Child Advocacy Center

At the Child Advocacy Center, our mission is twofold – serving the needs of abused and neglected children in Southwest and South Central Missouri, and providing education to break abuse cycles and ultimately prevent child abuse in our region. We are the largest child advocacy center in the state of Missouri, serving 16 counties in the southwest and south central regions of the state. MISSION: The Child Advocacy Center supports child abuse investigations, provides access to critical services, and raises community awareness to prevent and reduce child abuse and neglect in Southern Missouri VISION: A community where justice is accessible, prevention is possible, families are resilient, and children can heal.

The Child Advocacy Center was founded in 1995, out of concern for the well being of abused children as their cases moved through the legal system. Prior to CAC’s founding, young victims of abuse and neglect had to endure multiple interviews and interactions with social, legal and law enforcement agencies. It was an exhausting and traumatic process as the children were asked to repeatedly share the painful details of their cases to different members of the investigative team. In 1995, a small group of concerned professionals and community leaders joined together to develop a better process, one that placed the needs of the children first. Their vision was to create a place where young victims would feel safe talking about what happened to them, and a coordinated process that would limit additional trauma to the children by bringing all members of the investigative team together to collect and share information. They established the Child Advocacy Center, and since that time, CAC has grown to include two locations to serve a 16-county region in Southwest and South Central Missouri.