BILLINGS — Housed at RiverStone Health in Billings are quaint and comfy rooms specifically designed to make families, especially children, feel comfortable enough to talk.
“There’s chairs in it, big comfy chairs to sit in,” said Kristen Bonner of RiverStone. “And if they’re young children, there’s a place to color while you talk.”
The circumstance of why these children are taken there is an ugly reality of the Billings community because they are victims of sexual assault and abuse.
One in 10 children is sexually abused before their 18th birthday, and about 90% of child sexual abuse is committed by someone known to the child or their family.
Bonner with RiverStone Health says there’s a valuable resource in Billings to support those victims called the Yellowstone Valley with Child Advocacy Center.
It's a small but mighty organization, like many around the state, known as CACs.
CACs provide a mentally and physically safe environment for abused children and their non-offending family members following a report of sexual abuse.
“Anytime we know we can treat a child in a trauma-informed manner, which means we treat them as a whole person and not a piece of a person, that healing process heads in that right direction,” said Bonner.
The one in Billings has been operating since 2012 and moved into RiverStone Health in 2014. Bonner says since 2018, the organization has helped 1,000 child victims of sexual abuse heal.
The centers provide a multidisciplinary investigation team, whose primary focus is caring and healing the child victim.
The Yellowstone Valley CAC sees as many as 200 kids a year, according to Bonner, and is entirely run by one advocate and one coordinator.
This means funding is scarce, and the group depends on mostly grant money. That’s why a $10,000 grant announced Wednesday will help so much.
The center received a big check from Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen's office after a landmark national civil settlement with the Johnson and Johnson Company to resolve allegations the company knowingly sold baby powder tainted with carcinogenic asbestos.
“So, we found a dedicated stream of funding through a federal national civic settlement that we are going to direct 100 percent of those funds to the CACs in Montana,” said Knudsen.
In addition, Knudsen says the Montana DOJ will ultimately provide $3.5 million to Montana’s Children’s Advocacy Centers to help improve response.
The CAC model has streamlined the process for investigating sexual abuse in children, so victims don’t have to see a variety of professional investigators in a case separately.
Administrator Bryan Lockerby with the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation talked about how this method helps reduce the chance of re-traumatizing victims with additional interviews.
Bonner says when families are done with their initial visit to a CAC, the work to heal these children continues, “Our advocate checks back in with them for the entire case."
The National Children's Alliance reported nearly 500 cases of sexual abuse in Montana during a six-month period last year.
Bonner says it's these quaint and comfy rooms where healing for victims begins.
