CAC IMPACT
The Nebraska Alliance provides technical assistance and training to support the CACs in attaining the core accreditation standards. The 25 state-wide meetings in 2017 offered peer review, insightful discussions, and training components that help CACs attain consistency in services.
MDT IMPACT
Through our regional Child Advocacy Center partner relationships, the Nebraska Alliance hosted a Multi-Disciplinary Team Facilitator three-day training for seventeen of the CAC Multi-Disciplinary Team Coordinators. They work with over 100 teams with 2,600 team members to annually review over 12,000 cases across all 93 Nebraska counties. The training enhanced the Coordinators’ facilitator skills to ignite participatory discussion around system issue identification to promote collaborative decision-making and productive methods for addressing conflict.
The Nebraska Alliance is co-chair under the Governor’s Commission for the Protection of Children’s Multi-Disciplinary Team Coordination Subcommittee. The above CAC training laid the foundation for the CAC Coordinators to help implement the directives of the Subcommittee.
The Governor’s Commission Subcommittee is to evaluate the effectiveness of multi-disciplinary teams’ response to child abuse and neglect investigations/prosecutions in order to bring state-wide consistency. The Subcommittee developed a 45-item checklist based on Nebraska state statutes and national CAC accreditation standards and reviewed/provided feedback on team protocols representing 82 protocols in effect for all 93 counties. The Subcommittee’s next steps is strategizing with the CAC Coordinators on best practices.
TRAFFICKING IMPACT
The Nebraska Alliance aims to increase continuity amongst our partners and to strengthen Nebraska’s youth response to human trafficking meeting the needs of the communities CACs serve. This work includes the Nebraska Alliance representation on the following Nebraska Human Trafficking Task Force committees: Advisory Board, Working Group, Services Committee, Training Commit-tee, Screening Tool Committee, and the Law Enforcement Committee. The committees and sub- committees worked on developing various trainings and finalized a Pocket Card for Law Enforcement to reference when responding to potential trafficking situations. They also developed a calling tree reference tool for professionals involved in trafficking response by region. The work of these committees allowed over 1800 multi-disciplinary team partners to be educated in recognizing and responding to trafficked youth and youth at high risk of exploitation.
The Nebraska Alliance hosted “Child Sex Trafficking Awareness and Response” with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children educating 54 local law enforcement officers and prosecutors on recognizing and responding to child sex trafficking.
The Nebraska Alliance facilitated two sessions of “Motivational Interviewing”; one specifically for the CAC Advocates at a Statewide Meeting in Grand Island and the other at the Nebraska Coalition for Victims of Crime annual conference.
