Stuart House is internationally recognized as an innovative and effective model for the treatment of child victims. It was created by the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center to serve the special needs of sexually abused children and their families.

Stuart House is an exemplary public/private partnership. Its co-location in a child-friendly setting of multiple agencies and comprehensive services enhances investigations, facilitates prosecutions, and ensures the highest quality treatment for these children.

The Stuart House Program
Stuart House was designed to improve the treatment of child victims and solve serious problems in the child protection systems that often revictimize them.

Problems in the Traditional Child Protection System
In the traditional system, sexually abused children who seek help often have to go to as many as six different agencies. At each place, the child is reinterviewed by another stranger. Some children are interviewed a dozen times. Many of these interviews are conducted in cold, institutional settings by individuals who are not familiar with the best practices for interviewing children. Very few cases are prosecuted and most child victims do not receive expert medical care or therapy services. As a result, many parents feel that their children are further harmed by the very systems that are in place to help them.

The Stuart House Solution
Stuart House brings together services of the Rape Treatment Center at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, law enforcement agencies, the District Attorney's Office, and the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) in a “one-stop,” child-friendly facility. Specially trained personnel from these partner agencies are co-located at Stuart House and work as a team to investigate cases and ensure that children are not revictimized by the system. Children are interviewed once by an expert child forensic interviewer who is knowledgeable about child development and the impact of trauma on disclosures. Stuart House also provides comprehensive treatment for child victims, including 24-hour emergency medical care, expert evidentiary examinations, advocacy, crisis intervention, case management services and long-term therapy that child victims and their families need to recover from the traumatic effects of sexual abuse. Children who testify in criminal proceedings can attend Court School and receive court accompaniment.

Stuart House provides all of these services at no charge to child victims and their families.

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