Child Advocacy Centers facilitate a multidisciplinary approach to the investigation, prosecution, and treatment of child abuse cases.

No single agency, individual or discipline has all the knowledge, skills or resources to provide assistance needed for abused children and their families. At child advocacy centers, the combined wisdom and professional knowledge of child protective services, law enforcement, prosecution, medical and mental health professionals results in a more complete and effective response system.

Advocacy centers, like Harmony House, maintain the focus on child victims and work to ensure that systems designed to protect children are able to do so more effectively.

Sexual Assault Centers are agencies offering free and confidential, comprehensive services to adult victims of sexual assault.

Sexual Abuse 
Sexual abuse is a form of child maltreatment in which contacts or interactions (such as fondling, sodomy, penetration) occur between a child under 18 and the parent or caretaker, during which the child is being used for the sexual stimulation of that adult or another person.
Sexual abuse may also be committed by a person under the age of 18 when that person is either significantly older than the victim or when the abuser is in a position of power or control over another child. When someone outside the child’s family abuses a child. Georgia Child Protective Services must evaluate whether the parents permitted this to happen or neglected to supervise the child adequately.

Physical Abuse 
Physical abuse is injury to a child under the age of 18 by other than accidental means by a parent or caretaker which results in bruises, welts, fractures, burns, cuts, internal injuries, etc. Physical injury is defined as bodily harm or hurt.
Georgia Department of Human Services

If you suspect a child is the victim of abuse, please report immediately to the Georgia Child Abuse Hotline at 1-855-GACHILD (1-855-422-4453) or your local law enforcement agency.

Children are referred through the two agencies that are mandated to receive reports of child abuse: Division of Family and Children Services and all law enforcement agencies in the Northern Judicial Circuit. (Elbert, Franklin, Hart, Madison and Oglethorpe Counties.) We do not accept walk in clients, but can help you if you don’t know what to do to access services. Please call (706) 245-8700

All services provided by Harmony House are free of charge.

Harmony House is located within the Northern Judicial Circuit of Georgia. Please call (706) 245-8700 to receive the physical address and directions or view Contact Us link on this website.