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Two organizations which
have blessed Fort Bend County and her children are
the Fort Bend Children's Advocacy Center and the Women’s Center.
These safe havens for abused children have forged
positive partnerships with my office as we seek to
lesson the trauma brought about by perpetrators of
crime.
In 1997, civic and political leaders created the
first permanent, county-wide structure for the
interviewing of child abuse victims. Since that
time, the Fort Bend Children's Advocacy Center
has also provided children with medical referrals,
psychological referrals and counseling, and court
orientation and accompaniment.
Additionally, it has provided offices to my
prosecuting attorneys and the attorneys from the
County Attorney’s office. In the center, attorneys
can gain immediate information from the interviews
of children as cases are prepared and subsequently
staffed on site with police officers, CPS workers
and therapists. I am proud to serve as a member of
the center’s Advisory Council as we assist it in
accomplishing its mission of soothing the pain of
child abuse.
The Fort Bend County Women’s Center has been
providing a refuge and educating the public on the
horrors of domestic violence over a span of four
decades. Emergency shelter care, long-term rental
assistance, counseling, job skills training and
placement, and teaching proper interpersonal
relationships in Fort Bend’s schools are just some
of the good works of the Women’s Center. I am proud
to be on the center’s Council of Resources and to
have my office associated with it.
Prosecutors in my office are happy to have called
employees of the Women’s Center to the witness stand
in some cases where a greater understanding is
needed by juries as to the cycle of domestic
violence. |
District Attorney John Healey is helping
with a project for the Women's Center
John
assisting with the victim
witness coordinator
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