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By MACKENZEE SIMMS | Staff Writer

What would you do if your child was abused and you had nowhere to turn for support?

In Shelby County, that question looms as one of the top child advocacy centers in the Birmingham area faces federal funding issues.

Owens House, located in Shelby County, offers a safe space for child abuse victims to receive care and gives these children an avenue to justice.

Now, the invaluable services offered at Owen House’s may be in danger, an outcome feared by local authorities and child advocates such as Maribeth Bowman, Owens House program director and forensic interview specialist.

“What happens when you lose your Children’s Advocacy Center within a community is that there’s no one rallying (people) together in the sole purpose of providing hope and healing to these children,” Bowman said. “For us, the cuts are extremely scary for everyone because we understand what that looks like for a family.”

 

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN

About 40 years ago, former Madison County District Attorney Robert Cramer encountered a problem while prosecuting child abuse cases.

The children in his cases were traumatized, scared and distressed. From the very first time that they disclosed their abuse up until the court case, these children were expected to describe what happened to them over and over again.

Cramer wanted to develop a system where law enforcement, child protective services, mental health professionals and the criminal justice department could coordinate their efforts to best suit the needs of the child.

In 1985, Cramer founded the nation’s first Children’s Advocacy Center in Huntsville. After that, CACs appeared across the country and serve as integral components in the modern justice system.

In 1993, District Attorney Robert Owens Jr. founded the Shelby County Children’s Advocacy Center, now known as Owens House.

With the goal of providing refuge and healing for children who have experienced abuse, Owens House offers a multitude of services from forensic interviews, family advocacy, counseling services and community education.

However, those services are in danger. Due to a lack of federal funds, Owens House faces an uncertain future, but its staff and supporters hope that its vital mission will continue for years to come.

 

THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

According to Bowman, Owens House utilizes a multidisciplinary team approach to coordinate care and justice for victims.

“The multidisciplinary team is a specially trained group of individuals whose job is to investigate crimes against children and vulnerable adults within our community,” Bowman said. “In Shelby County, we’re very lucky to have one of the most broad multidisciplinary teams in the state.”

The multidisciplinary team at the Owens House consists of investigative partners such as law enforcement, the Alabama Department of Human Resources and the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office. In addition, Owens House utilizes representatives from all three school systems in Shelby County, the juvenile court system and the Hispanic and Immigrant Coalition of Alabama.

“We are tasked with investigating these cases together in a team format, and that’s to make sure that we’re giving a well-rounded look to every investigation that we have,” Bowman said.

Together, the multidisciplinary team gathers evidence for investigations, offers recommendations for counseling and coordinates care and resources for the child and their family.

 

FORENSIC INTERVIEWS

For many children, their Owens House experience starts with a forensic interview.

“A forensic interview is just a one-on-one conversation between a child and a specially trained professional about something of interest,” Bowman said. “For us, it is some kind of allegation of abuse, neglect or that the child has witnessed a violent crime.”

When a forensic interview is conducted, one of the Owens House specialists will meet with a child and ask questions about what happened to them. Meanwhile, the multidisciplinary team listens to the conversation from the other room.

“As a forensic interviewer, it’s our job to go in there and extract that evidence from that child’s brain in an objective and nonbiased manner, so that law enforcement and DHR can take that information, follow up on it and see where it leads,” Bowman said. “We’re artists, and we paint the picture for the team with the child’s disclosure.”

Before the end of the interview, the specialist will leave the room and consult with the team about what they have learned so far. This break allows the specialist to see if law enforcement or case workers need any more information before they finish the interview.

Shelby County Chief Juvenile Probation Officer Shaun Styers explained that these interviews can open up new avenues of investigation for the criminal cases.

“The investigation—when performed with a forensically-sound interview—can do all sorts of things, including the discovery of new evidence that we otherwise wouldn’t know,” Styers said. “The forensic interview allows us to find corroborative evidence that we otherwise wouldn’t be able to.”

According to Sgt. Robert Rodriguez from the Shelby County Sherriff’s Office’s Criminal Investigations Division, forensic interviews have specific protocols which allow those interviews to be used as official statements of record in court.

“Basically, when we leave (a forensic interview), we have the facts of the case,” Rodriguez said. “We have the details of what happened to the child, and then the child is done. They don’t have to retell that story over and over and over and over again.”

Rodriguez shared that the Criminal Investigations Division partners with Owens House in 100 percent of cases that involve suspected child abuse.

“We’re always going to involve Owens House because they specialize in gathering information and providing services to families,” Rodriguez said. “Together, we’re holding hands going down this road. We rely on them to get the information that we need.”

Bowman shared that Owens House conducts approximately 350-400 forensic interviews a year and that approximately one-third of all cases make it to the prosecution phase.

 

FAMILY ADVOCACY AND COUNSELING

While the Criminal Investigations Division uses forensic interviews to inform an investigation, the staff at Owens House use that information to offer support to the child and their family through trauma-informed counseling and family advocacy.

According to Owens House Executive Director Laurel Teel, the counseling program offers necessary support to children after any abuse.

“We offer follow up counseling to every child who’s been interviewed here at Owens House,” Teel said. “It is follow-up counseling used to treat the symptoms of the PTSD that they’re going to have from the trauma they experience.”

If the child is unable to attend counseling services in person, Owens House offers telehealth appoints and referrals to trauma specialists that operate in the family’s community.

When it comes to child abuse cases, the children are not the only ones affected. Non-offending caregivers and family members also suffer a level of trauma. In addition, families can also lack the resources to provide the support children need.

“A lot of times when the child has been physically and sexually abused, when that comes out, as a family, now they are going through that trauma,” Rodriguez said. “They’re having to relive what their daughter, their son, their grandchild went through. Owens House provides help and services to the siblings and the parents because they’re going to need help. They need guidance. They need counseling,”

In these instances, Owens House employs a family advocate to coordinate resources for the family.

For example, if the abuse was perpetrated by a parent that happened to be the breadwinner of the family, Owens House would coordinate support to help the family meet its basic needs.

“If they mention that they’re unable to pay bills, we are going to partner with some of our partner agencies in the community and try to make sure that we get all of this family’s needs met,” Teel said. “The abuse is enough crisis in and of itself. To add on all these other components just makes it even more difficult. We just want to support the family the best we can.”

Through his position as law enforcement partnering with Owens House, Rodriguez shared that he has seen Owens House make an incredible impact on the lives of victims and their families through their services.

“By the resources that they provide, Owens House is able to pick up the pieces of that child’s life that has been destroyed and the innocence that has been robbed,” Rodriguez said. “They pick up those pieces, put them together and bring hope to the child and the family. That’s what they really do.”

 

FUNDING ISSUES

Despite partnering with law enforcement and government agencies, Owens House is a 501 (c)(3) private nonprofit organization. The board of directors is not appointed by the government nor is the budget overseen by any government agency. Nevertheless, Owens House relies on government funding.

Currently, Owens House faces a 42 percent budget cut from the government.

Historically, Owens House has received funding through the Victims of Crime Act that was passed by Congress in 1984, but those funds are less available now than they have been in the past.

“The Victims of Crime Fund is a restitution fund that’s paid via white-collar criminal prosecutions and the fines associated with those crimes,” Teel said. “Currently, those types of prosecutions and fines are at a two-decade low, so the funding stream going into that fund is lower.”

Funds from the Victims of a Crime Act are granted to each state and Children’s Advocacy Centers in all states are currently threatened by budget cuts. In Alabama, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs is the administrator of the VOCA fund.

According to Teel, Owens House is accredited through the National Children’s Alliance which sets the standards for and best practices for Children’s Advocacy Centers across the nation. NCA has been lobbying Congress to refill the VOCA fund, so far, to no avail.

Currently, hope lies in the Crime Victim Stabilization Act to temporarily provide additional deposits into the Crime Victims Fund.

Congresswoman Ann Wagner, a U.S. representative from Missouri, introduced the bill to the House of Representatives on April 18, 2024, but no further action has been taken since.

According to Teel, Owens House also receives state funding through the General Fund and the Education Trust Fund, but that is not guaranteed.

“We are not guaranteed state funding year after year,” Teel said. “Our network of Children’s Advocacy Centers actually employs a lobbyist who we have actually go in and request this funding every year. It’s not written into the state budget.”

 

AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Now, Owens House faces an uncertain future as they consider how they can continue services in the face of a 42 percent budget cut.

Rodriguez shared that funding cuts would impact services such as forensic interviews which law enforcement relies on.

“It would impact the services that they provide, not only to the community, but to those families that are impacted by these instances of child and physical abuse,” Rodriguez said. “(It also) impacts law enforcement and what we’re able to do because we work in partnership, hand-in-hand with them, so they need those resources.”

As a forensic interviewer, Bowman fears a future where child abuse victims are relegated to the state of the 1980s where kids feel alienated or alone without proper interviews, counseling or advocacy.

“We have had case after case where if it had not been for our team members and our employees at Owen’s house, those kids would not have found justice,” Bowman said. “Families would not be able to put those pieces back together, and parents wouldn’t feel like they were adequately able to care for their children who have experienced these things.”

For Styers, the impact of Owen’s House is visible every day through the juvenile court program, but their mission also hits closer to home.

“I think everyone can agree that no child should suffer abuse—sexual abuse or physical abuse—no child should have to deal with that. That is why we are here,” Styers said. “One in 10 children have been a victim of some kind of physical or sexual abuse by the time they are 18. I look back at the work that I’ve done with Owens House as a district attorney and I look back to why Owens House is so important to me—and that is because I am one of those one in 10.”

Bowman shared that it is difficult to articulate how integral Children’s Advocacy Centers are in society, but that without them, there is no one to rally a team to provide hope and healing to children that have experienced abuse.

“You don’t know about Owens House until you need Owens House,” Bowman said. “When you experience that firsthand, you understand how vital that is to your community and what that community would be lacking if that was not there.”

To learn more about Owens House or to make a donation, visit Owenshouse.org.

If you believe that your family may be in need of services, you can email laurelt@owenshouse.org or call (205) 669-3333. Owens House services are free of charge for the client and their family.