MOULTRIE — Hero House Child Advocacy Center Executive Director Regina Dismuke attributes the construction of a new building and the overall growth of the center to continuing community support.

“It’s overwhelming what people will do for our community and I’m just proud to be a part of it,” Dismuke said.

The purpose of Hero House

Dismuke, who is also a forensic interviewer and the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner coordinator for the center, explained what the child advocacy center does for the community.

The main purpose of a child advocacy center, she said, is to provide a child-friendly environment where a potentially abused child can speak with a forensic interview and the interview is recorded. Representatives of law enforcement, the Department of Family and Children Services and the District Attorney’s Office can watch a live feed from another room.

“So, when that interviewer interviews, that child, she gets all the information that all the team members need,” she said.

Dismuke said if law-enforcement needs to press charges or when DFACS assesses safety, they have all the information that they need. The DA’s office has the information that they need to prosecute the offender. She said the video makes an impact on the jury because it’s very powerful.

“If you talk to any child advocacy center, there’s only 48 of us that cover 159 counties. So, for Colquitt County to have one is absolutely amazing,“ she said.

Hero House has been around for approximately 25 years, starting with a part-time director and staffed part-time by DFACS employees who had forensic training.

The history of Hero House

“The Hero House was established in 2000, right there in that old house that was there, which was truly an old house they had built on,” she said, motioning. “When we started looking at tearing it down or moving it, we found out that it had been built onto twice. So, it was in three different parts.“

Dismuke attributed the building of the Hero House to First Presbyterian Church, “They just really saw the vision of what we could do here.“

She said that the building belonged to the First Presbyterian Church and she was part of the first multidisciplinary team that established the agency. She was working for DFACS at the time.

In May 2018, Dismuke became the full-time director and, in August 2019, they hired a part-time administrative assistant, Karen Sanderson.

“But since then, we’ve been able to hire. We have five contract nurses, which are on call whenever we need them to do our medical exams, which is a blessing,“ she said.

The nurses are Melinda Sanderson, SANE RN; Heather Grace Dismuke, SANE RN; Ashley Bostick, SANE RN; Hannah Ahmed, SANE RN; and Ashley Ortega, SANE RN.

October 2020 was when they officially opened the facility for the medical part of the services at Hero House, she said.

Then, in June 2022, the First Presbyterian gifted them property so that they would be able to enhance their services and to build space for their needs, she said. And from that point, it has been a whirlwind, she added.

Dismuke said, when they received the property from the church, they were able to receive a federal grant for the first time ever and that was when she went full-time.

The new office building

“So, the board, I now have 16 board members, which is a very working board. They are so involved, which was part of my agreement to come to work. If I could have me a board and that board worked with me, we could do wonderful things. And it has been that way ever since. They have been just amazing,“ she said.

She and the board decided to build the office building with a space where kids sit before an interview.

“So we built this to be able to conduct our business while we built that,” she said motioning to the construction site.

The building has an interview room that is just about as soundproof as it could get, she said. She added that it was amazing what could be heard when everything outside couldn’t be heard.

“As you can tell, we built this part. This is our interview room, our soundproof interview room, which is something that we had really struggled with in that old building because you could hear the traffic on First Street,“ Dismuke said when showing the room.

She said Justin Murphy, the contractor, built the new office building in only four months and they moved into it in October of last year.  Murphy spent a lot of time on building the soundproof interview room.

“And this building will actually connect to that building, so none of our funding is wasted. That will continue to be our interview room back there,“ she said.

The further expansion

She said, in 2018, they had eight board members and they were able to meet in the old location, but when they expanded their board number, they couldn’t meet on the property.

“I would have to call the annex for a meeting room or I would have to call the courthouse and ask for a meeting room,” she said.

In the new building, she said, they will have room for board meetings and their monthly multidisciplinary team meetings.

“We will also be able to do some training with our local partners, which include law-enforcement, DFACS, the DA’s office, the school system,“ Dismuke said. “We do our protocol training. And our protocol is how we all handle our child abuse cases and how we all handle our medical exams.”

She said they train their partners every year to make sure that everyone is on the same page, including the hospital. She added that the hospital had really partnered with them big since Hero House’s medical facility opened.

The new building

There will also be an office for her child advocate, Denise Pope, which she’s never had before, she said. Additionally, there will be an office for law enforcement so they can privately follow-up with a family, if necessary.

“The children will have an area that is designated for them, with their parents there with them, to get comfortable,” she said. “We didn’t have that before.”

She said there will also be a conference room and a room for her interpreters, Laura Folsom and Jackie Angel.

“I have interpreters that are contract people. My advocate is a contract person and then, my five nurses are contract people,” she added.

Also, in the new building, she said, there will be a room for stuffed animals and other toys where a child, coming out of an interview, can go and choose one to take with them. Southern Regional Technical College collects the teddy bears Hero House gives to the children.

“This is a very private matter,” Dismuke said, and added that privacy was a challenge in the old building.

They are building the new facility with that in mind, she said. There will be areas that are very private, so they can protect the children from overhearing things that they shouldn’t.

The community support

Dismuke said the community has supported Hero House financially and also with volunteers. She said she learned, when she worked at DFACS, if she reached out, this community came through.

Hero House has really grown into something good for this community, she said. She added that she and her staff were very grateful for everything that the community had done for the center.

First Presbyterian Church saw a need, 24 years ago, she said, and has continued to be a huge support.

“So our gratitude is enormous for this community,” Dismuke said and added that they continue to need the support of the community.

She said they have been very frugal with their money. They used the donations that they have received over the last four years to start the expansion process.

“It’s been a long time coming,” she said.

She said her board members played a tremendous part and also saw the need for growth, for more room and to be able to offer better services.

“Without my board, I am nothing,“ Dismuke said.

Board members of Hero House include Shawn Bostick, Donna Brinson, Lisa Demott, Griffin Dunn, Wayne Edwards, Brian Knighton, Denise Linnenkohl, Laura Mobley, Melanie Owens, John Peters, Robbie Rogers, Jessica Sullivan, Kelli Summerlin, Mandy Walker and Rod Howell, chairman.

“This is a community based place here,” she said.

She said Hero House has a connection with the probation office because individuals do their community service at the facility. They clean out the flowerbeds and clean the building in general, she said.

She said the First Presbyterian Church youth and Colquitt Christian Academy youth also come once a year and work at Hero House, cleaning up.

The continuing support

She said the people who did the electricity work in the office building donated the work. Dismuke also said that even some of the construction workers had donated their time to build the new building.

“Our plumbing supplies for this building. Totally donated. Concrete guys, huge donation. It goes on and on,“ Dismuke said. “Justin Murphy should be getting paid for what he’s doing. He doesn’t. We strictly pay the bills and he gets nothing for what time he spends on what we do. And that’s just wanting to be involved in the community and make a difference.“

She said, Murphy told her, “I will donate my time and help you build this.“

Dismuke said a grant through United Way helped to pay for the medical equipment needed to document abuse. She said the hospital asked what supplies they needed for the medical unit and then provided them.

“It was like everything fell in my lap. I didn’t have roadblocks,“ she said. “We hope to be finished in April or May.“

“The sweet sounds of growth,“ Dismuke said on hearing the noise of the construction going on.

Anyone that wants to make a donation to Hero House can call (229) 890-5549 or visit the website at herohouseadvocacy.org.