National Military and CAC Partnership Program

National Children’s Alliance is the non-profit membership organization and accrediting body for the nation’s Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs). A CAC is a child-friendly facility in which law enforcement, child protection, prosecution, mental health, medical and victim advocacy professionals work together to investigate abuse, help children heal from abuse, and hold offenders accountable.

This project will support a national program for CAC and military collaborations that provide a coordinated response to child abuse. Child abuse victims from military families present unique situations that merit attention to ensure the provision of coordinated and comprehensive multidisciplinary services. The lengthy and continual rounds of deployment that many have experienced, the insular nature of the armed services, the fact that the Uniform Code of Military Justice is a separate body of law from public law, and the fact that there are jurisdictional issues with the Department of Defense, Justice Department, and local authorities are just a few examples of the obstacles in serving the needs of child victims from active-duty military families

National Children’s Alliance proposes to continue the success through this proposal for the OJJDP 2021 VOCA CAC Military Partnership Project Program by:

Supporting a national program for CAC and military installation collaborations that provide a coordinated investigative and comprehensive response to child abuse and includes partners such as the DOD Family Advocacy Program, command staff, and military investigative and medical personnel.
 
Developing and implementing a strategy to ensure that children in military families have access to the CAC model at the national level through coordination with the Department of Defense and CAC organizations with regional or national reach.

Examples of planned objectives to accomplish these goals include:

Developing a national peer review process to evaluate applications for funding.
Collecting and analyzing outcomes data from grantee annual projects. 
Providing learning opportunities and enhance collaboration between CACs and military partners serving families.

National Children’s Alliance, a non-profit membership organization and accrediting body for the nation’s Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs), will support a national program for CAC and military collaborations that provide a coordinated response to child abuse. Program goals include: supporting a national program for CAC and military installation collaborations that provide a coordinated investigative and comprehensive response to child abuse and includes partners such as the Department of Defense Family Advocacy Program, command staff, and military investigative and medical personnel; developing and implementing a strategy to ensure that children in military families have access to the CAC model at the national level through coordination with the Department of Defense and CAC organizations with regional or national reach; and documenting the progress of project implementation and the collaborative model developed at each site to inform future work and publications related to implementation and replication.