Visit to Kids-TALK Advocacy Center

Last week, I went to the Kids-Talk Advocacy Center located in Detroit.

The Kids-TALK Advocacy Center is part of the Youth Services offered by the Guidance Center, a non-profit agency in Southgate. The Center provides children ages 2-17 with counseling for sexual and emotional abuse as well as handling the forensic interviews that take place with abuse cases.

The director of Children Behavioral Health, Laura Huot, was clearly passionate about her work. She went out of her way to show me around the house that made up the center on Ferry St. She explained the entire process beginning with when the child walks in the front door. I was able to take pictures and see for myself what the waiting, conference and therapy rooms looked like.

I’m glad I went there instead of just talking to the director over the phone. It’s easier to understand something you have seen. And you can’t write properly on a subject you don’t understand. Having seen the center and given a thorough tour, I felt fully informed and believe I wrote a better story.

This week I went to a legislative forum at Crystal Gardens in Southgate for the News Herald. I like to observe people and places so going to an event for the first time is always fun. You don’t know what to expect.

This event turned out to be a pleasant hour eating soup and salad while listening to state reps. speak on any issue they thought important. Any topic could be discussed from the new bridge to Canada proposal to making Downriver a tourist destination.

The group of Guidance Center employees I sat with were kind and funny. I learned some about the Guidance Center and also heard about their backgrounds, families and careers.

Al Sebastian, director of marketing and public relations was a print journalism major at Wayne State. His wife worked at the News Herald for three years before she had four children. Betty Priskorn, the vice executive of the Guidance Center, is a city councilmember in Riverview. Her son graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and now lives in San Francisco. We discussed employment in Michigan and the odds of finding a job in the area after college graduation.

And how nice it would be to live in San Francisco.

Before I left, Al Sebastian gave me a story idea concerning the Guidance Center and said he would help me work on it.

And as I was leaving, I realized my brother-in-law, a teacher at Ecorse Community High School, was there with some of his students.