The
Stephanie
Zimbalist Caring For Kids Fund
Childhelp Programs &
Services
Prevention & Intervention
Childhelp National Child
Abuse Hotline
1-800-4-A-CHILD
Staffed 24 hours daily by
professional crisis counselors, the Hotline is accessible throughout
the U.S., its territories, and Canada. Through interpreters,
communication is possible in 140 languages. The confidential and
anonymous Hotline offers crisis intervention, information,
literature, and referrals to thousands of emergency, social service,
and support resources.
Children’s Advocacy Centers
A coalition of law
enforcement, prosecution, social service agencies, medical
professionals, and crisis counselors working together to utilize a
highly effective, one-stop approach to the investigation of child
abuse. The concept of the Children’s Advocacy Center is also
available within a mobile unit to provide services for abused
children in remote areas.
Residential Treatment Facilities
Provide specialized,
comprehensive care for severely abused children. In addition to
psychotherapy, counseling, medical care, and on-site schools, the
programs also include art, animal-assisted, music and recreational
therapy to help heal the heart, soul, and body of each child in our
care.
Therapeutic Group Homes
Provide a nurturing refuge
for abused and neglected children until they can be placed in foster
care, with adoptive parents or returned to their families, as
determined by the courts.
Good-Touch/Bad-Touch®
Child abuse prevention and
education program within elementary schools which reaches over
450,000 children annually.
Children's Art
Therapy
Art therapy is universal,
non-threatening in nature and provides a wealth of information in a
brief amount of time. It has the ability to help children heal even
from the most traumatic of circumstances.
The Childhelp National
Child
Abuse Hotline
The Childhelp National
Child Abuse Hotline 1-800-4-A-CHILD is dedicated to the prevention
of child abuse. Serving the United States, its territories, and
Canada, the Hotline is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with
professional crisis counselors who, through interpreters, can
provide assistance in 140 languages. The Hotline offers crisis
intervention, information, literature, and referrals to thousands of
emergency, social service, and support resources. All calls are
anonymous and confidential.
The Hotline has received more than 2 million calls since it began in
1982. These calls come from children at risk for abuse, distressed
parents seeking crisis intervention and concerned individuals who
suspect that child abuse may be occurring. The Hotline is also a
valuable resource for those who are mandated by law to report
suspected abuse, such as school personnel, medical and mental health
professionals and police and fire investigators.
Publicity in local and national media plays a key role in promoting
awareness of the Hotline number. The Childhelp National Child Abuse
Hotline has been featured on Oprah, The Today Show, Montel, and
NBC's Crime and Punishment and its "The More You Know" public
service announcement campaign. The Hotline has also been mentioned
in HBO and MTV documentaries about sexual abuse, on Lifetime
Television Network, and in Dear Abby and Seventeen magazine advice
columns.
The Hotline receives no government funding. It is supported by the
generous contributions of concerned organizations, foundations and
individuals.
Childhelp Advocacy Centers
The four children's
advocacy centers under the Childhelp umbrella utilize a highly
effective, one-stop approach to the investigation of child
abuse. Role models of community collaboration, the centers
provide a child-friendly facility at which members of the
investigative team interview, medically examine, provide and
refer treatment for abused children while pursuing the
prosecution of offenders.
The
multidisciplinary team typically includes professionals in
the areas of law enforcement, child protective services,
medicine, mental health and prosecution.
Advocacy Center Advantages
-
Reduces the number
of interviews a child victim must endure, which reduces the
trauma to the child
-
Creates a
comfortable, child-friendly environment for the
investigation as opposed to the environment typically
experienced in a hospital emergency room or police station
-
Greatly reduces the
time victims and their families spend assisting with the
investigation because all services are provided at one
location. What once took weeks can often be achieved in
hours.
-
Reduces police and
Child Protective Services investigative time
-
Enables quicker
prosecutions through more efficient case processing
-
Increases
communication between agencies for an improved understanding
of their roles and case needs
Center Locations
-
Childhelp
Children's Center of Arizona—Phoenix, Arizona
-
The Childhelp
Children's Mobile Advocacy Center of Northern Arizona
Childhelp
-
Children's Center
of Virginia—Fairfax, Virginia
-
Childhelp
Children's Advocacy Center of Knox County—Knoxville,
Tennessee
Treatment
Residential Centers
Located in rural
communities, the Childhelp residential treatment facilities (known
as villages) provide specialized, comprehensive treatment programs
for court-referred, severely abused children. Typically, the
children will have had a number of "failed" prior placements in the
homes of their relatives, and in foster homes and group care
facilities due to emotional and behavioral problems resulting from
their severe abuse or neglect. The boys and girls represent various
ethnic groups and receive individual, 24-hour care.
The staff of therapists,
teachers, social workers and medical professionals provides a
nurturing environment in which trust, self-esteem and healing can
take root and grow. A combination of psychotherapy, education, art,
music, animal-assisted, spiritual and recreation therapies are used.
Children typically live at a Childhelp village between three months
and two years. Then most of the children are able to succeed in less
intensive settings. This includes transitioning to a Childhelp group
or foster home, or returning to their parents or guardian.
Locations
The Village of Childhelp
West opened in 1978 as a residential treatment facility exclusively
for severely abused children. Located near Palm Springs, California,
this model program has received national and international
recognition for innovation and excellence. The village has
a capacity of 80 children ranging in age from six to thirteen years.
The Alice C. Tyler Village of Childhelp East is located in northern
Virginia, outside of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The
260-acre residential treatment facility opened in 1993 to provide a
continuum of healing services for severely abused children ages two
to twelve. The facility can accommodate up to 59 children when it is
at capacity. A multidisciplinary treatment strategy provides
children with an array of opportunities to experience success.
Group Homes
Childhelp operates
community-based group homes in Southern California and Virginia.
Childhelp staff provide residential treatment to a small number
of children in a setting less restrictive than the residential
treatment facilities (villages).
The group homes provide an intensive level of supervision and
therapeutic services in order to prepare children for the
transition to non-institutional care in foster homes, adoptive
homes or the home of their family or relatives.
Therapeutic Foster Care
Childhelp foster
care services in Southern California, Michigan and Tennessee
provide short and long-term therapeutic foster care to
abused and neglected children within a caring and safe
environment in which they can continue their development.
Childhelp is licensed
to recruit, screen, train, and certify foster care parents, and
provides ongoing support to both foster parents and the children
in their care.
Nationwide
Free crisis
intervention and child abuse counseling is available from
professional counselors 24 hours a day through the Childhelp
National Child Abuse Hotline, 1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453).
The hotline counselors also provide referrals to local agencies
and adult survivor groups throughout the United States and
Canada for ongoing support.
Arizona
Mental health services
and child abuse counseling services are provided to child abuse
victims and their families by appointment at the Childhelp
Children's Center in central Phoenix. Therapists work with
children ranging in age from three to eighteen years, and also
are available to work with other family members when deemed
appropriate. Spanish-language counseling services are available.
For more information, call (602) 271-4500.
Tennessee
Mental health services
available through the Childhelp Children's Advocacy Center of
Knox County include assessment, crisis counseling, and follow-up
counseling for child abuse victims and their non-offending
family members.
Virginia
Out-patient child abuse
counseling services for victims of abuse and non-offending
family members are available at the Childhelp Children's Center
of Virginia, provided by on-site staff from Child Protective
Services and County Mental Health Services.
Childhelp Virginia also provides out-patient counseling to
graduates of its residential treatment programs who reside in
Childhelp Virginia foster care homes.
Good Touch/Bad Touch
Childhelp® is proud to
announce their new prevention program,
Good-Touch/Bad-Touch®
(GTBT)! GTBT is a nation-wide, research-based curriculum for
children in Pre-K through 6th grades. On-going revisions keep it up
to date and relevant. GTBT is also educator training, available
throughout the year.
Based on respect for self
and others, GTBT has published research in Behavior Therapy, which
validates it as effective prevention by researchers from a major
university. This research has been replicated twice with the same
positive results. Therefore, those who use GTBT can be more
confident in its effectiveness as compared to other programs which
have not been rigorously evaluated and/or which do not have
published results.
Educators throughout the
U.S. have called GTBT the “best training they have received.”
Others recognize GTBT as “skills for life” training for the
children. Over 5500 educators have been certified as facilitators.
GTBT is currently being used in all 50 states and 5 foreign
countries.
Childhelp's Art Therapy
Program
Art and/or drawings
themselves were the earliest form of communication between humans.
Even during the most primal societies, picture representations of
life existed. Humans have used symbols for centuries to make sense
of the world they live in. Art therapy explores drawings by clients
in an effort to assist the client in making sense of there past and
present.
Art therapy as defined by
professionals “is a form of psychotherapy which uses the creation of
art or craft, to help release and explore the precise and personal
images and metaphors which lie at the foundation of the personality,
so that they can be explored and discussed within a therapeutic
relationship (see the British Association of Art Therapists).
Art therapy has evolved as
a therapeutic intervention with individuals in treatment since the
early 1970’s. Drawings are a vessel for individuals to express
their dreams, fears, pain and fantasies. One of the advantages of
art therapy is its ability to bypass verbal defenses developed over
a life span. Another important advantage of art therapy is it
requires little verbal communication. This makes it particularly
useful with children, who do either do not have proficient verbal
skills or have been penalized in some way for talking about their
lives. Art therapy also works well with children who are savvy
and/or long term foster care clients with built up defense
mechanisms and dense emotional walls.
Art therapy
begins with an assessment phase. The assessment phase gives
critical information about the child’s history and their perception
of their world. Art therapy can also be used with individuals,
families or groups. This makes art therapy extremely
universal. Drawings during therapy can give indications on
what areas the client has made progress in and what areas they still
need to improve upon. Drawings at termination can give a clear
picture of the overall progress the client has made during treatment
for the benefit of client and those who care for them.
