4^th of July Fireworks show and ebay auction at Bridge Street Town Centre to benefit the National Children’s Advocacy Center (NCAC)

About the NCAC

One in four girls and one in seven boys will be a victim of child sexual abuse before their 18^th birthday.  The National Children’s Advocacy Center (NCAC) in Huntsville, Alabama was created to help these children.  Our mission is to "Model, Promote and Deliver Excellence in Child Abuse Response and Prevention through Service, Education and Leadership”. We are the model for ALL Children’s Advocacy Centers across the country and internationally.  We were established in 1985 through the vision of Alabama State Congressman, Bud Cramer.  Since we opened our doors 23 years ago, more than 900 Children's Advocacy Centers have been formed based on our model.

There were more than 1,500 reports of child abuse just in Madison County alone last year.  The NCAC is a non-profit organization that provides clinical services to children who are victims of abuse along with their non- offending family members and caregivers. Such services include individual and group therapy as well as specialized medical and legal services. All services are provided at no cost to the families.

Prevention is essential to ending the cycle of abuse and neglect. The National Children's Advocacy Center provides many prevention programs including Stop Child Abuse and Neglect (SCAN), Healthy Families and The Fatherhood Initiative. SCAN teaches children about personal safety and is a mandatory program for all public schools in Madison County. Other programs, like Healthy Families and the Fatherhood Program, are efforts to reach at-risk parents and provide them with tools for raising healthy and safe families.

In addition to our local services, we provide national leadership on child abuse response and prevention. The National Children's Advocacy Center provides professional training to people in Madison County and throughout the world. The NCAC training programs have taught over 70,000 professionals worldwide how to establish Children’s Advocacy Centers in their own communities. Training sessions for professionals in the fields of law enforcement, child protective services, mental health, prosecutors, and others are held approximately 26 weeks per year. Each year the training department holds a National Symposium on Child Abuse in Huntsville, Alabama that educates over 1,500 professionals about effective ways to respond to and prevent child abuse and neglect.