By Cathy Higgins
BAY MINETTE, Ala. — The Care House has been selected to receive $64,594 in federal funding.
In a media release last week, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley announced the U.S. Justice Department is presenting the grant, which will be administered to Care House through the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs.
According to Care House Director Niki Whitaker, the grant will be quite beneficial to the organization, which works with children who have been physically or sexually abused.
“It truly means a lot,” she said in a telephone interview. “We are very fortunate.”
She explained that the grant will be used to administer operations at the Bay Minette based organization, which also has a satellite office in Summerdale.
“Primarily, we use the ADECA grant to fund salaries for our counselors and child advocates,” Whitaker said.
That means the county-wide organization, which was formed in 1989, can continue its goal of providing a safe environment for children who have been abused and need to be interviewed about the incident for the legal system.
“It is a child-friendly place for interviews to take place,” Whitaker said, adding that the organization also helps parents “understand what their child is going through.”
Additional Care House programs include one that makes it mandatory for school staff to report cases of child abuse.
“The last thing we offer is a juvenile sex-offender program,” Whitaker said, “which is to education juvenile sex offenders to identify what behavior triggers the offence and how to avoid them in the future.”
In his announcement of the ADECA grant, Bentley said the award was well deserved.
“We should take every measure we can to help child abuse victims overcome trauma and ensure they are given the chance to grow up in safe environments,” he stated in the media announcement. “I commend CARE House for providing timely assistance to abuse victims in Baldwin County.”
