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PARKERSBURG — The North Star Child Advocacy Center (NSCAC) recently released its 2025 preliminary numbers which are showing the number of interviews conducted having gone up over the last year as the center continues its work with children who are the victims of violent crime.

The release was done ahead of the full statistical analysis that has yet to be released by the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network, said Executive Director Greg Collins in a press release issued by NSCAC.

North Star partners with Child Protective Services, law enforcement and prosecutors to provide forensic interviews and medical exams for child abuse investigations and advocates for children in Wood, Wirt, Pleasants, Ritchie and Calhoun counties.

The center works with children ranging in age from a few months to 18-years-old in situations like sexual abuse by family members, being prostituted by their own parents for money as well as other violent crimes, officials have said.

The 2025 calendar year numbers show that 588 forensic interviews were conducted, up 11% from the previous year’s 501 interviews, according to the press release.

From 2020 to 2023, NSCAC conducted over 600 interviews each year, the highest year being 2022, conducting 618.

“We would like to think child abuse has decreased over the past two years, but that simply isn’t the case,” Collins said. “Keeping in mind the only children we interview are brought to us by Child Protective Services (CPS), law enforcement, prosecutors or judges, their capacity to get them here determines how many we see.

“For example, if CPS is struggling to keep up with the workload and/or suffering with mental health issues within the rank and file, that would prevent children from getting here. I believe that Charleston’s efforts as of late to reconfigure and streamline CPS’s operations could be the most likely reason the numbers have slightly declined.”

The noticeable change in 2025 was with the Wood County and Parkersburg numbers, Collins said. Wood County (areas not within any city limit) had the most children interviewed with 51.7% or 198 children. Parkersburg dropped to 40.7% or 156 children. Vienna had 24 children interviewed while Williamstown had five. The total number of Wood County’s children in 2025 was 383, just slightly down from 2024’s total of 388.

“The breakdown of these numbers comes as a result of a conversation with the Wood County Commission when the question was asked by Commissioner (Blair) Couch about which jurisdiction had what percentage of children seen at North Star,” Collins said. “At the time we didn’t have that information gathering procedure in place because it does not matter to us where the child comes from.

“We added that mechanism using the address of the child and what law enforcement entity would respond if called.”

Wood County was responsible for 69.5% percent of forensic interviews which comes as no surprise to officials.

“When you compare populations of all counties, the number of CPS workers and law enforcement officers in that county, and the prosecutor offices staff there, Wood County leads the rest of them by far,” Collins said. “All other counties have to work harder to manage their cases and get the children here for a forensic interview, which is not a short process.”

Collins says the time spent at NSCAC depends on the number of children in that family and the amount of talking any one child does during the interview.

“On average, it takes at least two hours to conduct a forensic interview,” he said. “You have pre-interview paperwork and post-interview conferencing and talks with the non-offending guardians.”

There is also work/interviews that has to be done with the officers and/or CPS workers and other requirements that have to be followed, per their accreditation as they are acting upon the results of the interviews, Collins said.

As for the other counties in NSCAC’s coverage area, Wirt Counties numbers jumped from the 2024 total of 22 to 73, a 273% increase.

“With new prosecutor Austin Grimmett, and new deputy Roman Rader, Wirt County’s children have been brought to the forefront and are being helped,” said Collins. “Both Austin and Roman received Shooting Star Awards at the December North Star Night Out gala, and for good reason.”

Ritchie County had 31 interviews, down from 33. Calhoun County had 24 interviews, up from 15. Pleasants County had a total of nine interviews.

NSCAC also does “Courtesy Interviews” for other counties either because of a conflict or the fact that the center is closest to the children needing to be interviewed, usually because of foster care placement. In 2025, NSCAC did 33 forensic interviews for other counties, up from the 2024 total of 24.

Collins says that there will be a more detailed analysis of the children seen in the coming months.

“That report will tell us more about why we saw each of these children, who the offenders were, the ages and sex of the children, and how many cases were prosecuted or pleaded out, among other information,” he said.

For more information on what North Star does, call 304-917-4437 or contact them via email nscac@northstarcac.org.