Ribbon cut on new Weber-Morgan Children’s Justice Center; operations to begin Tuesday
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- The public tours of the Weber-Morgan Children’s Justice Center on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
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- The Weber-Morgan Children’s Justice Center, pictured the day of its ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday, May 22, 2025.
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- The public tours of the Weber-Morgan Children’s Justice Center on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
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- Officials cut the ribbon on the Weber-Morgan Children’s Justice Center on Thursday, May 22, 2025.
OGDEN — The latest iteration of an idea to help aid in getting justice for the youngest victims of crime has come to fruition in Ogden.
Thursday morning marked the ribbon cutting for the Weber-Morgan Children’s Justice Center. Located on the north side of the Ogden School District campus in Ogden, the center gives youths who are victims of crimes a place that’s less intimidating than a police station interrogation room to give statements and receive any services they need.
Weber-Morgan Children’s Justice Center Director Scott Brenkman told the Standard-Examiner the youngest crime victims are at the center of the facility’s mission.
“The main goal of the center is to help reduce the trauma and the stress of kids when they’ve been the victim and also survivor of any type of abuse that they’ve experienced,” he said. “The center exists so that they can come here and it’s a friendly, comfortable place where they can come in and tell our interviewers what happened to them with the abuse that they’ve had to endure. From that point, that assists law enforcement and child protective services in keeping that child safe.”
He said the center offers more than a safe and more comfortable place to make their statements to authorities.
“If they’re in need of a medical exam, we have that on site here,” he said. “We can provide that through Primary Children’s Hospital — it’s staffed by their nurses here. Then we also have counseling and therapy that we can get the kids into if that’s something that’s needed to help them move on with their life.”
Prior to the new facility, the Children’s Justice Center was located in the 2400 block of Van Buren Avenue.
Brenkman said the new facility is a night-and-day difference.
“When you walk in here, the thing that I hear over and over from people when they come in here is it’s very calm, It’s very peaceful. Immediately, you feel a release of stress when you walk in,” he said. “It’s very light as you walk through this building. There’s a lot of natural light coming in and that just helps to make kids feel a lot less stressed out when they come in here because they’ve been through a difficult situation.”
Weber County Commissioner Sharon Bolos told the Standard-Examiner that the new center offers a lot more privacy for kids and their families.
“In the old building — it’s an old mansion — and we have our board meetings there,” she said. “We’d have to go in the back door because there were families receiving services in the main part of the house. This building offers privacy for every family and every child who comes through the center.”
She said there’s a huge benefit in building from the ground up rather than taking over an old building.
“It makes a big difference that the facility was built for the purpose rather than retrofitting an existing building and trying to make it work for the services that we’re trying to provide. This was built for that,” she said. “A lot of thought has gone into the layout from the time children enter into the lobby and the progress they make through the services that they need. It was built specifically for its purpose, which will make a big difference.”
Brenkman said the old center location is set to be sold while the Weber-Morgan Children’s Justice Center will begin regular operations Tuesday.
“It’s really going to raise our level of service that we provide,” he said. “We’re going to be able to provide a lot better service to the victims and to their families, and hopefully return them back out into the community a lot better off than they were when they walked in here.”
The opening ceremony also included speeches from several local and state dignitaries.
Among them was former Morgan-Weber Children’s Justice Center Director Rob Layton, who said in a politically volatile time, it was easy to get many municipalities and local partners on board.
“When I met with city mayors, councils, commissioners and whoever we met with, all we had to do is say, ‘This is a children’s justice center,’ and you immediately had people say, ‘I want to be a part of that,'” he said. “You mention children. We are still together when it comes to children and to protecting them.”
