Tiffani Clark, vice president of Synergy Services’ Child Advocacy Center, received the 18th Annual Sara Andrasek Memorial Award on April 8 during the Platte County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office yearly luncheon held as part of the national Crime Victims’ Rights Week.
Clark leads an agency that conducts child forensic interviews of children who have suffered physical or sexual abuse or who have been victims or witnesses of other crimes.
“Tiffani Clark is a true champion of children,” said Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd. “She’s helped hundreds of children tell the truth about almost unimaginable abuse in a setting that is designed to reduce their trauma. Her interviews of children combined with her expert testimony in court has led to the conviction of countless numbers of child predators.”
Clark has been with Synergy Services since 2016. She has conducted 467 forensic interviews of child victims and supervised hundreds more. Synergy Services acts as the Child Advocacy Center for children who have suffered abuse in Platte, Clay or Ray counties.
Clark received the award during a free community lunch at the First Baptist Church of Platte City attended by about 70 people. The featured speaker at the lunch was Kathryn Heald, who survived more than a year of sexual abuse at the hands of a family member when she was just 14 years old.
Clark conducted a forensic interview of Heald, but that interview was not admissible at trial because, under Missouri law, a child must be under age 14 for the interview to be seen by a jury.
Zahnd has advocated that Missouri law be changed to match that of other states so the forensic interview of any child would be admissible at trial. A bill containing that change passed the legislature in 2023 but was vetoed by then-Governor Mike Parson because of unrelated provisions. Zahnd said he hoped the law would pass this year.
The Sara Andrasek Memorial Award is given each year in Andrasek’s memory. Andrasek was raped and murdered in 2001 while pregnant with her first child. Zahnd’s office and the Kansas City Police Department were in the final stages of preparing a death penalty case against Wayne Dumond when Dumond died while in custody.
Andrasek’s mother, Janet Williams, has presented the award each year with Zahnd.