Connections, A Center for Healthy Families was established in 1999 as the Children’s Advocacy Center. 

We changed our name in 2017 to better represent what we do and where we serve.  We began with the single-minded goal of assisting child victims of abuse or neglect.  While this work is still a cornerstone of what we do, we have grown to include other programs that go beyond that work.  Our broader goals now encompass efforts to ensure both children and their families can thrive as safe, secure and healthy. 

Below is a little bit about each of our Programs within Connections, a Center for Healthy Families:

• Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC)Connections, A Center for Healthy Families, operates a Child Advocacy Program (CAC) that addresses the safety and protection of children who make outcries of physical and sexual abuse. The CAC is a safe, neutral location where investigators from law enforcement agencies and the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) conduct and observe forensic interviews with children who are alleged victims of crime. The CAC uses a multi-disciplinary approach: Agency professionals from multiple disciplines work together as a team to coordinate services during the abuse investigation. The goals of this team is to reduce the number of times a child needs to talk to different agency professionals and address family’s concerns in a sensitive and timely manner.While at the CAC, children and their non-offending caregivers receive support, crisis intervention and referrals for ongoing services. Connections is credentialed to provide mental health services to the children and families seen at the CAC that need counseling to cope with and heal from the victimization they have experienced.
• Family Time (FT) Family Time Visitation Program allows us to facilitate supervised visitation between biological parents, children, siblings and extended family. We provide a safe environment, court appropriate documentation and transportation for children to and from visit locations. This work allows children to maintain connections with the biological families, particularly while in the foster care system. We offer both private pay and State referred visitation services. 
• Parent Education (PE) We offer evidence-based parent education services to parents identified in need by DCYF. This instruction is provided to parents either in their home or in a group setting based on the educational program requested.
• The Parent-Child Assistance Program (PCAP) is an award winning, evidence‐informed home visitation case‐management model for pregnant and parenting women with substance use disorders. This program is administered in Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties with fidelity to the University of Washington. Families enrolled in the program will receive case management services for three years. PCAP goals are to help mothers build healthy families and prevent future births of children exposed prenatally to alcohol and drugs.

Beyond the direct services we deliver, there are over-arching results that come from the collective work of Connections, a Center for Healthy Families. The results we see are the cohesive elements of family preservation and abuse prevention. Each program touches on these two desired outcomes in some way.

Most services (excluding the Children’s Advocacy Center) serve all of Grays Harbor and Pacific Counties.