In the News

Specialized Treatment Room for Victims of Violence, Sexual Assault, Child Abuse Opens at Valley Baptist 

HARLINGEN, May 3, 2006  – The Valley’s first Child to Adult Abuse Response Team to help abused children, adolescents and adults with immediate medical care, assessment of abuse, and in assistance in accessing the services they need to stop abuse, has opened a new treatment room at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen.

The Child to Adult Abuse Response Team (CAART) is the first program of its type in the Valley. The wide-ranging program includes the establishment of a special treatment room for victims of violence which opened in the Emergency Dept. at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen on April 17, 2006, during Child Abuse Prevention Month.  A ribbon cutting for the CAART program was held on May 3, 2006.

CAART will be able to provide medical forensic services for the entire Rio Grande Valley through a team of physicians, social workers and forensic nurse examiners who will provide medical forensic examinations of children, adolescents and adults.

“Abuse is a leading killer of children, and physical and sexual abuse of all ages often goes unreported,” said James Springfield, FACHE, President and CEO of Valley Baptist Health System. “The Child to Adult Abuse Response Team will help address the high incidence of abuse in the Valley -- and serve as an advocate for the prevention of abuse.”

“The challenge is clear: we must start the healing for victims of violence,” said Shane Spees, CEO for VBMC-Harlingen. “We ought to have no higher priority then to improve our prevention and intervention efforts.”

Services of the response team include a Forensic Nurse Examiner Program, which provides medical forensic examinations of child, adolescent and adult sexual assault victims 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The program utilizes state-of-the-art equipment such as a colposcope with image capture software and digital photography to assist in documenting the physical findings of the exam. The program provides both inpatient and outpatient services, including forensic photo documentation and follow-up for victims of sexual and physical abuse as well as neglect.

Other services include psycho-social assessments, crisis intervention, prevention education, expert witness testimony, professional education, and fostering community awareness of abuse and how to prevent it.

The program works in close coordination with the Cameron County Children’s Advocacy Centers, which operate Monica’s House and Maggie’s House to assist child abuse victims in our local area. The CAART program also coordinates with multiple local, regional, state and national law enforcement personnel, Child and Protective Services staff, and district and county attorneys as well as the Family Crisis Center.

In addition, the Valley Baptist team is working closely with Driscoll Children’s Hospital, which started a similar program in Corpus Christi ten years ago and has provided care to more than 10,000 victims of violence and their families. Sonja Eddleman, RN, CA/CP SANE, SANE-A, DABFN, CMI-III, CFN, has served as the CARE Team Clinical Coordinator at Driscoll for the past ten years and serves as a valuable resource for the CAART team at Valley Baptist.

Funding for the CAART project comes from Valley Baptist and community efforts, including the annual Children’s Gala which was held in Harlingen in Oct. 2005. For more information on the CAART program, please call (956) 389-4NSC (389-4672) or contact the Valley Baptist Foundation at (956) 389-1614.