First Interview
After contacting Ms. Pilisi, our school counselor, we set up a meeting on April 21 to discuss child abuse. During our meeting, we talked about her personal experiences working in psychiatry emergency care. She mostly saw patients affected by trauma and abuse. The patients that she was assigned to work with were adults though.
Then Ms. Pilisi explained the process of reporting to Child Protective Services (CPS). The report is placed in a database which is separated into several levels of prioritization which is then handed off, based on the zip code, to be managed by regional facilities. In Harris county and surrounding, there are 3-4 facilities. They will contact the parent or the child, if a home resident is a suspected perpetrator, they go immediately to the child or a non-parent guide like a counselor. They will generally go to the school to interview the child then bring them to the facilities for medical examinations and interviews.
In the building, they can tape the interviews in multiple rooms. The child and perpetrators are split up and kept apart if possible. Distancing them is important because if the child is seeing the perpetrator again, it causes more psychological harm which could affect their responses. During the interviews, they approach with closed questions, so if the interview is brought up in a case, then the information can be used in court against the perpetrator since it’s definitive.
The Children’s Assessment Center on Bissonnet is the largest in Houston with about four floors and a lot of resources. There is an area dedicated to food, a toy space, a place where clothing is provided and sorted since a lot of children come in for therapy which can last up to 6 months until their graduation. They try to have as much under one roof as possible to form a sense of familiarity and the children can choose toys and clothing to take with them when they leave therapy for comfort. There is a floor dedicated to officers which is a restricted access for police personnel only. They do cyber investigations to work on targeting online perpetrators such as those involved in child pornography.
When the reports are sorted, there is a hierarchy that is used to assess the cases. This is done by looking at the different levels of access in abuse, for example the coach that the child sees a few times a week has less accessibility to the child than the neighbor that they encounter every time they leave and come home. When sending in a report, the more information you put in, the better. CPS is more likely to get back to you if there is more information to work with. Upon hearing about abuse from a child, it is important to report as soon as possible because bringing up the abuse to multiple people and forcing the child to repeat the story of the abuse is potentially causing more harm. Negative interactions leave bigger impressions than positive interactions so it is important to limit the negative interactions as much as possible.
Then Ms. Pilisi explained the process of reporting to Child Protective Services (CPS). The report is placed in a database which is separated into several levels of prioritization which is then handed off, based on the zip code, to be managed by regional facilities. In Harris county and surrounding, there are 3-4 facilities. They will contact the parent or the child, if a home resident is a suspected perpetrator, they go immediately to the child or a non-parent guide like a counselor. They will generally go to the school to interview the child then bring them to the facilities for medical examinations and interviews.
In the building, they can tape the interviews in multiple rooms. The child and perpetrators are split up and kept apart if possible. Distancing them is important because if the child is seeing the perpetrator again, it causes more psychological harm which could affect their responses. During the interviews, they approach with closed questions, so if the interview is brought up in a case, then the information can be used in court against the perpetrator since it’s definitive.
The Children’s Assessment Center on Bissonnet is the largest in Houston with about four floors and a lot of resources. There is an area dedicated to food, a toy space, a place where clothing is provided and sorted since a lot of children come in for therapy which can last up to 6 months until their graduation. They try to have as much under one roof as possible to form a sense of familiarity and the children can choose toys and clothing to take with them when they leave therapy for comfort. There is a floor dedicated to officers which is a restricted access for police personnel only. They do cyber investigations to work on targeting online perpetrators such as those involved in child pornography.
When the reports are sorted, there is a hierarchy that is used to assess the cases. This is done by looking at the different levels of access in abuse, for example the coach that the child sees a few times a week has less accessibility to the child than the neighbor that they encounter every time they leave and come home. When sending in a report, the more information you put in, the better. CPS is more likely to get back to you if there is more information to work with. Upon hearing about abuse from a child, it is important to report as soon as possible because bringing up the abuse to multiple people and forcing the child to repeat the story of the abuse is potentially causing more harm. Negative interactions leave bigger impressions than positive interactions so it is important to limit the negative interactions as much as possible.
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