Area child advocacy organization receives $25K from McNeil
What would you do with $25,000?
If you’re Cheryl McNeil, a WVU psychology professor, you donate it to the Monongalia County Child Advocacy Center.
She received the money when she won the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award.
“It does absolutely amazing work, and I feel like it’s such an honor to be nominated by Dr. Capage that it really is rewarding for me to give it to the child advocacy center knowing it will help a lot of children and families,” McNeil said.
The award was started in 2008 through the will of Gail McKnight Beckman and is given to current or former academic faculty members who have inspired their former students to “create an organization which has demonstrably conferred a benefit on the community at large,” or “established on a lasting basis a concept, procedure, or movement of comparable benefit for the community at large,” according to the award’s web page.
Laura Capage, the founder of the MCCAC, met McNeil in 1994 as a doctoral student in McNeil’s child modification class.
“From that very first moment I was just so impressed with her,” Capage said. “I mean she came in the room that day and she just lit up as she walked through the door and was talking about working with children and her passion and I was hooked.”
McNeil mentored Capage in research and clinical work. Her teachings helped shape Capage’s career, including the way she runs the child advocacy center, Capage said.
“Our job is to help them heal and help them become either the best parents they can be or the best little people that they can be,” Capage said. “And that’s really how we approach things here. It’s very non-judgmental, it’s very accepting. And so that’s certainly something she taught me.”
McNeil specializes in the treatment of young children and was a developer of a technique known as parent child interaction therapy.
The treatment involves coaching a parent through interactions with their child in real time using a one-way mirror and Bluetooth device, McNeil said. It’s intended for children from 2-7 years old who have disruptive behaviors.
Children are the most vulnerable people, but also the most changeable. Most parents rate their child’s behavior 60% more positive after PCIT, McNeil said.
“I’m a therapist at heart and I enjoy developing treatments,” McNeil said. “When you provide treatment to young children you see change quickly.”
Most work with children that young tends to last just four to six months, McNeil said.
“My hope is that we are able to make such a drastic change that the family will not need to see me again,” McNeil said.
