Prior to 2007, a child who disclosed a sexual assault in Bristol County faced a gauntlet that would unnerve most adults.
Depending on who first received the allegation, a social worker, school guidance counselor or another adult would interview the child. The Massachusetts Department of Social Services — now called the Department of Children and Families — would conduct an interview. Local police detectives would also talk to the child during their own investigation.
“The best practice is one interaction, rather than multiple layers of interviews where the victim is re-victimized,” Fall River Police Chief Daniel S. Racine said this past Wednesday while commending the Children’s Advocacy Center of Bristol County.
Racine called the CAC’s multi-disciplinary team model of interviewing young abuse victims to be the “absolute best process.”
“I just think it’s the best model,” Racine said. “The Children’s Advocacy Center is one of our most valuable partners.”
Since opening its doors in 2007, the CAC has handled 2,547 cases of reported child abuse, physical and sexual, in Bristol County. In the last two years, the majority of the CAC’s cases have originated from Fall River, said Michelle Loranger, the executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Center.
In fiscal 2013, the CAC handled 143 child abuse cases from Fall River and in fiscal 2012, the CAC saw 115 cases from the Spindle City, Loranger said.
Greater Fall River — which includes Fall River, Freetown, Westport, Somerset and Swansea — also comprised 44 percent of all the CAC’s cases through the first three quarters of fiscal 2014.
“Consistently, we see urban settings in Bristol County making up a significant number of the total cases,” Loranger said. “But we also know that child sexual abuse knows no socio-economic bounds.”
The statistics are staggering. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that about 1 in 6 boys, and 1 in 4 girls, are sexually abused before the age of 18. Through the third quarter of fiscal 2014, the CAC has received 136 cases of child abuse in Fall River.
“From when we opened our doors in 2007 to the close of fiscal year 2013, we’ve had a 59 percent increase in cases,” Loranger said, adding that the increase is driven by more reports of sexual abuse. The numbers may be increasing as people become educated and feel more comfortable to report child physical and sexual abuse.
“We’ve done lots of outreach education in Fall River,” Loranger said. “People knowing that there’s a place that will assist them with the process and that will make it as best as possible, I’d like to think that is a contributing factor.”
Tucked away in its newly renovated offices on Arch Street, away from its former busy location in the Cherry and Webb building on South Main Street, the current CAC facility is colorful, quiet, and intended to be a low-stimulus, comforting environment for young children and teenagers.
“What we’re asking them to talk about is hard enough,” Loranger said.
The youths meet with a forensic interviewer who, Loranger said, is trained to conduct the interview with a neutral, fact-finding line of questioning. Meanwhile, in another room, police detectives, prosecutors, social workers, health and mental service providers, and victim witness advocates observe the interview on a television monitor. They relay follow-up questions to the forensic interviewer, who wears an ear-piece.
“We do it this way so it’s not overwhelming for the child,” Loranger said. “While they’re talking about the dramatic event that’s happened to them, they don’t have to be in room with a cast of thousands that need the information.”
The team approach to interviewing the victim benefits victims and law enforcement much more than past practices, said Assistant District Attorney Silvia Rudman, the chief of the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office’s Special Victims Unit.
“We have more information, and a healthier, well-informed victim,” Rudman said. “It’s a much more holistic approach. It’s more humane.”
The CAC concept originated in the 1980s in Alabama. Former U.S. Rep. Robert E. “Bud” Cramer, who was then a district attorney, sought to create a better model after a child sexual case he prosecuted collapsed because the young victim had been interviewed several times by investigators who used adult interrogation methods.
“Victims would be interviewed in hospital emergency rooms, the back of police cruisers, in the chaos of a child welfare office,” Loranger said. “Folks didn’t know how to interview children in a way that was developmentally appropriate.”
For the first year and a half after it opened, the CAC gathered together the agencies normally involved in investigating child abuse cases to hash out protocols and best practices based on national accreditation guidelines. For example, police detectives, if they are the first ones to receive a complaint, will only gather the minimal facts needed to notify the Department of Children and Families and set up the forensic interview at the CAC.
While the child is being interviewed, the CAC’s mental health service coordinator meets with relatives to provide supportive services and crisis intervention when needed. The CAC also tracks the cases and keeps in contact with the victims’ families to inform them of the investigative process and help provide any needed supportive services.
“The Children’s Advocacy Center is an important part of the process,” Rudman said.
Loranger and the CAC are also engaged in community outreach and education. The month of April provides another opportunity to raise awareness in that the city of Fall River has proclaimed it Sexual Assault Awareness Month and Child Abuse Prevention Month. Loranger likened the increased spotlight on child sexual abuse to public information campaigns against drunken driving.
“You hear more talk of child sexual abuse in 2013 and 2014, then you ever did in 2007 and 2008,” Loranger said, adding that more work remains to be done.
Loranger said she still receives several phone calls from people asking her questions about how to navigate a child sexual abuse disclosure that has yet to be made, or to pinpoint a deficiency in the system that a victim experienced after coming forward.
“It just highlights for me how under-reported this issue is,” Loranger said. “So many people approach me and share stories of how this has impacted their families.”