Caitlin Whyte (Host): Welcome to In Their Words, a podcast from UPMC in Central PA and the UPMC Pinnacle Foundation. Across Central Pennsylvania, UPMC teams are walking alongside patients and families during some of life's most difficult challenges. At the UPMC Child Advocacy Center in Central PA, children and caregivers facing abuse or trauma find a place of safety, compassion, and healing.

Today, you'll hear from Jordan Luther, Mental Health Service Coordinator at the Carlisle CAC, who shares how his work and the mission of UPMC in Central PA is transforming lives and breaking cycles of abuse.

Jordan Luther: Hi, I'm Jordan Luther. I am a mental health service coordinator here at the CAC. Prior to working here, I was with Children Youth Services for 10 years. So, that's how I first became aware of the CAC and what our mission here is and how we serve our patients and their families that come through. I'm in school right now for my Master's in Social Work, just to further my education, further my understanding of helping people. And I hope to be a therapist in the future. That's kind of my career trajectory, what I'm looking to do. And I do a lot of that within my role as a mental health service coordinator.

I always liked working with kids. Like, my first job like when I was in high school was a lifeguard, and I knew right then and there, I was like, "I love kids." I love working with kids. I was blessed enough to have like a really good childhood, two awesome parents. I didn't know anything about child abuse. I was never exposed to any domestic violence, anything like that. So when I started taking college courses and I was like, "What do you mean people abuse kids?" Like, most of us don't think about that as even a reality. And then, through my work with Children and Youth, I was like, "Wow, this is like prevalent, and what are we doing?" And then, learning about the CAC, we're patient first. I mean, that's the biggest thing. It's like we will do whatever we need to do to meet their needs as human beings first. And that's like where my heart's at.

And it's like everybody we work with, you know, our multidisciplinary team, everybody understands that, when a family comes to the CAC, they're going to be taken care of. They're going to get the services and resources they need. They're going to get the kindness and love that they need. When families come to us, it's like the worst point in their life. And so, we take that very seriously. We understand how important our interaction with people is.

So, a child will come in, we'll get the family checked in. The first thing that they typically do is give the child and their caregiver a tour of the facility. And then, our forensic interviewers will do the interview. While that's happening, our mental health service coordinators are meeting with the caregiver, gathering background information, sharing resources, just giving them a space to kind of talk about everything when they can just be open and, even though it happened to their child, like they're hurting too, right? So, we give them that space. And then, when the child's done, they typically will have a medical exam and then we meet with the child. And what we do is just see how they're feeling. Depending on their age, we do a stress screener with them and just gives us a really good idea about how they're kind of dealing with everything that has happened to them or even just the struggles of the day.

Then, my favorite thing we get to do with the kids, everybody gets to pick a toy before they leave. So, we always do that before they leave. In each one of our facilities, we have a toy room. The kids, they come in with really bad memories and we want their memory of today to be like, "I spoke my truth. I had the courage to share and be honest" and those sort of things. "And I get to leave with something that will hopefully bring a little healing to me."

Host: For families in Central PA, the UPMC Child Advocacy Center in Central PA is often the first step toward healing. Here, children are heard, caregivers are supported, and no one has to worry about how they'll afford the care they need. It's this patient-first model that reflects the very heart of UPMC and Central PA, putting families first, no matter the circumstance. And it's through the support of donors and the UPMC Pinnacle Foundation that every child can receive these critical services without financial barriers.

Jordan Luther: You can't possibly imagine what it feels like to be a person then knowing a child that is abused, right? And so, when you're the caregiver of a child that has been abused, the last thing you should have to think about is, "How can I afford to have this necessary thing done to get justice from my child?" Because of the donors and because of our community partners and people that care, that's just one less thing they have to think about. What we try to do is give them the space and the time to just focus on themselves and focus on their children, because that's what they truly need. They need to know that they're going to go to a place where their needs are going to be met, and they're going to be asked, "What do you need?" And genuinely when we say what do you need, anything that we can help with? And we just couldn't do that without our donors and without people understanding this is necessary work, this is how we get justice, this is how we change a child's life. Because of this step in the process of getting justice for children that are abused, we're a really big part of changing society. And that's huge.

I don't think anybody grows up thinking that they're going to abuse a child. I think that what we have to understand is there's so many factors that go into child abuse. Poverty is big. Domestic violence is big. Mental illness, addiction, those sort of things. And part of our job is finding resources for our community to help change that, to break that cycle. Children that are abused typically abuse as adults. And so, what we have to do is put in necessary services to break that cycle. What we know is, you know, generational trauma is real. Generational abuse is real. And so, if we didn't have places like the CAC and Children Youth Services, then it would just continue to go on and on and get worse and worse and worse.

And so, that's a really big part of it too, is just creating a space for people to be like, "Hey, listen, this isn't your fault. And here are the things that we can do to help." What happens is someone will Childline an abuse, and then we'll get our referrals from law enforcement or from Children and Youth Services. But along the way, you know, as we're meeting with the caregiver, as we're communicating with the kid or talking with Children and Youth Services or law enforcement ahead of time, just trying to understand what the case is about. I'd be willing to say, 99.9% of the time, there's some sort of mental illness present within the family, or there's some sort of addiction or they are in poverty or there's factors. Like, very rarely is there an abuse case where everything else is great and they just randomly decided to abuse their child. You know, there's always these factors. And so, that's part of our job too, is recognizing that, understanding that and giving them the resources they need to make those changes in their life.

We do everything. And I mean this is, again, back to that patient-first model is. We don't want to send them 15 different places, because we know the likelihood that that's going to happen is pretty low. So, we try to do everything in-house from giving them a medical exam. Medical exams serve two purposes. The first is making sure the child's physically okay, obviously. But also, the medical exam, like everything else is child-led. And so, that gives them some of that bodily autonomy back. If they don't want the nurse or the doctor to listen to their heart, they say, no, they don't do that. And so, that kind of teaches them, like, "It's okay to say no. It's your body, you're in charge." And so, that's huge. That's like a learning thing for them.

But yeah, we make referrals. We have in-house trauma that we can get clients set up with. That's for anybody in the family. Again, that's not billed or anything like that. There's no cost to them. They do mobile, they do in-person, or virtual rather. But mental health services is huge. And so, you know, your patient the day they're here, like, "Hey, I can make the referral for you today. You don't have to wait six months, eight months for services to start," that's huge. And then, we have connections to community partners, you know, if they need some other sort of therapy or we have young ladies that come in that are pregnant. We connect them with OB-GYNs and make sure they have primary care physicians and all those sort of things.

We have a really good team, and we create space to talk about the difficult things that you can't always talk about with your family. You certainly don't want to expose your family to a lot of the things we experience here, but that's when we lean on each other and that's where teamwork comes in. And that's where, you know, we do outings together or just have lunch or we debrief after a difficult case. You know, words that you thought you'd never say on a regular basis become part of our daily language, the words we have to use for abuse or things that happened, kind of just becomes normal to us.

But then, that makes you kind of feel weird, because you're like, "This isn't normal." So, just having a good team to rely on. We have therapists here too. So, sometimes you got to talk to one of your therapists, be like, "Hey, I had a tough case today. Can I just chat with you for a couple minutes?" Do mental health check-ins. Taking mental health days is big. Those sort of things. We're super flexible. If you need a couple days to decompress, then take a couple days to decompress. That's important. But if we're going to care for others, we have to care for ourselves. That's our philosophy.

Host: Thank you for joining us on this episode of In Their Words. The dedication of Jordan Luther, and the entire team at the UPMC Child Advocacy Center in Central PA shows what makes UPMC in Central PA unique. Compassionate professionals who meet families where they are and who walk them through their most vulnerable moments. Because of the generosity of our community and the support of the UPMC Pinnacle Foundation, families across Central PA are finding hope, safety, and healing. Together, they're not only breaking cycles of abuse, but building a stronger, safer future for every child.