The Caring House opened their Child Advocacy Center (CAC) services in 2019. The Dickinson Area CAC was established to provide a safe, neutral and child friendly environment for children and their families during child abuse and neglect investigations. 
The CAC enhances the coordinated team response already in use in our communities.  This is a location where agencies responsible for investigating child abuse and neglect can refer a child. We provide a developmentally appropriate service to children while also supporting non-offending caregivers.  These practices create standardization in how cases are managed and give families the support they need to navigate an often difficult system. 
When law enforcement, child protective services or the prosecutor’s office has reason to believe a child has been abused, they make a forensic interview request to the CAC. The goal of this interview is to obtain a statement once from a child in a developmentally sensitive, unbiased, and truth-seeking manner that will support accurate and fair decision making in the criminal justice and child welfare systems. We conduct an audio and video recorded interview and share the information with the systems to ensure they have the knowledge to make quality decisions that will keep children safe. Best practices tell us that conducting only one recorded forensic interview of a child by a trained forensic interviewer in a safe environment can help minimize trauma to a child, as well as minimize contamination to the interview and the case. This process also provides support for the child and family for as long as they need by coordinating and providing wraparound services to them.