Guests - Marie Fordney, Crystal Narcho, Stephen Mundt
Thirty Years of Healing Children, the Tehran Bully on the Playground, and a Trump-Xi Prediction Worth Checking on Friday
Tuesday on Winn Tucson brought together two worlds that rarely share airtime — a conversation about the quiet, painstaking work of healing children who have been abused, and a frank geopolitical assessment of what happens when Iran demands what it cannot have and China sits down with a president who holds the stronger hand. The common thread, as always, is whether the institutions around us are actually serving the people they claim to protect.
Marie Fordney and Crystal Narcho: Thirty Years of Giving Children a Safe Place to Be Heard
The Children's Advocacy Center of Southern Arizona turns 30 this year — and on the day Kathleen Winn welcomed its Executive Director Marie Fordney and Director of Development Crystal Narcho into the studio, the organization was putting final touches on a birthday celebration planned for the following afternoon.
What the Center Does and Why It Exists
Before the Children's Advocacy Center opened its doors in Pima County, a child who experienced abuse might have told their story up to seven times — to the first responding officer, to a detective, to a DCS worker, to an emergency room staff member, to a prosecutor, to a school counselor, and beyond. Each retelling extracted another toll. Many children disassociated. Some were so traumatized by the process that they could no longer participate in their own cases. Perpetrators walked free because the system designed to protect the children had inadvertently destroyed their ability to bear witness.
The center's founding mission — crystallized in the phrase printed on its materials, Because every child deserves a safe place to be heard — was built around one non-negotiable goal: a child should have to tell their story once.
"Before we had the Children's Advocacy Center in Pima County, children might have been interviewed up to seven times and would have had to go to an emergency room for their medical care," Fordney said. "That's part of why trauma-informed care is so essential."
Today, when law enforcement or DCS identifies a child who needs the center's services, they call ahead. A multidisciplinary team — law enforcement, child welfare, medical professionals, mental health providers, and the center's own trained staff — convenes. The forensic interview is conducted by a specialist trained to gather details without leading, without suggesting, without contaminating the testimony that will ultimately be presented in a courtroom. The interview is recorded. Law enforcement and DCS watch from an adjacent room, feeding additional questions to the interviewer through a quiet communication system. The county attorney receives the recording. The child tells their story once.
"Our forensic interviewers are trained to get details without leading or suggesting — so that those interviews are defensible," Fordney explained. "If you ask a leading question, the people defending the perpetrator could challenge it. You have to be meticulous."
The center serves the most serious 15 percent of Pima County's child abuse investigations. In a county that sees approximately 7,000 such investigations annually by DCS, the center receives around 1,000 cases per year — roughly 100 children per month. Over 30 years, more than 30,000 children and their families have come through its doors.
Kenzie
Fordney had been thinking about a girl she'll call Kenzie as summer approached, because Kenzie came to the center last summer — and because she knows another child like Kenzie will come soon.
Kenzie's stepfather had been coming into her room at night. A friend discovered what was happening during a sleepover and told Kenzie's mom. Law enforcement and DCS became involved, and Kenzie and her friend were brought to the center together.
She walked in expecting, on some level, to be in trouble. The stepfather had spent months making her feel responsible for what he was doing to her.
"Perpetrators do that. It's part of the grooming process," Fordney said.
Instead of a police station with a badge and a gun, she found a bright, friendly space — toys for the younger children, puzzles and games for older kids like Kenzie, a deliberately calming environment. She told her story once. She got the medical exam she needed. And before she left the building, she was playing Connect Four with staff members and cheating at it.
"She was a kid again," Fordney said. "She was back to normal. And that's so fulfilling to see."
While Kenzie was telling her story, her mother was in an advocacy session with a Center staff member. She felt guilty. How had she trusted this man? How had she missed the signs? And then, in the middle of processing that guilt, she realized something that added a second layer of terror: the stepfather had been paying the bills. Their financial stability was tied to the man who had been harming her daughter.
"That's an extra burden that comes into play for these families," Fordney said. "Mom was amazing. She kicked him right out and immediately started making plans — where are they going to stay if he gets released? How is she going to get a better job?"
The center's advocate was there for that too — connecting Kenzie's mom to resources, helping with grocery store gift cards, linking her to food assistance while her finances stabilized. Parenting classes followed, because parenting after this kind of disclosure looks different. Monitoring is different. Kenzie might act out — perfectly normal — and mom needed to understand why.
Two weeks later, when the center checked in, Kenzie was sleeping through the night again. She had started eating again. The symptoms nobody had fully noticed before were resolving.
Healing Arts: The Program Crystal Built
Narcho described a program she helped develop out of an observation about the gap between the center's formal support programs and the isolation families feel when those programs end.
"Families were wanting to connect with other families," she said. "We offer a 10-week program, a 12-week program — but then what? You're left without that connection."
The result was Healing Arts — a monthly gathering, held at the end of each month, where families come together to do a healing art project. Movement, poetry, music, visual art, dance — a different form of self-expression each month. Children connect with other children. Parents connect with other parents. Grandparents sometimes come too. What the program offers that formal therapy sessions cannot is the simple, powerful recognition that you are not alone.
"It can feel lonely for the parents, for the kid," Narcho said. "This helps them realize they're not alone in this scary process."
The program runs on a 12-month rotation, with a different art form each month. It is ongoing.
What It Costs, and How to Help
The center's services are free to all clients. A complete wraparound service — from initial intake through long-term support programs — costs approximately $3,000 per family. The forensic interview, medical exam, and evidence collection process together run about $1,000 per child. A medical exam alone is $500. A forensic interview alone is $300. A monthly donation of $30 covers ongoing support: snacks for children after their interviews, clothing, grocery gift cards, and gas cards so families can get to crisis counseling appointments week after week.
For the center's 30th anniversary, a donor has provided a $30,000 match. As of the time of this broadcast, the center was approximately $10,000 short of matching that commitment — meaning every dollar donated right now is doubled.
Donate: cacsoaz.org — pink donate button at the top of the page.
The 30th Anniversary Celebration
The center's birthday party was scheduled for the following afternoon, open to the public — no reservation required.
Date: Tuesday, May 13th Time: 4 to 6 p.m. Location: 2329 East Ajo Way, Tucson
Tours of the facility will be offered. The Honorable Barbara Lawal — who was instrumental in founding the center three decades ago, rallying a coalition of medical, mental health, law enforcement, and community partners to address the systemic failures that were re-traumatizing children — will attend and speak about how the center began. Sergeant Eric Morales of the Tucson Police Department will address how the center's services have shaped law enforcement outcomes. Client quotes will be shared.
The Harder Truth: It Is Not Getting Better
Winn asked the question directly: after 30 years, are children safer?
Fordney's answer was honest. In Pima County alone, approximately 7,000 child abuse investigations are opened each year. The center handles the most severe 15 percent of those.
What changed the nature of the work most profoundly was COVID. When schools closed in 2020, reports initially went quiet. Children who were being abused at home were cut off from the teachers, coaches, and school staff who are mandatory reporters — the adults most likely to notice and act. For weeks, the center saw almost nothing.
Then, in mid-May 2020, something shifted.
"People had started putting eyes on kids or had enough and started making reports," Fordney said. "We had 30 kids in one week. And every single case was so intense. There are some cases that we still talk about — our staff were impacted by how tragic it was that it had just gone on for too long."
The new layer that did not exist 30 years ago: online predators. Multiplayer video games with open chat. Social media. Strangers who know exactly what to say to a 12-year-old navigating the transition from childhood to adolescence — the most vulnerable window of all.
"That child's phone — I know they want it to be private — but you're paying that bill and it's okay for you to know what's going on," Narcho said.
Parents who think the teenage years are when they can loosen supervision have it exactly backwards.
If You See Something
The center's instruction to anyone who suspects abuse: do not investigate yourself. Call law enforcement. Make the report. Trained professionals will determine what happened and what needs to happen next. Untrained intervention — even well-intentioned — can contaminate an interview and help the perpetrator walk free.
"If you're not sure, you could call us," Fordney said. "We'll talk to you about whether what you're seeing is actually concerning and you do need to make a report — or whether it sounds relatively normal and what support the family might need."
The center can be reached through its website. It answers questions, walks callers through the process, and helps community members understand what the threshold for a report actually is.
Brigadier General Stephen Mundt (Ret.): What Happens in Beijing on Friday, What Iran Still Has, and Why the Arab Nations Are Choosing Sides
Retired Brigadier General Stephen Mundt joined from Virginia — where the governor had just had her unconstitutional redistricting plan struck down by the state's own Supreme Court — for an extended conversation about Iran, the Beijing meeting, California, and what the midterms look like if gas prices don't come down.
The Virginia Redistricting: What Actually Happened
The Virginia governor's redistricting maneuver had just been struck down by the Virginia Supreme Court — something Winn noted with obvious satisfaction.
Mundt explained the mechanics. Texas redistricted within the bounds of its own constitution and laws and was upheld. Virginia's Democrats looked at that and decided to redistrict — but without reading what made the Texas move legal.
What they did instead: convened an all-Democrat commission, redistricted in the middle of a decade (when Virginia's constitution and its own redistricting amendments require a bipartisan commission and a ten-year cycle), and used Fairfax and Arlington County as donor precincts, stretching long lines across the state to flip a 5-4 legislative split into a 9-1 split.
"The first thing they violated was the constitution of the state of Virginia," Mundt said. "The second thing was the rules that govern how we do redistricting, which says we'll do it once every ten years with a bipartisan commission with equal representation from all registered parties."
The Virginia Supreme Court ruled against it with authority. Do those justices want to be the ones who went to the United States Supreme Court having broken the law? They did not.
The Beijing Meeting: Mundt's Prediction
With Trump en route to China for what would be, in Mundt's analysis, a meeting both sides need more than either will admit, he offered specific predictions.
"They're both going to come. There's going to be little to no discussion over Taiwan, Russia and Ukraine, or Iran — meaning the support China's providing. They will not discuss it. They do not want to get bogged down in a tit-for-tat."
His read on Taiwan specifically: the recently elected Taiwanese leadership has already publicly stated that Taiwan accepts a one-China framework. The CCP is slowly and methodically populating the island. Mundt's view — which he offered with sadness, not satisfaction — is that this will be a peaceful demographic and political transition over time, not a war.
On the meeting's likely outcome: both parties will emerge calling it a great success. Neither will have gotten everything they wanted. Xi Jinping will confirm he is coming to the United States for a follow-up meeting. He will not cancel.
"They will call it a successful meeting. There'll be a lot of discussion about trade. And Xi Jinping will confirm that he is coming to the United States for their next meeting. That's my prediction."
Winn made note of it for a Friday check-in with Ava Chen on China Watch Wednesday.
The question Winn added for Mundt to pass to the room: will Jimmy Lai come up in the negotiations? And will the U.S. offer anything in exchange — like the Arcadia Mayor or the students caught bringing in illegal drugs?
Iran: The Kid on the Bottom of the Playground Fight
The Iranian parliament's speaker declared that the Islamic Republic's military is ready to "teach a lesson" to any aggressor, by which he meant the United States specifically.
Mundt's reaction was clinical: this is the kid on the bottom of a playground fight, getting pummeled, who looks up at the kid winning and announces what's going to happen when he gets up.
"The problem is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has no reason, in their minds, to stop. This is about the survival of their regime. They would put their regime ahead of all the millions of people in their country — all the prosperity, all the opportunity."
Iran's negotiating position is a study in bad faith. When they were told the United States could help remove their enriched uranium safely — something they lack the capability to do themselves — they agreed in principle. Then they came back with 14 demands that were never on the table, including reparations and U.S. control over the Strait of Hormuz to be transferred to Iran.
"They don't even have the authority to demand that and we don't have the authority to give it," Mundt said. "The Strait of Hormuz is international waters. They have no more right to collect taxes and tolls on it than a man on the moon."
The ceasefire is, in Trump's own words, on life support. Mundt confirmed that U.S. assets in theater — Apaches taking down drones and fast boats, A-10s, high-end special munitions — are more than sufficient to execute what needs to be done. What he would not do is join elected officials who describe military shortcomings publicly while a conflict is active.
"I think those people are evil in and of themselves," he said of politicians who undermine operational security. "Lives are at risk."
The strategic reality, in his view: Iran is running out of money. Their people lack internet access and have for months. The regime is separated from the population by its own brutality — when it finally collapses from within, as Mundt expects it will, the IRGC has nowhere to go. The Tiananmen Square moment has not arrived, but it is coming.
The Abraham Accords Are Working
Ambassador Mike Huckabee confirmed that Israel has sent anti-missile batteries and personnel to the UAE to help protect them from Iranian attacks — a deployment that represents something genuinely new in Middle Eastern geopolitics.
"UAE was a signatory to the Abraham Accords," Mundt said. "This is starting to show the strength of those accords when you have a common enemy. UAE has been hit by Iran more than any other Arab nation. They've been punching back."
Before the ceasefire was announced, UAE forces took out an oil refinery on one of the Iranian-held islands. Saudi Arabia has re-engaged. France and the United Kingdom are beginning to align, though Starmer is having his own domestic survival issues.
"Iran is slowly but surely forcing everybody to be in the other camp," Mundt said. "And now you've got Europe — France and England — coming forward. Iran is creating the coalition against itself."
The Midterm Problem and the Gas Tax
The most pointed strategic observation Mundt offered had nothing to do with Iran or China directly: it was about American impatience.
"The American people react like we go to McDonald's. I want it my way and I want it fast. We want happy meals. And we want a little toy."
The midterms are coming. People will vote based on their economic conditions. If gas prices don't come down, if airline tickets stay high, if the cost of goods remains elevated — Trump risks a lame-duck final two years regardless of how well the geopolitical strategy is working.
One proposal under discussion: suspending the federal gas tax. Mundt's caveat was pointed. Nothing in the law requires gas stations to pass that savings on to consumers. If Congress approves a federal tax suspension without a mandate that the reduction goes directly off the pump price, the money disappears into industry margins.
"If Congress is going to approve this, they need to mandate and put restrictions in there that say whatever reduction in federal taxes has to be a reduction off the top end of the price of fuel."
AOC, Billionaires, and the Revolutionary War
Winn and Mundt spent time on Representative Ocasio-Cortez's recent claim that no one can earn a billion dollars — that the only path to that kind of wealth is corruption, theft, or the abuse of government power.
Mundt's critique was structural, not personal. If you give a child a participation trophy every time they show up, they learn nothing about competition, failure, improvement, or the relationship between effort and outcome. If you then put that child in a classroom where everyone gets an A regardless of work, and eventually in a political system where your position is secured not by performance but by demographic mapping, you produce people who genuinely do not understand that Elon Musk employs hundreds of thousands of people, produces goods that everyday Americans use daily, and took risks that most people would never accept.
"She doesn't understand how capitalism works," Mundt said. "We've been giving money to NGOs in our cities. They've been building leaning centers. The money is being funneled. We've given out money quicker than you can say anything. It's obscene."
The coda was AOC's claim in the same interview that the Revolutionary War was fought over billionaires. It was, of course, fought over representation. Taxation without representation. The principle that citizens of England living in the American colonies had no voice in the parliament taxing them.
"Now what we do is pay taxes for people who have no reason to be represented," Mundt said. "You get taxation and representation. Isn't that special."
California: Two Republicans at the Top?
Spencer Pratt — living in a portable house on the lot where his Los Angeles home burned down — is making national news by doing something rare in California politics: speaking the truth without notes, without a teleprompter, and without a campaign manager visible behind the camera.
Karen Bass, the incumbent LA mayor, refused to participate in the next debate after Pratt "pretty much wiped the floor with her," in Winn's words. The other Democrat in the race has no record worth defending.
In the governor's race, Mundt backed Steve Hilton over Chad Bianco — not as a knock on the sheriff, whom he described as a wonderful man, but because Hilton has a deeper understanding of the economic dimensions of what has gone wrong in California and what it would take to fix them.
The jungle primary system means the top two vote-getters advance regardless of party. The question both Winn and Mundt were genuinely entertaining: could two Republicans make the final?
Mundt was skeptical — "I think it's going to be one Republican and one Democrat" — but the observation that this is even a live question says something about how badly the California Democratic Party has managed its leadership pipeline.
"If we can fix California, we could fix the world," Winn said. "And California's a mess."
Winn Tucson airs Monday through Friday, 9 to 11 a.m., on KVOI 1030 The Voice.
Children's Advocacy Center of Southern Arizona: cacsoaz.org | 2329 East Ajo Way, Tucson | 30th Anniversary Open House: May 13th, 4–6 p.m. | $30,000 matching campaign still $10,000 short — donate today.
China Watch Wednesday returns tomorrow with Ava Chen. Mundt's Beijing prediction on the record.