With the belief that every child deserves a chance to have a happy and safe childhood, the Red River Children’s Advocacy Center is helping so many children in our community with that very goal.

In 2021 alone, the center served over 700 children referred to them through allegations of sexual or physical abuse, neglect, or exploitation. Staff there worked every day to provide hope and healing through interviews and mental health, medical, and victim advocacy services. Non-offending caregivers are connected with a family advocate and resources to support the child.

A core function of the center is to use a trained and trauma-informed interviewer so that the child only has to tell their story once. Then, a team of medical professionals, law enforcement, prosecution, child protective services, victim advocacy and more, come together to decide how to best help the child. This means a vulnerable child doesn’t have to rehash their trauma multiple times.

This sharing of expertise and resources is called the multidisciplinary team and is at the heart of the work of the Red River Children’s Advocacy Center.

The center hosts orientations for new members of their partner agencies to share why their approach is best for both victims and for creating further safety for our community.

The Red River Children’s Advocacy Center has added a mental health team that is dedicated to providing free assessments and evidence-based therapies that are otherwise not available in the community. Even prior to the pandemic, it started the journey to removing the barriers of telehealth services, and since has trained other agencies nationwide to do the same.

It is the only local agency providing group treatment for youth struggling with problematic sexual behavior, and recently trained to expand the age group served with the model. It also expanded programming by adding a full-time, in-house family advocate to offer support to families before they even step foot in their doors.

The agency recognizes the toll chronic exposure to child abuse has on staff, so it made great efforts to provide training, support, and tools, to help the helpers of the community.

To prevent children from being abused in the first place, it has partnered with Dakota Medical Foundation to build curriculum that will bring child sexual abuse prevention education to every corner of the community. It also hosts an annual child maltreatment conference, provides donations of clothing, toys, and blankets to those served, and participates in numerous local events.

Thanks to the caring work of this area non-profit, many children in our community have the chance at living the life they’ve always deserved.