Nord Center receives funding

National Children’s Alliance grants to tackle child pornography and human trafficking in Lorain County

The Nord Center has received two grants from the National Children’s Alliance to improve response to child pornography and human trafficking in Lorain County.

One of the grants is aimed at helping law enforcement and human services agencies in the county develop a protocol for working in collaboration to combat child pornography and human trafficking, according to a news release.

The project includes enhancing law enforcement equipment to trace locations of child pornography users and capture evidence on various electronic devices that can be used in court. These resources will be housed at the Elyria Police Department, the release said.

“Since technology is changing at such a fast pace, we have made digital forensics a priority in training individuals on the latest tools which include software and hardware,” said Detective Daniel Sumpter, the digital forensic evidence specialist for the department. “The Elyria Police Department not only has a relationship with the Ohio Internet Crimes Against Children, but most recently joined The Nord Center in proactively fighting online child exploitation.”

Sumpter added the grant enables the department to create a digital forensics lab on site containing updated hardware and software to combat child exploitation activities online and in the community, according to the release.

The grant will also support staff of The Nord Center’s Children’s Advocacy Center functioning as first responders at scenes where police are making arrests, and seizing equipment if children are present.

“Counseling will be offered not only to the victims, but also to the families of the perpetrators of these crimes,” said Captain Chris Costantino. “These individuals are often overlooked . ... In the majority of cases, family members of the perpetrators have no idea they are involved in this type of activity. Counseling will assist these family members in the recovery process.”

A second grant allows child-serving and law enforcement organizations in Lorain and surrounding counties to be trained on how to respond to case where children have been the victims of technology facilitated child exploitation.

Training would include advanced forensic interviewing and assisting communities to strengthen their local, coordinated response effort to child victims portrayed in sexual abuse images, the release said.

“The Elyria Police Department has always been a great partner to The Nord Center,” said Eric Morse, the center’s executive director.

“We are pleased that we had the opportunity to seek this funding to broaden our collaboration and to provide their detectives with the state of the art tools needed to fight these horrific crimes,” Morse said. “We are grateful to be able to expand our services so that we can provide advocacy to the multiple victims in these cases including the criminal’s family members whose lives are turned upside down.”