EP 51 / A Place of Hope: Children's Advocacy Center with Kara Shrum
Some nonprofits do work most of us would rather not think about. Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County is one of them, and that's exactly why their story matters.
In Episode 51 of Nonprofit Nook, I sat down with Kara Shrum, Senior Donor Relations Manager at the Center, to talk about how they bring law enforcement, Child Protective Services, forensic interviewers, advocates, and therapists together so a child only has to tell their story once. We talked about how the Center grew from a Junior League initiative into two campuses, why their leadership planned for growth a decade early, and the many ways the community can help.
Listen to the full episode below, read the show notes, or scroll down for the complete transcript.
SHOW NOTES
What would it mean for a child to tell the hardest story of their life just once, and then be surrounded by people working together to help them heal?
That's the work happening every day at Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County. Kara Shrum is the Senior Donor Relations Manager there, and she's spent most of the last decade connecting donors, corporate partners, and volunteers to a mission she describes simply: safety, healing, and justice for children and families affected by abuse and neglect.
The Center traces back to the 1980s, when a district attorney in Alabama realized children were being asked to retell their abuse to police, then to caseworkers, then to therapists, over and over again. The Junior League of Plano brought that idea to Collin County, and in 1992 the Center opened with a staff of three and the capacity to serve about 10 percent of the children who needed it.
Today, law enforcement, Child Protective Services, forensic interviewers, family advocates, and therapists all work under one roof. More than 200 professionals make it possible, including 66 on the Center's own staff, across two campuses in Plano and McKinney. A child tells their story once, in a single forensic interview conducted without a single leading question, and that interview becomes the foundation for everything that follows.
And the need keeps growing. Last year the Center served more than 4,600 children and family members, a 3 percent increase over the year before, with a 6 percent increase in services. Every one of those services, including therapy and counseling for life, is free to the families who need it.
In this episode of Nonprofit Nook, Kara joins Wendy to share how the Center's model works, why its leaders built the McKinney campus before Collin County's growth caught up with them, and the many ways the community can help kids and families heal.
Underneath the numbers, this is a conversation about hope. Kara is honest about how dark this work can be, and just as clear that abuse doesn't get the final word when a community shows up for kids.
If you lead, volunteer with, support, or dream of starting a nonprofit, this conversation is a reminder that the right structure, the right partners, and the right people can change the entire direction of a life.
In This Episode
You'll hear Wendy and Kara talk about:
How the Children's Advocacy Center model lets a child tell their story once instead of over and over
What happens from the moment a child walks in, from the activity center to the forensic interview to the teddy bear room
Why family advocacy and free, lifelong therapy matter as much as the interview itself
How a Junior League initiative grew from three staff members into two campuses serving more than 4,600 people a year
Why the Center's leadership planned for Collin County's growth a decade ahead
What Kara loves about development work and the "puzzle pieces" of connecting the right people and resources
Practical ways to help, from volunteering and in-kind drives to the Holiday Shop, the Rainbow Room, and adopting a family
Why every adult in Texas is a mandated reporter, and why prevention starts with difficult conversations
Connect with Kara Shrum + Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County
Website
https://www.caccollincounty.org
34th Annual Teddy Bear Ride (October 25, 2026)
https://www.caccollincounty.org/tbr/
Upcoming Events and Ways to Give
https://www.caccollincounty.org/events/
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/childrensadvocacycenter
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/caccollincounty/
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/children's-advocacy-center-of-collin-county/
Back to School Fair
https://www.caccollincounty.org/backtoschoolfair/
Kara Shrum on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kfshrum
Connect with Wendy + Nonprofit Nook
Nonprofit Nook
https://nonprofitnook.com
Upcoming Nonprofit Nook Events
https://www.nonprofitnook.com/events
Wendy Kidd on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendykidd/
More from Boss Level Engaged
Boss Level Engaged
https://www.bosslevelengaged.com/
Boss Table
https://www.bosslevelengaged.com/bosstable
TRANSCRIPT
Kara: In the state of Texas, we are all mandated reporters of abuse. So if anybody suspects something, they need to say something. And the only way we're going to know is by talking about it, not brushing it under the rug, but being proactive and having these sometimes really difficult conversations.
Wendy: Hey everyone, welcome back to Nonprofit Nook. Today I am here with Kara Shrum, and she is the Senior Donor Relations Manager at the Children's Advocacy Center of Collin County, where she has helped grow corporate engagement, strengthen donor relationships, and support the organization's mission since rejoining the team in 2017. Starting as a development coordinator and later serving as corporate relations manager, Kara has played a key role in expanding fundraising efforts, stewarding corporate partners, and connecting the development and program teams to better serve children and families in Collin County. A UNT graduate with a background in public relations and marketing, she's also part of the Leadership McKinney class of 2026. Please welcome Kara. So happy to have you.
Kara: Hi, everybody. I'm so excited to be here today.
Wendy: I'm so happy to have you here too. Just so our audience knows, we have tried this three times and we are determined. Third time's a charm. I really love what you guys do and I can't wait for everybody to hear about it. And I also want you to tell them about that beautiful building that I got to tour in McKinney. So let's start with what Children's Advocacy Center is and what you do.
Kara: Absolutely. Our mission is to provide safety, healing, and justice to children and families victimized by abuse and neglect in Collin County. We are a nonprofit organization, and we are the only nonprofit that provides comprehensive support services for these children and families.
So how do we do our mission? We provide, first, a safe place for a child to tell their story. And when I say story, I'm talking about the worst day or days of a child's life. It could be physical abuse, it could be sexual abuse, it could be a neglect situation, it could be witnessing a crime committed within a household or out in the community. And we provide these services at no cost to the children or families.
We exist for the child to come and tell their story, ideally one time, so they don't have to keep retelling the same story over and over again. Once they tell their story, we provide healing. How do we do that? We support the family through the entire process through what's called family advocacy, connecting them with short-term and long-term resources to make sure the family has everything they need during the process. And we also provide free therapy and counseling for life for the children and the non-offending family members. When a child is abused at a young age, it's likely not to resonate with them for a while what really happened. And it's amazing that our doors are always open to them. They can always come back as our clients and receive the help they need, based on the model of meeting a client where they are in the process.
Wendy: I love this on so many levels. Let me start with being able to tell their story just once. That is, in my opinion, a bit of a miracle that you're able to pull that off. Can you tell us a little bit more about that process? It's very easy for me to understand because I walked through that building and saw how you have it layered, but can you verbally walk us through it?
Kara: Absolutely. When a child first comes to the Center, you can imagine the complex web of emotions they're feeling. They could be feeling blame. They've been carrying that burden. If they believe they have a trusted adult in their life, they will share the abuse that happened to them. That's the first step for the case to be reported, and once it's reported, that's when the Center knows about it, because we are coordinating with law enforcement, Child Protective Services, all these moving parts, making sure everyone is on the same page from the very beginning. These cases can be pretty complex.
When the child first comes in, they go into what's called the activity center, and that's where we provide child engagement: teaching them mindfulness techniques, teaching them breathing. Sometimes we have them create a coping kit or a coping jar, anything that helps them cope and get a hold of what their emotions are in that moment. Then, like you were describing, they go into a forensic interview room, and they're having a conversation with someone they just met. The forensic interviewer is on staff with the Center, and they are specifically trained to conduct the entire interview with a child without asking a single leading question.
That is just phenomenal to me, to see that art in motion, because I think about our daily lives and how many times we ask leading questions because we really want one answer or the other. The key is to be completely neutral, and they go in with very few details about the case. The interview is videotaped, which is fully disclosed to the family. Everything is disclosed to the family ahead of time. And that interview becomes the foundation of the entire case moving forward.
Wendy: I think that's the miracle part to me: how many agencies are coming together, listening to this one interview, and everybody's working together on the same page. That's so hard to do in today's world, right?
Kara: Yes. And one of the cool parts is that after a child tells their story, you see that burden lifted from their shoulders that they've been carrying for months, sometimes years. They get to go into the teddy bear room at our facility and pick out a furry friend to take home with them. We often get letters and calls from clients who are in college, or who went through college and are living their lives, flourishing, having their own families, and they hold on to those stuffed animals as a symbol of the hope they received here at the Center.
Wendy: I would hope everyone gets to have a furry friend when they're a kid. I know not everyone can, but I know we've all had those stuffed animals we held on to for so long. I probably didn't get rid of mine until just a few years ago, and I am way past that age. But I would think it would mean the world to them. And you provide so much more than just that interview. Once they're done with the interview and picking out their furry friend, it's like, okay, where do we go from here? How do we live after that?
Kara: Right. And that's really what family advocacy is about: helping the family recover so they can function in today's society, answer questions for themselves, manage finances, and have access to education or any resources that might have been pushed to the side during an abuse situation. It's truly amazing. I'm very biased about how amazing I think the Center is, but it does take more than 200 professionals to make this possible. With all of our partnerships with law enforcement and Child Protective Services, there are 66 on staff with the Center.
We operate from two different buildings. You mentioned visiting our beautiful McKinney facility, our Speese campus, which will have been open four years this fall. I'm here in our Plano facility, our original building, which we moved into in 1999. We were established as an organization in 1992, and we began as an initiative of the Junior League of Plano.
Wendy: I love that you have your roots in the Junior League. Those women can obviously do great things. Can you tell us a little more about how they decided to create this organization?
Kara: Absolutely. Back in the eighties, which really wasn't that long ago, there was a district attorney in Alabama who realized a child was having to tell their story so many times. They would have to go to a law enforcement office and tell their story. They would have to go to CPS and tell it again. They'd go to therapy and relive it again. And finally, a little boy just snapped one day and said, "Why am I doing this? Don't y'all talk to each other?"
The Junior League got the idea that they could bring that concept to Collin County, and that is where it was born. We started as a staff of three with the capacity to serve 10 percent of Collin County. I've heard stories about the original little office spaces, and the Center just kept growing, to the point where this facility had an expansion and kept expanding until there was no space to go any further.
About 10 years ago, we started assessing the northern Collin County area. Everyone knows Collin County is booming. It's one of the fastest-growing areas in the nation. We experience it every day driving 380 or wherever you're going. We determined that, due to the population growth rate, we would outgrow the Plano facility by 2025 or 2026. I am so thankful for the proactive vision our leadership team had at that time to make the Speese campus happen, because fast forward, we're seeing that population growth even more accelerated than we originally thought in terms of the number of clients we're serving in both facilities.
Wendy: Give me some of those numbers. How many do you serve per year, per month, however you quantify that?
Kara: We actually just got our newest fiscal year numbers. Last year we served more than 4,600 children and family members. That includes children and adults, because we serve the entire family, the non-offending family members. And I emphasize that's just in Collin County. That was a 3 percent increase from the previous year, and a 6 percent increase in the number of services. We count all the services we provide. We have a lot of statistics and metrics, and thank goodness we do, keeping track of outcomes and everything. But it really shows the need is so much greater than ever before.
Wendy: It's really sad to hear the numbers, but I think it's important for people to understand how big of a problem this is, and why Children's Advocacy Center is so important to Collin County, because you are helping to protect these children and not re-traumatize them.
I know this is the sad part, so tell me some of the good parts. Tell me a success story or two. I got to see some of the amazing art contributed by people who had been survivors of trauma in the past, so it was great to see that they were able to give back what they had received. Tell us a little bit about that.
Kara: I will say that we are a place of hope and healing. It's a dark world, let's be honest with ourselves. There is evil out there, and we see that every day through our doors, through these sacred stories that children share. But on the flip side, that is not the final word, because of all the services we provide.
We see that every day with kids who are resilient. They grasp their past, but they're not defined by it anymore. They find their voice again. We also provide court support, which is often needed for our clients. I've heard stories about children who were terrified to be in the courtroom, but we do everything we can to help prepare them through what's called Kids in Court, so that if their case does go to court, it isn't the first time they've been in that space. And you hear about children who just own it. They find a way to get their voice back. The Center helps with that, but there's so much strength exhibited by these kids.
That's how transformative this can be. It can be an entire life change. The trajectory changes. It's a place of hope, and that's an extremely important message for anyone listening. We're not defined by what happened to us. It's all about the hope on the other side.
Wendy: Absolutely. And it's so cool that you get to be a part of that. What's your favorite part of your job?
Kara: Oh, goodness. I love that one day is never like the next day or the day before. There's such a wide variety of things I get to do. I don't hear about the cases as they come in, and I don't typically see the children, but every now and then I hear stories about cases, enough to fuel my passion. Honestly, my favorite part is the relationship building and the connections I get to make. Meeting the right person at the right time and having the right conversation at the right time can end up providing a resource, or a new sponsor, or a new in-kind support avenue. All the puzzle pieces of development: I love seeing all the pieces in front of me and finding how they fit together.
Wendy: Is there anything in this role that you wish people understood better about Children's Advocacy Center, or about nonprofits in general?
Kara: I would say the work is never done. It's ongoing. Whether it's going from one event to the next project, to the next initiative, to the next campaign, you're always thinking about the next step. It's a constant process. There's no break, because the need is always there.
Wendy: Speaking to that, how do people get more involved if they hear this and say, "How can I help?"
Kara: There are so many ways. I love this question because it relates right back to what development does, connecting resources. We think about time, treasure, and talent. What does everyone bring to the table?
You can bring your time. We have volunteers who help throughout the year, both groups and individuals. We wouldn't exist without volunteers. Another piece is in-kind support, because the more in-kind support we receive, the fewer resources we have to devote to those things, and we can put more money toward the services we're talking about today.
We have in-kind needs throughout the year, including seasonal needs like our Back to School Fair, where we served more than 700 kids at the end of July. And around the holiday season, which I know everybody's already thinking about...
Wendy: I cannot believe how close we are.
Kara: I can't either. A big part of our holiday project is putting together what's called the Holiday Shop, and it's one of my favorites. Think of the toy section at Target or Walmart, with everything organized by age group. That's what we provide at our Center. With volunteer help, we transform our conference center here in Plano into a toy store. In December, caregivers come in and shop for gifts for their kids. It's all about the holiday joy we can provide them. It's not about the trauma, and it's not about them telling their story. It's about the hope and brightness of the holidays.
Often, families navigating abuse or neglect are trying to put food on the table or provide transportation. That's the last thing on their list, and they sometimes have to pick and choose. But with the Center, they don't have to, because we provide this Holiday Shop experience, relying heavily on volunteers. So a great way to get involved is to hold a new toy collection drive or a gift card drive. We often hand out gift cards to teenagers, because we don't usually receive enough gifts for teenagers.
In terms of ongoing needs, we have a really cool place called the Rainbow Room, which provides new clothing and hygiene products for children and families. When they're going through an emergency situation, they may have just the clothes on their back, so we have those resources here at the Center to hand to the family for a day or a few days. We meet them where they are. That's a great need.
I mentioned the activity center earlier. You can support our child engagement team with a collection drive for that space, because we often need fidget toys, snacks, water, and juice boxes. Children can spend hours at a time in the activity center.
And coming up very soon is our Teddy Bear Ride. Have you heard about our Teddy Bear Ride?
Wendy: I have not! What is this?
Kara: This is our longest-standing fundraiser, and this is our 34th annual ride.
Wendy: Wow. Thirty-four years. That's awesome.
Kara: Yes, we're almost 34 years old as an organization as well. We have an amazing partnership with Harley-Davidson Financial Services and a great relationship with IKEA. Hundreds of motorcyclists sign up to ride, and they start at IKEA on a Sunday. If you're a motorcyclist, that's October 25th. You attach as many teddy bears as you want to your bike, and you ride across Collin County, through the northern Collin County cities on an amazing route. You end up at the Harley-Davidson Financial Services office in Plano, where we set up an ending party for the motorcyclists. Your kids and family members can come and see this amazing visual of all the riders coming in. Then the riders put their teddy bears in the teddy bear pit, and all of those teddy bears go into the teddy bear room we were talking about earlier.
Wendy: That's so cool.
Kara: We'll have food trucks, live music, and a silent auction. It's a lot of fun, and it's all about generating funds and awareness for child abuse.
Wendy: What a fun thing to do for a fundraiser. Now that we're going into the fall, what else do you have going on besides the Teddy Bear Ride?
Kara: We're starting plans in October for our holiday project. You can be involved as a sponsor. You can donate funds to support kids served through the Holiday Shop. You can even adopt a family, a specific family with needs, and devote your resources to helping them in ways beyond gifts that can change their lives moving forward, like new furniture, tires, or house repairs, anything that helps in their specific situation. And then we ramp right up into the spring, because we have an amazing gala on April 17th at the Omni PGA Frisco Resort.
Wendy: I love that space. That is such a great venue, and the team there is phenomenal. You guys have so much going on.
Kara: We do. This is a very busy time in development, though I feel like I always say that. It's constant, but it's really exciting, with all the initiatives we have going on and the impact everyone can make here.
Wendy: What's the best way for everybody to stay in touch? Should they follow you on social media or sign up for your newsletter?
Kara: We're on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Our website is an amazing resource too: www.caccollincounty.org. There you can sign up for our bimonthly e-newsletter, where you get the inside scoop on what's been going on at the Center, upcoming events, beneficiary events, any needs we have, and our partners who make all of this possible.
Wendy: That's awesome. Thank you again so much for joining me, Kara. I am so excited we finally made this happen and people can learn all about Children's Advocacy Center. Is there anything we missed?
Kara: Maybe the only other piece I didn't mention is how we give back to the community. We would not exist without the community investing in this mission and being a part of it. One of the ways we give back is through community education. Doing things like this, talking about what the Center does, generates awareness, and our goal is complete prevention of child abuse. A great way we work toward that is by educating kids and adults about child abuse and the signs that something just isn't right. Because in the state of Texas, we are all mandated reporters of abuse. If anybody suspects something, they need to say something. The only way we're going to know is by talking about it, not brushing it under the rug, but being proactive and having these sometimes really difficult conversations. That's how we give back to the community as well.
Wendy: I love it. Thank you again for coming on. For everybody who wants to check all of this out, we'll have all the links in our show notes. And if anybody has questions, Kara, do you mind if people connect with you on LinkedIn?
Kara: I don't mind at all.
Wendy: Great. We'll include that as well. Thanks, everyone, and we'll see you next week.
Kara: Thank you, guys.