Children’s Advocacy Centers of Mississippi CEO Karla Steckler Tye told the Rotary Club of Greenville on Thursday that the Mississippi Delta is on the verge of finally gaining the kind of coordinated child‑abuse response that has long been missing in the region. A new Delta Children’s Advocacy Center in Cleveland is expected to begin seeing children as soon as this month, with a second center planned in 2026 under the Delta Health Alliance, she said.
Changing the response to abuse
Tye said Children’s Advocacy Centers of Mississippi, a statewide membership organization with 15 local centers, focuses on felony‑level child abuse cases such as sexual abuse, severe physical abuse, human trafficking and children who witness violent crimes. Instead of forcing a victim to retell their story repeatedly to teachers, police, social workers and prosecutors, local centers coordinate a single forensic interview watched in real time by investigators via closed‑circuit television, she said.
At the centers, specially trained interviewers use developmentally appropriate questions while a multidisciplinary team that can include law enforcement, child protection workers, prosecutors and medical and mental‑health professionals observes and plans next steps, Tye said. Family advocates then help guide victims and caregivers through medical care, counseling, court hearings and other services that can stretch on for years.
Hope, healing and justice
Tye told Rotarians the goal of the centers is “hope, healing and justice” for traumatized children. She described a typical case in which a teenage girl’s disclosure of long‑term sexual abuse by a relative led to additional victims coming forward, intensive therapy and a successful prosecution that resulted in a 28‑year prison sentence for the offender.
Children served by the centers are more likely to receive specialized treatment, and communities save an estimated $1,561 per case because investigations are more efficient and coordinated, Tye said. In 2024, Mississippi’s child advocacy centers served 8,121 children, most of them in complex sexual abuse cases, with 63 percent of victims female and 35 percent male.
New statewide protocol, national recognition
Tye said Mississippi implemented a single statewide protocol for responding to child abuse on Oct. 1 after years of county‑by‑county differences in how cases were investigated and which children were referred for forensic interviews. Mississippi is now one of only a handful of states with such a uniform protocol, which she said should help prosecutors and child‑protection workers who cross county lines.
The statewide chapter, which Tye has grown from a one‑person office to a staff of 14 with a 4.5‑million‑dollar budget, trains thousands of professionals each year and hosts the annual One Loud Voice conference, the state’s largest child‑abuse training event. Tye, who holds a master’s degree in art therapy and has led child advocacy efforts through Hurricane Katrina recovery and later at the Mississippi Department of Human Services, received the National Children’s Alliance 2024 Outstanding Chapter Leader Award.
Building the future workforce
Beyond active cases, Children’s Advocacy Centers of Mississippi has pushed universities and community colleges to better prepare future social workers, law‑enforcement officers, prosecutors and medical providers to work together on abuse cases, Tye said. Mississippi now has child advocacy studies programs at 28 campuses, the most of any state, many of which use simulations at the chapter’s Child Advocacy Training Institute in Jackson to walk students through scenarios from crime scene to trial.
Tye said her organization is also working with Child Protective Services on a data‑sharing system planned for 2026 that should speed referrals for forensic interviews, and has signed agreements so children on military installations can be seen at local advocacy centers. She urged Rotarians to support prevention training such as the free Darkness to Light program, purchase specialty license plates that benefit the statewide chapter and consider donating to local or state child advocacy efforts.
This report compiled with the assistance of Perplexity AI.
