Wynona's House Child Advocacy Center

The mission of Wynona's House is to promote justice and provide healing for child victims of abuse and neglect in Essex County. We do this by coordinating investigations, prosecution, treatment, and prevention services for children and non-offending families utilizing innovative, evidence-based, multi-disciplinary team approaches to improve outcomes for the children and families we serve.

The vision of Wynona's House is a community where children are safe, families, are strong, and victims become children again, by:

• Reducing the number of times a child is interviewed during the investigation phase to a single interview conducted by a specially trained interviewer in a child-friendly environment
• Increasing successful prosecution through improved evidence collection, victim-witness advocacy, and partnerships with municipal law enforcement
• Promoting the research and development of innovative evidence-based behavioral health treatments for children and families
• Strengthening the safety net for children through community outreach, education, and prevention efforts

Twenty-five years ago, the Senator Wynona Lipman Child Advocacy Center (known as Wynona’s House) was founded in Newark, New Jersey to help children who have been abused or neglected.

Wynona’s House revolutionized the process endured by children and families of Essex County coping with the aftermath of abuse and neglect. Today, we are a non-profit 501(c)3 facilitating a collaboration of more than 70 multi-disciplinary professionals helping the children of Essex County who have been abused or neglected. Wynona’s House coordinates a cross-systems collaboration that leverages both public and private resources to improve outcomes addressing the problem of child abuse, neglect, and maltreatment within the 22 municipalities of Essex County, including Belleville, Bloomfield, Caldwell, Cedar Grove, East Orange, Essex Fells, Fairfield, Glen Ridge, Irvington, Livingston, Maplewood, Millburn (and Short Hills), Montclair (and Upper Montclair), Newark, North Caldwell, Nutley, Orange, Roseland, South Orange, Verona, West Caldwell and West Orange). The multi-agency collaboration serves over 850,000 county residents and provides direct services to more than 950 abused or neglected children in a typical year.