Impact Story
Best-Practice Response to Child Abuse
Empowering South Carolina Communities and CACs To Deliver a Best-Practice Response to Child Abuse
Providing support and technical assistance to member Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs), and helping them put recommendations into action that increase statewide CAC coverage to support child victims of abuse.
About the Project
Since receiving the Foundation’s grant in June of 2019, the South Carolina Network of Children’s Advocacy Centers (SCNCAC) has expanded access to services for children who are victims of child abuse and removed hurdles that prevent families and team partners from accessing services.
The purpose of this grant is to provide support and technical assistance to member Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs), as well as put into action the recommendations of the SCNCAC 2018 Development Plan in order to increase statewide CAC coverage to support child victims of abuse.
The development plan project was instrumental in the passing of the South Carolina Child Abuse Response Protocol Act, which formalizes the use of Children’s Advocacy Centers in the statewide response to child abuse.
With this grant, the SCNCAC is able to continue offering best-practice and evidence-based services to children and families throughout the state.
We look forward to continuing to partner with the Foundation and Children’s Advocacy Centers to empower South Carolina communities and deliver a best-practice response to child abuse.
- Thomas Knapp, Executive director of SCNCAC
Project Results
The grant has increased the number of families SCNCAC and its member, Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs), have been able to help. Since 2017, CACs in South Carolina have served 62,774 children, which denotes a 51 percent increase since the development plan project. The number of children CACs have helped has grown each year. For instance, CACs served 12,897 children in 2022. This marked a 16 percent increase since 2021.
SCNCAC has also expanded the reach of CACs.
In 2018, 24 percent of South Carolina counties were without accredited CAC coverage. As of 2022, only 4 percent of counties weren’t covered.
