History
The National Children's Advocacy Center (NCAC) is the leading organization in the country for training child abuse professionals. The work of the NCAC serves as a beacon of hope for more than 250,000 child abuse victims every year.
The NCAC is based in Huntsville, Alabama. Each year, thousands of people from the United States and around the world are trained on how to recognize and support endangered children. More than 54,000 child abuse professionals from all 50 states and 20 countries have been trained by the NCAC.
This leader in the fight against child abuse began simply: a community who wanted a better way to help young victims of sexual abuse.
In 1985, Congressman Robert E. "Bud" Cramer (AL), who was then a District Attorney, organized an effort to create a better system to help abused children.
The social service and the criminal justice systems at the time were not working together in an effective manner that the children could trust. This common problem added to the children's emotional distress, and created a segmented, repetitious, and often frightening experience for the child victims.
The child advocacy center model developed through Congressman Cramer's vision pulls together law enforcement, criminal justice, child protective service, medical and mental health workers onto one coordinated team.
After developing its innovative team approach on the local level, the NCAC earned a national reputation and used it to train others to deal effectively with this critical problem.
Through its influence in training, communities across the country began to model their child abuse programs after the NCAC in Huntsville. In addition to training programs throughout the year, the NCAC hosts the National Symposium on Child Abuse in March of each year in Huntsville, Alabama.
There are now more than 600 established and developing children's advocacy centers in the United States alone with growing interest internationally.