Virginia’s House marks 30 years of service to children, families who suffer from abuse, risk

In 1992, a group of concerned community leaders who saw a cycle of violence within families and wanted a solution to stop the problem formed the Young County Family Resource Center in Graham as a Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC). Eventually the organization became what it is now called Virginia’s House, and is celebrating 30 years of helping children and families this Thursday.

Virginia’s House as a nonprofit organization follows the mission of helping children and their families who suffer from all types of abuse, as well as children in situations of risk. The organization has coverage in Young, Throckmorton and Stephens Counties. Dr. Goodall’s House, which serves as a satellite office in Breckenridge, was opened in 2009 to serve Stephens County.

The organization is hosting a 30th anniversary come-and-go celebration from 4-7 p.m. Thursday, June 23 at the Old Post Office Museum and Art Center in Graham. Virginia’s House Executive Director Susie Clack, who first joined the organization in 2011 and returned in 2020, said the organization has played a vital role in the community for 30 years.

“Virginia’s House is an organization that is called an umbrella organization because we have multiple programs under one roof and we serve more than one county. We serve Young, Stephens and Throckmorton County through our state affiliation,” she said. “The core model of a Children’s Advocacy Center, it started out with the illustration like a wagon wheel. The Children’s Advocacy Center is the hub of the wagon wheel and the spokes are the partnering agencies that make things turn and move forward in motion. So those members, for example, would be law enforcement, the police department and our county, district attorney, the office of the district attorney, investigations with the Department of Family and Protective Services, CPI and what is now CPS, mental health and wellness services through sometimes counseling and psychological evaluations and medical, when there’s a sexual abuse examination that’s needed. (...) And then our staff who’s trained to specifically work with the child and the family in, as questions go, a non-leading way and just listen to the child and give the child an opportunity to talk about just what has happened. We listen and we find out different ways that we can help and the team has to have as much information as they can so that they can work on the case and make sure that we can get on to the next step which is helping  the child and the family heal.”

For the full story, see the Wednesday, June 22 edition of The Graham Leader.