MCSART works with Montana communities to develop multidisciplinary teams (MDT) and Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) so each child victim in Montana is responded to by specially trained professionals with a child centered approach.  The core member agencies of an MDT are county prosecutors, law enforcement, medical, child protection and mental health and advocates.

Responding to a child victim requires specialized training and is different than responding to an adult victim. Skills for coordinated investigation of child abuse require training in child development, language aptitude, memory and memory retrieval, adult/child power differentials and even family dynamics. No single agency, individual or professional discipline has all the skills or resources necessary to effectively investigate and respond to child victims and their non-offending caregivers. The MCSART Program provides Montana communities with the training, equipment and ongoing technical assistance for best practice collaborated response to reports of crimes against children.

The MCSART Program, administered by Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI), promotes high quality investigative response to child victims by providing coordinated community response resources for reports of crimes against children in Montana. An MDT investigative model uses improved evidence collection through forensic interview and forensic medical exam techniques, reduces contaminated evidence from multiple interviews, and also provides  services to traumatized children and their non-maltreating caregivers.