If I might, I would like to take a few minutes to talk about why I initially came to the floor today; that is, to talk about the power of children’s advocacy centers. Children’s advocacy centers exist across the country today in large part because this Congress, on a bipartisan basis, passed back in 1990 the Victims of Child Abuse Act–a bill that for the first time authorized funding for an important nationwide network of what are called children’s advocacy centers. These centers help deliver justice, they help heal victims of violence and abuse, and we must act to continue empowering their service to our nation.
Today is a time when we could work together to reauthorize that initial landmark bill from 1990 and rededicate ourselves on a bipartisan basis to something that is one of our most sacred obligations: protecting our children, protecting the victims of child abuse and delivering justice for them. That is what this bipartisan bill does that was introduced earlier today along with my colleagues, Senators Blunt and Sessions and Hirono–a great example of being able to work together across the aisle.
As parents, as neighbors, as leaders of our nation, we have no more sacred obligation than protecting our children. In most of our cases, we dedicate everything we have as parents to ensuring our children’s safety, to providing for their future, and that is what this bill is all about–that responsibility.
Tragically, too often, despite our best efforts, too many of our children fall victim to abuse. We cannot guarantee their safety, but what we can do is ensure that when children in this country are harmed, we can deliver justice without further harming them. Thankfully, children’s advocacy centers, for which this bill reauthorizes funding, are critical and effective resources in our communities that help us perform this awesome and terrible responsibility. Through this bill, we can continue to prevent future tragedies and deliver justice in ways that are effective and less costly than communities can deliver alone.
This bill helps prevent child abuse proactively. Just last year its programs trained more than 500,000 Americans, mostly in school settings, in how to spot and prevent child sexual abuse.
Secondly, and in my view most importantly, this bill delivers justice. Children’s advocacy centers increase prosecution of the monsters who perpetrate child abuse. One study showed a 94-percent conviction rate for center cases that carried forward to trial.
Third, and in many ways equally as important, this bill helps to heal. Child victims of abuse who receive services at a child advocacy center are four times more likely to receive the medical exams and mental health treatment they desperately need compared to children who are served by non-center supported communities. No parent ever wants to go to one of these places or have to bring their child to one of these places, but those parents who have under these tragic circumstances, nearly 100 percent of them say they would recommend seeking this help to other parents.
How do these advocacy centers achieve all these different results of prevention, of justice, and of healing? Well, they are unique because they bring together under one roof everybody who needs to be present to help deal with the tragedy of child abuse: law enforcement, prosecutors, mental health and child service professionals–all focused on what is in the best interest of the child.
Through a trained forensic interviewer, they interview the child to find out exactly what happened. They ask difficult, detailed questions, and they structure the conversation in a trained and non-leading way so the testimony can be used later in court, preventing what otherwise is re-traumatization, making it possible for child victims to testify in a way that will lead to justice but without forcing those children to take the stand and to repeat over and over what they testified to once at a center.
Prosecutors take the information obtained in the interview all the way through the court system, while doctors and other child service professionals ensure the child is getting the help he or she badly needs to begin the process of healing.
One place, one interview, with all the resources a victim would need to move forward to secure justice and to heal.
In my home State of Delaware, we have three children’s advocacy centers, one in each of our counties. In the last year, I visited the centers in Wilmington and in Dover and saw firsthand the extraordinary work the professionals there do. These are places haunted by the tragedies that are described and recorded there, but the staff are welcoming, nurturing professionals, and the law enforcement and mental health and child service professionals who are there are deeply dedicated to making sure that they achieve justice and that they promote healing.
It was striking on my tours, my visits, to see how strategically and thoughtfully each of these centers has been put together, how they have worked through every possible detail to enable obtaining the testimony needed to secure justice while enabling healing of child victims. This is critical in order to avoid re-traumatization–a threat that is real for victims and for their long-term healing process. The centers in Wilmington and Dover and Georgetown in my home State show over and over how these centers create the sort of nurturing but effective space to ensure that we both meet the needs of victims and secure justice.
As I am sure the Chair knows, in my home State of Delaware just a few years ago we saw exactly the kind of evil we most dread in this world when a pediatrician, a man named Earl Bradley whom many Delawareans trusted with their children’s health and safety, was found to have sexually assaulted more than 100 of our children. Delaware is a State of neighbors, and his horrific crimes against our children, our families, and our communities affected all of us. Attorney general Beau Biden and his team effectively led the investigation and prosecution of this monster. Thankfully, children’s advocacy centers were able to play a key role in ensuring that the interviews and the assistance provided to the victims and their families were effective and that ultimately justice was rendered.
Randy Williams, the executive director of Delaware’s Children’s Advocacy Center in Dover, wrote to me: “Our multidisciplinary team worked tirelessly and seamlessly in providing forensic interviews, assessments, medical evaluations and mental health services for every child referred to our centers.”
Randy went on to say: “I feel confident that our team’s outstanding collaborative response was a direct result of the financial and technical assistance and training resources made possible over many years through the Federal Victims of Child Abuse Act.”
In the end, Dr. Bradley was convicted on multiple counts. Over 100 victims were involved. He is now serving 14 life sentences plus 164 years in prison.
As a nation, we have no greater responsibility than to keep our children safe. As a father, there is nothing that keeps me up at night more than concerns about the safety and security and health of my own children. We must do everything we can to prevent sexual abuse of those most vulnerable and those most precious members of our society–our children. When that tragedy strikes, we need to be prepared with the best services we have to foster healing and deliver justice.
This specific bill is about upholding our responsibility to our children, to our families, and to this nation’s future. It is at the very core of why we serve and of what we believe. I am grateful that this is a bipartisan bill, that this is a bill which can demonstrate the best of what this Senate, this Congress, and this country is capable of. It represents the best of our Federal commitment to targeted, effective, and essential assistance to State and local law enforcement, to our communities, and to our children.
I urge my colleagues to join with us because in the end, no child should fall prey to physical or sexual abuse. No mother or father should have a haunting experience of finding that an adult they trusted took advantage of that trust and horribly hurt their child. No country should tolerate these crimes when there are things we can do now, today, on a bipartisan basis, to protect and to heal our children and to ensure that justice is secured.