Harbor House: Giving victimized children a voice
Harbor House is, as its name suggests, a safe place. In providing a venue for victimized children to tell their stories, it helps ensure fair settlements and clear consequences in legal proceedings in cases where kids’ welfare is on the line.
“The forensic interviews that we provide, which is our major service, are neutral interviews that allow a child who’s been the victim of physical abuse, sexual abuse or witnessed a violent crime to tell their story at the time of their disclosure, which is helpful because then a jury can see that child recounting their story,” Harbor House Executive Director R. Allen Babcock explained to the Rome News-Tribune recently.
Children often come to Harbor House after disclosing abuse to a trusted adult or friend and subsequently being referred by an entity like law enforcement, the Georgia Division of Family and Children’s Services or the district attorney.
“Then, they come in and they sit in this neutral space with a forensic interviewer who’s been trained to have a non-leading, neutral conversation to give them a venue to tell their story, and they’re able to do that, and that’s video recorded and observed,” Babcock said.
The recorded interviews play in court, which allows for a more comprehensive justice process, he explained.
“That doesn’t mean the child doesn’t have to testify, but it means that their story may be able to be told in a more full manner,” he said. “The importance of those reports being able to be verified, to be voiced, is essential in holding people accountable who do these horrendous things to children”
SUPPORTING CHILDREN
Harbor House is accredited with both the National Children’s Alliance and the Children’s Advocacy Centers of Georgia, and, according to Babcock, it conducts nearly 200 forensic interviews a year.
This means the organization, which also serves Polk County, where it will open another location soon, has a definitive hand in the outcomes of cases involving children moving through the court system, but it also assists in securing support services for traumatized children after interviews have taken place.
“On the intake, we provide trauma assessments and then, we refer out to services, and then we also provide trauma-informed counseling services here at Harbor House free of charge,” Babcock said.
The organization is also the local home of the Court Appointed Special Advocates program in which volunteers are paired to shepherd and speak for children in foster care or a family reunification process. And more help is always welcome on this front.
“CASAS are the best way to help Harbor House,” Babcock said. “If you’re willing to put in the time — it’s a 30-hour training, plus 10 hours of court observation to become a CASA … and then you’re a couple of hours a week looking after one or two kids. We start with one — connecting with the foster families, talking with the case managers, appearing in court on the kids’ behalf.”
Harbor House plays host to the SAFE (Safety Awareness For Everyone) program, too, which provides training for organizations and professionals as well as advice for caregivers on how to prevent sexual abuse of children.
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
As a nonprofit, Harbor House garners a significant portion of its funding from grants, but it’s also important for partners like churches and civic organizations to be involved, Babcock said.
Donations — even small ones like $50 or $100 monthly — all help, he said, and partnerships with businesses like contracting companies for large-scale projects like physical renovations of the building go a long way, too.
“We need our community to step in a fill that gap,” he said.
‘COMMUNICATION AND CONNECTION’
Networking is key to Harbor House’s existence, too, as it prepares to celebrate 30 years of service next year.
“Harbor House’s mission is, ‘Yes, we serve kids, and, yes, we limit trauma,’” Babcock said. “But one of the ways we do that is kind of working in the middle of the organizations and the multidisciplinary team and keeping those cases on track, but then also helping to facilitate connections and growth and development of our nonprofit agencies in Rome.”
The organization serves in several capacities as a networking hub for other entities. The staff runs a multidisciplinary team that includes school counselors and the district attorney’s office, along with representatives from law enforcement, DFCS and the Sexual Assault Center of Northwest Georgia.
“We meet every other week to do a case review and keep those child abuse cases moving through the system to keep all of those agencies accountable,” Babcock said.
Harbor House also facilitates KIDzCouncil, a quarterly meeting of executive directors of agencies that provide direct or closely adjacent services to kids.
“We’re getting together to share and celebrate what’s going great — share our challenges of what could go better with a goal of improving services for kids,” Babcock said.
And they’re currently launching Advocates’ Exchange, an effort that will connect local advocates, people Babcock calls frontline workers for local organizations, so they can exchange skills and knowledge.
“Nonprofit organizations are only as good as their communication,” Babcock said. “They can live and die based on good or bad communication, and so, our communication and connection with the community is essential. We need to hear what’s going well; we need to hear what’s not going well.”
And on Harbor House’s main mission of providing kids with a place to voice their stories, his message to the public is simple: “If there is any child that discloses in any way that you get that tingle of like, ‘Mmm, maybe there’s more to this story,’ bring them to Harbor House. We’d love to give them a venue to share their voice.”