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The Children's Advocacy Center of Paris P.O. Box 536 · Paris, Texas 1S461 Phone: 903,784.5787 i Fax: 903.784.?104 Member Children's Advocacy Centers~'of Texas, Inc. Member United Way August 28th, 2003 Mr. Michael E. Malone City Manager The City of Paris Box 9037 Paris, Texas 75460 Dear Mr. Malone: The mission of The Children's Advocacy Center of Paris (CAC) is to protect and promote the healing of child victims of sexual end/or physical abuse. The CAC is a non-profit organization that primarily serves the children of Paris and Lamar County. Located in a large two-story house, the center provides a friendly, home-like atmosphere for children and their non-offending family members as they go through the difficult stage of the investigation of the abuse. The goal of The CAC is to allow children to feel safe and protected as they go through the process of describing what happened to them, and to reduce the number of times that the children must discuss the abuse. Before The CAC was available when a child was suspected to have been the victim of abuse, the child would be made to travel all over town to places such as The Police Department, Child Protective ,Services office, Sheriff's bepartment or the County Attorney's office. These places can be intimidating for anyone, so imagine how it must feel for a small child; especially a small child that may have been abused and was going to have to tell all the graphic details to someone at these places. By the time it was all said and done the child victim might have repeated their story of abuse five to ten different times to strangers, over the course of week or months. The Children's Advocacy Center changed all of that by operating on the fundamental belief that protecting children requires us to make the system