and others hearing the information for the first time. As officers learn more about the allegations, which usually involve someone the child knows, the next consideration is to protect the child from additional harm.

“Everything’s triaged as to the safety risk of the child involved. A lot of the perpetrators are an acquaintance or family member, somebody that lives in the same household, and you kind of have to triage at first,” Lawson said.

That proximity to a child and the nature of the allegations may lead officers to arrest an individual sooner rather than later during the investigation, Lawson said.

Turner said when conducting interviews and working with families, the child’s and family’s privacy is paramount for the center.

“If we were to serve multiple kids that were on a related case, all of those things are completely separate appointments, completely separate times. Families are not overlapping time that they’re seen at the CAC, so they don’t know who else has been served,” Turner said.

‘We need a CAC’

One of the founders of the CAC, retired Douglas County Judge Paula Martin, said that she only realized the need for the center after she had already left the bench in 2019.

“I heard the child abuse cases, and I had never heard of a Children’s Advocacy Center,” she said. “And about a week after I retired, I was at the Ballard Center, and the director there said, ‘I have some concerns about some kids in our preschool, and we need a CAC.'”

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Douglas County, at that time, was one of eleven counties in Kansas that was not served by a CAC, and Martin, along with others, worked for the next two years to find the funds and people to establish one in Douglas County. She said there are a lot of “quiet” residents in Douglas County who put their money on the line to make sure the CAC got off the ground to begin helping people.

“We just started reading and digging and educating ourselves, and it took two years to get everybody at the table, and then we hired Bev, our first and only executive director,” Martin said.

The CAC is a nonprofit organization that is funded through various means, including state and federal dollars. Turner said that the City of Lawrence initially paid a significant sum to help fund the center but has since shifted its priorities, and the county has stepped in to help. She said despite the grants and money from official sources that pay for day-to-day operations, the center relies heavily on donations for some of its more vital work, like paying for children and their families to attend therapy.

Martin said the difference between donations and grants or state funding is that donations don’t have limits on how they can be used.

“Private donations are unrestricted. Most of the others that you get is targeted. You can use it for this, you can use it for that, but what about this?” Martin said.

Turner said that just recently a grant that was paying for therapy for children ended, and the center has relied solely on donations ever since to pay for that service. She said that most grants are on a clock, and after so many years, the center has to reapply and usually use the money for a different resource or service. She said that in some cases, families have their own insurance to pay for therapy, but more often they don’t.

The CAC received a grant for this year that allowed it to hire a new advocate, bringing their team count from two to three full-time staff members.

“We ask what else could we do to serve this family or is there something that they need that we just haven’t thought of. You know, is there a basic need that’s not being met that makes it difficult for them to come to appointments or to go to therapy,” Turner said.

The court process is rife with emotional turmoil and uncertainty for both victims and their families, with some court cases lasting for years with numerous hearings that the families may want or need to be present for.

“On average, it’s a year to two years for it to kind of go the whole cycle, but we will stay with the family, so there’s no time frame if they’re still needing therapy support,” Turner said.

The center’s advocates are also there when a child may find themselves alone during the court process.

“The unique thing that happens is that you can have their whole support system on the witness list and be subpoenaed and not be able to be there with them during the day or in the courtroom when they’re going through something,” Turner said.

Turner said the center may not be able to prepare them outright for what happens on the witness stand. She said that a child testifying about some horrible thing that happened to them may need the assurance of a kind and familiar face to continue.

Prevention

The CAC also wants to serve the community in a preventative role, Turner said, including helping partners talk to kids about issues and problematic behaviors.

“We want families to know that they can (call), and caregivers that they can call with … those types of questions too. There’s a lot of conversation about that, what’s developmentally appropriate at different ages. We don’t want the community to just wait until there’s a issue or a safety concern to call,” Turner said.

She said the center can also help children who are exhibiting inappropriate sexual behaviors and prevent any criminal behavior that could lead to long-term consequences for those in the family.

Turner said she encourages Douglas County residents to reach out to the center whenever they might have questions about their children. She said those who want to get involved and help raise money and awareness for the center should attend the center’s trivia fundraiser on April 14, at 6 p.m. at Sunflower Outdoor and Bike Shop, 804 Massachusetts St. Participants can register and learn more at cacdouglas.org or call 785-592-3160.