The Orleans County Child Advocacy Center (OCCAC) has been in existence in one form or another since 1997. The OCCAC is currently located directly across from the State Office Building which houses the Department for Children and Families. It is in the same building as the local Parent Child Center and the offices of the Early Intervention Program and Children’s Integrated Services. This location provides access to many services and is conveniently located two blocks from the courthouse and the local police department. In-house staff includes Marie Beland, Detective Trooper VSP; Dawn Kelly, Executive Director; Lynn Brochu; and Jennifer Harlow, Detective Newport Police Department.
Jenn Harlow has been a Detective with the Orleans County Child Advocacy Center since 2010 and has been an integral member of the CAC/SIU since she first walked through the CAC doors almost 10 years ago. Completing Basic and Advanced Forensic Interviewing within two years of stepping into her role in the CAC/SIU, she went on to complete Extended Forensic Interviewing in 2013; although the single interview model is the approach currently recommended by multi-disciplinary teams, sometimes an Extended Forensic Interview (EFI) is appropriate for children where the results of a single interview are inconclusive or where there are serious concerns about the child’s ability to participate in a single-session interview.
Always striving to not only do better but be better, Jenn obtained her Bachelors Degree in Psychology in an effort to better serve the population with which she works. She is an instructor for the Vermont Criminal Justice Training Council where she teaches domestic violence courses. In addition to that, she teaches a three-day class to new recruits at the Vermont Police Academy on sexual and physical abuse investigations. Jenn has also been recognized as an expert witness in child sexual abuse cases as well as domestic violence cases. Additionally, Jenn takes time to visit area schools to talk to them about technology safety and healthy relationships and is a RAD (Rape Aggression Defense) instructor. Somehow In the midst of all that, she has managed to find time to conduct over 1,000 investigations into child sexual abuse, physical abuse and/or sexual assault cases.
Having been in law enforcement for 22 years, more than half of her life has been spent in public service, protecting her community. It would seem that at the heart of the Orleans County Child Advocacy Center, there is a real life Wonder Woman!