Chittenden Children's Advocacy Center in partnership with the Chittenden Unit for Special Investigation
CCAC is a Nationally Accredited Child Advocacy Center that is dedicated to providing trauma-informed and victim-centered services to both children and adults that have endured sexual and/or physical violence.
To protect and support all children, families and adults by strengthening our community’s response to abuse through investigation, prosecution and intervention while fostering professional collaboration to promote education and advocacy regarding the prevention of abuse.
OUR MISSION
HOW WE HELP
Chittenden Children's Advocacy Center is proud to provide the following services at no cost to our community:
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Victim Advocacy
Our Victim Advocate works to provide seamless support, resources and referrals to survivors and their caregivers! They able to stay in touch, advocate on behalf of the child or adult and share information from the team about the process and investigation.
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Forensic Interviews
Our dedicated interviewers, provide neutral interviews at the pace and to the comfort of the interviewee. The intention of the interview is to learn the persons experience, from their perspective.
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Medical Exams
Specialized medical evaluation and treatment are made available to CAC clients as part of the team response. Children can receive a non-traumatizing and often reassuring medical exam at Child Safe Clinic at the University of Vermont Medical Center. Adults may receive an exam at the University of Vermont Medical Center.
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Investigations
The Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations (CUSI) investigates crimes against children and some sexual assault cases involving adult victims and focuses on protecting and supporting all children, adults and families.
The Chittenden Children’s Advocacy Center (CCAC)
is a 501(c) (3) non -profit entity currently an accredited program of the National Children’s Alliance. The CCAC is a child focused Chittenden County based program in which law enforcement, child protection, prosecution, mental health, medical, and victim advocacy work together to make team decisions about the investigation, treatment, management and prosecution of child abuse cases. This team approach helps give a more complete understanding of each case and allows us to respond in a trauma informed way to child victims and their families.
The primary goal of the Chittenden Children's Advocacy Center is to ensure that children are not further traumatized by the intervention system designed to protect them. This program has many benefits, with an approach that allows for faster follow up to child abuse reports, more efficient medical and mental health referrals, fewer child interviews, more successful prosecutions, and consistent support for child victims and their families. The CCAC makes victim support and advocacy services available to all our clients, as well as specialized mental health services for children and non-offending family members. We were started in 2003.
SEEK SUPPORT
CACC has served thousands of survivors and their families. Many children and adults are unable to disclose abuse when it first happens. Delayed disclosure is normal and common. Only 33% of children are able to disclose the abuse they experience right away. If you are ready to learn about the process, please contact us.
The Chittenden Unit for Special Investigations (CUSI)
is a multi-agency task force who works in tandem and is co-located with the CCAC. CUSI provides criminal response to reports of sexual assaults, serious child abuse, child fatalities and human trafficking. For over 25 years, the primary focus has been to protect and support all children, adults and families. CUSI defined what is now known as a true multidisciplinary team (MDT) method to investigating crimes of this nature. The multidisciplinary team is the heart of CUSI and is composed of seven police detectives, a director, a victim advocate, a CUSI assigned investigator with the Department for Children and Families (DCF), and a CUSI assigned prosecutor from the Chittenden County State’s Attorney's Office.
We work jointly with mental health providers, medical providers and Department of Corrections. The types of cases include sexual assaults, lewd and lascivious conduct, serious child abuse, child fatalities, sex offender registry violations, child pornography and human trafficking. We were started in 1992.
