In looking at the number of cases from referrals received from each of the five counties served by Kids Hub Child Advocacy Center, officials from that organization realized that about a third of their referrals were coming from the areas of Marion and Lawrence counties – in fact, in 2019, Kids Hub saw approximately 154 children from Marion County at their main office in Hattiesburg.
To reduce the burden on families, the nonprofit organization – which responds to child abuse by utilizing a multidisciplinary approach to reduce trauma through advocacy, education, prevention and referrals – recently opened a satellite location in Columbia to help reduce travel and offer services closer to certain families.
“And not just the families, but the investigative agencies – that costs the county money, it costs the state money, and it costs families money to travel,” Kids Hub executive director DiDi Ellis said. “And so I just started looking at it, and it made sense that if we could open up a satellite location in Marion County, we could reduce that cost burden of travel time, which helps when missing time from work, for caregivers, time from school for kids for appointments.
“By opening a satellite facility, it also gave us better access to other unserved communities, so it allowed us to expand our service area to include Jefferson Davis County as well. They would be close enough to travel to Marion County, as opposed to having to travel to Lamar County, to Hattiesburg.”
The new facility, which had its ribbon cutting on July 3 at 255 2nd Street in Columbia, will not be staffed full time. Instead, staff will be rotated through that facility on an as-needed basis.
“So we kind of assumed that burden of travel on ourselves, but I think what excites us about it – and why we’re so willing to do that – is because we think it’ll give kids and families better access to services,” Ellis said. “We think that we’ll have more buy-in from our investigative agencies, and more support.
“And ideally, by having a location in a community where there hasn’t been one before, we hope that it’ll raise awareness about the work that we do. In essence, if there are more children and families in those communities that can benefit from our services that we are already aware of, having a location there can bring that awareness and give us access to those kids too.”
Kids Hub’s services include, but are not limited to, forensic interviews, family and victim advocacy, child abuse prevention education within the community and multidisciplinary team case review.
For more information about Kids Hub, visit kidshub.com, or to make an appointment at the new Columbia location, call (601) 909-6294.
Suspected child abuse can be reported to the Child Abuse Hotline at (800) 222-8000.
