Tartu Child Support Center

Tartu Child Support Center as established as NGO in 1995. It is the first of its kind in Estonia, where a multidisciplinary team is involved in work with abused or/and neglected children and their family members. Child Support Center aims to prevent child abuse and domestic violence in Estonia, by raising awareness of community, providing professionals with training, and by counseling and treating abused children and their family members.

The essential functions of the Child Support Center are the following:
• providing psychological, social and medical counseling, psychotherapy and acute aid in emergency cases to the children and their family members that are exposed to/suffer from violence;
• training of specialists that are engaged in work with children (medical practitioners, social workers, pedagogues, psychologists, juvenile police officers, prosecutors, judges etc.);
• establishing network of specialists in Tartu and spreading the particular model throughout Estonia;
• shaping public opinion towards domestic violence and child abuse issues in our society.

The work of Tartu Child Support Center is based on teamwork. All team members are qualified, provided with special training to deal with abused children and their family members.

Services
Child Support Center's team is at the disposal of children since their birth until they become 18 years old, and likewise to their family members. We provide them with:
• acute aid
• counselling
• psychotherapy (individual, group and family therapy, music and game therapy, solution-focused brief therapy, cognitive-behavioural therapy)psychosocial and medical rehabilitation
• support person service

All consultations and therapy sessions are confidential and free of charge.

Additional services
• supervision of specialists that are involved in work with children, team work
• regular participation in minors' commission
• assessment of child's mental health condition for court, and for child protection specialist
• involvement in child interviews during the hearings and as a specialist in court session
• summoning "the city team" and supervising in handling complicated cases

Training projects
The objectives of training projects are as follows:
• To inform community on domestic violence and child abuse
• To teach specialists involved in work with children new skills and raise their competence in treating abused children and their families.
• To establish network of specialists in Tartu, and implementing the same model over Estonia.
• To provide students with knowledge on child abuse and opportunities for help in Estonia.
• Practice centre for social work, special pedagogics and law students of Tartu University.

More information is available on the website http://www.tugikeskus.org.ee/