The Greater Lakes Child Advocacy Center (GLCAC) was founded in 2005, as the culmination of a two-year collaborative effort between DCYF, law enforcement, prosecutors, victim advocates, mental health professionals, medical professionals and other committed community members in Belknap County. The Greater Lakes Child Advocacy Center seeks to effectively intervene on multiple levels to help end sexual and physical violence against children in our community:
•We seek to reduce the trauma to children by avoiding multiple interviews of children, and by providing a neutral, physically and psychologically safe place for children to report abuse.
•We seek to support non-offending parents and families by providing on-site crisis intervention and support and by linking families with needed services.
•We seek to improve investigations of child abuse cases through multi-disciplinary teamwork.
•We seek to hold more offenders accountable with forensically sound interviews and effective, timely investigations, that will lead to increased confessions, prosecutions, and convictions.
•We seek to improve the system’s response to child abuse by providing on-going in-service trainings for local professionals.
•We seek to promote growth of public awareness of child abuse (recognition, reporting and prevention), and to promote growth of community resources for effective responses to child abuse through our Community Outreach Campaign.
