Children's Justice Center

Our speaker today was Patricia Sheffield the director of the Children’s Justice Center (CJC) and a former member of our club. Patricia has been the director of the CJC for 10 years. The CJC offers a comfortable home like environment in which to conduct interviews with juvenile victims of abuse. The interviews are conducted by law enforcement and child protective services, all interviews are recorded. They typically see 310 children each year. 94% of these cases are alleged victims of sexual abuse, 26% are male and 74% are female. Approximately, 50% of the cases that they see end in a conviction. The bulk of the remaining cases are believed no to be actual abuse but usually misunderstandings. The abuser is almost always someone that is known to the victim and rarely a stranger. Patricia reminded us that by state law we are required report any case of suspected abuse to law enforcement or Child Protective Services.

The Children’s Justice Center recently moved into a new building thanks to many generous contributions from the community.

Patricia also shared criteria to watch for when contributing money to a group. In order to be considered a non-profit organization and for your contribution to be tax deductible the organization must be a 501C3 Corporation, have a current charitable certificate from the state, and be current with their filings to both the state and the federal government.

The highlight of the visit was when Patricia agreed to rejoin our club as a member!