| Hero House |
Growing to serve children
In the worst time of their lives, kids find help at Hero House
words & photography by Adelia Ladson
If you’ ve noticed, when you’ re going down First Street, a building is being constructed. It’ s the new expansion for Hero House, which is Colquitt County’ s child advocacy center.
I sat down with Executive Director Regina Dismuke to find out what’ s been going on with the organization and to learn about some of the exciting new things the expansion will do for them.
“ 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.“ 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.
“ It belonged to the Presbyterian Church, just like all this property did, and I was part of the first MDT( multidisciplinary team) that established the Hero House,” she said.
“ But I was employed with the Department of Family and Children’ s Services.”
The main purpose of child advocacy centers, Dismuke said, is that there is a child friendly environment, where the child can come, the child is interviewed by a trained forensic interviewer and that interview is recorded. She said that law enforcement was there, DFACS was there and the District Attorney’ s office was there, in another room, watching a live feed of the interview.
“ At Christmas, when our families come, and they see what our community has done for them, they are just so grateful. In any situation where you see that you’ ve helped someone and you see that they are thankful for that, it just makes you grow.”
~ Regina Dismuke, director of Hero House
18 MoultrieScene APRIL 2025