Emma's House

Emma’s House is a facility-based program where children begin healing from the trauma of abuse and neglect.  Emma’s House provides forensic interviews, child abuse-specific medical exams (on-site), and trauma-focused counseling for children and their non-offending caregivers (also on-site). The forensic interview is video-recorded and subsequently provided to the investigative agency (law enforcement or child and family services), which initiates an investigation. This process eliminates the need for the child to be interviewed at the police station, which to many children is very intimidating. Prior to Emma’s House, child victims of abuse often had to disclose up to 9 times the trauma that had occurred to multiple professionals. The Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) model minimizes the trauma to the child by eliminating the need for multiple interviews and providing a warm child-friendly home-like setting. We provide one forensic interview that is legally sound and developmentally appropriate, which oftentimes becomes critical evidence if a case goes to court.