As executive director of Kristi House, a nonprofit that works with sexually abused children, Trudy Novicki is used to the look people get on their face when she tells them what she does for a living.

``They say, `Isn't that sad?' '' she said, as she sits in her office full of children's artwork. ``And I just say, `walk in our lobby -- these children are happy, because they're being helped.' ''

Last year, the nonprofit worked with 800 abused children and their families.

Kristi House works with several other agencies to provide counseling services, prevention and educational programs, and case assessment for Miami-Dade County.

The organization has a staff of about 40 people.

Its budget of $3 million has doubled since Novicki took over in 2002.

She spent three decades working in the state's attorney's office, most often, trying cases across the street from where she works now, in a rambling, Key West-style building that looks out of place next to Jackson Memorial's hospital complex and the courts.

Novicki was former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno's first hire when Reno was Miami-Dade County's state attorney.

Reno, Novicki said, always had a ``very strong social conscience in regards to prosecution,'' and through that office, Novicki prosecuted such high-profile local and federal cases as the Miami River cops and Yahweh Ben Yahweh.

It took more than 10 years for Novicki to realize that she wanted to move away from practicing law and into child advocacy.

It started in 1995, when she tried a sexual battery case involving a 4-year-old who had been murdered by her father.

``What really got me about that case was the helplessness of the victim,'' Novicki said.

She stays involved in the legal world by teaching at University of Miami's law school. And she says being a lawyer is good practice for learning how to run a business.

Now, she feels like that entire career prepared her for this job.

She thinks many people who are miserable with their jobs either don't enjoy what they do, nor do they see a purpose in it. She feels fortunate to have both, and to be surrounded by a staff that also works hard to for what they see as their purpose:

``We say that it's our mission to end the epidemic of child sexual abuse in Miami-Dade County,'' Novicki said. ``To have a goal like that gives a lot of purpose to your life.''

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