By Madeleine Berger
Outlook Valley Sun
When La Cañada Flintridge resident Dr. Astrid Heger founded the Center for the Vulnerable Child in 1984, she established the first medically-based child advocacy center in the world. Through Heger’s decades-long devotion to helping victims of abuse and neglect, the center has evolved into the Violence Intervention Program, which serves more than 20,000 people each year — approximately 15,000 of whom are children.
As executive director, Heger has expanded VIP to offer clinics specializing in domestic violence and sexual assault among adults, elder abuse and LGBTQ+ services, in addition to services for children and teens.
A triple USC alumna and a USC professor of clinical pediatrics, Heger began her career as an acclaimed academic. She created the medical diagnosis of child sex abuse, writing the textbook “Evaluation of the Sexually Abused Child.”
Heger has served as an expert witness and consultant for the L.A. County Coroner’s Office in cases involving child death and assault. She has traveled the world, lecturing and receiving awards for her work, most notably the U.S. Department of Justice’s Crime Victim Service Award, presented to Heger at the White House in 1997.
“All of that was very interesting, but it was all about me,” Heger said, reflecting on her career transformation at the turn of the century. “Everything I’ve done in the last 20 years has been about the patients. To heal child abuse or sexual assault, I realized that it took a lot more than just identifying a diagnosis — you have to figure out a whole system to support a family and a kid.”
During this career transformation, Heger remembers one day when the LAPD brought in a little girl who was raped on her walk to school.
“She was 7 years old and she’s standing here in my clinic in a dress about the size of a 14-year-old’s. Barefoot, no underwear, filthy dirty, blood running down her legs. I had nothing to give her. I could make a diagnosis. I could look for forensics. But I had no clothes, no underwear, no shower, no shoes,” Heger said.
Heger sent her secretary to buy these products for the little girl, while Heger drove her to McDonald’s to buy her some lunch and take her back home.
After that experience, Heger knew she had to go beyond medical research and testimonies.
In 2004, she established the HUB system in L.A. County, which provides 24/7 medical, forensic and mental health services to at-risk children. She established VIP’s H.E.A.R.T. program, which raises funds to provide people with essentials beyond medical and mental health care, such as “clean clothes, new underwear and shoes, a warm coat, blankets to help keep warm at night, a safe place to sleep, a new pair of glasses, food, school supplies, even first and last month’s rent,” according to VIP’s website.
Heger also computerized records of children in the foster care system; this accountability measure dramatically lowered the rate of death by caretaker (foster parent or parent) from more than 65 children per year, to fewer than five.
“I have never met someone more committed or compassionate in the county than Astrid,” said L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. “I’ve known her since I started my career as a policy adviser on child welfare and social services.
“She worked to ensure forensic exams for the most heart-wrenching cases — children who had been sexually abused — to find justice for these vulnerable youth. She also led the charge on telehealth services, years before it became popular, in order to make needed resources accessible to those in our hardest-to-reach communities, especially in the Antelope Valley. I worked closely with her to establish a program for social workers in North County to eliminate barriers to access support without the need to come to downtown L.A.
“I’m thankful for the impact Astrid has had on my life and on the lives of countless children across our county,” Barger continued. “She has left a legacy on our communities that continues to make a difference.”
Currently, Heger’s focus is the new VIP clinic for children and families affected by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy and resulting in behavioral, mental and/or learning disabilities. According to Heger’s research, youth with FASD are 19 times more likely to be imprisoned, and 25% of adolescents with FASD drop out of high school, which is especially worrisome considering 70% of children in foster care have FASD.
“I’m really trying to do research on stopping drinking during pregnancy because the preponderance of kids that fail foster care and the preponderance of people who go into schools and kill children have FASD,” Heger said. “It is a huge problem in this country, which we avoid talking about because alcohol is a legal substance, so we don’t want to make it into such a big deal. It’s a huge deal.”
For Heger, there is always another problem to be solved and someone more to be helped. “In a moment, when you make a decision, who’s going to benefit? If it’s going to benefit me, I’m probably not going to do it.”
She is selfless to her core, which has allowed Heger to persevere through difficult cases. “It’s highly rewarding and engaging to see each case as a challenge to make a difference,” she said.
Heger urges people to strive to be remarkable in at least one person’s story. One example of this is when Heger was leaving a sexual abuse trial in Hong Kong and she noticed the young victim standing by herself, sobbing in the lobby.
“I paused, put my arms around her and said, ‘You can be anything you want to be. You can do anything you want.’ Fast forward 10 years, I get a letter from her saying, ‘You probably don’t remember me. I am now a grad student at UCLA. You were right, I can do whatever I want to do. Thank you for stopping.’”
“All I’m asking is for people to take the five minutes to stop and reach out to someone who needs you,” Heger continued, noting that she remembers thousands of stories like this one in Hong Kong.
As a pioneer in child abuse research, physician, professor, consultant, author and mother of three, Heger’s impact is unparalleled and ongoing.
“I have not yet been able to figure out how to change the world, but I’m working on it,” she said.
First published in the August 10 print issue of the Outlook Valley Sun.
