Committed to creating a community where children can be safe and free from abuse

At SungateKids, we empower children to use their voices. We believe this helps create a world where children are safe and free from abuse. We provide expert forensic interviewing, victim and family advocacy services, therapeutic support programs and child abuse prevention education. Working together, we can make our community a safer place for children.

Putting children first from the start

We believe that children who are victims of abuse and children who witness violent crimes can and should be treated differently than adult victims. That’s why for the past 30 years we have focused on creating a system that is sensitive to the needs and developmental levels of children as victims and witnesses.

To ensure the response is professional, trauma-informed, and victim-centered, SungateKids’ expert forensic interviewers work together with Law Enforcement, Child Protective Services, the District Attorney’s Office, and medical and mental health professionals using a multidisciplinary team model.

These highly specialized programs and services require ongoing investment from our community

Forensic Interview Program: When we started 30 years ago, we conducted just 100 Forensic Interviews per year. That has grown to 650, each by highly-trained, highly-skilled interviewers who know how to talk to children across every imaginable spectrum, and from all different backgrounds and cultures. In 2022, we added a full-time Bilingual Forensic Interviewer – and within one year, the proportion of interviews we conduct in Spanish grew from 5% to 20% of our overall caseload.

Family Support Coordinator Program: Those 650 families per year also receive ongoing support and resources through our program, to help them navigate both the civil and criminal justice systems, and obtain what they need to recover and heal. Families can rely on us for as long as they need – sometimes that means a few days, but it can also mean years – because everyone’s healing journey is different. Given our growth and the need for bilingual interviews, we anticipate needing to add a full-time bilingual Family Support Coordinators.

Therapeutic Support Program: On average, we assist 150+ children and caregivers per year with individual counseling and support groups to help families re-establish the rhythms and routines of family life that are disrupted when a child is victimized. America is experiencing a mental health crisis, and we are the only provider in our jurisdiction who offers these specialized services at no charge to children and families.

Parent Coaching Program: Our coaching program for parents helps families re-establish the routines of family life that are disrupted when a child is victimized. Parent coaching works in conjunction with therapy to help families heal together.

Abuse Prevention Education Program: We also believe our work is incomplete without making intentional efforts to prevent child abuse before it starts. Through this “SungateKids SafeKids” Program, we have grown to educate 7,600 students in 57 schools throughout our jurisdiction every year on ways to keep themselves safe from physical and sexual abuse.

Every day, SungateKids helps restore the hopes and dreams of childhood, so that kids can be kids and families can be safe. We have never turned away a child in need of services, and we don’t charge families for these programs. Today, we are asking you to help us achieve our dreams – to keep serving our community to meet those needs, just as we have for the last thirty years.

Please consider investing in SungateKids by giving the gift of Hope and Healing!

Diana Goldberg, Executive Director

www.sungatekids.org

Federal Tax ID# 84-1233797

EchoStar Summer Fair 2025

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