LEWISTON — The first stand-alone facility in Maine for interviewing children traumatized by crimes has opened on Lafayette Street in Lewiston.

Aside from the sign on the door, The Children’s Advocacy Center of Androscoggin, Franklin and Oxford Counties, looks like any other house in the neighborhood, inside and out.

The center, which opened this month, is the result the vision and tireless efforts of coordinator Kat Perry.

Sixteen years ago, she met Anne Lynn, director of the New England Regional Children’s Advocacy Center in Philadelphia, at a conference, inspiring Perry to work tirelessly to establish the local program.

“The true inspiration for everything I do is to help be an advocate for those who have lost their hope, lost their innocence, lost their ability to believe there can be a safer, a healthier and a more gentle tomorrow,” she said.

Despite decades of lobbying by child advocates, Maine was the last in the nation to join a program by a national agency to help streamline the interview process and set up standards and practices for states to adopt to help limit the trauma and assure what a victim or witness says is admissible in court.

In the past, children exposed to a horrific incident were interviewed in interrogation rooms or some other cold and intimidating facility, Perry said. Their accounts must be documented in a way that is admissible in a court of law and they are often required to repeat their stories, she said.

The Children’s Advocacy Center is far from the police station in a residential neighborhood, is calmer and more inviting, she said. With a kitchen, living room and a comfortable interview room, a young victim may not be as frightened or intimidated and more inclined to open up to the professional interviewers. In an adjacent room, other unseen technicians monitor and record what is said.  

Perry beams with pride as she stands in the renovated kitchen with fresh paint and new fixtures.

“It really wasn’t that hard to convince people once they found out what we were doing,” she said. “Getting approval and funding wasn’t so easy. But I am still overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from this community. It rocks,”she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

“There are people in this world, I have been reminded of recently, who step up and help because it’s the right thing to do and they stand by you to provide encouragement, kindness and inspiration” Perry wrote on one of the plaques hanging on the wall.

The former single-family home was gutted and transformed with mostly donated time and materials. A diverse group with a strong sense of community pride pitched in to help.

“It took us 103 days and a combination of $53,035 in generous donation of funds, time and labor from over 70 community partner agencies, organizations and individuals. Each time somebody would get involved and learn of our mission, they spread the word. We needed so much work and had little money to see it through,” she said.

“St. Mary’s donated the building and when we started asking for help, it came,” Perry said. “The plummer knew a drywaller, who knew a window guy, who knew a flooring guy and so on. People came after work, on days off, weekends and some even took vacation time to give a lot of sweat equity.”

Many, without being asked, solicited donations from area businesses and associates. Some of the volunteers are involved in law enforcement, but there are also those on the other end of the spectrum. Inmates from the the county jail worked 21 days on the renovations, Perry said.

“One of the inmates worked with such professionalism and work ethic that he is going to be hired by one of the contractors who helped us at the site once he is released, which is such a positive extension of everything that has happened here!” she said.