The Rainbow House was a children's shelter combined with a regional child advocacy center (CAC) in Columbia. The shelter closed in late September, but the CAC remains open.
Although the loss of the shelter will have consequential impacts, one of them may be enabling the child advocacy center to jumpstart needed expansion.
"I think it's a really exciting outcome from what was a tough situation," said Jessica Seitz, executive director of the Missouri Network Against Child Abuse. It's partnering with Columbia-based nonprofit consultant Partner for Better to build a new, larger child advocacy center to operate independently.
Even since Rainbow House closed, the Mid-Missouri CAC has remained operational. Even when it was under the same roof as the shelter, it served a very different role.
"A child advocacy center is an organization where there is an open case of child abuse, typically child sexual abuse or physical abuse, they're referred to a CAC. When a child enters the CAC, they are interviewed about their experience in a very child-friendly, trauma-informed environment, but the CAC does the interview, but they do this in partnership with children's division and law enforcement," Seitz said.
The Boone County Commission held its first public discussion of a contract for a new child advocacy center on Thursday afternoon.
"This is too important an activity to let it just go away," said Janet Thompson, the District II commissioner.
The Mid-Missouri regional child advocacy center is available to more than 91,000 children across 11 counties.
"It is just a staff of three, and it should really be at least triple that," Seitz said.
Seitz credits the Mid-Missouri community and people across the state for stepping up to make sure the existing child advocacy center remains open.
"It was nice to see the reputation and the services they provide be so valued that there was just a refusal that they would be closed," she said.
The child advocacy center is operated primarily through state funding but also through some federal funds with the anticipation to use the Boone County Children's Services funds as well.
