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Child advocacy center plans construction of new facility

Photo

Photo by Terry Mayer

Clockwise from left, Margaret Downing, Paula Hocking, Bill Henry, Sherrie Majewski, Sandra Wagie-Troemel and Mark Lyday discuss plans for the Walworth County Alliance for Children’s new advocacy center. The center is slated to be built next to the Walworth County Department of Health and Human Services along County Highway NN.

GENEVA TOWNSHIP — Members of the Walworth County Alliance for Children know what a pet hamster on an exercise wheel feels like. However, the past 20-plus years haven't been an exercise in futility, and they'll soon get to see what all of their time and energy have produced.

(Read the full story in from Walworth County Sunday HERE. )

WCAC was formed as a separate entity from the Children's Court Advisory Board in fall 2007 and gained its nonprofit status in 2008. The organization has been operating its child advocacy center out of limited space in the Walworth County Health and Human Services building, but it hopes to break ground this spring on a new home next door.

The Walworth County Board of Supervisors is expected Tuesday to transfer ownership of a five-acre parcel in Geneva Township to WCAC, which then assumes all building and financing responsibilities for the property and new complex.

In the coming weeks, the city of Elkhorn must complete a plat review and the county zoning agency needs to OK a conditional use permit. But WCAC board members, who've dreamed of such a deal since Judge Robert Kennedy established the court advisory system in 1989, couldn't be happier.

The group's building committee hopes to break ground in April, and the result will be a 4,300-square-foot facility that includes two interview rooms; medical examination, therapy and family areas; an office for advocacy center director Paula Hocking; and a large conference room for the multidisciplinary team to hold meetings and trainings.