Western Regional Children's Advocacy Center

The Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego, (Chadwick Center) will work in cooperative agreement with the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to manage the Western Regional Children’s Advocacy Center (WRCAC). In that capacity, Chadwick Center will collaborate with partners funded through the Victims of Child Abuse Act (VOCAA), including the agencies operating the other Regional Children’s Advocacy Centers (RCACs), National Native Children’s Trauma Center, National Children’s Advocacy Center, Zero Abuse Project, National Children’s Alliance (NCA), and the NCA state chapters to deliver training and technical assistance (TTA) and implement collaborative projects to serve multi-disciplinary team (MDT) professionals, children’s advocacy centers (CACs) and chapter leaders and staff in the western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming). The mission of WRCAC is to reduce the prevalence and adverse impact of child maltreatment by ensuring all children have access to a high-quality, multi-disciplinary response to abuse that is coordinated, evidence-based and trauma-informed.

Through this award, Chadwick Center will support a staff team of training specialists, state chapter liaisons, and training and communications coordinators to implement a range of TTA strategies to advance the following program goals for FY22:

Multi-disciplinary professionals will receive relevant, high-quality TTA to meet or exceed NCA accreditation standards for professional development (with a focus on TTA directed to victim advocates and MDT Facilitators and resiliency of MDT professionals).
Child abuse victims in the western region will have access to an accredited CAC with a skilled, coordinated MDT and comprehensive, evidence-informed services to support justice and healing (with a TTA focus on strengthening MDTs and professional development of MDT leaders).
Multi-disciplinary professionals, CACs and state chapter organizations serving rural and frontier communities will ensure delivery of accessible, quality, evidence-informed, mental health responses to trauma through increased use of telemental health (TMH) (with a focus on assessing readiness for, building and supporting statewide TMH networks).
Chapter organizations will provide essential state level leadership, TTA and coordination among its members to improve outcomes for child abuse victims and families (with a focus on TTA directed toward building chapter organizational and TTA capacity, executive leadership and peer networking).
Agencies funded through VOCAA will share information and coordinate strategies to advance the national response to child abuse (with a focus on implementing a five-year national plan and a coordinated cross-regional plan for TTA delivery).