Cook Children's C.A.R.E. Team Celebrates 30 Years

By Charlotte Settle

This April, during Child Abuse Prevention Month, the Cook Children’s C.A.R.E (Child Advocacy Resource and Evaluation) Team celebrates its 30-year anniversary. For the last three decades, this department has played an invaluable role in helping child abuse victims and their families heal while providing preventative education to the community at large. 

About the C.A.R.E. Team

Led by pediatricians who are board-certified in child abuse medicine, the Cook Children's C.A.R.E. Team provides medical and forensic evaluations for victims of physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and drug exposure. All C.A.R.E. Team patients are referred from Child Protective Services (CPS), law enforcement agencies, or another medical provider.

“Our job is to make sure the child is okay, and if they’re not, to provide the necessary medical treatment and help them heal,” said Nurse Manager and forensic nurse examiner, Stacey Henley, MSN, RN. 

The C.A.R.E. Team does the critical work of providing a medical diagnosis—whether it’s found to be child abuse, an accident, or another underlying medical condition—and facilitating a treatment plan for the patient.

“Everything we do, we do because we care about these kids,” said C.A.R.E. Team Medical Director, Jamye Coffman, M.D. 

Helping Children Heal

The C.A.R.E. Team helps victims of all types of child abuse and neglect begin to heal physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

The team is trained to recognize the dynamics of trauma and fight-or-flight, which means they have an evidence-based understanding of why children don’t always report abuse.

“A lot of people think abuse looks like what happens in the movies, where someone gets attacked by a stranger in a dark alley,” Henley explains. “They don’t understand that over 95% of the time, a child's abuser is a family member, a close family friend, or someone else the child knows.”

The C.A.R.E. Team provides comprehensive psychosocial assessments of each patient’s physical, mental and emotional health to ensure they receive the care they need. They also work with numerous advocacy centers in the community—listed on their website under Prevention, help and support resources—that are dedicated to helping child abuse victims and their families find hope, healing, and justice. 

“Our job is to protect these kids,” Henley said. “We make sure their body is okay first, and then we help them start their healing journey.”

A Collaborative Approach

The C.A.R.E. Team collaborates with multiple different specialties, including hematology, orthopedics, pediatric radiology and more, to provide multidimensional care for patients. 

“I think it’s our superpower that we have such a great group of specialty services that are willing to work together to make a diagnosis of potential abuse,” Dr. Coffman said. “We need a lot of different perspectives because a medical diagnosis holds great ramifications for the child and the family.”

Beyond Cook Children’s, the C.A.R.E. Team is part of a larger multidisciplinary network involved in child abuse cases—including law enforcement, CPS, advocacy centers, and the District Attorney’s office. The C.A.R.E. Team ensures all other parties involved in a child’s case understand their medical diagnosis and its consequences.

Community Education and Partnerships

“We try to provide education to pretty much anybody who asks us because we want to make sure everyone has the appropriate medical information about abuse,” Henley said. 

Throughout the year, the C.A.R.E. Team hosts workshops and conferences with attendance from hundreds of other medical providers throughout the country. The team also provides community education for its advocacy center partners, school districts, daycares, churches, law enforcement, CPS, and more—ensuring all organizations are familiar with the medical symptoms of abuse and know when and how to report.

Several of the C.A.R.E. Team’s initiatives are also aimed at preventing and thwarting specific types of abuse. They commonly host workshops on The Period of PURPLE Crying, teaching parents how to navigate the frustration that can lead to severe and potentially life-threatening abuse. The team also participates in case reviews during which juvenile offenders or those with problematic sexual behaviors can be referred to counseling programs. 

“If they meet the qualifications, offenders can go into a program that helps them learn about why their behavior is inappropriate,” Henley said. “These are kids in our community and we need to help them, too.”

For more information on the signs of child abuse and prevention, visit saynotoabuse.org. To report abuse, neglect, or exploitation, contact the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services at 1-800-252-5400. If the child is in immediate danger, call 911.