Kids Talk provides a child-friendly environment where children can feel safe to tell about abuse or neglect. Staff photo by Don Knight | The Herald Bulletin
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ANDERSON — A $400,000 federal grant awarded to Aspire Indiana Health will allow the Kids Talk program to expand its services to help victims of child sex trafficking.
The first year of the three-year grant will include planning for the program that will be geared toward children ages 15 to 17, providing outpatient services, including both behavioral and medical health, with the eventual goal of a residential treatment facility.
“Ultimately, we are looking for and considering if we can find a sustainable way to be a residential treatment facility to give those kids some stable relationships,” said Denise Valdez, Kids Talk director.
“Help prepare them for when they become adults, helping them with their education, employment services, stable housing even after they are out of the DCS system,” she said.
The program will be open to child sex trafficking victims from across the state.
For six years, the organization has worked with local agencies, schools and law enforcement conducting forensic interviews with children to uncover abuse. An increase in the organization’s Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grant will also allow for forensic interviews of vulnerable adults and victims of elder abuse.
Prosecutor Rodney Cummings and Deputy Prosecutor Steve Koester approached Valdez after Cummings attended a conference where he heard about a child advocacy center partnering with Adult Protective Services.
Aspire requested and received extra funding in its VOCA grant to make it possible and has since started ride-alongs with Adult Protective Services.
“There aren’t a lot of victim services out there for the elder abuse population in particular, and so I think that helped a lot to expand our grant,” Valdez said.
In September, an interview with a 32-year-old man with Down syndrome led to the arrest of Scott Delaney, 51, of Yorktown on preliminary charges of Level 1 felony rape and Level 6 sexual battery.
“When they (Adult Protective Services) go out and investigate, if they suspect there’s a crime that may have happened, that’s when they’ll call us to do forensic interviews,” Valdez said.
The local unit of Adult Protective Services works out of the Prosecutor’s Office and covers Madison, Delaware, Grant, Blackford, Jay, Randolph and Henry counties.
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