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Published on: 2/22/2003
Last Visited: 2/22/2003
Jane Donovan, who works there as "community educator" after four years of volunteering, greeted me at the front door.She tries to get as much information across as she can for as long as she has somebody's ear, which gives her conversation the effect of being one long run-on sentence.
"Everybody knows about the Andrea Yates case," she said breathlessly, "but nobody remembers what her children's names were, it makes me nuts, their names were Noah John Paul Luke and Mary, come back through here, I want to show you our interview rooms ... ."
Somewhere in there, amid the whirlwind tour and introductions, Jane and other staff members at the center told me pointedly that they need help, and that they're not too proud to beg.
Collin County, like Dallas, has cops and caseworkers for child-abuse cases.
Unlike Dallas, Collin doesn't have a dedicated medical site staffed by doctors trained to recognize abuse.
That's a crucial element of making the case against perpetrators.Nurses and doctors need to know what questions to ask and what injuries to look for.
...
"We've got all these great hospitals coming in," Jane said."They haven't been asked about this yet.Well, we're asking."
Having such a clinic would save, say, a child sexual-assault victim the trauma of waiting while a frustrated caseworker calls around looking for a hospital that can conduct a pediatric-rape exam.It would mean immediate access to a doctor with the expertise to tell whether a baby with a skull fracture really fell off the sofa, or whether somebody knocked the baby against a wall.