Missoula Officials Designing Family Justice Center For Special Victims Unit Cases

County Officials are investigating the possibility of designing a Family Justice Center in Missoula. Missoula County Attorney Kirst Pabst says a multidisciplinary group discussed the possibility last week.

"It would have police investigators, prosecutors, a social worker, a counselor, medical personnel, all of the people, all there, under one roof to coordinate services," Pabst said. "It would actually be more efficient, because it would be consolidating a lot of things that are actually pretty duplicative."

Pabst said the new center would be more efficient, but there are still a lot of details to hammer out, including the cost.

"I think there are just shy of 100 of these centers across the country right now, and they range from one-room facilities to multi-million dollar complexes. We would try to find something that is just right for our community, not to extravagent, but that would be more efficient."

The Family Justice Center is in what Pabst described as “the dream stage” right now. If completed, the center would deal with issues like child abuse, partner-family member assault, and sexual assault; all of the cases currently handled by the Missoula special victim’s unit.