North Texas Giving Day 2021: Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center
Editor’s Note: As part of our coverage of North Texas Giving Day this year, we’ve invited nonprofits to pitch themselves to our readers.
By Irish Smith Burch
President & CEO of Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center
In just two minutes, you can forever positively impact a child’s life by donating to Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center on North Texas Giving Day. Two minutes may not seem long, but it’s forever if you are a child suffering abuse or witnessing a violent crime.
A perpetrator can groom a child, two minutes at a time. A parent can beat a child to the point of broken bones – or even death. It’s enough time for a child to be sold for sex. In two minutes, a child can witness domestic violence. It’s also enough time for a 9-year-old little girl’s bedroom to be turned into a crime scene as they are assaulted by someone they know and trust.
Two minutes is more than enough time for a devastating impact on a child’s life to happen. But it’s also enough time for healing to begin.
In just two minutes, a DCAC Case coordinator can engage law enforcement and CPS to help the investigative process begin.
In only two minutes, a DCAC Forensic Interviewer builds rapport with a child so they feel safe to tell their story, often for the first time.
Or a DCAC Family Advocate can select new clothes and toiletries from the clothes closet for a child in need. And in less than two minutes, a parent can say to their child, “I believe you,” while a DCAC Therapist makes the family’s first appointment for evidence-based healing services. A jury’s guilty verdict in a child abuse case can be delivered in less than two minutes. And at the end of the healing process, it only takes two minutes for a child to run down the halls of DCAC, high-fiving everyone who worked with them, to celebrate their therapy graduation.
Each day our DCAC team responds to ten new children who have made an outcry of abuse. And each day, this heroic team of experts at DCAC stands ready to respond to these crimes. We are committed to making sure each child gets everything they need to heal and become resilient. We seek justice and we restore hope, but we can’t do it alone. The children and families we serve also need the support of you – our community.
Consider taking just two minutes to donate to Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center on North Texas Giving Day and help the children we serve overcome the trauma of child abuse.
