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The Children’s Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass first opened its doors in 1994 with a simple premise: helping better coordinate treatment, investigation, and prosecution of child sexual abuse cases in Central Kentucky. In 2024, that idea continues to drive the organization as it enters its 30th year of service to the Bluegrass region.
The seeds of the Children’s Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass were planted in 1989, when professionals at the University of Kentucky who treated sexually abused children, received a grant to explore ways to create a better system to investigate and treat child sexual abuse cases. According to founding board member and former Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn, it was clear almost immediately that “the social service and criminal justice systems were not working well together, and as a result children were being victimized in a different way - by the very system whose role was to protect them and to hold offenders accountable.” So, Lou Anna, then the Assistant Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney, joined with Fayette Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Larson to create a new and better system using the Child Advocacy Center (CAC) model. The CAC model was developed in Huntsville, Alabama where the elected district attorney had brought together a team of professionals (a multidisciplinary team) to work together in the investigation and treatment of child sexual abuse cases, and had established a physical Center where a child would go to meet with the professionals on the team. This approach improved investigations and prosecutions, but most importantly, it improved the process for the child.
“Ray Larson was quick to adopt the approach in Fayette County, and tasked me with implementing the multidsicplinary team process,” Red Corn remembers. “At the same time, Ray persuaded attorney Darby Turner, and Phyllis Cronin, to join us in establishing the founding board of directors for the Children's Advocacy Center of the Bluegrass. Those two, along with Drs. Katie Bright and Deborah Stanley who were important to the medical component of the Center, and those in leadership at the Lexington Police Department and Cabinet for Health and Family Services, were absolutely critical in getting the Children’s Advocacy Center off the ground in Fayette County.”
Over the past 30 years, the organization has grown substantially. In 2023, the Center assisted 1,000 children and families walk through their doors to receive critical services following allegations of sexual abuse. It was also named the 2023 Community Impact Nonprofit Award winner from Commerce Lexington.
Since those early days, when the Center’s staff did not include a forensic interviewer, the team has grown to include a fully functional in-house medical clinic, four forensic interviewers, a team of child and family advocates, and a full-time licensed therapist. After outgrowing its building on Walton Avenue, in 2012 the Center moved to its current location in the former Lexington Hearing and Speech Center at 162 North Ashland. Just last year, the Center acquired the building next door at 156 North Ashland. The Children’s Advocacy Center is poised to continue meeting the needs of the Central Kentucky region for years to come.
When asked what she’s most proud of since the Center’s opening, Red Corn says “It is difficult to name a single thing, but the brick and mortar building is precisely what a Children's Advocacy Center should be - child and family friendly, and accommodating to professionals from law enforcement, the County and Commonwealth’s Attorney’s offices, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and more. My hope is that day would come that there would be no need for a Children’s Advocacy Center, but until that time, my hope is that the Center will be here for another 30 years, meeting the needs of abused children, helping them heal to become healthy adults, and always growing by using best practices and maintaining a good place for professionals to work.”
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