West Hempstead woman recounts her recovery from sexual assault and how a Long Island child advocacy center helped

At 15, soccer was her sanctuary. A forward and a center midfielder on the Franklin Square Strikers, Juliana Glaudino found her escape on the field — it was the place where stresses from school and life dissipated, leaving just her love of the game.

"I loved soccer more than anything," said Glaudino, a resident of West Hempstead.

But her place of refuge was shattered when her coach sexually assaulted her. Gone, said Glaudino, who is now 21, was the bubbly teenager intent on earning a soccer scholarship. In its place came shame and guilt, and then bullying by her peers and a yearslong criminal court battle that culminated in the coach pleading guilty to offenses including third-degree rape. 

"I didn't want to get up out of bed, I didn't want to do anything. I didn't care enough because I was just so upset, and I was so miserable," she said, adding: "My world was just so dark."

But even at that low point, Glaudino found a small measure of hope, she said, in a child advocacy center in Bethpage that helps youth who have been abused. 

The space once occupied by The Safe Center LI has reopened under the umbrella of the EAC Network, a Garden City-based nonprofit and social service agency. The Safe Center, a nonprofit that helped abuse victims, closed last year amid financial strain, Newsday has reported. The EAC Network helps at-risk children and seniors, offers mental health treatment, and otherwise works with families facing crises. The network hosted a ribbon cutting to celebrate the opening of the new center on Friday.

Neela Mukherjee Lockel, president and CEO of the EAC Network, said the center is geared toward providing children with therapeutic support and to help them with the burden of having to recount traumatic stories as part of the legal or medical process. The organization runs a similar center in Suffolk County. 

Pioneered by Robert E. Cramer Jr., an Alabama district attorney who later became a congressman, child advocacy centers emerged during the 1980s as a way to help children with the overwhelming and frightening experience of having to recount abuse in interviews with prosecutors, physicians and others, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

The Bethpage child advocacy center serves as a safe space where a physician can conduct a medical exam, a therapist can speak with a child and a caseworker can develop a safety plan.

It gives children the feeling of being cared for at the most difficult time, Lockel said.

"I also hope that they are able to find a sense of hope and to know that they are going to be able to move past the experience that may have brought them here," she said.

How center works with Nassau DA

Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly told Newsday the center's "work makes our prosecutions possible." One of her assistant district attorneys is assigned to the center.

"Even as an adult, being the victim of a crime or dealing with the criminal justice system can be overwhelming," she said. "So for a child who's struggling to understand what's happened to them and all the complex feelings and emotions ... we advocate for them to be in a safe place."

Already this year, the county has referred 190 children to this center, which as the Safe Center typically saw between 500 and 800 children in previous years.

When visiting the center, a child, sometimes brought in by a caregiver, is met in a bright, airy space by a receptionist and a child victim advocate.

The child is then brought to a waiting room and asked if they want a snack, water or coloring pages. Staff then checks in with the parents and the child. Child Protective Services may work to craft a safety plan. A forensic interview, in which the child is spoken to in an age-appropriate way by people, including law enforcement and mental health specialists, can be conducted. 

The center also has a medical exam room and a play therapy space featuring puppets, sand trays and dolls, among other items. 

Juanita Guerra, a clinical psychologist who works as an expert within the New York court system, said in an email to Newsday that staff at the centers are trained to avoid judging children. Having children tell “their story as few times as possible is central to protecting their psychological well-being and the integrity of what they share," she said.

“Each time a child recounts the abuse it can bring them back into the emotional and psychological state of the abuse," she said. "Minimizing the number of times they tell their story reduces re-traumatization, protects them against increased shame and self-blame, improves the accuracy and reliability of their reporting, prevents suggestibility and contamination, and it helps the children maintain a sense of safety and control."

Journey to recovery

Like so many victims, Glaudino was terrified to share her story. She reported the abuse to the police after her best friend, whom she had confided in, told Glaudino's mother.

Her coach, Sean Johnsen, was sentenced to 1-to-3 years of prison in 2023 and has since been released. A lawyer for Johnsen did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Glaudino eventually found a way to speak about her experience thanks to her work with Corinne Giordano, the center's director of mental health. But she said she felt little support outside the center.

A delay in court dates would make her want to stay in bed for a month.

She briefly played soccer in college, but stopped because of the stress. And then she left school completely.

"I couldn't get up and go to school anymore," she said. "I couldn't get up and go to work anymore, because it was just eating away at me. And not just the sentencing, but the whole thing, the grand jury, the whole entire process, it was one thing after another."

But recently she has started to feel like her old self again.

She's back in college, studying to be a nurse. She credits therapy and taking a teaching assistant job working with kindergartners with special needs.

But the biggest key of all, she said, was letting go of the shame with the center's help. 

"It is not my shame; it's not my guilt," she said.