CityView Magazine

Above | The murals at the Child Advocacy Center are much more than decoration – they are tools used to investigate cases of child abuse. Fayetteville. The center almost looks more like a colorful playground with its bright walls and murals. A chorus of painted zoo animals greets visitors – lounging alligators to a lion king. “The minute the child comes in, I take them by the hand and walk them up the steps, and they start talking,” says Detective Scott Wells of the Fay- etteville Police Department. “It’s like you’re their best friend. It’s this place. It’s child friendly.” The Child Advocacy Center was born in 1993. Before, children who had been abused were forced to tell their stories over and over, to teachers, social work- ers, police officers and lawyers. Each time was a new trauma. The CAC was designed to give children a safe place to tell their story only once. Before long, members of the Junior League of Fayetteville adopted the center as a sig- nature project, obtained a building and painted the murals. Now, those murals are much more than decoration – they are tools used by 64|Winter 2008/2009 forensic interviewers. And behind the scenes, a team of workers come together to help a single child, a group made up of workers from the CAC, city police de- partment, county sheriff’s department, the offices of the district attorney and medical examiner and others. “The multidisciplinary team is the Child Advocacy Center,” Laurence said. “It’s not the building, it’s a concept. We all have a role to play. “We see the worst of the worst.” That’s why the CAC also works to prevent child abuse. Programs include: Darkness 2 Light, a program geared toward child sexual abuse prevention. The CAC recently received a grant from the Children’s Trust Fund to take their Darkness 2 Light program into Cumber- land County schools. The Period of PURPLE Crying targets the shaken baby syndrome by send- ing two registered nurses to help new parents. The CAC is one of the 22 accred- ited child advocacy centers in North Carolina. And Laurence says there is much the community can do to help. “We cannot give the child their in- nocence back, it’s gone,” she said. “Not only do they lose their innocence, but we lose our innocence because we are changed by what we see. “I think all of us can do something, I really do. That’s what gives me the hope.”CV

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