NORTHEAST ARKANSAS CHILDREN’S ADVOCACY CENTER GROWS WITH NEW COMMUNITY BUSINESS PARTNER AND TWO NEW SEXUAL ASSAULT NURSE EXAMINERS

Northeast, AR – May 20, 2019– The Northeast Arkansas Children’s Advocacy Center (NEACAC), serving seven counties in the 2nd Judicial District, has a new support partner and is also re-opening its forensic medical exam facility. At the first planning event for the agency’s big fundraiser for next April, Child Abuse Prevention Month, Embassy Suites by Hilton shared images of its new facility and announced a two-year partnership with the Center to help support them with events, meetings and volunteer activities.

“When there are kids being helped and protected, we want to be involved,” said Susan Woodring, Sales Manager for the new hotel and convention center due to open this fall. “We are here to help with not only the plans for the agency’s event evening but also to assist in any other way we can,” she added.

The new hotel on Red Wolf Boulevard is still under construction and scheduled to open in September. Services and venues that will be available to the community pair the elegant hotel with a multiple-elements convention center site to facilitate one-stop event and business meeting activities.

In addition to this new partnership, the NEACAC will once again be able to further assist state police with investigations of child sexual abuse by reopening its forensic medical exam room. Laura Bean, who sits on the NEACAC’s board and is helping manage the fundraising event, says making this announcement and introducing the two new Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners for Pediatrics (SANE-P) at the planning session is just a sign of good things to come. “Our nurses have to be separately trained to do the forensic exams for our children and having them here close-by is necessary. When our last nurse left, the children had to be transported to the White County Children’s Center or all the way to Children’s Hospital in Little Rock.”

The Center’s child-friendly exam room is currently being updated with new equipment and medical supplies acquired through community fundraising efforts and successful grant application funding. The two new SANE-P nurses, Mandy Koekemoer, and Jacqueline Shannan are scheduled to be working from the NEACAC by the end of this month.

As for information on the announcement of the upcoming, fun, and exciting fundraiser being planned for next year during Child Abuse Prevention Month, the NEACAC says the details will be ‘unmasked’ soon.

The Northeast Arkansas Children’s Advocacy Center is a safe place for kids who may have been sexually, physically, or emotionally, abused, to tell their story. By bringing together all the professionals, under one roof, for a single visit, the Center avoids re-traumatizing children who are already suffering from pain, fear, or confusion. The NEACAC of the 2nd Judicial District serves children within the Northeast Arkansas counties of Clay, Craighead, Greene, Lawrence, Mississippi, Poinsett, and Randolph. For more information on the NEACAC and ways to help support its mission, please visit neacac.net or call (870) 275-7902.