With its sincere commitment to providing resources and healing to child victims of sexual assault, Dove House Children’s Advocacy Center is also steadfast in its mission to spotlight the mental health concerns of young victims.
“Mental health challenges are the leading cause of disability and poor life outcomes in young people and, in recent years, we’ve seen significant increases in certain mental health disorders in youth, including depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation,” explains Executive Director Beth McKeithan.
“We are working to build an in-house therapy program, and some wonderful partnerships coming in the next year with other nonprofits in the area will help us meet the needs of the children we serve,” she adds. “We also have collaborations with Pharos Parenting and Hospice & Palliative Care of Iredell County that will be amazing for this particular program. We currently see six cases a week, on average, and half of those will end up on a waiting list. Having a full time therapist in house should help to solve that.”
As of now, there are simply not enough clinicians in our area to serve the mental health needs of children – which requires a very specialized type of therapeutic training.
“We’ve always had therapists that worked with us and provided therapy to our clients part time, but we are truly at the point where we need someone dedicated to our clients full time. Eventually, I hope to have two clinicians on staff,” Beth shares. “The therapy piece is where our kiddos truly have the opportunity to heal from the abuse. Our clinician will be able to do in house and school based therapy in Iredell and Alexander Counties.”
Since Covid, the team has dealt with a major shortage due to higher demand, and since the pandemic brought more mental health issues to the surface, Dove House continues to see those children having difficulties. Beyond the challenge of battling perpetrators, non-supportive parents and a host of systematic issues, the Dove House team is now seeing increased rates of child suicide. Beth says the rate of child attempted suicide is higher than she’s ever seen it.
“Notably, children who have experienced sexual abuse report higher levels of dissociation and were younger at the onset of suicidal thoughts, more likely to self harm, more likely to have attempted suicide and had made more suicide attempts. Simply put, for those who have childhood trauma and never get treatment, it can cause major issues later in life – thus the cycle of abuse. We want kids to have access to someone who can help them heal after something so terrible has happened to them, and we don’t want transportation or financial ability to ever be a barrier. Medical and support services are overloaded, with many young people struggling to access timely, effective, youth friendly support,” she shares.
The Dove House team also continues to advise that children shouldn’t have access to social media until age 13, if not later. Social media exposes children and teens to cyberbullying, unrealistic beauty standards and the pressure to constantly seek validation, which can negatively impact their mental well being. Sleep disruption, addiction and decline in academic performance are other direct negative effects they see.
“We highly encourage the use of parental controls or monitoring apps for online activity – these can help limit screen time, block inappropriate content and monitor online interactions. Games like Fortnight and Roblox can be dangerous for kids since they can expose them to online risks including scammers, predators, inappropriate content and even malware or viruses,” Beth explains, adding there has been an uptick in cases from our area where perpetrators are using these games to access children.
Dove House has an important awareness event coming up in October, and they invite you to attend their Children’s Voice Luncheon on Tuesday, October 21st at the Charles Mack Citizens Center in Mooresville. The event is free of charge, includes lunch and Allegra Hope, a victim advocate for Dove House, will be the guest speaker. Dove House is looking for approximately 50 table captains to fill tables of eight for this event. If you’re interested in being a table captain or simply attending the luncheon, please reach out to Amy Stevens, director of development, at [email protected] or call the Dove House directly at 704.883.9814, ext. 103.
“We want the community to learn more about Dove House, why our work is so important and why we need the community’s support to help make therapy accessible for the children we serve,” shares Beth. “Help us make this a reality for the children who so desperately need it! As we venture down the path of adding a new in house therapy program and a full time therapist, our financial needs will continue to grow.”
The wide array of services Dove House offers victims, as well as their non-offending family members, are provided at no cost to the client.
Discover more about Dove House Children’s Advocacy Center, a fully accredited 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization serving Iredell and Alexander counties, at Dovehousecac.org, and follow them on Instagram @dovehouse_cacnc.
