Centers Aim to Make Reporting Abuse Easier

The Ventura County district attorney’s office is prepared to spend at least $350,000 to create two interview centers where alleged victims of physical and sexual abuse can report those crimes in a less stressful atmosphere.

The facilities--officially known as multidisciplinary interview centers--will be designed so that children will have to tell their story only once, in a private, friendly environment, away from the chaos of a police station or a hospital emergency room. The centers--planned for Ventura and Simi Valley--also will be used to interview alleged adult victims of sexual assault.

Services at the centers will include helping victims and their families recover from abuse by getting them counseling or temporary housing. On-site victims’ advocates will help secure restraining orders when necessary.

“How many times would you like to tell your story if you’ve been sexually molested?” asked Paul Russell, director of children’s medical services for the Ventura County Department of Public Health. “Some kids who are telling it once are in tears. Then they have to go through it again, then again.

“Once you have obtained the information that is needed from a prosecutorial perspective, there is no good in having the child tell it over and over again.”

When an allegation of abuse is reported to authorities, the young person will be taken to one of the centers, where he or she will be interviewed by a forensic expert. The interview will be observed, via closed-circuit camera or a two-way mirror, by members of the various agencies that typically respond to abuse allegations--police, prosecutors, social workers, medical personnel and victims’ advocates.

Those involved in the system say it’s long overdue.

“I have been in this business for 20 years and I can tell you, based on my own personal experience in dealing with child victims and adult victims, there is no one case that I can think of that would not have benefited [from such a] center,” said Lela Henke-Dobroth, chief deputy district attorney.

The district attorney’s office recently secured a state grant to help finance the centers. The office will receive $110,000 annually until 2003. The money will come from Proposition 10 receipts, which raised tobacco taxes to help finance children’s health and education programs.

It is not known how many victims will use the centers once they are open this fall, but Children and Family Services in Ventura County investigated 500 cases of sexual abuse and 1,500 cases of physical abuse last year. Alfred Garcia, supervisor of social workers for the agency, said 15% to 20% of those cases would be strong enough to be referred to the new interview centers.

Additionally, Ventura County Medical Center and Simi Valley Hospital conducted a total of 200 medical exams on alleged victims of sexual abuse and assault. About one-third of those involved children younger than 12, said Natalie Erickson, a sexual-assault nurse examiner at the county hospital. Such exams could be performed at the centers.

Garcia with Children and Family Services remembers a 12-year-old girl who had been molested by her stepfather.

The girl, who was shy to begin with, had finally worked up the courage to tell a school counselor what had happened. Before long, she had to tell a police officer, and a detective who investigated the case, and a social worker who removed her from her home, and eventually a prosecutor with the county district attorney’s office who got the girl’s abuser put behind bars. In all, the girl had to recount her story half a dozen times.

“I just thought, ‘How many times is this girl going to have to talk about her private parts?’ ” Garcia said. “To have to tell that story to one person is difficult enough.”

Ventura Police Sgt. Jerry Thurston, supervisor of detectives, said such instances can play havoc on an investigation. It doesn’t do much for a child’s psyche, either.

“For a small child, they’re not understanding why they need to tell the story,” Thurston said. “[They are thinking], I’ve already told one adult. Now I have to tell another adult. What’s the problem? Why don’t they believe me?”

Authorities will not disclose the exact locations of the centers because of privacy and security concerns. Each facility will be inside a former residence that is decorated like a home.

The center in Simi Valley will be in a residential neighborhood near the city hospital. The Ventura site will be on the city’s west end in a commercial-residential neighborhood. Renovation work on the buildings is expected to begin in July.