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PARKERSBURG -- The Children's Listening Place in Parkersburg has been accredited by the National Children's Alliance for quality and effective services to child abuse victims, officials said.
The Children's Listening Place, located at 4421 Emerson Ave., underwent an extensive application and site review process.
As the accrediting agency for children's advocacy centers across the country, the National Children's Alliance awards different levels of accreditation and membership. Accreditation is the highest level of membership with National Children's Alliance and denotes excellence in service provision.
The process usually takes five years, but was accomplished by the local agency, said Lisa Sutton, executive director of the Children's Listening Place.
"As a team of individuals dedicated to responding to child abuse, we recognize the importance of accreditation from National Children's Alliance and supporting the multidisciplinary team approach. Accreditation not only validates our organization's proven effective approach to responding to allegations of child abuse, but also provides consistency across the child advocacy center movement as a whole," Sutton said.
Since opening in July 2014, the Children's Listening Place has conducted more than 400 interviews. Its growth has caused the expansion from one fulltime director to three fulltime employees. It moved from donated office space of three rooms to Emerson Avenue and now offers pediatric sexual assault medical examinations and therapy on site.
As an Accredited Member of National Children's Alliance, the Children's Listening Place is dedicated to providing comprehensive, coordinated and compassionate services to victims of child abuse.
The National Children's Alliance awards accredited membership based on compliance with 10 standards to ensure effective, efficient and consistent delivery of services to child abuse victims. The Alliance updated these standards in 2010 to reflect the most recent evidence-based practices in the field of child abuse intervention and prevention.
According to the standards, accredited members must utilize a functioning and effective multidisciplinary team approach to work collaboratively in child abuse investigation, prosecution, and treatment. National Children's Alliance also considers standards regarding a center's cultural competency and diversity, forensic interviews, victim support and advocacy, medical evaluation, therapeutic intervention, and child focused setting.
"The Children's Listening Place is to be commended for its excellent work serving victims of child abuse. As the national association and accrediting body for children's advocacy centers across the country, our goal is to ensure that every victim of child abuse has access to high quality services that result from professional collaboration," Teresa Huizar, executive director of national children's alliance, said.
For more information about The Children's Listening Pace, visit www.childrenslisteningplace.org.
The Children's Listening Place is the 21st center in West Virginia. Its mission is to provide a neutral, child friendly location where children can be comfortably interviewed by use of a collaborative team approach. Children and non-offending caregivers are then referred for appropriate services. The goal of this approach is to minimize the trauma of reporting child abuse and neglect by providing a unitary response and eliminating repetitive interviews and procedures.
National Children's Alliance is the national association and accrediting body for the over 750 children's advocacy centers serving each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.