Grayson County Childrens Advocacy Center
Every Child. Every Service. Every Effort.
Programs and results
What we aim to solve
Child abuse is an epidemic across the country and Grayson County is no exception. Child abuse is a devastating experience for an average of 63,657 children in Texas each year. The Grayson County Children's Advocacy Center (GCCAC) provides specialized services and treatment for child abuse victims and their non offending caregivers in Grayson County. The GCCAC brings together a multi-disciplinary team of professionals dedicated to helping victims of child abuse find hope, healing, and justice. The Children's Advocacy Center is the only nonprofit in Grayson County that is involved from a child abuse case's inception.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Forensic Interviews
A Forensic Interview is a legally sound, fact-finding interview with a child conducted by a specially trained professional at the request of law enforcement or Child Protective Services. Forensic Interviews are designed to provide children the opportunity to disclose abuse to a neutral party in a child-friendly setting. Forensic interviewers are specially trained in the areas of child development, linguistics, civil and criminal offenses, child protection concerns, memory, suggestibility and disclosure. Prior to the advent of Children’s Advocacy Centers, children had to retell the details of their abuse over and over to various investigative agencies, compounding the initial trauma. The purpose of a forensic interview is to minimize the number of times children must tell their stories. Forensic interviewers provide an opportunity for children to disclose abuse. If abuse is disclosed, the interview is used to gather details about their victimization. Child Protective Services and law enforcement observe the interviews to assist them in their investigations.
Trauma-Focused Mental Health Services
Mental health services provided by the Grayson County CAC are to promote healing, lessen the likelihood of revictimization and to decrease the ongoing and long-term social, emotional, and developmental outcomes of trauma. The CAC is committed to providing “best practices,” ensuring children and families receive culturally competent, developmentally appropriate, trauma-focused therapy. The CAC recognizes the profound importance of caregiver involvement in each child’s healing and provides the mental health services and support needed to assist parents and other family members build on their personal strengths and community supports as they respond to their child’s treatment needs. We offer specialized trauma-focused mental health services for child victims and their non-offending family members.
Child Abuse Education & Prevention
The Grayson County CAC provides free education and prevention classes for adults and children throughout Grayson County. Adults are offered Recognizing and Reporting Child Abuse classes. Children in schools, from pre-kindergarten to high-school, are able to receive education utilizing the Play It Safe Curriculum developed by the Women's Center in Tarrant County. In addition, an education and prevention staff member attends many community events and provides education and materials to the public concerning child abuse.
Where we work
External reviews

Photos
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Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Number of forensic interviews provided to children
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Forensic Interviews
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
A Forensic Interview is a legally sound, fact-finding interview with a child conducted by a specially trained professional at the request of law enforcement or Child Protective Services.
Number of families receiving family advocacy services
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
The focus of family advocacy and victim support is to help reduce additional trauma for the child and non-offending caregivers and family members and to improve outcomes.
Number of cases monitored
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Cases reviewed during regularly schedule multi-disciplinary team meetings. This helps to ensure that every child is receiving the highest quality care in every area of their case.
Number of therapy hours provided to clients
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Children and youth
Related Program
Trauma-Focused Mental Health Services
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
Therapists with extensive training in evidence-based trauma treatment provide services to children and their non-offending caregivers.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
The GCCAC provides a collaboration of services for the purpose of prevention, intervention, investigation, prosecution, and treatment of child abuse. Our short term goal is to ensure every child who experiences abuse receives every service he or she needs to heal. From programs focused on the prevention of future abuse to specialized mental healthcare services, GCCAC works to ensure that every child who experiences the horrors of abuse is able to find help, hope, and healing. Our long term goal is to prevent, ultimately eliminating, child abuse in Grayson County.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
As Grayson County's Children's Advocacy Center, we collaborates with 13 local law enforcement agencies, Child Protective Services, local hospitals, and the Grayson County Criminal District Attorney's Office. As a result of this collaboration, investigations are more cohesive, cases are stronger for prosecution, and children and their protective caregivers are more likely to benefit from available healing services.
We also offer community education to both children and adults. These programs include personal safety and internet safety, recognizing the signs and symptoms of abuse and abuse prevention. We believe that child abuse is preventable. Empowering adults and children can change behaviors that better protect children.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
We are dedicated to maintaining the quality of care for our community's most vulnerable children. Wrap around care for these families is something we take pride in. Well established best practice standards are our guiding principals for how we serve this population. As awareness of the problem grows, the need for service providers grows as well. Recently we've grown in staff size to meet those needs and will continue to assess the needs of our community and base future growth upon those assessments. The support of the community enables us to further our mission and serve even more children that need us.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Since 2004, the CAC has grown and adapted to meet the needs of our community. In our 16 years we have grown from 2 staff members to a team of 12 people dedicated to serving victims of child abuse. Grayson County is currently experiencing a significant population increase. From Fiscal Year 2017- Fiscal Year 2019 the CAC experienced a 78.71% increase in the number of forensic interviews provided. We are proud that we have been able to accommodate this growth in our forensic interview program and in our other wrap around services. Despite the decrease in reports due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, we are on path to continue growing in FY 2020. Child abuse doesn't stop no matter what is going on in the world. Neither do we. We will continue to provide quality services to every child victim in need!
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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Who are the people you serve with your mission?
The CAC serves children who've experienced abuse and their non-offending caregivers.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To make fundamental changes to our programs and/or operations, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Grayson County Childrens Advocacy Center
Board of directorsas of 04/19/2023
Mr. James Benton
iPro
Term: 2021 - 2023
Paul Manley
Presco
Sarah Myrick
First United
Joey Beason
Utter Pike Wealth Management
Wanda Kauffman
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? Yes -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
Sexual orientation
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 09/28/2022GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.