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Years ago, Betsy Goulet stood in a courtroom with her husband, Joe, as advocates trying to deal with a small child who had been sexually abused.

As they were trying to get the child ready to testify, the girl crawled under the prosecutor’s table, curled up and wouldn’t come out, Goulet recalled.

“We used every skill we had, which, at the time, wasn’t much,” Goulet said. “We didn’t have a clue whether she would be able to testify to what happened to her.”

Goulet said she thinks about the Sangamon County Child Advocacy Center when she recalls that little girl. At the time, the center didn’t exist. Goulet was then the rape victim advocate at the Rape Crisis Center in Springfield and her husband, Joseph, was then the sexual assault detective with the Springfield Police Department.

“We were trying to use an adult-centered agency to deal with these kids, and we were making stuff up as we could,” Goulet said. “But the door kept opening and children were coming through because there were no other services for kids.”

That eventually prompted “a nervous phone call” from Goulet to then-Sangamon County State’s Attorney Don Cadagin and led to two years of meetings before the Child Advocacy Center was set up in 1989.

Marking its 30th anniversary, the center held its official opening Thursday at its new location at 1101 E. Monroe St. It was previously located in a building on Monroe Street across the 10th Street railroad tracks from the county complex for 27 years after initially starting out in the Mini O’Beirne Crisis Nursery. The old location will be torn down to accommodate the high-speed rail project.

The CAC coordinates the investigation, prosecution and treatment of child sexual abuse cases, but it also deals with children who are physically abused, witnesses to violent crimes, caught up in sex trafficking or were involved in child pornography, said current executive director Denise Johnson.

The goal is to sensitize the system to the needs of young victims by reducing the number of interviews they have to go through, limiting the number of professionals with whom a child has contact and expedite the cases through the judicial system.

The CAC takes a multi-disciplinary approach with teams that include the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, law enforcement, the Sangamon County State’s Attorney’s Office, and the medical and mental health communities.

Modeled after the National Children’s Advocacy Center that opened in Huntsville, Ala., in 1985, the CAC was one of the first 40 agencies of its kind in the country, Johnson said.

Johnson, who has been with the agency since 2014 and became executive director in September, said the new facility provides a safe place for children to come and talk about what happened to them.

“We’ve been waiting for a long time to have a facility like this,” Johnson said. “The other building served its purpose.

“I say this every day when I walk in here, but it almost feels like a warm hug.”

The CAC is set up as a child-friendly environment where staff tries to negate any re-traumatization, Johnson said. It now has a forensic interview wing off a trafficked area where conversations can be kept completely confidential.

There’s soothing artwork throughout the building and a wall mural at the entrance called “Hope,” painted by Erin Svendsen from the Springfield Art Association, that is bright and cheery, “everything the agency tries to be,” Johnson said.

Children also have access to Gibson, the county's comfort dog.

State’s Attorney Dan Wright called the CAC “a state-of-the-art facility (that) provides the most welcoming environment for children and their non-offending family members as they navigate what can be a confusing and intimidating criminal justice system.”

In addition to Betsy Goulet, Wright credited the work of Assistant State’s Attorney Sheryl Essenburg and Cadagin, “whose legacy continues to this very day in the work of the Child Advocacy Center.”

Wright said that the work of the multi-disciplinary team “simply cannot be overstated. It’s a tremendous asset of our Child Advocacy Center and not common to every county in our state. We’re very lucky to have a group like this and a facility like this.”

The 5,800-square-foot building that was formerly a medical building also houses CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates), a separate county agency of volunteers who represent the best interests of children in court.

In addition to Sangamon County, the CAC provides services to Logan, Christian and Menard counties.

Goulet, who is continuing her work with the Friends of the Child Advocacy Center, said a more formal anniversary event is slated at the University of Illinois Springfield in March.

Contact Steven Spearie: 788-1524, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/stevenspearie.