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Child Advocacy Center Of Sedgwick County Receives $115K Grant

http://www.cacsckansas.org

A Sedgwick County organization that helps child abuse victims and their caregivers will receive a $115,000 state-funded grant.

The Child Advocacy Center of Sedgwick County coordinates and provides services for children who may have experienced physical or sexual abuse.

Last year, the center served about 1800 children, and 70 percent of those victims were under the age of 12.

The center’s executive director, Diana Schunn, says they help minimize the trauma for victims by coordinating the investigation with community partners such as local law enforcement.

"When children and families need to come in for a child abuse investigation, they are able to do so in a quick manner in an area that is child focused and child-friendly," Schunn says.

She says more than half of the child victims they work with have experienced sexual abuse. Investigations have also involved cases of physical abuse, drug endangerment, neglect, human trafficking or witnesses to violent crime.

The center also provided advocacy and follow-up services for about 500 “non-offending” parents and guardians.

In all, the state awarded more than $1,000,000 in state grants to 17 children’s advocacy groups throughout Kansas.

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Follow Deborah Shaar on Twitter @deborahshaar.

To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

 

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.