Kelly Bugg Elected As President For Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center
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Staff Report-
The Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center of Kosciusko County Inc. held an organizational meeting Thursday.
The Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center was created in response to the needs expressed by area law enforcement and the Department of Child Services (DCS) to provide forensic interviews of children in a child-friendly atmosphere in furtherance of investigating cases of child abuse and/or child witnesses. The directors of the center are Kosciusko County Sheriff Kyle Dukes, Warsaw Police Chief Scott Whitaker and Kosciusko County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Hampton.
At the organizational meeting, the directors elected Kelly Bugg, of Warsaw, as the president for the center.
“Mrs. Bugg’s qualifications as a certified forensic interviewer, who has a bachelor of science from Indiana University and 33 years of experience in interviewing children regarding abuse and neglect, will be an important member of the Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center of Kosciusko County Inc.,” Hampton said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates one in six people across the country has experiences with four or more kinds of adverse childhood experiences, according to a news release from Hampton’s office. In 2018, Kosciusko County DCS received 627 reports alleging abuse or neglect to children in the county.
In many areas, including Kosciusko County, children who have experienced physical or mental trauma as a result of another person’s actions are interviewed in settings which may further traumatize the children, according to the release. Several of these interviews are conducted in the environment of police stations. This type of an atmosphere can challenge children in sharing the full and complete statement of the traumatic events that they experienced. As a result, the children must be interviewed more than one time so that all of the child’s information can be obtained. In doing multiple interviews with the child over an extended period of time after the traumatic event, the child is subjected to relive the events at each interview.
Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center of Kosciusko County is committed to providing a safe and child-friendly environment that supports families throughout the child abuse investigation process, the release states. The operation of the center is a child-focused, team-based program in which representatives from law enforcement, DCS, prosecuting attorney’s investigators, mental health treatment advisers, medical health treatment advisers and victim assistance all actively participate on-site by observing the forensic interview of the children in an adjacent room. During the interview and afterward, the team is able to communicate with the forensic interviewer which encourages the child’s interview to be comprehensive, assess strengths and/or weaknesses for holding suspects accountable and establish any necessary referrals for mental and/or medical health services for the child or the child’s family.
The center is a not-for-profit 501c3 organization and can be reached by emailing kellyadvocacyctr@gmail.com.
