Supporters and co-workers gathered at the Buchanan County Courthouse Friday to honor Joyce Estes, who recently retired after 23 years with the Northwest Missouri Children’s Advocacy Center.
We asked Estes to reflect on the growth of the center, from its humble beginnings in 1993 in the basement of the Noyes Home with a part time staff.
“We now have a director, office manager, three counselors, a full-time forensic interviewer, and a part-time victim advocate, so our staff has increased a lot,” Estes said.
“We’re seeing probably five times as many kids as we saw when we first started.”
During her career at the center, they added an agreement with Children’s Mercy Hospital in which specialists in Kansas city are able to use “tele-medicine” video conferencing to conduct sexual assault “safe exams.”
“A safe exam is like a sexual assault forensic exam, and has to be done by a specialized person,” Estes said. “We don’t have anyone here who is willing to do those, so somebody from Children’s Mercy will help the nurse practitioner here with the child.”
“That’s a very big accomplishment, because before everybody had to go to Kansas City to get an exam,” she said.
The center is the first of its kind in Missouri. Estes says they helped more than 600 child victims last year, and 570 the year before that. Estes says they have a multi-disciplinary team that works together, so the child is only interviewed once.
“Instead of the police interviewing, the Children’s Division interviewing, the school nurse interviewing, the child comes to the center and gets one interview, and everyone gets that information, and we can do what’s best for the child,” Estes said.
“Probably the most important thing to me is that we do what’s best for the child. That’s our motto, that’s our goal, that’s it, period.”
Estes believes the search for her replacement will get underway soon. We asked if she had any advice for her replacement.
“Be prepared to work hard,” she said, “and make time for yourself. You’ve got to be able to do some stress relief.”
“It’s a very stressful job, but it’s a very, very rewarding job,” she said, and one she has loved since “day one.”