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Description
The aim of the project is to provide child victims or witnesses of violence and their families with access to free psychological and therapeutic support. Every year in the Warmian-Masurian Province more than 1,500 children fall victim to crime and need specialist support. As part of the project, an interdisciplinary support centre has been founded for children and their families living in the city of Olsztyn and the surrounding area. While creating it we are using tried and tested solutions that work worldwide. Experience in other countries shows that the best model for helping child victims is to provide interdisciplinary support in a specialised centre, where children and their families receive medical, psychological, legal and social support in the same spot. Examples of such facilities are the Children`s Advocacy Centres in the USA, that have been operating for more than 30 years, and the Barnahus centres in Iceland. In Poland, Children`s Advocacy Centres are similar, but adapted to the reality of Poland. They are run by the Empowering Children Foundation alone or in cooperation with other NGOs in 5 cities : Warsaw, Gdańsk, Starogard Gdański, Białystok and Głogów. All facilities meet the standards developed in 2017 by an international group of experts. This means that the same specialists will manage the case of a child who comes into the Centre''s care from start to finish, and at regular team meetings they will jointly decide what kind of support the child needs at any given time. The centre''s interdisciplinary team works in cooperation with local services. In doing so, it assures that the child''s rights are protected and that the children will receive appropriate support, help and access to child-friendly justice.