A Child’s Place at Mercy (ACP) provides services for children who are suspected victims of abuse. A part of the Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, A Child’s Place conducts forensic interviews and physical examinations of children who may have been sexually assaulted, kidnapped, exploited for child pornography, or subjected to other related crimes. ACP is a fully accredited and established child advocacy center and provides medical care to children in the foster care system, has operated for 22 years, and has served over 25,000.
Project 1: A New Look for ACP
ACP was facing issues that every non-profit experiences from time to time – branding, marketing, and the general ability to sell themselves. Dr. Mary Carrasco, director, and Joan Mills, manager, approached PSVP for help with these issues, although the benefits that A Child’s Place received ended up going far above and beyond.
Although ACP lacked web presence, Mary and Joan knew they wanted it to be different, not a typical website that just provided generic information. They needed a website designed for and targeted to any mother seeking help for her child, and a tool that would be able to walk her through the process of finding assistance. The Fitting Group, with former PSVP partners Andrea and Jeff Fitting at the helm, took the lead on designing the website, which turned out to exactly fit Mary’s and Joan’s vision. Further, partners Marion Lewis and Jeanette Thomas of Tachyon Solutions designed an award-winning logo for the organization.
Project 2: Streamlining operations
A second project was directly related to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of police response to suspected incidents of abuse. Often, police officers would handle these calls in ways that would do more harm than good. The problems stemmed from the lengthy, inconsistent and inaccessible protocol for such situations. The fact that Allegheny County has the most police departments of any single county in the United States exacerbated the problem.
With the help of PSVP partners, ACP standardized this protocol and made it available not only on the computers in patrol cars but also on a small laminated card that fits inside an officer’s ticket holder. In addition, an incident reporting form standardized procedures, leading to fewer errors. The “Cop Car Project” was so successful that the laminated cards are being reprinted for use by other police departments, district attorneys in other counties are asking for copies, and Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senator, Bob Casey, is working to designate $200,000 in federal funds to replicate the project in all 67 counties statewide.
Project 3: Improving safety for infants
A third project was the production of a DVD to instruct new parents about the dangers of violently shaking a baby. Trauma is the number one cause of death in infants, and inflicted head trauma from shaking a baby is the most common cause of traumatic death.
The goal was to educate parents about “shaking baby syndrome” by creating a professionally-made DVD that could be sent home with families when leaving the hospital. The DVD was produced in cooperation with Family Communications at WQED, and is titled, “When Your Baby Cries, Ways to Sooth Your Baby.” Today, the DVD is shown routinely in a number of settings for new parents, and a plan is underway to coordinate the DVD with in-hospital education when the DVD is distributed to all new parents in Allegheny County.
PSVP’s involvement with A Child’s Place at Mercy is notable because collaboration took diverse forms. When asked about the best part of working with PSVP, Joan enthusiastically responded, “partners just jumped in with two feet to get the job done. They really listened!”
Download “A Child’s Place at Mercy, A PSVP Story of Collaboration” (PDF)