SC Attorney General, state leaders hold 14th annual “Children’s Advocacy Center Day”

COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — Statistics show that one in 10 children will experience some form of abuse or neglect by the age of 18.

This morning, employees from advocacy centers across South Carolina came together inside the Dennis Building on Statehouse grounds — recognizing the 14th annual Children’s Advocacy Center Day.

The SC Network of Advocacy Centers reports that 13,788 children who were victims of abuse were provided with mental health and forensic services in 2024.

“That’s not 13,000 incidents. A child is usually abused for weeks, months, and sometimes years before they make it to a children advocacy center. Years! Hundreds of times! Multiply 13,000 times 100. And those are just the children we know about. Think about that,” says Attorney General Alan Wilson.

That’s where the children’s advocacy centers come in — providing empathetic and caring case management and prevention services.

“The forensic interview process is something that folks go through training to do, so it’s not just you sit down and randomly start asking questions. It’s actually a forensic interview process, the folks who do that are trained, and the goal is that (victims) would be interviewed one time or a minimal number of times in a child friendly, neutral setting. It’s recorded so that it can potentially be used for court, so there’s a process in place that is trauma-informed, kid-friendly and very intentional about the information somebody is trying to get in pursuit of the truth!” says Amanda Whittle, Director of the SC Department of Children’s Advocacy.

The SC Attorney General’s Office has asked the General Assembly for $15 million to be included in the coming year’s budget for victims services, including children advocacy centers.

A number that Wilson says has continued to dwindle over the last six or seven years.

“If the funding to these local nonprofits that provide these invaluable resources to law enforcement and to families goes away in that community, once those doors close, they never come back, and so we’re fighting to keep them open,” he says.

That decision will be made by SC legislators by the end of May.

To find a children’s advocacy center near you, visit the SC Network of Children’s Advocacy Centers here.