Good morning.

I'm Amy Peck, Chair of the Committee.

We are going to get started.

We are joined today by staff from Councilmember Mayor Pro Tem Cassatum's office, Councilmember Castillo's office, Councilmember Alcorn's office, Councilmember Martinez's office, Councilmember Ramirez's office, and Vice Chair Jackson's office.

And we have one presentation today.

It will be the Children's Assessment Center.

And before the presentation, we have Carrie McCracken, the executive director who'd like to say a few words.

Thank you for being here today.

Good morning.

Good morning.

If you could step in front of one of the giving this opportunity this morning, I am not going to say much because I want our whole allotment of time to be uh for these guys to give you a presentation today.

But you know, child sexual abuse in our community is a big issue.

It's not one that a lot of people want to hear about, not one a lot of people want to talk about.

So, you know, here in Houston and Harris County, we have this wonderful resource, which is the Children's Assessment Center, which is their safe haven for the healing and the restoring families back back to normal after this horrible thing has happened.

So today we have uh Dr.

Brian Gibson, our director of training and education, and Tanae Davis, our director of partner relations, who's going to give you a little presentation, uh tell you a little bit more about what we do.

Um it's hard to get a lot done in 20 minutes, so please know.

We also have Karen Connard with us today, who is our assistant director.

Um, you can call any of us anytime.

If you have questions, things you want to hear more about, you want to bring people over for the tour, anything you need, please consider us that resource.

And again, thank you so much for giving us this platform to share our message.

Thank you so much.

Staff from Councilman Carter's office.

We also have staff from Councilmember Carter's office online.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

And we are ready whenever you are.

Stand.

Or sit, which do you prefer?

We can lower it if you want to sit.

Uh standing of the case.

So okay, we can raise it up a little bit.

It's good.

Thank you.

All right.

My name is Tanae Davis.

I'm the director of partner relations with the Children's Assessment Center.

And my name is Dr.

Brian Gibson.

I'm the director of training and education.

Thank you for having us this morning.

All right.

I want to focus our time this morning with our mission at the CAC.

The mission of the CAC is to provide a professional, compassionate and coordinated approach to the treatment of sexual abuse children and their families and to serve as an advocate for all children in our community.

CACs were started in 1985 in Huntsville, Alabama.

And before CACs were started, when a child made an outcry of abuse, they had to go to multiple locations to tell that story and speak with multiple professionals, such as police officers, CPS workers.

And so that would result in re-victimizing, re-traumatizing that child.

And so CACs were created to help mitigate that re-traumatization and to make for more effective and um collaborative uh case investigation.

And so in the state of Texas, we have 70 CACs, 70 advocacy centers, and nationwide we have 1,000.

And so in 2024, over 60,000 children received critical services at a Texas CAC.

And here is Harris County.

We served just over 78 children and families.

And so we are located in Rice Village.

We were established in 1991 to establish a safe haven for child abuse sexual survivors and their families.

We're accredited through CACs of Texas and the National Children's Alliance.

Next slide.

So we have two primary goals at the advocacy centers.

Our first goal speaks to our children and families and ensuring that we're not re-victimizing them and also helping them support their healing process.

And then our second goal speaks to our multidisciplinary team.

And so at the CAC, we work together with our partners to have a multidisciplinary team that can collaborate and communicate and make sure that we're getting justice for our families and also working towards that healing process.

The strongest teams are the ones that can focus on both of those goals at the same time and put all their efforts towards that.

CACs must be child friendly.

We must co-locate with partners.

We also should offer training for our professionals and also ensure that we have a collaborative and coordinated approach to our child cases and our investigation, both in civil and criminal cases.

Next slide.

All right, so we offer many services, and some of our core services is that forensic interview, medical evaluation, mental health services, children's court services, children's and volunteer services, and training and outreach.

Next slide, please.

And so we say MDT a lot, but it means multidisciplinary team.

And so our multidisciplinary team is made up of our partner agencies.

So we have 60 partner agencies who all fall into one of the categories on the screen.

That includes law enforcement, medical, legal, so both criminal and civil legal attorney's offices, as well as our forensic interviews, therapy and psych services, child protective services.

And the purpose of the multidisciplinary team is to have trauma informed care services surrounding those children and families and ensuring that they're collaborating, communicating, and coordinating throughout that case, speaking to each other, making sure that everyone's aware of the next steps and where they are in that investigation.

Next slide.

So we do partner with several agencies, and we all work together to address the needs of sexually abused children.

All of our partners fall under one of these three categories that's investigation, legal, and service providers.

Next slide, please.

And so we are co-located at the Children's Assessment Center with multiple agencies.

Our biggest law enforcement agencies are HPD and the Sheriff's Office.

We also have the Internet Crimes Against Children Metro Task Force in our building as well.

We have Pasadena PD and Baytown PD who also co-locate, but they are a little bit smaller of our partners.

And then our biggest civil partner is the Department of Family and Protective Services, or CPS.

Next slide.

So Texas Family Code states that we are to partner with agencies who investigate abuse and neglect within our jurisdiction.

And so we have over 60 partners.

And as you can see here, the investigative agencies are listed there, various school district police departments across Harris County, police departments across Harris County.

And then on the next slide, we have our legal partners and then service providers.

Next slide.

And so before a case can be presented to the district attorney's office, there must be a criminal investigation of fact-finding.

So law enforcement basically must complete an investigation for the criminal aspect.

And so that fact-finding investigation starts off with that child's disclosure.

That can be to the officer or that can be during the forensic interview.

And in a second, we're going to kind of go through the process of the forensic interviews that we offer at our facility.

During that criminal investigation, the officer is obtaining evidence.

And so evidence can be witness statements, social media posts, text messages, physical evidence, it can be pictures, things like that.

Also, the suspect statement is a part of that evidence collection.

It's important to also understand that in Texas, the age of legal accountability is 10 years old.

So at 10 years old, children can be criminally charged.

And so that's really important why we have to have a full fact-finding criminal investigation that's thorough and that we understand when we're labeling children as perpetrators that we truly have all the facts.

Next slide.

So who sends the child and the family to the CAC?

So all of our referrals come to us either through DFPS, CPS, or a law enforcement partner.

And so an allegation of abuse must be reported to one of two of those agencies before one could receive CAC services.

And so CPS investigates your familial cases.

So that's blood, infective kin, parent, stepparent, aunt, uncle, and law enforcement works jointly with CPS on those investigations, and then law enforcement investigates nonfamilial cases.

So a teacher, a coach, or a neighbor, and CPS does not work with law enforcement on those investigations.

Next slide.

Next slide.

So one department that we have in our facility or our building is the multidisciplinary enhancement initiative or MEI.

So this specific department focuses on reviewing all of the cases that drop from the statewide intake with DFPS.

They review about 200 intakes a day, specifically regarding sexual abuse, sex trafficking, near fatality, fatality, and serious bodily injury.

And so the purpose of this department is to be able to identify those cases that require a multi discipline multidisciplinary response per the Texas Family Code and ensure that our partners are collaborating through their investigations.

It also helps us streamline the timelines and also the services that our families need, getting them into services sooner, and ensuring that we're really meeting their needs where they are.

Also, it helps us make sure that DFPS and law enforcement have collaborated earlier in their investigation.

So they're not waiting six months out to start talking to each other.

They're starting that process right in the beginning.

This department goes through a lot of cases a year.

They're able to also have case coordination when needed.

And so if there's difficult cases or complex cases, they can have those specific meetings to go through and bring all of the MDT team together to talk about next steps and where we are in our investigations.

Next slide.

So as mentioned previously, part of our standards is that we are a child friendly location.

And so in the family and children entrance, they go through security and the receptionist there, and the place is it's colorful, it's bright, and they are greeted by a warm smile.

And you know, although kids are there, families that may have just gotten the worst news of their lives.

When you walk through that lobby, you see kids smiling and laughing, and that's what we want in this circumstance.

Next slide.

And so this is our central intake.

So once they sign in at the receptionists, our families wait here to be brought up for whatever service they're coming to see us for.

And so one of the unique services that we have at the CAC is that we have family advocates and victim support services.

And so when our families are waiting in this waiting area, they're able to be greeted by someone who's friendly that's able to kind of walk them through the process.

That family advocate can talk to them about why they're there and also talking to the parent while the child is in the interview about what's going on and what needs they may have.

They can connect them with resources in their community or refer them to resources within our building, and also understanding what the full family unit is.

Um, this service is unique to our CAC, and it's something that we're looking to expand to also have child advocates that can also walk with the child through those same steps.

Next slide.

So let's talk a little bit about the initial service that uh families, uh children receive forensic services.

Next slide, please.

So the forensic interview is a developmentally sensitive and legally sound method for gathering uh information regarding abuse and/or exposure to violence.

That interview is conducted by a competently trained, neutral professional utilizing research and practice informed techniques that become a part of a larger investigation.

And so the sole purpose of that forensic interview is to gather information from the child in his or her own words that will be used to help the multidisciplinary team in fair decision making.

And so some of the benefits of the forensic interview is that it decreases the number of times and interviewers that the child is exposed to.

It gives more information about the child, and it also helps the prosecutor assess the child's ability to testify in court.

Next slide.

And so this is a picture of our current forensic interview and observation room.

We're actually undergoing construction to enhance this and get better technology.

Um we're trying to be state of the art and make sure that we have the best equipment that is needed for these interviews, and so our technology, our video taping, the audio will all be enhanced once we're done with our current construction.

In the observation room, only the law enforcement partner and or DFPS partner are allowed in the observation room.

So the parent cannot sit in, the non-offending caregiver cannot sit in, um, whoever's attorney cannot sit in, it's just that partner, DFPS and law enforcement.

And the interview room, only the child and the interviewer are in that room.

And that allows the child to speak in their own terms, to tell their story in their own words.

Um, we don't force children to do interviews.

So if they don't want to do the interview, we don't lock them in there and say, No, you can't leave until you tell me why you're here.

Um, we do it on their own terms.

The interview rooms are also very um neutral, if you see in the pictures, there's not really like trees on the wall or anything because we don't want to have anything that would be suggest suggestive to the child.

So anything that would trigger something.

We want to make sure that there's a neutral setting that they really feel comfortable in.

Also, our forensic interviews are for children ages two years old to 17 years old.

And the interviewers are trained to conduct these interviews in age appropriate and developmentally appropriate manners.

And so they don't talk to a two year old the way they would talk to a 17-year-old.

And so understanding where that child is in that development.

We also do forensic interviews for adults who are intellectually disabled or mentally challenged in cases when that is needed as well.

We offer interviews in English and Spanish, but if other languages are needed, we would request an interpreter for that interview to proceed as well.

So we don't have just limited English and Spanish, we can do other languages as well.

Next slide.

And general reasons for this is that number one, abuse did not happen.

Number two, the child doesn't know to tell, and three, the child doesn't want to tell.

Next slide.

Next slide.

So once our forensic services or forensic interview is completed, the next step is the medical department.

So our facility has a medical department that's overseen by Dr.

Rena Isaac.

She's a medical director affiliated with Baylor College Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital.

Our facility also offers comprehensive exams.

So we're not just doing sexual abuse exams there, we can do full body exams.

And the reason for that is most of our children have not had a physical before.

They've never been to a doctor.

And so we're able to offer that for our victims as well as their siblings, just to make sure that all of the children are physically well as a whole.

Our services as well, a lot of times our kids just want to know that their body's okay.

They want to know that they look the same as everyone else.

They want to know if they're not damaged because of what's happened to them.

And so that's one of the reasons also for the comprehensive evaluation.

Same thing like the forensic interview, we don't tie kids down and make them do an evaluation if they don't want to.

We don't stick them with needles and sedate them, things like that.

We want to make sure that we're meeting kids where they are.

And so if a kid says, no, I'm not doing the exam, but I'll talk to the nurse or the doctor, then they're able to have that conversation and be able to talk through what they're feeling and where they are.

Um, at our facility, we see children who have been abused 120 hours or more ago, and the reason for that is because any abuse that's happened within 120 hours, that child would go to an emergency room for evidence collection.

We don't do evidence collection at our facility.

So any child that's been abused more than 120 hours are the ones that we would see.

Um 90 to 95% of our exams are normal, and that doesn't mean that that abuse didn't happen.

The reason for that, there's a multitude of reasons, but one of them is that perpetrators are typically known to their victims, and so there's no force used.

Another reason is also because there's usually a delayed outcry.

So it could be weeks, it could be months, it could be years since the abuse happened.

So we're not gonna see something from just happening yesterday or just 30 minutes ago.

Also, children's bodies heal themselves very quickly.

And so we've had cases where we know that this child has given birth.

We know she has a baby, we know she's been sexually active, but that exam shows none of that.

And it's because kids' bodies heal themselves very quickly, and there's not always scarring.

And so a lot of times we see TV and they see all this evidence on law and order and all these things, but that's just not the reality, and it doesn't mean that abuse didn't happen just because the exam is normal.

And so that's one of the big education pieces that we try to do with our families because we sometimes have unrealistic expectations based on what we see on TV.

We also have um in the picture, you'll see like a little device next to the um hospital bed.

We have uh we are allowed or able to do coposcopy examinations with this um measurement.

It allows to zoom in to the child's private areas and allow the doctor to really examine fully and make sure that everything is okay in those examinations.

Next slide.

So the next area um when families after about a week or so after that forensic interview, they're brought in for a clinical assessment.

Our clinical assessment program is about three years old, and so it really helps to decrease the wait time for mental health services.

Next slide.

So the clinical assessment is a trauma-informed mental health assessment focused on the impacts of child sexual abuse by measuring uh traumatic symptoms, a child's functioning, their developmental trajectory, and it also gives the clinician information to help them make an informed decision about the mental health services that that child will need.

And so, in order to receive mental health services at the CAC, the clinical assessment has to be completed, except for sex trafficking victims.

Sex trafficking victims are prioritized so they receive those mental health services right away.

While families are on the wait list, we have what we call care sessions, and these care sessions help to promote family engagement, and they help to want to learn about the effects of trauma and uh how to decrease some of that.

And so the benefits of the clinical assessment, it identifies coping skills.

They uh help uh with additional emotional support.

You learn about the effects of trauma.