DOVER, Del. — Senator Coons visited the Children’s Advocacy Center in Dover on Friday, pledging to fight to restore federal funding for the nonprofit centers.
The Associated Press elaborates:
President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for 2014 includes no money for the Victims of Child Abuse Act program, which provides federal funds for some 750 Children’s Advocacy Centers nationwide, including three in Delaware.
Obama’s proposed budget for the current year also included no funding for the centers, but Congress nevertheless appropriated the money.
“I was very angry that a $20 million line item for this program was eliminated in 2013,” Coons, D-Del., said Friday during a visit to the Children’s Advocacy Center in Dover. The similar lack of funding in Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal 2014 was disappointing and represented a “disconnect,” he said.
The News Journal explained why the Children’s Advocacy Centers are so important:
The offices, including one in Wilmington, are where trained staff from the center conduct interviews with child victims that are analyzed by a team of legal experts and mental health professionals and used to prosecute abusers. Last fiscal year the center conducted 1,478 such interviews, three-quarters of which were related to sexual abuse cases.
The one-on-one interviews, which take place in the absence of family members who could interfere with a child’s testimony, are aimed at getting a full, single account of the evidence a child victim has to offer.
“Prior to the centers you had children interviewed multiple times, you had children interviewed in police lock-ups and hospital emergency rooms,” Williams said. “Telling their story over and over again, they were being re-traumatized, re-victimized, by the system that was really supposed to help them.”
The State News covered the scope of the Centers’ work:
Last fiscal year, 1478 interviews were conducted in Delaware centers. About 75 percent were sexual abuse cases — the average age of the child interviewed was nine.
In 2012, Lewes pediatrician Early Bradley was convicted through evidence gathered at the centers, in what Mr. Williams said is the worst reported instance of mass victimization of children.
“Valuable and important programs are being cut in almost every department,” Sen. Coons said.
“Who’s willing to stand up and fight for something? If nobody fights for it, it gets cut,” he said.
WBOC explained the importance of the federal funding:
Overall, federal funding, including money from the federal Victims of Crime Act, accounts for about 25 percent of the Delaware CAC’s $1.3 million budget, Williams said. VOCA funds, which come from criminal fines and penalties and help pay for a forensic interviewer and three mental health specialists in Delaware, are not at issue. But Williams said money from the child abuse act helps pay for office leases in Dover and Georgetown and staffing at the Dover center. And he added a cut in funding could mean a cut in services.
“We don’t want to close a center, but that’s on the table. We don’t want to lay off staff, but that’s on the table.”
“I won’t rest on this issue until I see it appropriated,” Senator Coons said, announcing a letter he and 30 other senators sent to the Appropriations Committee on Friday.
In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Senator Coons urged Attorney General Eric Holder to restore funding for the centers in the President’s FY14 budget.