Central Pennsylvania, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a whole, recently lost a giant advocate in the field of child protection.  Teresa Smith, one of the founders of the UPMC Children Advocacy Center of Central Pennsylvania (formerly known as the Children’s Resource Center), died on December 23, 2025. As a social worker, Teresa dedicated her career to serving children, especially those children that were the victims of child abuse and neglect.  Teresa received her bachelor's degree from Penn State University, and then her master's degree in social work from the University of Pittsburgh and completed her PHD with the Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

In 1994, along with the late Dr. Earl Greenwald, Teresa brought to Central PA the concept of a Children’s Advocacy Center. In what was then the Polyclinic Hospital in uptown Harrisburg, PA., Teresa and Earl convinced hospital executives to allow them to open “The Children’s Resource Center”.  With a couple of rooms tucked away within the hospital the CRC (as it was universally known) began offering services to children suspected of being the victims of child abuse.  They recruited local law enforcement and child protective service leaders to form a multi-disciplinary investigative team (MDIT) to coordinate the investigations of child abuse investigations.

Today, the concept of utilizing a MDIT to investigate child abuse allegations is recognized as the national model of how these investigations should be conducted.  In 1994, it was still a novel approach across most of the Commonwealth.  From those humble beginnings, and through multiple hospital mergers, the Children’s Resource Center, now christened The UPMC Children’s Advocacy Center of Central PA, thousands of children have received services, to include child friendly interviews, medical exams performed by child abuse medical specialists, mental health services, and more at the CAC since its founding.        

Seán M. McCormack, now Cumberland County’s District Attorney, was an assistant district attorney assigned to prosecute child abuse cases in the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office in those early days, remarked, “I still remember those original meetings when Teresa Smith and Dr. Earl Greenwald laid out their plans to open this thing called a Children’s Advocacy Center.  They were twin dynamos who would not take ‘no’ for an answer.  The opening of the CRC led to a better way to investigate allegations of child abuse. Better interviews of abused children, better police investigations, better CYS investigations, better prosecutions, and most importantly, better outcomes for the children who came through their door. We owe a debt of gratitude to Teresa Smith for early leadership in this field.”  

After the retirement of Dr. Greenwald, Teresa served as the Director of the CRC.  Teresa later took her years of experience to coordinate the training of other professionals in the CAC/MDIT model at the National Children’s Alliance’s (NCA) Northeast Regional Children’s Advocacy Center. The Northeast Regional CAC is one of four NCA Regional CACs that provide national programming as well as region-specific trainings, technical assistance, financial assistance, and information services for developing and established multidisciplinary teams, local Children’s Advocacy Centers, and state Chapter organizations of Children’s Advocacy Centers. Teresa retired from the Northeast Regional CAC in early 2025.     

The Cumberland County District Attorney’s Office wishes to express its deepest regrets to Teresa Smith’s family on the loss of their mother/grandmother. She will be missed but not forgotten. Rest in Peace.