On Wednesday, November 19th, my group members and I payed a visit to NYCC’s (The New York Center For Children’s) headquarters on the Upper East Side. It was our second fieldwork of the day, and our third one total, which gave us confidence in our ability to act professional and conduct a great interview. We had been emailing with Christine Crowther, the administrative director of NYCC, for a few weeks, and we had finally set up an interview as well as a tour of their facilities.

NYCC is an organization that aims to provide therapy and comfort to formally abused children, in the hopes that they will be able to overcome their past experiences. To do so, NYCC interviews their clients, in a friendly and conversational way, and then provides the necessary support and therapy. The work that NYCC does is often times the last step that children take in order to escape the abuse, remain safe from it, and lastly, heal from the trauma.

When we arrived to NYCC at 11:30, we were greeted by Christine and told to hand our coats up. We then dove right into the tour and were first brought to the main play room, an average sized room with a colorful painted mural covering every inch of it’s walls. Scattered around the room, were toys of several different sorts: dolls, blocks, board games and more. Christine informed us that the room was dedicated to an important figure in the child-abuse-prevention realm, a woman who had formally been abused and is currently taking action towards preventing it. Christine then continued the tour and took us to about ten other rooms. There were therapy rooms, a medical examination room, and several play rooms for the children, all similar to the first one we had seen. Christine mentioned that NYCC aims to create a warm and welcoming environment, so the children who visit can feel safe and calm. I could definitely see how the center creates that sort of vibe, with its colorfully decorated rooms and cozy, carpeted floors. I thought it was very unique that each of NYCC’s rooms had a different, child friendly mural painted on its walls. One was ocean themed, with blue tones and cartoon fish, while another one was flowery and spring-like. After the thorough tour was completed, we sat ourselves down in the conference room, to begin our interview. The four of us took turns asking Christine about her personal experiences with the organization, as well as NYCC itself and what it does. We gathered a great amount of information about therapy procedures, the healing process, and the ways in which ordinary men and women, as well as the center, detects both physical and sexual abuse.

Overall, visiting NYCC gave me an uplifting reassurance that while child abuse is prevalent and terrible, children are able to overcome with the dedication and help from organizations like the New York Center for Children. Looking forward, our social justice group is planning on collaborating once again with NYCC. They have mentioned broad ideas of ways in which we could be of help to them, and we are beginning to follow up with Christine and her colleague in the hopes of narrowing down a task and a date for us to volunteer.