Diana Schunn is a leader in helping child victims of trauma

When Diana Schunn became a nurse more than two decades ago, she hoped her career would make a positive impact for those she cared for during difficult situations and that she could help them start the healing process.

That motivation has led to her working with some of society’s most traumatized and vulnerable individuals: sexual assault victims and abused children.

For the past 12 years, Schunn has been executive director of the Child Advocacy Center of Sedgwick County. Before helping start the center, Schunn had developed the state’s first specially trained sexual assault nurse examiner/sexual assault response team, or SANE/SART, program in Wichita. She then helped other communities across Kansas and several other states start SANE/SART programs.

After 15 years of directing a SANE/SART program, she sat on a steering committee that was looking at developing a child advocacy center in the county. Child advocacy centers are safe, neutral places where law enforcement and child protective services can interview children who allege abuse. They also connect and provide services to help the child and their caregivers start the healing process.

Schunn considers Katherine Melhorn, a local pediatrician who became the first board-certified child abuse pediatrician in Kansas, as the most influential person in her career.

“She took me under her wing when I started as a SANE and has been a mentor to me ever since,” Schunn said. Melhorn was also part of the efforts to create the CACSC and serves on the center’s board.

Over the 12 years she’s led the center, Schunn has grown the staff to 17 full-time employees who coordinate cases, advocate for services and awareness, and provide therapy and education. The center serves more than 2,000 children each year.

She also helped oversee a $7.5 million capital campaign to remodel the former Lincoln Elementary School, which the CACSC moved into 3-1/2 years ago. Through her leadership, the CACSC has become a model of how to provide a team approach when helping child abuse victims.

Twelve other agencies that help abused children and their caregivers are in the same building as the CACSC. That model, the only one of its kind, Schunn said, makes it easier to for clients to tap into the resources they need to start the healing process.

“We don’t want people to fall into the cracks or duplicate services,” Schunn said, about the multi-agency, multidisciplinary approach.

“We’re fortunate to live in a community that recognizes child abuse and wants to do something about it,” Schunn said.

But more needs to be done, she said.

“I wish adults would be willing to be a voice for children, no matter how difficult it may be. Children rarely lie about being abused. The offender is creative and figures out ways to make other adults believe them over children. I wish all adults would learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of child abuse and to take action to protect children.”

This story was originally published February 16, 2020 at 12:00 AM.