The Child Advocacy and Assessment Program (CAAP) provides consultations and assessments around issues of child maltreatment, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse and neglect.
Care We Provide
We provide care for children who have experienced:
- sexual abuse
- physical abuse
- emotional abuse (including intimate partner violence)
- neglect
Services include forensic evaluations, historical and medical assessments, photo reviews, legal opinions, in-depth interviews, reporting, consultations to child protection agencies, police, courts, counselling, pyscho-education and treatment for youth and their families following maltreatment, and education and workshops regarding trauma, parenting and intervention services.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a sexual abuse exam entail?
If your child needs such an exam, they will be prepared for the exam by a health care professional who will explain what their exam entails. Generally such an exam is done in the context of a general health exam. You can expect the doctor and another health care professional to be present. They will examine your child from head to foot and include examining their private areas. This might include pictures/videos which are used in order to defer further exams and to document any findings. Your care team can provide more details.
What do you talk to my child about in their individual sessions?
When children are seen individually as part of a big assessment on maltreatment or parenting, they are seen by two health care professionals. The children are engaged in play activities and questions are asked of them in order to assess such areas, for example, their development, knowledge of why they are attending, mood, and family history. This is done in a developmentally appropriate way meeting the needs of your child.
Will I get a copy of your report?
Reports from our assessments are part of your child’s health record and sent to the referral source. They are not directed to parents, lawyers or others whom consent was not obtained for distribution.
Team Members
Our team consists of the following members:
- Pediatricians
- Psychiatrists
- Social workers
- Child Life Specialists
- Psychologists
- Learners (trainees from various programs such as psychology/medicine/social work)
- Administrators
Comprehensive clinical assessments will often require multiple interviews/appointments. Typically, two members of the team will be involved in each session. On some occasions, you may be asked for your permission to allow team members to observe the appointment through the use of a two-way mirror. We do not audio or video record our sessions and do not allow audio recording of any session.
Referral Process
Most referrals to our program are from health care practitioners (such as physicians, nurses, social workers). Parents may call inquiring around interventions for any form of maltreatment or information regarding any component of our programming.
Telephone referrals can be made if non-urgent to our program. Referrals from physicians and health care professionals can also be mailed or faxed directly to our program.
If an urgent referral is needed from child protection or physician offices, please call through paging to the physician on call. Our telephones are answered between 8am and 4pm daily through our administrative staff. A physician is on-call 24 hours daily and available for consultation.
