Special to The Monitor
ATHENS–The Child Advocacy Center awarded the Multi-disciplinary Team Member of the Year Award to Henderson County Sheriff’s Office investigator Jessica Halbert Feb. 26, at the HELP Center during a Multi-disciplinary team meeting.
The Henderson County Multi-disciplinary team is a collaborative group of law enforcement agencies, victim service groups, Child Protective Services, county and district attorney, medical staff and other organizations.
This group meets monthly to discuss and improve the investigation and prosecution of crimes against Henderson County children and to ensure these victims are offered the services they need.
The Team Member Award is voted on by the Multi-disciplinary Team Members throughout the year. Recipients have shown an aggressive stance in responses and actions taken with child abuse cases.
Quarterly awards were presented during the year for 2012 and include Henderson County Sheriff’s Office investigator Jessica Halbert, Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Sue Hinson, County Attorney’s Office Laura Holder, and East Texas Medical Center, SANE Lynett Anderson.
From this group, Halbert was selected as the team member of the year.
The Henderson County Sheriff’s Office assigns an investigator to Crimes Against Children. Halbert worked more than 100 of these cases in 2012.
The Child Advocacy Center is a program of the Henderson County HELP Center.
For more information, call the HELP Center (903) 675-4357 or go to www.thehelpcenter.org.

A memorial service for Kaufman DA Mike McLelland and wife Cynthia is set for 1 p.m. Thursday (today) at the First Baptist Church in Sunnyvale, 3018 N. Beltline Rd. Mesquite.
The family will receive friends for visitation from 6-8 p.m. that evening at the First Baptist Church of Wortham.
A private family funeral is set for the following day, under the direction of Sparkman-Richardson Funeral Directors in Richardson. A burial will follow in Mike McLelland’s home town of Wortham.
His wife, Cynthia, will be cremated and her ashes buried in the casket with her husband.
The couple’s remains will stay in North Texas until the burial.
Read more about this story in the Thursday, April 4, 2013 issue of The Monitor.