Youth Advocacy Center of Lewis County Moving to Larger Location in Centralia

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The Youth Advocacy Center of Lewis County will move to a new location at  220 Washington Way in Centralia by May 1, where it will have its own building and more space for operations.

The Youth Advocacy Center of Lewis County is a “child-focused, community-based facility” for children up to 18 years old who are potentially victims of physical or sexual abuse, neglect or may have witnessed violence. Executive Director Rachel McClain and Child Forensic Interviewer Samantha Mitchell work in the center.

“Our whole goal is to wrap around families — children — who have experienced abuse,” Mitchell said. “One in 10 children, according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), will be sexually abused by the time they are 18. That carries a heavy burden on the entire community. Being able to provide education to the community on how to recognize and respond to child abuse makes this a safer place and a more functioning community. These kids who are experiencing abuse, they can’t function normally in society.”

Previously, the Youth Advocacy Center of Lewis County resided in Northwest Pediatric Center. Since 2011, Northwest Pediatric Center provided the space to the agency for free.

The center’s new building, however, is much larger and will be operational for forensic interviews and sexual assault exams by May 1. McClain and Mitchell hope to have more cosmetic changes, such as painting and adding couches, done by the end of May. Pope’s Kids Place is renting the building to the Youth Advocacy Center of Lewis County for free for the next year.

There are three parts to the Youth Advocacy Center of Lewis County — an advocate who assists families with the process from Human Response Network, a forensic interview (performed either by Mitchell or McClain) and a medical exam by a professional from Northwest Pediatric Center. Mitchell and McClain hope to add a mental health counselor to Youth Advocacy Center as well.

“What happens through the process is CPS (Child Protective Services) or law enforcement, whoever is taking lead on a case, they will refer a child to our agency for either a sexual assault allegation or a physical abuse allegation,” McClain said. “Sometimes, if a child has been a witness to a crime — like a murder, or domestic violence, just an example — we set up the forensic interview, we refer that to the advocates. So the advocates meet us and the child here on the day of the interview. Law enforcement and CPS are hopefully here if they are taking lead on the case. Sometimes prosecution will show up and watch as well.”

After the forensic interview, the center provides a copy to law enforcement and a summary to CPS.



“From there, the child will be referred, usually, to therapy,” McClain said. “They will continue their case with the advocates, so that is really where they are instrumental in kind of just helping them heal from whatever happened or didn’t happen, and just kind of figure out how they move on from the situation.”

At that point, the case is over for the Youth Advocacy Center of Lewis County, unless the case goes to trial and one of them must testify.

“These are extremely hard cases to investigate and to prosecute,” Mitchell said. “They are private crimes. You have an adult and a child and it’s their word against each other. Eighty percent of the cases don’t have any medical evidence. We live in a CSI age and everybody wants evidence, and that’s not what these types of crimes are about. So (we are) just educating the community and providing a safe place to talk about what may or may not have happened.”

The new location will also have more advanced recording equipment. It’s a mobile unit, which will later enable the Youth Advocacy Center of Lewis County to go out into the community to conduct interviews. For people in East county and West county, Mitchell said, transportation is a huge issue.

The total cost of the recording equipment is $18,300. The Office of Crime Victim Advocacy (OCVA), within Washington State Department of Commerce, awarded the center a $10,000 grant to purchase the equipment. The Lewis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office also committed to donate $3,000 for the equipment, McClain said.

“That’s been really big for us, to be able to put in that equipment,” McClain said. “It’s called iRecord. So that’s what is going to be going into this new location. Our old equipment, we were basically holding wires together to keep it running. So we are really excited to have this new equipment coming in.”