The team of students at the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service has worked with Children’s Advocacy Centers of Arkansas to develop a statewide plan for child trafficking victims in Arkansas.
With 17 centers across the state, Children’s Advocacy Centers of Arkansas promotes, assists, and supports the development, growth, and continuation of CACs in Arkansas so that every child victim has access to their services, which include forensic interviews, family advocacy, community education, mental health programs, medical exams, and more.
The organization serves as a link to regional and national support agencies and as the leading resource within Arkansas dedicated to a coordinated and comprehensive response to child abuse.
The team of Mac Bolt (North Little Rock, Ark.), Courtney Heptig (Fort Worth, Texas), Brittany Moody (Bentonville, Ark.), and Aisosa Osaretin (Benin City, Nigeria) used a combination of focus groups and interviews to develop its plan. The team was supervised by Elizabeth Pulley, Executive Director for Children’s Advocacy Centers of Arkansas.
“In the state of Arkansas, we are really behind on child trafficking efforts,” Pulley said. “Obviously, there are some laws in place but throughout the state there are not a lot of training, resources, or ways to connect with each other.”
The team toured a few of the organization’s centers across Arkansas and were involved in meetings with state police officials, the Department of Human Services, and the Attorney General’s Office.
“Working with this team, there’s a lot of avenues that we could have explored,” Pulley said. “But we felt like the first phase or layer to this is seeing what’s out there, working with our partners to see where there is a lack of training and a lack of connection and bringing that all together.”
The team’s focus groups included a wide range of stakeholders, including health professionals, law enforcement officials, investigators, nonprofit leaders, and attorneys.
“We were looking at what services were available in the state of Arkansas,” Moody said. “We were able to identify some gaps in services and also best practices for the CACs to implement to close some of those gaps.”
The team also conducted phone interviews with representatives from similar organizations in Massachusetts, Texas, and Louisiana.
“It also showed again that we are behind in Arkansas,” Pulley said. “But I don’t think that we necessarily have to recreate the wheel, we can get ideas from states that are ahead of us.”
The team will present its findings online on Tuesday, April 14. “We invited all of our focus group attendants and Children’s Advocacy Centers around the state,” Moody said.
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