Bexar County’s Children’s Advocacy Center, ChildSafe, was awarded a $15,000 grant from the Texas Bar Foundation. The funds will aid the trauma-focused care center’s victim services. Specifically, the grant will provide to victims of child abuse certified trauma-informed language and sign language interpreters for forensic interviews, family support, and therapeutic services. Funds from the grant will serve eight to 10 clients and cover the costs for interpreter and translation services for approximately one year.

“This grant will allow ChildSafe to continue to provide trauma-informed interviews that are culturally sensitive, linguistically correct, and forensically sound for our clients,” Kim Abernethy, ChildSafe president/CEO, said in a press release.

For 32 years, ChildSafe has been involved with the direct care of children and families victimized by child abuse, child sexual assault, neglect, and child sex trafficking. Staff coordinates services for primary and secondary victims through local multidisciplinary, interagency teams. This coordinated effort involves law enforcement, mental health providers, and others.

ChildSafe looks holistically at clients from family life to cultural influences and socioeconomic factors. A major component of this approach is providing translation and interpreting services, which is especially important as children consider disclosing victimization or when victims cannot speak English or speak it as a second language or when they have hearing disabilities, for example.

“Searching for a word, worrying about using the wrong word, handling confusion about concepts can additionally baffle and intimidate foreign language clients and increases the possibility of disengagement from services or the processes critical to civil and criminal investigations,” ChildSafe said in a press release. “When interpreting for child victims of trauma, the greatest gift a survivor can receive is letting his or her voice be heard.”

For more information about ChildSafe, go to childsafe-sa.org or call 210-675-9000.

For more information about the Texas Bar Foundation, go to txbf.org.