While studying at Hope College in Michigan, Amy Russell took a job working at a juvenile detention center that sent her on a path that lead to Clark County.
“Every kid that went through the juvenile detention center had been abused,” Russell said. “So I thought, I need to go upriver a little bit to figure out what’s going on.”
That trip upriver included stints as a counselor, forensic interviewer, attorney, child advocate and consultant. In January, she added one more title: executive director of the Arthur D. Curtis Children’s Justice Center, a county agency that uses a multidisciplinary staff and approach to investigate and help prosecute felony-level cases of child abuse while providing support services for victims.
Russell took over at the center after its previous director, Mary Blanchette, was ousted from the position amid accusations of mistreatment by staff. Russell, 48, will oversee a staff of five and coordinate efforts with 20 other individuals working in law enforcement, social work, prosecution and others. She’ll receive a salary of $110,000 and manage a budget of about $1 million.
Scott Jackson, Clark County chief deputy prosecuting attorney, said that the county received roughly 40 applicants for the position. He said Russell, who he described as warm and straightforward, made the cut because she’s worked in most of the disciplines the center interfaces with, has managed two similar centers and has authored a forensic interviewing protocol that he said has been adopted by 20 states and is used in Japan and Colombia.
After graduating from college in 1991, Russell worked as a treatment foster care case manager, where she provided support and training for foster families.
“It was hard, but it was rewarding helping support the kids in their journey of recovery,” she said. “I found value in it.”
In 1995, she went back to school to get her master’s in counseling from Western Illinois University. While working in the Quad Cities area she took a job with the Rock Island County Children’s Advocacy Center, eventually becoming its director.
Russell said that these centers started to catch on in the 1980s and started to spread in the 1990s. She explained that abused children can be retraumatized if they have to recount their stories to multiple law enforcement officials, medical professionals, child protection workers and lawyers. The idea behind these centers is that individuals in law enforcement, social work, prosecution and other relevant professions can get better information and build a stronger case against an alleged abuser by coordinating efforts. This coordination also means that a child needs to be interviewed once with someone versant in child development.
“What we know for kids is when they feel supported and when they feel believed and when they feel heard, they are more likely to maintain their report about their experience,” Russell said.
Russell later served as the director of a similar center in Minneapolis before getting her law degree to better understand criminal law and policy.
Pat Jollota, a longtime local civic leader helped found the Children’s Justice Center in Clark County in 1990, which she said is the first of its kind in the state. Jollota served on the hiring committee for the position and said she was impressed with how Russell proactively expanded her knowledge and experience.
“We were so delighted to have someone who had actually done this kind of work in the past,” Jollota said. “It’s different from your usual agency because you are dealing with some horrendous stuff.”
Most recently Russell worked as a forensic interviewer for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and as a consultant in Denver before hearing about the job in Clark County and deciding to apply.
She described the community support for the center as “amazing.” Now, she said the challenge is to mesh her experiences with that of the staff, which she described “passionate and driven.”
Russell said that her family moved frequently while she was growing up, a characteristic she said she’s picked up. Now, she’s in the Northwest, a place she’s never lived before but is settling into.
“Everywhere I’ve gone there’s been a purpose,” she said.
