Mary Abbott Children's House

For those of you who don't know what I do, I thought I would give you a little blog update about my job. JJ says that it is always hard for him to describe when someone asks him, what does your wife do, so here it goes.

I work at a Children's Advocacy Center in Norman called the Mary Abbott Children's House. The Mary Abbott Children's House creates a child-friendly environment and brings professionals together in one location to investigate reported child abuse. The center, located in a beautiful historic home in a quiet neighborhood, makes the process of investigation less frightening to a child. The home-like surroundings allow the child to talk one-on-one with a professional, trained to interview on behalf of the investigative team.Cleveland County's Child Abuse Response & Treatment Team involves law enforcement, child welfare, the D.A.'s office and mental health & medical professionals in a collaborative approach to child abuse.

Our mission at the Abbott House is to serve child victims of sexual and severe physical abuse and neglect through coordinated interagency investigation, intervention, education and advocacy. In traditional systems, children are asked to tell their painful story over and over again to all parties involved (including law enforcement, child welfare services, family advocates, forensic interviewers, etc.). What makes us different, is that we get all of the right people together all at once, and record the interview with state-of-the art equipment so that the child usually only has to tell their story once. This reduces the trauma they are forced to endure and starts them on their process to healing. Through our program, more offenders are convicted; they serve longer sentences; they are taken off the streets, sparing future children the pain; and the child is directed toward counseling and healing service providers. In other words, the healing starts at Abbott House.

My job as a forensic interview is to conduct a legally sound age-appropriate interview with children between the ages of 3 to 17 who are currently involved in an open-investigation by child welfare and/or law enforcement. So I get to talk to kids and teenagers all day long.

This is what the Abbott House looks like.

Is you are ever in the Norman area and you want to stop by, just give me a call!!