ChildSafe

ChildSafe wants to heal abused children in Bexar County now and for decades to come. We also want to prevent abuse from ever happening in the first place. Ultimately, we want to eradicate child sexual abuse in Bexar County.

Since 1992, ChildSafe is Bexar County's only Children's Advocacy Center and has served more than 82,000 abuse victims since our inception. Our trauma-informed services are centered on the child to ensure families feel supported and safe. Our comprehensive intervention services restore hope and healing to vulnerable victims and their families no matter how complicated their situations may be.

Because prevention and education are crucial to stopping the cycle of abuse, ChildSafe empowers change by providing prevention training to school districts, education and healthcare professionals, law enforcement, parents, and caregivers on recognizing and reporting child abuse.

Our vision is a community where every child has an opportunity to a safe and protected childhood – to grow up and develop intellectually and socially into strong, secure, and healthy adults. We believe that breaking the cycle of abuse requires collective voice and action by an informed and empowered community that stands ready to confront this issue with courage.

ChildSafe continues to build its reputation as an advanced treatment center for abused children and their families. To address the needs of our low-to-moderate income families, we have enhanced the depth of healing services we provide. We are also evolving our role as an abuse prevention training provider to be responsive to the changing needs of schools, adults, and youth service providers.

To fight the issue of abuse underreporting, ChildSafe's multidisciplinary team enhancement program (MEP) reviews abuse reports and ensures that no child suspected of being abused slips through the cracks. This results in smooth coordination of care for our clients through the investigative, prosecutorial, and healing phases. MEP staff identifies and recommends that children be referred to ChildSafe for forensic interviews. As needed, staff provides clients with referrals for other services.

The safety and healing of our children and families is foremost to us. To that end, we designed and constructed a campus to allow us to provide the best abuse intervention and prevention services possible. Because of our community's investments in our capital campaign, we began providing our services at our campus in August 2019. Our new 65,000 sq. ft. campus also helps us collaborate better with our law enforcement, Child Protective Services, prosecution, and health partners who are located alongside us at our campus, a best practice for Children's Advocacy Centers like ChildSafe. We have been able to provide new services, such as care coordination for sexually exploited youth, because of available space in our campus. After years of operating in cramped spaces from two locations, we finally have room to meet the growing needs of vulnerable children and families in Bexar County.

Our new building incorporates nature and its healing powers in its design. Welcoming outside areas inspire and provide space for healing and reflection. We have seen small children cry when it was time to leave play spaces and a young boy who had made an outcry of sexual abuse asked if he could have his next birthday party at ChildSafe. Such seemingly small gestures speak volumes about the impact of our new campus; making children feel special and safe, and quietly conveying a sense of calm means that the building is working precisely as we intended it to.

The building is safe, nurturing, and restorative for the children and families we serve and for our partners and staff who care for them. Our new campus allows ChildSafe's expert staff to give the very best care to children who have been abused and neglected. Our community has engaged with staff at our centrally located campus and has been inspired to help our children and families through increased financial gifts, donations of essential supplies, volunteer hours, and so much more.

ChildSafe staff provides in-person tours of our campus. A virtual tour of our campus is on ChildSafe's YouTube channel.

A leader in the delivery of trauma-informed care, ChildSafe works with a multidisciplinary team of Child Protective Services, law enforcement, and the District Attorney's office to ensure families get a continuum of care and perpetrators are brought to justice. ChildSafe also partners with agencies throughout the county to provide crisis care and emergency services.

Our innovative Outdoor Behavioral Health (OBH) program has been recognized with an international award. We collaborate with the United Way to train youth service providers how to recognize and report child abuse. Through our Trauma-Sensitive Schools program, schools become supportive environments in which traumatized children can focus, behave appropriately, and learn. Last year, we trained 696 staff in 11 schools through this program.

Our therapeutic campus has been recognized with multiple international, national, and local awards for its design and community impact.

Data from the past three years show that 75% of our child clients demonstrate improvements in functional, behavioral, and physical symptoms related to abuse. As a result of program participation, 90% of families report a decrease in anxiety after receiving services at ChildSafe, a clearer understanding of the legal and civil investigative processes, successful connections to supportive services, and increased knowledge of the impact of trauma on children.

Our capital campaign has been supported by community leaders as well as foundations outside of San Antonio and Texas. Noted children's philanthropist Harvey E. Najim, who donated $5 million to the project and for whom the new building is named, shared his reason for giving. “I make this gift to ensure that our most valuable asset — our children — are protected and safe," Najim said. “My hope is that their tears will turn to cheers and their fears to hope."

Capital campaign donors have demonstrated their commitment to children in our community and their confidence in ChildSafe. We have raised $21.7M (60%) with $13.1 remaining to raise to reach the $34.8M goal.

ChildSafe's staff appear frequently in the media to educate and engage the public in our activities. Our community is aware of our need to combat child abuse. A 2020 Bexar Facts-KSAT-Rivard Report poll shows that 81% of people surveyed consider child abuse and extremely serious or very serious problem in San Antonio. Child abuse resonates with concerned citizens who care about the trauma inflicted on vulnerable children. When left untreated, abuse can leave a physical, mental, and behavioral mark on abuse survivors, their children, and society.

We continue to reach out to prospective donors and supporters who see the value in investing in ChildSafe's annual campaign and our capital campaign so we have the resources necessary to best meet the needs of abused children and families.

As a Children's Advocacy Center (CAC), ChildSafe is the only agency of its kind in Bexar County for the most severe cases of child abuse and neglect – those that rise to the level of a criminal offense. Each year, ChildSafe serves more than 5,500 children (and their non-offending family members); 80% were sexually abused or exploited. We are a national leader in the CAC movement, recognized for our expertise in the identification, investigation, and prosecution of child abuse cases; cutting-edge clinical services and programs for victims and their non-offending family members; and our community and professional abuse prevention training programs.

We provide forensic interviews, crisis intervention, case management, care coordination for sexually exploited youth, and advanced clinical and outdoor behavioral healthcare programs in a safe, child-friendly environment where our distinctive multidisciplinary team (MDT) of law enforcement, Child Protective Services, prosecution, medical and mental health professionals coordinate strategies sensitive to the needs of each child and share information to put perpetrators behind bars. Because prevention and education are crucial to stopping the cycle of abuse, ChildSafe initiates change by training school staff, healthcare professionals, law enforcement, and caregivers to recognize and report child abuse.

This two-pronged approach is necessary to address our community's abuse epidemic. Both intervention/treatment and prevention/education are key to ensuring children who have been abused can live healthy, happy lives. Without proper and effective intervention, these young victims of abuse are at greater risk of long-term adverse social, emotional and developmental outcomes. And increasing community awareness of the issue of child abuse is critical to reduce the numbers of children who are abused.

In 2014, ChildSafe created the Cardboard Kids® campaign to increase awareness of child abuse within our community and prevent further abuse and neglect of vulnerable children. Since the Cardboard Kids campaign began, dozens of children have made outcries of abuse after learning about ChildSafe or Cardboard Kids on the news, TV, or radio. What began with 5,800 cardboard cut-outs in 2014 grew to 120,000 distributed and displayed throughout the community at schools, businesses, organizations, homes, and community locations.

ChildSafe is collaborating with our community to make child abuse intervention and prevention a priority. ChildSafe is making an impact, but we need to be ever vigilant in our efforts to reach more adults through prevention/education and provide intervention/treatment to all affected children.

Our ultimate goal is to prevent child sexual abuse before it occurs. As we formulate the steps to make this happen, we are ensuring that all the children we treat have safe, stable, nurturing relationships, and environments.