Tagged with: Mental Health

Above: Dakota CAC Executive Director Paula Condol, MS, LPCC, (seated) and Red River CAC’s Heidi Tupa, MSW, LICSW, (onscreen) demonstrate how the telehealth system works.   Long before the pandemic made telehealth part of the “new normal” for CACs, North Dakota was ahead of the curve. In last year’s Annual Report, we introduced you to Paula… Continue Reading

For Michelle Miller, NCA’s mental health project coordinator, her proudest moment from 2020 was seeing our field come together in a crisis, everyone mobilizing at once to keep services available to kids and families. “We’ve spent the last two years exploring and planning how to integrate telehealth services into CACs. We see its value for… Continue Reading

For Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs), family engagement refers to the process of family members accepting a referral for mental health treatment, then attending and participating in that treatment to successful completion. CAC staff know the importance of mental health treatment to help children and families who have experienced trauma heal from that trauma.  We also… Continue Reading

The original mission of Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) was to improve a community’s response to the investigation of child abuse. The advances in our knowledge of trauma and the availability of mental health treatments effective in reducing the negative impact of trauma expanded the focus of CACs to include helping children and families heal. In… Continue Reading

The use of tele-health services—providing therapy over a computer—is changing the landscape of mental health and providing more opportunities to disseminate evidence-based treatments to underserved communities. CAC professionals in South Carolina or any state with a large number of rural counties know the many barriers faced by children and families trying to access mental health… Continue Reading

My story didn’t begin with me having a voice. It began in the silence and secrets and shame that so many victims struggle to break free from. And for a long time I felt more broken than healed. It was so easy to see the scars. I still see them. Not as many, not as… Continue Reading

Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) have come a long way in the last 30 years.  We have added services and interventions based on solid research—evidence-based practices (EBPs)—all the while maintaining a passion for ensuring that these practices put children on a better path than before they came through our doors. Because the research has come so… Continue Reading

The American Counseling Association’s Traumatology Interest Network (2014) defines vicarious trauma as “the emotional residue from hearing other people’s trauma stories and becoming witness to the pain, fear, and terror the trauma survivor endured” (Network, 2014).  Being witness to another’s pain can cause us to see the world differently.  Individuals working with, and hearing the… Continue Reading

NOTE: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence against children. I was 23 years old, in my first job as an assistant social worker in the Atlanta schools, when I was called to the principal’s office of a quiet suburban elementary school. The principal met me with hushed tones outside his office door and said,… Continue Reading

NCA’s new Standards for Accredited Members call for an initial standardized mental health assessment and periodic re-assessment of children which serve to inform treatment. Every discussion about assessment (or screening) must be prefaced by a definition of what we are screening or assessing. Good practice dictates, and the Standards require, an assessment of other potential traumatic or abusive events,… Continue Reading