C.A.R.T. House (Citizens Advisory Board Of Canadian County OK. Inc.)

PROJECT PURPOSE

We are a child advocacy center. We provide forensic interviews, advocacy services, SANE exams and referral services to families who in the initial stages of criminal investigations. Children can be further traumatized by the investigation process and we do everything we can to provide a quiet, calm reassuring environment. Therefore reducing trauma on children.

EVIDENCE

We can provide documentation for the funding we lost during the pandemic both thru our united way funding and our VOCA funding. We can also show the increase in expenses we saw for both our insurance expenses and more staff we needed but were not able to hire to handle the surge in cases.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

Most of the families we see in our center come from 4 counties. It is Canadian county and the counties they touch. We also provide courtesy interviews for law enforcement agencies that are far away from our community but the children live here. For example a child has to visit their non-custodial parent in Kansas and are hurt they can be interviewed here but the information used to prosecute their cases elsewhere. Families were very impacted by the pandemic. Parents had to continue to work without being able to send children to school.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

We lost revenue during the pandemic. As the end of the pandemic approached in the spring of 2021, we saw the most number of cases investigating child abuse and neglect our center has ever served. As predicted the isolation of the pandemic gave opportunity for many more children to be harmed.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

Able to continue operation without additional funding from the State of Oklahoma