ST. GEORGE — A year after breaking ground for a much-needed expansion, a large crowd gathered in the parking lot of the Washington County Children’s Justice Center recently to celebrate the facility’s new addition with a ribbon cutting.
The expansion comes in the form of a new building that sits adjacent to the preexisting Children’s Justice Center, located at 463 East 500 South in St. George.
The facility’s primary purpose is to provide a safe place where children who have experienced abuse of any sort can be interviewed in an environment that is designed to be “home-like” and therefore feel more inviting to youth than a police station.
Originally, the center’s services took care of forensic interviews and victim advocacy, center director Kristy Pike told St. George News during the ribbon-cutting event held last Monday.
“This is about services we’ve added to the Children’s Justice Center’s plate of things we do for kids after our currently building was built,” she said. “We will still do victim advocacy and interviews there – that’s what is was built for – but we added in new services – medical and mental health – that were not there originally.”
When a child is taken to the center, they meet with a forensic interviewer during a session that is also recorded and watched by law enforcement and others from another room. From there, the child is referred to medical and mental health services as deemed necessary.
In addition to the above services and victim advocacy, the nonprofit center also helps prepare protective orders, as well helping the children and their families find aid in various ways.
These efforts are coordinated between various law enforcement and government agencies, as well as mental health and medical professionals in what is often referred to as the center’s “multidisciplinary team.”
Prior to the expansion, the medical and mental health services were housed — albeit somewhat awkwardly, Pike said — in the original building. A medical room staffed by nurses trained at Intermountain Health’s Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City covered physical examinations, while mental health counselors were contacted and held sessions in offices converted from the building’s garage.
“Do we need extra space because child abuse is growing at an alarming rate in Washington County? No,” Pike said. “We need the added space because we’re providing more services for our kids.”
Pike and others involved within the nonprofit have said caring for an abused child’s mental health has shown to be pivotal in helping them understand and overcome the traumas caused by the abuse, so they can move forward in life.
“Traumatic stress turns into Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder if it’s not treated,” Pike told Washington City officials when they toured the Washington County Children’s Justice Center last year. “Before they leave this building, we teach them a skill that will help them with their anxiety.”
This is why the center has expanded its trauma-informed mental health services, when possible.
“This building is focused on that,” Washington County Attorney Eric Clarke said. “The more that we can help kids by getting the long-term help they need for their mental health, it helps those kids.”
Going though counseling can also help lower crime in the long-term, Clark added.
“Statistically, kids that are abused — especially kids that are abused repeatedly — they are much more likely to be committing criminal acts when they are adults,” he said. “So the more we can be doing to help the victims of crime, especially the child victims of crime — the more we can help our criminal justice system years down the road by not having them on the other side of that.”
While the Washington County Children’s Justice Center has been partially funded over the years through government grants, such as those from the Victims of Crime Act, that funding has gradually dropped year-to-year. The grant funding has also made up a bulk of the funding for the center’s mental health counselor contracts.
Despite diminishing grants funds, community support has also helped immensely to keep the center operating, Pike said.
This has been particularly true for the center’s expansion project, she said, adding the community really came together for it. This support manifested in public and private donations of time, labor, money and land.
“We had the first vision of this building four years ago and its taken that long for all of the pieces to come together,” Pike said. “It’s been a thing of beauty to watch our community come together for this.”
The land for the new building was donated to the Children’s Justice Center by Intermountain Health via a charitable land lease announced in April 2022. This came after 18 months of talks between hospital system and the Friends of the Washington County Children’s Justice Center nonprofit group.
Ground eventually broke for the expansion in April 2023 and involved local companies MRW Design, Watts Construction and various subcontractors. These companies were among many that donated time, material and labor to the project.
The City of St. George, Washington County and state of Utah also aided in moving the project along.
“This community loves our kids,” Pike said. “We care about our children and people were really willing to step up and they always have for the Children’s Justice Center. I’m so grateful for this community … To have so many wonderful things coming toward us; all of that commitment, all of that love, all of that good will coming toward this project has just been a miracle.”
In 2023, the center served 419 primary victims and their non-offending families. The most common allegation for the kids seen at the center was child sexual abuse/assault.
For those who believe they or someone they know needs the help of the Washington County Children’s Justice Center, call 435-634-1134, visit the center’s website or call Utah’s 24-hour child abuse reporting hotline: 1-855-323-3237.
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