Build Me Up: Breaking the Child Abuse Cycle with CornerHouse
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, a time to raise awareness and empower people to play a role in making great childhoods happen. CornerHouse, an accredited Child Advocacy Center based in Minneapolis, has worked over the past 30 years to address the traumatic effects of child abuse – supporting children and families throughout the disclosure, investigation, and legal processes. Most recently, CornerHouse expanded its services to provide therapeutic healing through mental health and advocacy services.
On the latest episode of KA’s Build Me Up podcast, CornerHouse Executive Director Mitzi Hobot and KA President and Chief Operating Officer Al Gerhardt, who has been involved with CornerHouse for over 20 years, discuss its innovative approach to reducing trauma in child abuse investigations and how the physical environment impacts the process.
The CornerHouse Approach
Above: CornerHouse offers a safe and comfortable environment for children to disclose their abuse.
CornerHouse works closely with families to help them through the difficult process of disclosing abuse. The CornerHouse Forensic Interview Protocol is a globally recognized, person-centered approach that allows individuals to disclose abuse in a way that aligns with their cognitive, behavioral, and social abilities. The interview is designed to be as comfortable as possible, with one person interviewing the child in a room while a multidisciplinary team of prosecutors, medical experts, social workers, and law enforcement watches from another room. The goal is ultimately to reduce trauma, only interviewing children about their experience one time.
CornerHouse has offered training for its innovative protocol to over 15,000 professionals around the world, including Japan, Bolivia, and Trinidad. Child abuse education and prevention is still a relatively new field – CornerHouse was part of Bolivia’s first child abuse prevention conference in its history. While they mainly serve Hennepin County, the past year of telehealth has widened its reach across the state and region, and its innovative Cornerhouse Forensic Interview Protocol is expanding its reach across the globe.
Creating a Child-Centered Environment
Above: CornerHouse was designed to create a warm, residential feel for families when they visit.
The physical environment of CornerHouse was designed to feel as comfortable and welcoming as possible. The building itself is a house with a residential feel. The front entrance has toys, books, and comfortable areas for children to sit and relax. But the space was designed to be neutral and trauma-informed. There are no superheroes or princesses adorning the walls. Since they are often dealing with legal processes, they take every precaution on behalf of the children to keep the process neutral and person-centered.
The process can be lengthy, with the average investigation process taking about 16-18 months. The staff stays connected with their families throughout the entire process, with expanded mental health services to support patients for years after. CornerHouse provides individual play therapy, with specially trained therapists working with children impacted by abuse. Group therapy courses allow children and their caregivers to heal together. And most recently, adolescent group therapy, geared toward teenagers, has been an impactful addition to CornerHouse’s offerings.
Above: CornerHouse’s play therapy room was designed for children impacted by abuse.
For a more in-depth discussion on CornerHouse and the work they do to address the traumatic effects of child abuse, tune in to the latest episode of Build Me Up. You can subscribe to Build Me Up wherever you listen to podcasts.
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