March 2025 Newsletter

At the end of January, a small group of our direct service staff attended the 40th annual International Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment in San Diego, California. This conference brings together Child Advocacy Center professionals and others working in the field of child maltreatment from all over the country (and world). Some of the conference topics that stood out to our team were:

- Online Child Safety: The importance of parental involvement in children’s online safety was a key topic at this year’s conference. Session leaders provided insight into a common objection from parents, which is that looking through their child’s phone is an invasion of privacy, and that they do not want to violate their child’s trust. This training stressed that children have not developed the ability to correctly assess risk, to recognize grooming and abuse, or to fully understand the dangers present; it is imperative that parents set aside privacy violation concerns for the sake of safety. Session leaders also shared that one tactic that perpetrators use to interact with children online is through YouTube comments. Perpetrators will establish contact with a child through a public platform such as YouTube or Twitch and then invite the child to message with them privately through an end-to-end encrypted app like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp or Signal. By moving the conversation to an encrypted app, communications with the child become private and harder to trace. For parental resources on this topic, visit this DHS site to help stop online child sexual exploitation and abuse.

- The Role of MDT Coordinators: Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) Coordinators serve as a “team leader” of sorts, coordinating communication between Child Advocacy Centers, the District Attorney’s office, law enforcement, and other local agencies involved in child abuse cases. MDT Coordinators bring all of these partners together for a “wrap around” approach, ensuring a timely and robust response to reports of child abuse. The National Children’s Alliance continues to review and adapt their standards, definition of and accreditation for MDT Coordinators, as this is a newer role for many Centers. Our team members learned that nearly half of all MDT Coordinators work in a “dual” role, serving in additional areas such as victim advocacy. Our dedicated MDT Coordinator, Chasteen, found this training helpful and informative. She has set a high standard of excellence operating in her role and leading the way for our local MDT partners.

- Medical Bias: Another training session at the conference discussed the problem of medical bias in cases of child abuse. Medical bias is defined as a preconceived notion or prejudice that a healthcare professional may have about a patient based on their race, ethnicity, gender, age, socioeconomic status, or disability. The session leader explained that, unfortunately, everyone is biased to some degree (whether implicitly or explicitly), and these biases affect how medical professionals interact with patients. These biases can also lead to people of color being disproportionality investigated and held to higher standards than white people. Also, traditional “nuclear” families typically are not scrutinized as closely as single-parent households. These uneven standards in the treatment of children with concerns of abuse are something that our staff are diligently watching out for; they are double-checking our own process to ensure that we are giving a standardized assessment to all families.

Our staff are immensely grateful for the opportunity to attend trainings such as these. These trainings enrich the Amani Center’s understanding of best practices, and the knowledge gained ultimately benefits Columbia County children and families receiving services at the Center.