SEARCY — Searcy’s new child-advocacy center looks a lot like home. Its blue-and-white exterior pops with a yellow front door, and inside, playrooms filled with games, colorful chairs and artwork create an atmosphere to fulfill the center’s mission of empowering and protecting White County youth.
The White County Child Safety Center works with abused children ages 3 to 18, most of whom have experienced sexual abuse, to guide them through the investigative process and trauma therapy. The Child Safety Center staff moved into its new facility July 5.
“The biggest thing the new facility does for us is it allows us to have more kids than we were able to in our old location,” Executive Director Robin Connell said. “We were in a very small space before. Obviously, the nature of what we do is very confidential, so you can’t have families interacting with each other, overlapping like you would in a doctor’s office, where they all sit in the same waiting room — you can’t have that.”
On Sept. 16, the center will celebrate its grand opening at 10 a.m. with Arkansas first lady Susan Hutchinson as the featured speaker. The center will be open to the public at noon and will give locals a chance to tour the grounds.
“She’s very passionate,” Connell said of Hutchinson. “She used to be a board member of an advocacy center. So she’s very supportive and vocal about the need for advocacy centers across the state.”
There are 14 child safety centers across the state, and the center in Searcy serves Cleburne, Independence, Jackson, Stone, White and Woodruff counties.
The center applied for a grant through the Arkansas Economic Development Commission two years ago to aid in the construction of the new facility. The project cost $750,000, with the AEDC grant covering $200,000, the county and city each donating $100,000 and a portion raised by the organization. The center owes about $150,000 on the building, Connell said.
Ann Robertson, a board member, said the center assists children with coping with their experiences.
“Studies show that children who are able to tell their story, get it out, deal with it are much better off than those that have to keep reliving it,” she said.
The center includes pediatric sexual-assault nurse/examiners, advocates who are social workers or psychologists, a licensed certified social worker and a certified forensic interviewer.
“If your kid has come to the Child Safety Center, then something bad has possibly happened to them,” Connell said. “We want to now use our voice and our resources to work on the prevention side of things, too, so they don’t have to come to the center. I think the new building is going to help in a lot of different ways.”
Every child who receives help from the center is involved in an official investigation with local law enforcement and the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children Division. The new facility includes enough rooms to handle medical exams, child forensic interviews and child therapy in separate spots in the building.
“Their first time that they’re here is usually for a forensic interview and possibly a medical exam,” Connell said. “We want to try to do all of the things at one time, if we can, to save them from having to come back multiple times. But really, our first priority is what’s in the child’s best interest. So if it’s in their best interest to break things up in multiple visits, then that’s what we’ll do. If we think it’s best to do it all in one time and get it over with, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Because the center’s previous location was a home built in the 1940s, many people were surprised that the center held medical exams there, and some children asked Connell if she slept there. Connell said the current center has more professionalism to it, yet the homelike atmosphere helps put kids at ease when they step through the door frame.
“That’s what you want it to be — a safe place for children as they come in and feel comfortable and pick up on that spirit of safety,” Robertson said.
The White County Child Safety Center is involved with about 350 child investigations per year.
“That doesn’t capture every kid that comes back for therapy all the time and comes back for follow-up services,” Connell said. “That’s what this location allows us to do. We’re still serving the same amount of investigations, but some of those kids are able to have a full-time therapist here that can have those kids come back for therapy services.”
Connell said she looks forward to reaching more children in the new center.
“It’s a lot of kids that we need to serve in our community, so being able to have a facility to properly do that and care for them properly — I think is a huge win for me and our staff here,” Connell said.
Staff writer Syd Hayman can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or shayman@arkansasonline.com.