Stay long after the case closes.

Because every life has intrinsic worth.

We connect survivors and their families with the resources they need to find safety, healing, and hope. Support is shaped around each young person, and can include medical care, screening and prescriptions; short or long-term shelter; educational support or homeschooling where returning to school is not possible; and trauma-informed counselling for individuals, groups, and family members.

It also includes support for family visitation and reintegration, home visits to check on safety and progress, connection to substance abuse recovery programmes, scholarships, vocational training and job placement, temporary financial assistance, and funding for business start-ups.

Approach

Trauma-informed, coordinated, and paced by the child.

Setting

The Children's Advocacy Center model, Chiang Mai and partner centers.

Duration

Years, not programme cycles.

One visit that changed the model in Thailand.

The Children’s Advocacy Center concept came to Thailand after Boom Mosby visited the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center in 2014. As she describes it, that was the first time she saw police, NGOs, social workers, and counsellors all working together under the same roof with the same goal: helping children who had been sexually abused, exploited, or trafficked.

The first Children’s Advocacy Center in Thailand opened in Chiang Mai within six months of her return. There are now five across the country, with more in development.

Music is part of how children settle back into themselves.

Five operating principles.

Coordinated care. Member organisations keep their own expertise, but work as one team, so the child is not pulled in different directions or traumatised by repeated questioning, and receives legal and restorative services in one location.

Cooperation between public and private sectors. Government and non-government organisations often bring competing goals. Under the CAC umbrella, police learn to leverage the trust NGO workers build with clients, and NGO workers learn which procedures help or harm a successful prosecution.

A child-friendly environment. Each CAC provides a warm, safe, private space, including an interview room furnished with toys and art supplies for therapeutic and investigative purposes.

A focus on prevention. CACs work proactively to reduce risk in vulnerable children through art, music, sports, counselling, family events, English lessons, and online safety workshops.

A victim-centered approach. From rescue to recovery, the child’s well-being is the highest priority: honouring their requests where possible, giving them the chance to understand procedures and ask questions, and weighing their best interest at every step.

Who runs them, and where.

Each Children’s Advocacy Center is run in partnership with local organisations. HUG partners include Zoe International in Chiang Mai, the A21 Foundation in Pattaya, For Freedom International in Phuket, The Light Center in Ubon Ratchathani, and One Sky Foundation in Sangkhlaburi.

The least fundable work is the most important.

Prevention sessions photograph well and case advocacy produces statistics. Years of therapy and housing for one child produce neither, which is why restoration is the first thing squeezed when budgets tighten, and why donations directed here go furthest.