“Before Safe Harbor, it was not unusual for kids to be interviewed anywhere from six to 10 to 12 times, plus they had the trauma of testifying in all of the pretrial court proceedings,” says Safe Harbor director Brenda Nelson. “This way is much more child-friendly, saves money and time, and frees up cops and social workers to work on other stuff. It also allows the families to stabilize a lot sooner.”

For Alex, “stabilized” isn’t a strong enough word. She puts it like this: “I would be dead today without Safe Harbor.”