§ 20304. Local children’s advocacy centers

• (a) The Administrator, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Victims of Crime, shall make grants to—
  • (1) develop and enhance multidisciplinary child abuse investigations, intervention, and prosecution; and
  • (2) promote the effective delivery of the evidence-informed Children’s Advocacy Model and the multidisciplinary response to child abuse, including best practices in programmatic evaluation and financial oversight of Federal funding.
• (b) The Administrator, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Victims of Crime, may make grants to develop and implement specialized programs to identify and provide direct services to victims of a severe form of trafficking (as defined in section 7102(9)(A) 1 1 See References in Text note below. of title 22) who were under the age of 18 at the time of the offense and victims of human trafficking and child pornography.
• (c)
  • (1) The Administrator shall establish the criteria to be used in evaluating applications for grants under subsections (a) and (b) consistent with sections 11183 and 11186 of this title.
  • (2) In general, the grant criteria established pursuant to paragraph (1) may require that a program include any of the following elements:
    • (A) A written agreement between local law enforcement, child protective service, health, and other related agencies to coordinate child abuse investigation, prosecution, treatment, and counseling services.
    • (B) An appropriate site for referring, interviewing, treating, and counseling child victims of sexual and serious physical abuse and neglect and nonoffending family members (referred to as a “children’s advocacy center”).
    • (C) Referral of all child abuse cases that meet designated referral criteria to the children’s advocacy center not later than 24 hours after notification of an incident of abuse.
    • (D) Joint initial forensic interviews of child victims by personnel from law enforcement, health, and child protective service agencies.
    • (E) A requirement that, to the extent practicable, all interviews and meetings with a child victim occur at the children’s advocacy center or an agency with which there is a linkage agreement regarding the delivery of multidisciplinary child abuse investigation, prosecution, and intervention services.
    • (F) Coordination of each step of the investigation process to eliminate duplicative forensic interviews with a child victim.
    • (G) Designation of a director for the children’s advocacy center.
    • (H) Assignment of a volunteer or staff advocate to each child in order to assist the child and, when appropriate, the child’s family, throughout each step of intervention and judicial proceedings.
    • (I) Such other criteria as the Administrator shall establish by regulation.
• (d) In awarding grants under this section, the Administrator shall ensure that grants are distributed to all States that are eligible for such grants, including large and small States, and to rural, suburban, and urban jurisdictions.
• (e) A grant recipient under this section shall consult from time to time with regional children’s advocacy centers in its census region that are grant recipients under section 20303 of this title .
• (f) In awarding grants under this section, the Administrator shall ensure that a portion of the grants is distributed to State chapters to enable State chapters to provide technical assistance, training, coordination, and oversight to other recipients of grants under this section in providing evidence-informed initiatives, including mental health counseling, forensic interviewing, multidisciplinary team coordination, and victim advocacy.