New child advocacy center to be opened in Mid-Missouri
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
A Missouri nonprofit organization has announced it will be partnering with a consultant agency to reopen a child advocacy center in Mid-Missouri.
According to a release from Partner for Better, the Missouri Network Against Child Abuse will contract with the company to open a new child advocacy center after the Rainbow House closed earlier this year.
Kasey Hammock, the founder of Partner for Better, said the partnership was a direct result of Rainbow House closing its shelter.
“I was absolutely devastated to hear this news. I know that the Rainbow House staff and board did everything that they could to ensure that that didn't happen,” Hammock told ABC 17 News. “Once it became known that it was sort of inevitable that that was going to happen, everyone who cares about children in the mid-Missouri area quickly came together, including Missouri Network Against Child Abuse, and said, 'What can we do?'”
Rainbow House was one of 15 child advocacy centers across the state and helped serve 11 different counties in Mid-Missouri. Its closure after 38 years of service dealt a large blow.
“Without a dedicated Child Advocacy Center, essential services for vulnerable children in Central Missouri could vanish,” MO-NACA Executive Director Jessica Seitz said in the release. ”This loss would be unprecedented in our state and would leave children without access to evidence-based services to assist in seeking justice and healing from abuse.”
“Child advocacy centers play a really critical role when a child has experienced abuse or neglect,” Hammock said. “It is a place that they can go to get both resources so they can heal from that experience, as well as make sure that all of the information about that incident has been recorded in a trauma-informed way and has the appropriate details. That way a case can be prosecuted effectively and really these centers help to make sure that children are not further traumatized by the process of getting someone through that criminal trial.”
The new center will be called the Child Advocacy Center of Central Missouri and is projected to serve at least 600 children every year, according to the release. The release states the center will receive around $312,000 in state funding and another $100,000 from federal sources already secured. However, the location of the new center is still unclear.
The former Rainbow House property was sold to Little Dixie Construction. Because of this Hammock tells ABC 17 News that the group is still searching for a new location for the shelter.
The new child center plans to support a population across eleven counties including Adair, Audrain, Boone, Callaway, Cole, Cooper, Howard, Macon, Monroe, Randolph, and Shelby counties, according to the release.
“Child advocacy centers in general are a sort of hidden resource in all of our communities. Not many people know that they exist until they need one, but it is absolutely one of the most foundational services that exist in the community is at the same level as hospitals and fire and police. It's an essential service and it's really critical that it continues,” Hammock said.
While Rainbow House closed its shelter services, its child advocacy services have continued.
An exact date is not provided for when the new center will open but the release states the Rainbow House will stay open until the CAC-CMO is established and can operate as its own. Rainbow House President Tyler Willy told ABC 17 News in an email that Rainbow House is still working through plans on how to ensure a shelter is reopened in Columbia.
It's unclear how long Rainbow House can continue operating. Hammock said that her group is hoping to have a new nonprofit organization lined up by the end of the year to help stabilize finances so that child advocacy services in Columbia are no longer dependent on Rainbow House.
