ESCANABA, MI-- A partnership between the Delta County Prosecutor’s Office and health and law enforcement agencies is looking to establish a Child Advocacy Center in the area.
Prosecutor Philip Strom says the center would offer child victims different services—like a family advocate, therapist, and forensic interviewer—under one roof. Strom says it would bring services to the child instead of asking them to go to several different facilities in the course of an investigation.
“We have to ask that child and that family to go to Child Protective Services, and then possibly to go to the law enforcement agency, and then maybe go to the hospital or to the mental health provider—community mental health providing facility, then come to the Prosecutor’s Office,” he says.
The project is spearheaded by the Northern Michigan Mobile Child Advocacy Center nonprofit group, which is using a nearly $500,000 grant to establish the center in a centralized and non-threatening location.
Strom says the team is working on hiring professionals, updating county child abuse interviewing protocol, and finding the best building site. It will give a presentation on the project to the County Board of Commissioners on December 19.
