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National Children's Alliance

The National Children's Alliance is a not-for-profit membership organization whose mission is to assist communities seeking to improve their responses to child abuse by establishing and maintaining Children's Advocacy Centers (CACs)

The Idaho Network of Children's Advocacy Centers is a member of the NCA. The NCA provides to its member centers:

Membership Standards

To be awarded full membership in National Children's Alliance, and agency must meet the following standards:

  1. Child-Appropriate/Child-Friendly Facility: A children’s advocacy center provides a comfortable, private, child-friendly setting that is both physically and psychologically safe for clients.
  2. Multidisciplinary Team (MDT): A multidisciplinary team for response to child abuse allegations includes representation from the following:
    • law enforcement
    • child protective services
    • prosecution
    • mental health
    • medical
    • victim advocacy
    • children’s advocacy center.
  3. Organizational Capacity: A designated legal entity responsible for program and fiscal operations has been established and implements basic sound administrative practices.
  4. Cultural Competency and Diversity: The CAC promotes policies, practices and procedures that are culturally competent. Cultural competency is defined as the capacity to function in more than one culture, requiring the ability to appreciate, understand and interact with members of diverse populations within the local community.
  5. Forensic Interviews: Forensic interviews are conducted in a manner which is of a neutral, fact finding nature, and coordinated to avoid duplicative interviewing.
  6. Medical Evaluation: Specialized medical evaluation and treatment are to be made available to CAC clients as part of the team response, either at the CAC or through coordination and referral with other specialized medical providers.
  7. Therapeutic Intervention: Specialized mental health services are to be made available as part of the team response, either at the CAC or through coordination and referral with other appropriate treatment providers.
  8. Victim Support/Advocacy: Victim support and advocacy are to be made available as part of the team response, either at the CAC or through coordination with other providers, throughout the investigation and subsequent legal proceedings.
  9. Case Review: Team discussion and information sharing regarding the investigation, case status and services needed by the child and family are to occur on a routine basis.
  10. Case Tracking: CACs must develop and implement a system for monitoring case progress and tracking case outcomes for team components.

For more information, please contact:

Benjamin Murray, Director of NCA Member Services
bmurray@nca-online.org

or

Dean Hutchison, NCA Membership and Information Specialist
dhutchison@nca-online.org

Assisting Idaho communities to better serve

abused and neglected children and their families