Childhelp combats abuse
The organization, located at 623 Lindsay Place SW in Knoxville, has grown from its beginning in 1983 to “a center that is thriving and growing and meeting the needs of the kids in Knoxville,” said Vonda McGill, director of the child advocacy center, during her address to Rotary Club of Farragut during its weekly meeting in Fox Den Country Club Wednesday, Sept. 14. RCF’s president-elect Val Privett is a member of Childhelp’s Board of Directors.
McGill said the center, which serves children ages 3 to 18, has two focuses: One to bring abusers to justice while treating the abused child through the CAC, and the other to find foster families for those children.
“So we have a wide range of children that we see,” McGill said.
The children who come to CAC have been maltreated, whether that be physical abuse, sexual abuse, drug exposure, medical maltreatment or nutritional neglect, she added.
“There are so many different forms of abuse, but the major form that we see in a child is sexual abuse.”
While limited in the scope of what it does, CAC provides victim advocacy, forensic interviews, sex abuse exams and therapy, McGill said.
The advantage of the CAC is a child doesn’t sustain the trauma of being taken from one place for an interview to another place for an exam and then another for therapy.
All that is done in one child-friendly, non-intimidating build-ing. It works hand-in-hand with the District Attorney’s Office and law enforcement, she added.
McGill said there are 90 children currently on a waiting list for mental health therapy from five of its therapists.
Childhelp also provides foster homes for children who “can’t live safely at home,” said Mark Akers, who directs Childhelp’s Foster Family Agency Program covering Knox, Blount, Anderson, Sevier, Loudon, Monroe, Roane, Morgan, Union, Scott, Campbell, Claiborne, Grainger, Hamblen, Jefferson and Cocke counties.
He said there are 1,400 foster children in East Tennessee and 9,000 statewide at Childhelp.
“When foster kids turn 18, they have a choice to remain with us until they are 21 if they are in school,” Akers added.
For more information, call 865-637-1753 or visit www.childhelp.org
