Backgrounder: Child Advocacy Centres

A Child Advocacy Centre (CAC) adopts a seamless, coordinated and collaborative approach to addressing the needs of child and youth victims of crime and their families. A CAC seeks to minimize system-induced trauma by providing a child-friendly setting for a young victim or witness and his or her family. A CAC is designed to support a child's healing and assist them in recovering from abuse.

Professional services offered by CACs include coordinated interviews by law enforcement and child protection, examination of the child or youth by a medical professional and trauma counselling. One goal of a CAC is to minimize the number of interviews and questions directed at a child or youth, thereby minimizing any additional system-induced trauma.

CACs help children and their families navigate the justice system in a number of ways. These include providing a child or youth with a safe and comfortable environment in which to be interviewed by criminal justice professionals, minimizing the number of interviews and ultimately leading to better communication between agencies supporting young victims. CACs may also provide education and training to justice professionals on best practices for interviewing child victims and witnesses. As an example, interviews recorded by video are an effective method for gathering valuable information to help both children and the justice system.

Research in the United States has shown that investigations conducted by CACs are cost-effective and expedite decisions to lay criminal charges by prosecutors. Parents whose children receive services from CACs were more satisfied with the investigation process and interview procedures than parents who did not receive services from CACs. In addition, those children who attended CACs were generally satisfied with the investigation and were more likely to state they were not scared during the forensic process compared to children who did not attend CACs. CACs have also been shown to increase collaboration between the agencies charged with protecting children and youth, and law enforcement agencies responsible for investigating criminal activity.

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Department of Justice Canada
January 2012