A historical trip through three decades of work for Safe Passage in Colorado Springs shows the fortitude of the past was much like the present for the organization that coordinates medical, legal and investigative services for sexually abused children under age 18 in El Paso and Teller counties.

“In the beginning it was this incredible community team effort; if it weren’t for those amazing professionals there would be no Children’s Advocacy Center or Safe Passage,” said Janet Buss, the organization’s first executive director, who served from 1994 to 2006.

“This way of handling it in a team response means everyone gets in on what is best for the child. Period,” she said Tuesday, speaking on the phone from her home in Maine.

With April recognized in Colorado and nationally as Child Abuse Prevention Month, Safe Passage is marking its 30th anniversary in Colorado Springs with a large artistic timeline that chronicles its history.

Underline Designs installed the permanent display Tuesday in a multi-purpose room at Safe Passage’s headquarters at 2335 Robinson St. The artwork will be dedicated at 4:30 p.m. on April 10, with guest speakers that include Mayor Yemi Mobolade.

Photos and text describe the organization’s evolution from becoming a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 1994 to recently completing a $3.2 million renovation on a new Children’s Advocacy Center, Colorado’s only such center to have co-located agencies.

The project involved digging into records and photo albums and distilling the memorabilia to create an attractive wall installation, Executive Director Maureen “Mo” Basenberg said.

“When you look at 30 years, you think about the number of children who have been so courageous to come forward and speak of what harm came to them and be able to access safety and healing,” she said.

Since its founding, Safe Passage has served a total of 42,000 primary and secondary victims.

What began 30 years ago this month as the Children’s Advocacy Center of the Pikes Peak Region before being renamed Safe Passage in 2006 emerged from an astute observation of authorities that kids were better served if they talked about their experiences in a comfortable setting, not a sterile, scary law enforcement environment.

“Sexual abuse is extremely damaging to a child,” Buss said, “but it’ll be worse if it’s not handled right.”

Add social-service workers and therapists to the group, and a kid-friendly atmosphere was created where kids could answer tough questions without feeling intimidated.

The first space was in an old closet in the DA’s office, but the program soon fell victim to budget cuts, said Geoff Heim, who chairs the Safe Passage board and is a former prosecutor in the DA’s office.

Grant funding and contributions from local partners allowed leaders to purchase a building on South Cascade Avenue.

Buss remembers rolling her desk chair from the DA’s office to her new worksite through an alleyway.

“We found a gentleman who donated the labor to get the renovations done, and the next year I was able to hire one person, so it was the two of us for a while as it slowly grew,” she said.

It wasn’t easy, said Heim, who became involved with the agency just a few years after it began.

“We were existing month-to-month, trying to expand our footprint,” he said.

People didn’t understand what the organization did and how it differed from others that assisted children involved in the judicial system, he said. On top of that, sexual abuse was a touchy topic years ago.

However, the difficult groundwork pushed Colorado Springs into the national spotlight in the field, Buss said, as the Pikes Peak region became a leader for its focus on children’s needs and rights.

The Colorado Springs office became the regional Children’s Advocacy Center, one of four regional programs in the nation, she said, pride still evident in her voice.

The team spirit lives on.

In early 2020, Heim said the board set aside some money and initiated a $2.7 million fundraising campaign to purchase and renovate the large building on Robinson Street.

Safe Passage’s new Children’s Advocacy Center opened in the fall of 2021 as a multi-faceted program with offices for agencies to provide children and families with everything needed for a case of sexual abuse or assault on a minor.

Inside the bright, airy center, children can talk to law enforcement, get physical exams from UCHealth forensic nurses, receive psychotherapy, speak with caseworkers, and learn personal protection and empowerment skills.

Having the agencies in one spot reduces the trauma of children having to repeat their stories and increases their chances of recovering from their deep wounds, experts say.

Children rarely lie about sexual abuse or assault, Buss said.

“Most children don’t make this kind of thing up, that’s not the case,” she said. “You can’t ask leading questions because children will say what makes you happy, you have to take each case seriously, they need to feel comfortable in telling their story because it’s not an easy story to tell, they need to feel like they’re believed, and they need to get appropriate follow-up care.”

After dipping during the COVID-19 pandemic, numbers of clients have climbed since the new center debuted, with 899 children served last year. In 1997, as an expansion on its former office was underway, the agency served 1,190 children.

El Paso County continues to lead the state in reports of any type of suspected child abuse or neglect to a statewide hotline, 844-CO4-KIDS, according to statistics from the Colorado Department of Human Services.

The state received 117,762 calls in 2023, of which 17,745 were from El Paso County. Denver County recorded the next highest amount with 13,200 calls last year.

However, only about one-third of the calls in El Paso County and 28% statewide were referred for further investigation, the data shows.

Call volume does not necessarily equate to cases of child abuse or neglect because some people are seeking other kinds of assistance and don’t realize what the hotline is for: to report suspected abuse or neglect, said April Jenkins, child protection and prevention manager for the Colorado Office of Children, Youth and Families.