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Alliance for Children and Safe Haven offer updates; council issues child abuse prevention proclamation
Summary
Representatives from Alliance for Children and Safe Haven briefed the council on services for child abuse prevention and domestic-violence response. Council proclaimed April as Child Abuse Prevention Month and discussed Safe Haven's countywide high-risk and fatality-review work.
Two nonprofit providers presented to the Southlake City Council at the April 1 meeting, and the council issued a proclamation recognizing April as Child Abuse Prevention Month.
Alliance for Children representatives Emma Garcia and Virginia Davison said their Northeast office provides investigative services, forensic interviews, case management and trauma-focused mental-health services without financial barriers. The group has partnered with Southlake Police Department since 1999, the presenters said, and Alliance provided trauma-informed services to 3,025 children in 2024, the city's proclamation stated. The council read a proclamation recognizing April as Child Abuse Prevention Month in Southlake and Tarrant County and encouraged continued partnership to reduce abuse and neglect.
Safe Haven of Tarrant County President and CEO Catherine Jacob described Safe Haven's role as the county-designated family-violence program: the county's domestic-violence hotline, two shelters (Fort Worth and Arlington), a high-risk team and a fatality review team that studies intimate-partner homicides. Jacob said Safe Haven runs an accredited program for domestic-violence offenders, offers expert testimony in felony cases and works with hospital-based strangulation response teams to identify high-risk victims. Jacob told council that Safe Haven served several Southlake residents on its high-risk team in 2024 and that the city has not experienced a recent intimate-partner homicide, which Jacob cited as evidence that prevention work can make a difference.
Why it matters: Alliance and Safe Haven provide investigation, trauma-informed care and crisis response, services that counties and cities rely on to protect children and victims of domestic violence. Proclamations and presentations help inform council and the public about available services and partnership opportunities.
Supporting note: Council members thanked both organizations for long-standing service and noted collaboration among law enforcement, health providers and nonprofits is central to countywide child-protection and domestic-violence prevention strategies.
