Jeff Wherry has a few questions on his mind now that he’s started his job ensuring the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center fulfills its mission to protect the city's most vulnerable crime victims.
How can agencies like his be more effective? What are the long-term effects that therapy can have on abused children? And how much does it cost a community to let abused children go without help or treatment?
“They’re not esoteric questions,” said Wherry, who began his job as full-time director of the agency’s new research institute last month. “They’re practical things that families we’re working with right now will benefit from.”
Wherry’s goal is not only to find answers to those practical questions for the sake of Dallas children, but also to find the best way advocacy centers across the country can help the families they serve.
“We always want to do things that put kids and families first,” he said.
The research institute, made possible by donations from the RGK Foundation and Hillcrest Foundation, is the first of its kind at an independent nonprofit center, according to the Washington-based National Children’s Alliance, the membership organization for more than 750 advocacy centers.
Researcher at Dallas institute aims to make preventing child abuse a community priority
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