Children are our communitys most valuable and fragile resource. The Childrens Advocacy Center of Erie County, Inc is dedicated to the prevention of child abuse and the delivery of an immediate, effective, well-integrated community response. Our interventions will promote the recovery of each injured child, hold the abuser accountable, and improve safety for all children.The Center will provide a child-friendly environment that welcomes abused children and non-offender family members and caregivers. Children will be interviewed at the Center. Various agencies will observe the interview simultaneously, thereby reducing the number of interviews and the amount of emotional stress. Multidisciplinary case conferences and care manager ( s ) will ensure coordinated care for the child.The Childrens Advocacy Center will achieve its mission by fostering effective relationships and processes among those community systems charged with a responsibility to respond to the needs of abused children. Processes will be streamlined, well-coordinated, child-focused, and measurable. Best practice standards for the investigation and prosecution of child abuse will be utilized. Outcomes and data will be maintained by the Center and used to analyze it in analyzing community trends in child abuse and to encourage community education initiatives.The Center will generate resources and support for community leader development in all the disciplines that address child abuse. It will foster continued professional training, dissemination of information on best practices and national models, and strategies to support those front-line professionals investigating and prosecuting child abuse. The Center will recognize and reward individual and system efforts.The Childrens Advocacy Center of Erie County ( CAC ) is dedicated to the prevention of child abuse, and to the delivery of an immediate, effective, well-integrated community response when any child is harmed. A non-profit organization, the CAC opened its doors in June 2001. A guiding principle of the CAC is to decrease the amount of trauma to child victims during the course of an investigation, and to make sure that they receive the services they need to recover. Every effort is made to hold the offender accountable, and create a safer community.By encouraging all the professionals involved with the child to come to the Center, the child experiences fewer interviews and the care is more coordinated.