A local business’s donation will go a long way toward helping the Tooele County Children’s Justice Center accomplish its goal of making a difference for children and families, the facility’s director says.
Brian Hall, owner of Autotech, a locally-owned auto repair shop, presented a $900 check to CJC director Rachael Cowan for the children’s justice center on Wednesday.
“I’ve been doing this with the businesses that I own for several years,” Hall said. “As a business owner, you get hit up a lot to donate to good causes, but I can’t afford to support them all. The children’s justice center and what they do for children and families is the cause we have chosen to support.”
The Tooele County Children’s Justice Center opened in 1996.
The CJC provides a safe and familiar environment for trained interviewers to interview children who are victims of abuse.
The interview is recorded and made available to Child Protective Services, prosecutors, and other officials who need access to the interview, according to Cowan.
“By recording the interview the child doesn’t have to go through the process of retelling their story over and over again,” Cowan said. “They don’t have to relive the incident and their interview provides consistent and reliable information for investigators and prosecutors.”
In its first full year of operation in 1997, the center conducted 89 interviews. In 2016, 167 interviews were conducted, according to Cowan.
But the CJC provides more than a place for interviews to be recorded, according to Cowan. She and her staff coordinate a network of support for children and families as they begin the healing process following abuse.
The CJC helps children and families with referrals for counseling and treatment.
If the child and a parent need to relocate to a new home, the CJC works with community resources to help the family. The CJC sponsors an annual Christmas program for children.
If there is a court case involved with the abuse, a CJC staff member will walk the family through the process and provide victim and witness support services.
The CJC also provides community and professional education on abuse issues.
“We also get a lot of drop-ins looking for help or information,” Cowan said. “They see our sign on the street and come in and ask for help.”
The CJC is located near the Gordon R. Hall Courthouse in Tooele City in a home built in the 1940s.
Thanks to local donations, the CJC home was recently shored up from problems attributable to deterioration from aging.
Rainwater leaked into the house and flooded the ground-level conference room. The original wooden window frames had rotted and the plaster at the bottom of the windows bubbled from water damage. Birds and other animals had nested in the attic.
The CJC is in the process of building a new facility to deal not only with the physical problems of the over 70-year-old building, but also with the growth in use that the CJC has experienced.
“Tooele County’s going to get bigger,” Cowan said. “And as the county grows, so do we.”
The new building will be built across the street in the parking lot for the county building at 100 East.
The construction cost has not been determined, according to Cowan.
MHTN, a Salt Lake City-based architectural firm, has been selected to design the new building. After the design is done, construction bids will be requested.
Cowan wants the new building to look like a home, not an institution.
“Something southern country style with a porch would be nice,” Cowan said. “It needs to be a place that children and families find comfortable and trusting.”
The CJC has received a $386,000 grant from the state of Utah’s Community Development Block Grant program for small cities and counties. The grant will be divided over two years.
Tooele County included $200,000 as a part of a matching fund required by the grant in its 2017 capital projects budget.
When the new building is done, the current home will be sold and the proceeds used to defray the costs of the new building, Cowan said.
As for Autotech’s donation, it will go to the Friends of the Children’s Justice Center, a non-profit charitable organization with the CJC as its sole beneficiary.
The Friends of the CJC raises funds to support the CJC, Cowan said.
“The volunteer board of the Friends will decide where the $900 will be used,” Cowan said. “But they can only use it for the CJC.”