Child Abuse Prevention Month & Sexual Assault Awareness Month

The month of April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Did you know that 1 in 10 children will be victims of sexual abuse before the age of 18, and

1 in 7 children will experience abuse or neglect.

At Compass Health, we provide support to children and youth victims of sexual assault, abuse, and neglect through our CAP program (Child Advocacy Program). CAP provides services to children and adolescents who have been or are believed to have been sexually abused from birth to 22 years old. CAP also provides assistance to their non-offending family members. The youth and family-focused services provided at Compass Health clinics by professionals specifically trained to use Trauma Focused-Cognitive Therapy (TF-CBT) as their treatment model to treat victims of sexual abuse. Studies have shown that counseling and ongoing therapy have been proven to relieve long-term conditions such as feelings of guilt, extreme anxiety, and depression. In addition to our Compass Health clinics, we have CAP specialists located at Dawson Place Child Advocacy Center in downtown Everett.

Dawson Place Child Advocacy Center is a nonprofit organization providing safety, justice, and healing to victims of child physical and sexual abuse, assault, and neglect. They bring all the services a child and family would need together under one roof, allowing our team to better devote their efforts to helping child victims, reducing the time spent coordinating amongst organizations, and shortening the chain of communication between each other. In the end, delivering more positive outcomes for kids at a much more rapid pace. Through this program, no child, youth, or family will be denied services due to the inability to pay.

In the last year, Dawson Place has served 1,014 victims. Dawson Place serves an average of 22 new victims a week. And over the past 16 years since the doors have opened at Dawson Place, they have served over 15,000 clients. For anyone looking to contact Dawson Place about receiving services for themselves or someone else, here are a few different avenues they can go through:

• If victims seek services, they can call Dawson Place at 425-789-3000 (front desk mainline).
  • They will be directed to the appropriate service (advocates, mental health, medical, etc.)
• If someone wants to report child abuse, they should call 911 and speak with their local police department.
• If they would like to speak to an advocate, they can call 425-297-5771.
  • This is the mainline to speak 24hrs/day with an advocate from Providence Intervention Center for Assault and Abuse.

Learn more about CAP here: https://www.compasshealth.org/services/child-advocacy-program/

Learn more about Dawson Place and their different programs here: https://www.dawsonplace.org/