The Amy Schultz Child Advocacy Center now has a part-time branch office in Centralia. Executive Director Michaelia Wharton says the office on West Broadway will be staffed initially only when interviewing young children about alleged physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect or witness to traumatic domestic violence incidents.
“We previously had a satellite office located in Carlyle,” Wharton said. “While it was a blessing to have and it was able to serve a lot of children, we noticed an increasing need to provide transportation options and different things for families to be able to transport from Centralia, either north to Clinton County or South to Mt. Vernon. Looking at the data, we quickly realized that the best way for us to meet the biggest need would be to locate ourselves in Centralia.”
Wharton explains what the office all includes:
“We have a forensic interview room. We have what’s called a Multidisciplinary Team observation room, or MDT observation room for short. That’s where law enforcement, child protection services and even prosecution can sit in there and watch an interview being done without a child having to sit in front of so many people,” Wharton said. “We have two different offices, whether that’s for an advocate or our hope is in the future there can maybe be a therapist in one of those. We also have a family room or client room for kids to be able to play and parents to be able to watch them. Of course, we also have two ADA bathrooms.”
Wharton says they will also be developing a staff break room. An area is also set aside for storage.
Centralia Police Chief Chris Locke is happy to have the resources in Centralia.
“It’s a lot closer for us,” Locke said. “It will allow us to interact with the staff on a more frequent basis and make it more convenient for the families in this area to get the services that they need.”
Founder Dennis Schultz is pleased to see the new office open and is looking forward to it being open full-time.
Wharton says in the last fiscal year Marion County had the most referrals at 137. Jefferson County was second at 89 referrals. Wayne County had 59, Clinton County 42, Washington County 41, Clay County 17 and Hamilton County 13. Overall, there were 406 referrals. More than four-thousand kids were reached through presentations at schools in the seven county area.
Wharton is also on track to have the highest number of referrals again this fiscal year with 80 cases through the first three quarters of this fiscal year.
Marion County had the most referrals last fiscal year out of the seven counties they service. 137 of the total 406 referrals came from Marion County.
