Imagine a sexually abused child who has turned to the police and protective service agencies.

Instead of getting needed, immediate mental and medical help, the child gets one interview after another. First it's a teacher, then it's a police detective, then it's a social worker and finally, if the child is fortunate, it wraps up with the district attorney.

Each time the child retells the story of abuse, he or she is forced to relive every moment of the painful experience. The child may begin to have self-doubt, wondering why these people keep asking the same questions if they really believe him or her. Finally, the child decides the pain and the stress is too much and the only way to make it stop is to change the story and deny the abuse.

It's not a far-fetched scenario. Several studies conducted by the National Children's Alliance found that the authorities investigating a case involving sexual abuse often caused the children additional harm during the interviews.

“Here is a kid that was just abused and then there are too many people asking too many questions,” said Rhonda Zahn, the director for the Cayuga County Child Advocacy Center. “These people have been doing the best they can to help the child. They have no malice or intent to re-traumatize the child.”

But Zahn said the end result is often more mental scaring and a case that may no longer hold up in court.

This was why New York passed legislation in 2006 requiring every county to develop a facility specially designed for dealing with sexually abused children. A Child Advocacy Center is the place where all the agencies investigating a case of sexual abuse can conduct non-threatening interviews, gather medical information and, most importantly, help the child heal instead of causing more harm, Zahn said.

To comply with this new legislation, the Cayuga County Child Sexual Abuse Task Force, an interagency organization that coordinates sexual abuse investigations, wants to create the county's Child Advocacy Center at 134 Genesee St., Auburn, by the end of the year. The building would be renovated into a one-stop resource center for abused children and their non-offending family members, Zahn said.

All the interviews that would normally be conducted by different agencies could be combined into one child-friendly interview, allowing each organization to collect information while reducing trauma. Children could receive on-site medical examinations, therapy and other personal assistance to help ease their pain.

“The CAC is where the child goes for services,” Zahn said. “That's the house where we want to bring together the members. We want to offer a place where interviews can be done and where investigations can be held.”

A key component to building a successful CAC is the use of a multi-disciplinary team, or MDT, to unite the organizations who need to conduct work on a sexual abuse case. In Cayuga County this organization has existed since 1989 as the Child Sexual Abuse Task Force, which consists of the Cayuga County Sheriff's Office, Auburn Police Department, Auburn Memorial Hospital staff, mental health and counseling experts, the Cayuga County district attorney and several victim advocate groups.

“It's the best thing you can do when handling these kind of cases, cooperation and communication,” said Cayuga County Sheriff David Gould. “When one organization could be working on one part of a case and not know what someone else is doing, it doesn't work out as well.”

In 1995. the nation saw what could happen when agencies failed to work together when 6-year-old Elisa Izquierdo was sexually abused and murdered by her mother, Awilda Lopez. Various New York City agencies were alerted to problems in Elisa's home by neighbors, family and teachers but their separate investigations turned out to be inconclusive. Reports released after the girl's death concluded that if the city's agencies had been cooperating with each other and sharing their information regarding Elisa's mom and her past history, the girl's life may have been saved.

“I truly feel the citizens of Cayuga County are very lucky to have so many agencies working together to take care of these abused children,” Gould said.

Another benefit of multi-agency cooperation is victims can get referrals for mental and emotional help they may not have received before.

Linda Murphy, director of the Sexual Assault Victims Advocate Program, said victims were probably less likely to get the mental help they needed before the MDT was created because there was no cooperation between the police agencies investigating a case and the mental health services who were trained to deal with victims.

A study released by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention showed 60 percent of abused children received referrals from investigations conducted by MDTs, compared with 31 percent who received referrals from non-MDT investigations.

Zahn said, “If a child is exposed to trauma and is immediately offered counseling they start to heal. ”In the past people never knew it was that important. If (the child's) issues are not addressed, then down the road they will start to develop unhealthy coping skills.“

In addition to mental health referrals, data from the OJJDP showed 48 percent of sexually abused children in a CAC investigation received medical exams while only 21 percent of children in non CAC investigations received an exam. Rick Salamone, a New Hartford Police Department investigator with the Oneida County CAC, said medical exams could be crucial for the district attorney's prosecution.

SAVAR also gives emotional support to victims by giving them an advocate. An advocate is someone who will go with the victim to the police, hospital or court to offer emotional support so the victim doesn't feel alone, Murphy said.

Along with medical exams, Murphy said some victims need to take drugs to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases as a precautionary measure if they were raped. If a victim was never referred by investigators to a doctor, it would be almost impossible for the victim to receive any needed medication.

It's that teamwork and the centralized location of resources that make the CAC such a beneficial tool for the community, Zahn said. It's also the atmosphere of the exam room, interview room, therapy room and waiting room.

Cayuga County's CAC will have specially designed rooms to help make children feel comfortable and safe. Books, decorations, paintings, pictures, toys and games will all help abused children open up to investigators while reducing the trauma they would endure in a more hostile environment, Salamone said. The interviewing room will also be designed to help keep a child focused by keeping distractions to a minimum while maintaining a certain level of comfort

And with a monitoring system installed, an abused child will no longer have to suffer through several interviews or feel like they were being ganged up on by multiple interviewers. All of the agencies involved will choose one person to conduct the interview while the rest watch from another room. If the observers have any questions, they can communicate with the interviewer through an ear piece Zahn said.

Because the goal of the CAC is to lessen the trauma a child endures while maximizing the support they receive, it will be the next best step the county can take for abused children, Zahn said.

“We already have an MDT, and it's one of the best in the state,” she said. “Now we want to make it one step better and this is how we will do it.”

Before the county task force can build its CAC, Ray Bizzari, the director of the Cayuga Counseling Services said, it needs to raise more than $350,000 to purchase and renovate the house chosen on Genesee Street. The house alone will cost $130,000, but the renovation plans call for the installation of a playground, a parking lot, office remodeling and the installation of various electronic resources so law enforcement representatives can connect to their databases back at headquarters.

After the house is purchased and renovated, Bizzari said, the CAC will need an annual budget of $275,000 to maintain services. Most of that money will be provided through state grants, which means the county won't have to raise taxes to fund the center Bizzari said.

“Fundraising will be a small part of our budget but once we get the house we will be golden,” Bizzari said. “I will be able to keep the CAC going for as long as we need it.”

The Capital Fund Campaign, a fundraiser set up to raise money to go toward the purchase of the house, will be approaching various businesses and individuals and asking them to help raise money for the CAC, Bizzari said. The goal is to have individuals work within their respective field and ask their peers to donate to the CAC.

“This is a really important thing for our community, so I am pretty confident we can raise the money,” Bizzari said. “Everybody can think about (sexual abuse) because it could affect them or someone they know. And from the community's feedback, it appears this is an important thing.”

Staff writer Nate Robson can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 248 or nathan.robson@lee.net