Providing a coordinated response to child abuse that involves professionals from diverse fields has the potential to improve outcomes for children and advance justice. This multidisciplinary team model is implemented through child advocacy centers, and has been widely adopted to facilitate such collaboration.
Nathyn Thompson of Marquette, a May 2025 graduate of Northern Michigan University's Master of Social Work (MSW) program, interviewed 10 child protective services workers in Michigan about their experiences working with the centers. His study was published in last month's Child Protection and Practice journal. He also presented the paper at the Michigan Justice for Children Conference in late July.
Thompson works as a clinical social worker with Pathways. The topic of his study was inspired by his previous professional experience in child protective services and his more recent involvement in establishing a child advocacy center (CAC) in Marquette in September 2023. There are only four others CACs in the Upper Peninsula, he said.
“When a kiddo comes forward and tells somebody that they've been harmed, that typically involves CPS, law enforcement, a prosecutor, mental health professionals and possibly medical personnel. CACs act as a go-between for all of the partners, trying to get everyone together at the same table—metaphorically and literally—during monthly case reviews to facilitate effective communication and collaboration,” said Thompson during a recent interview.
“CACs also do forensic interviews with children. A lot of law enforcement officers and all CPS workers are trained in this as well, but sometimes the interviews take place in police cars, emergency rooms or office buildings. A CAC is a calm and comfortable environment more conducive to a child discussing what's potentially the most traumatic story of their life. The long process of the investigation and the court process can be difficult in and of itself, so having a CAC to help a kiddo through that helps their stress levels and trauma. Also, the national rates of prosecution for child abuse cases are typically quite low, but they tend to increase when there's a coordinated response by those involved.”
A class assignment Thompson completed as a graduate student in 2023 grew into a qualitative study funded by the Excellence in Education Research Grant. After several grueling months of peer review, it was published in Child Protection and Practice.
The findings from the interviews Thompson conducted revealed the following: the child advocacy centers are viewed favorably by CPS workers; the collaborative approach offers notable support for investigative services; and strong relationships between CPS workers and staff from the child advocacy centers is a key facilitator of engagement with multidisciplinary teams.
The CPS workers also identified challenges associated with their roles. These include logistical barriers related to scheduling and coordination of child forensic interviews, and—most prominently—feeling undervalued and misunderstood by team partners and community members.
“This was my experience as a CPS worker,” Thompson added. “I think many negative attitudes toward CPS from the community are based out of, honestly, a lack of transparency from the child welfare system. A lot of people don't understand some of the policies and procedures. When they don't understand them, and also see a kiddo who's probably not in a good situation, they get mad when action is not taken to pull the child from the home. Bridges need to be built to close the gap between CPS or the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the community. I think the child advocacy centers facilitate that, but there's more work to be done.”
CPS workers interviewed also recommended improvements in training and education provided by the centers.
“Having gone through all of the training myself, I think that there's a pretty big gap in the knowledge that's being shared with new CPS workers about this team-coordinated approach, and about the higher level of expertise and forensic interviewing that a lot of child advocacy centers offer. I think there's a lot of opportunity for collaboration between CPS and the centers to enhance the training and educational components.”
Thompson's coauthors on the published paper are Kaylee Bares, an undergraduate student at the time who had been interning at the local child advocacy center in its early stages and assisted with data collection for the research project; and Sarah Carlson, MSW program director in the NMU Social Work Department. Read their full publication, titled “Child advocacy centers: Perspectives from frontline child protection workers in Michigan,” here.
Media contact: Nathyn Thompson, natethom@nmu.edu