QUINCY, MI (WTVB) – A year and a half of planning with a goal of opening a Branch County Child Advocacy Center is nearly complete with the start of services expected to begin January 1, 2020. The facility will operate as part of the Branch County Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, and will be located at the coalition’s Quincy site at 17 West Chicago Street.
The advocacy center will make available child-focused and friendly services with trained professionals helping with decisions about investigating, treating and prosecuting child abuse cases.
Coalition Executive Director Kim Hemker says the Center features a multi-disciplinary team which would include the Department of Health and Human Services, law enforcement, a victim advocate, basically all the pertinent people that need to ask questions.
According to Hemker, they would all be in a different room than the child, who would meet with a forensic interviewer. The setting allows a child that is the victim of suspected sexual abuse to feel both physically and emotionally safe while being interviewed in a neutral fact finding nature.
The Advocacy Center is locally funded by Ronald McDonald House Charities and Agape Center Ministries.
Branch County cases currently need to use the Calhoun County Advocacy Center in Battle Creek.
