Forensic Interviewing of children and teens: Where Alaska is headed

1. Forensic Interviewing of children and teens: Where Alaska is headed Cory Bryant, MSW Sara Lambert, BSW Alaska CARES Providence Health & Services

2. Child Interview • A forensic interview is a structured conversation with a child that is designed to elicit accurate accounts of events. • Defensible in court • Not a clinical interview • Neutral • Interviews are to collect accurate information in a manner that respects the child as well as serves the needs of the child.

3. Current protocol: Forensic Interview • Introduction • Role • Perception: why does the child think they are here? • Establish rapport/assess developmental levels • Agreement to talk about what is real • Reintroduce the abuse topic • Body Parts Inventory • Obtain Details • Close of Interview

4. Stages • Preparation • Initiation • Direction • Conclusion

5. Preparation • Develop a plan • Gather information • Assess own reactions • Consider premature conclusions

6. Initiation stage • Greet the child • Introduce self • Your role • Child’s perception • Purpose of interview

7. Direction stage • Establish rapport • Developmental assessment • Household composition • Prepositional awareness • Assess sequencing • Agreement to talk about what is real

8. Abuse topic • Obtain details • Avoid leading questions • Who (relationship, who else knows) • When (first time, last time, duration) • Where (happen, others, in the house) • How (did he get you to) • What (look like, feel like, hear) • BPI

9. Conclusion stage • Summarize • Explore fears • Tell the child they did the right thing • Ask if they have questions • Ask what you forgot to ask • Reconnect time

10. Developmental Considerations • Preschool children: • Think you already know what they know • May supply an answer---regardless of knowledge • Often answer yes to indicate cooperation • May not understand kinship relationships (mother’s mother may not be connected to “grandma”) • May focus on one aspect of a situation or a question at a time • Many not be good at collecting things in categories • Difficulty with time, duration, repetition and distance

12. Vocabulary • Use short words (house instead of residence) • Easy phrases (what happened to you instead of what you experienced • Use proper names instead/places of pronouns (what did Mary do instead of what did she do) • Use concrete, visualizable nouns (backyard instead of area) • Use verbs that are action oriented (point to, tell me about instead of describe) • Keep it simple, (someone is worried about you instead of someone had a concern)

13. School-age • Still believe adults tell the truth • Easily confused by complex negation, (are you not going to draw today) • Difficulty with pronoun reference • May not organize events in their minds into adult story structures • Make errors with the difference between ask and tell • Sarcasm and irony • Difficulty with complex verb phrases (where would you have been when that would have taken place)

14. School-age? Puppies are easier!

15. Adolescents • Still may have school age characteristics • Still may have difficulty with complex negation • May not have good narrative skills • May be confused by linguistic ambiguity (newspaper headlines, ads, metaphors.) • May not understand time as both historical concept and a day-to-day concept that affects their lives • Still may benefit from psychological distancing to recount traumatic, embarrassing events

16. Teenagers!

17. Dangerous Assumptions • Adults and children speak the same language • Children have the same storage space for speech as adults • Children’s responses to questions are answers to questions • Inconsistency is a cause for suspicion • We can expect teens to share our ability to reason • A 14 year old is a 14 year old is a 14 year old

18. The New Model - RATAC Child First Finding Words • Developed by Victor Vieth

19. Child First Doctrine The child is our first priority. Not the needs of the family. Not the child’s “story.” Not the evidence. Not the needs of the court. Not the needs of the police, child protection, attorney, ect. The child is our first priority.

20. RATAC • Rapport • Anatomy Identification • Touch Inquiry • Abuse Scenario • Closure

21. Rapport • Interviewer operates under two overaching philosophies: • ChildFirst Doctrine and • Acknowledging and respecting each child’s diversity

22. Rapport • Purpose: • Comfort • Communication through language, behavior, and emotion • Competence (development and cognitive abilities) • Child is the expert on him/herself • Establish with child that there are no wrong answers • Developmental screening • Perfect opportunity for child to practice providing narrative • Developmental Considerations • Face pictures – through age 7, 8-10 give choice, 11 and older give choice • Family Circles – generally use with children through age 10, 11 and older depends on child’s presentation

23. Anatomy Identification • Purpose: To determine the young child’s understanding of and ability to distinguish between genders and to arrive at common language regarding names for the body parts (the child’s words) • Developmental Considerations: When naming body parts generally use with all children through age 9 Typically skip with ages ≥ 10, but come back to if necessary

24. Touch Inquiry • Purpose: To assess the child’s ability to understand and communicate about touch • Developmental Considerations: Start with positive touch then follow up with negative touch ∙ Ages ≤ 5 hugs/tickles/kisses then “Are there places on your body that no one is supposed to touch/you don’t want anyone to touch?” ∙ Ages 6-9 “What kinds of touches do you get that you like?”then “Are there places on your body that no one is supposed to touch/you don’t want anyone to touch? ∙ Ages ≥ 10 “What do you know about coming to talk to me today?”

25. Abuse Scenario • Purpose: To allow the child to provide details of his or her reported experience(s), and Explore alternative hypotheses

26. Abuse Scenario with Children seven and under Communication appears disorganized - child may start their narrative at the end, then go to the end, and conclude their narrative with the beginning.

27. Abuse Scenario with Children seven and under • Poor self monitoring – “Child’s own talk” • Child may change whom or what they are talking about without any signal • Child may change the words they are use without explanation or awareness • Identifies penis as peepee and then refers to it as the private • Be sure to ask the child for clarification, utilize interview aids, and limit use of pronouns to be sure you understand what it is the child is trying to tell you

28. Abuse Scenario with Children seven and under • Thinking is egocentric- • Everything is about them! • Children this age will report what is important to them. • They assume you know what they know.

29. Abuse Scenario with Children seven and under • Source monitoring – How does the child know what she knows?? • Where does her information come from? • Own experience? • Someone telling her? • Listening to adults talk? • Brother/sister/peer telling her? Be sure to ask the child how she knows what she is telling you

30. Abuse Scenario with Children seven and under • Thinking is concrete • Children this age will interpret questions literally • Child only answers the questions you ask them • Be sure to use child’s words for: body parts, actions, and feelings. • Also, reframe questions if needed

31. Abuse Scenario with Children twelve and older • Adolescents omniscience – teens believe they know everything and if they don’t know something they don’t want to appear as if they don’t know something.

32. Abuse Scenario with Children twelve and older Avoid adult words and when teens use them be sure to check for meaning abuse penetration intercourse custody disturbed

34. Abuse scenario techniques • Provide the opportunity for narrative • Tell me all about that • Then what happened • Tell me everything you remember • Uh-huh…

35. Abuse scenario techniques cont. • After child gives their narrative, gather structured narrative: • First time • Last time • Different time • Worst time • Someplace else • Something else

36. Abuse scenario techniques cont. • Gather the details • Who, what, where… *being cognizant of age and developmental limitations* • Sensory information… what did you hear, taste, smell, feel? • Corroborative details

37. Abuse scenario techniques cont. • Use interview aids • Drawings – have the child draw their house, room, or place of incident for clarification • Diagrams – use BPI to establish common words for body parts • Anatomical dolls – use when children are having a hard time using their words to describe what happened

38. Closure • Purpose: To educate the child regarding personal safety (ie who could they tell if that were to happen or happen again), explore safety options with the child, provide a respectful end to the interview, and bring them back into the present. • Developmental Considerations: Generally with children ≥ 6 ask to see if there is anything you did not ask the child feels is important for you to know or you forgot to ask

40. So, why RATAC? • Child Development part the curriculum • Sets the child (and interview) up for success • Example: During instructions for BPI, child is told interviewer needs to know what the child calls different body parts. Interviewer tells child they will circle body part and then child is to tell them what they call. Interviewer: (Circles the head) What do you call this? Child: A circle. RATAC version: Interviewer: (Circles the head) What do you call this body part? Child: His head.

41. Court Rulings: Connecticut • Connecticut v. Michael H., 970 A.2d 113,122 (Conn. 2009). The Supreme Court of Connecticut – defendant alleged the techniques employed by the interviewer were unduly; the court held the defendant “failed to make a showing that the testimony of [the child interviewed with the RATAC protocol] was the product of unduly suggestive or coercive questioning” Info about the case: “the child did NOT disclose abuse in the interview, but the defendant was convicted on the strength of the child’s testimony in court and his spontaneous, inappropriate sexualized behavior.”

42. Court Rulings: Georgia • Baker v. State, 555 S.E.2d 899, 902 (Ga. Ct. App. 2001) A Georgia Appellate Court – abused children interviewed using RATAC “had the ‘requisite degree of trustworthiness’ to be admitted at trial.” “In its opinion, the court specifically described in detail the stages of the RATAC protocol as it outlines the method the child abuse investigator utilized to elicit credible statements from two siblings about their victimization by their mother’s live in boyfriend” (Cooley, Pract, Clinical, 2010).

43. Court Rulings: Indiana • Williamson v. State, No. A06-1778, 2009 Ind. App. A defendant challenged that a detectives testimony “improperly bolstered the credibility” of the alleged victim because the detective had received his forensic interviewing training through “Finding Words.” The court found “the State’s decision to elicit testimony from [the detective] regarding his training in the use of non-leading interview questions was a permissible response to the defense’s claim of witness-coaching.” (Cooly, Pract, Clinical, 2010)

44. Court Rulings • Also in: • Maryland • Mississippi • Minnesota • Kansas • South Carolina • Texas

45. Discloure • Exercise

46. Disclosure • Children rarely report. • 1 in 10 children for sexual abuse • Preschoolers more likely to disclose accidentally and adolescents to disclose purposefully.

47. Common Triggers for Disclosures • child recently exposed to perpetrator •     sexualized behavior or statement •     educational awareness •     influence of peers •     anger • child gains distance from perpetrator

48. Stages of disclosure • Denial • Tentative • Active • Recanting • Reaffirming

49. Disclosure • In a study by Lawson and Chaffin (1982), 28 children ages 4-12 were identified as sexually abused by testing + for an STD. • Only 43% of these children disclosed at the first interview • Caretaker’s belief/disbelief is very important: 63% disclosure vs. 17%. • “Without the STD, the abuse of many children would likely not have been even remotely suspected by professionals.”

50. Sorenson and Snow(1981) • 116 cases of confirmed sexual abuse: • 11% were able to disclose at the first interview • 79% initially denied or were tentative • 22% recanted • 93% finally confirmed their abuse