All right. Well, I think we can go ahead and get started. I'd like to say hello to everyone and welcome. My name is Sarah Jimenez Valdez. I'm the project manager, a project manager with the International Association of Forensic Nurses. Today's webinar is titled Forensic Interviewing and was made possible with grant funds awarded by the Office of Victims of Crime for the SANE Program TTA Project. I do have a few housekeeping items that we need to cover before we get started. And first, I'll start with a disclaimer. The opinions and findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this presentation are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. That said, we'd like to encourage you all to please use the Q&A feature that you can use to ask any questions that come up for you throughout the presentation. The chat is also available for you. And since we are in a Zoom webinar, everyone is automatically muted. However, we don't want that to keep you from engaging. So if you have anything you'd like to add or questions you'd like to ask, you can raise your hand or use the raise your hand feature via Zoom and we can go ahead and unmute you. Lastly, the evaluation will be sent out by the end of the week. And if you're interested in CEs for today's presentation, I'm sorry, today's presentation instructions will be included for you to obtain them. With that said, I'd like to welcome your presenter, Jennifer Shurfield with Homeland Security Investigations. All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. So like Sarah said, my name is Jennifer Shurfield. I'm a forensic interview specialist currently with Homeland Security Investigations. And within that role, I've been with HSI for the last three years, going on four years. Prior to that, I was a forensic interviewer and a mental health advocate at a CAC in Columbus, Ohio, where I worked for a decade. But my background is social work. And I've worked, as I said, as a forensic interviewer for just about 15 years. And so I really enjoy really everything related to forensic interviewing. It tends to be my soapbox and something I can talk about endlessly. But we have about 90 minutes together today. And so what I want to make sure we're talking through is just a quick overview of the history of the forensic interviewing field, talking through the uniqueness that is a forensic interview. What's the science behind the way that we conduct forensic interviews? And then above and beyond that, the importance of this art piece when it comes to interviewing. We can do next slide. So if you look at the history, and if this is repetitive for some folks, I apologize, but I think it's interesting enough and deserves kind of a repeat. So there were several very large scale cases that happened in the 80s, the McMartin daycare preschool case being one of them that got a lot of media attention. They were macro cases in that they had a large sampling of potential victims. And they had a bunch of interviews that then needed to be conducted of these kids who had made abuse allegations against their preschool teacher. And they just, the interviews didn't go great. And so there was a ton of people looking into whether or not kids could really disclose about their abuse experiences, especially little kids. And so what was important, we can go back to the slide that it was just on, sorry. So what was important with that was, what are we doing? And what do we need to do moving forward to make sure that we're not running into problems? Because kids, even young kids are able to disclose what happens to them, but who's the best person to get that information? So in the 80s, there was lots of very well-intentioned people who they figured would be the best to talk to these kids, but who really didn't understand the nuances of child development, the impact of trauma, the best question type or style for children. And so they did their best, but most of what we knew about interviewing, we knew from interrogations. And so a lot of the ways that these kids were talked to was much more similar to an interrogation style than it would be to a forensic interview. And so in the way that we know it today, so a lot of suggestibility, a lot of leading questions. I mean, they talked to these three and four-year-olds for hours at a time, and with quite a bit of badgering. So if anybody's ever seen any clips or video footage of the interviews, it's very interesting. But it just wasn't the way that we know cases should be conducted now. Again, very well-intentioned people. And so late 80s, early 90s is when we kind of saw this birth of child advocacy centers, the concept of a MDT response, multidisciplinary team response, and this field of forensic interviewing really coming to light. And so it is a relatively new field when you consider, you guys are nurses, right? Like when we consider those types of professions. This one's still really pretty new, at only 30, 40 years old, and it has seen significant changes with research over that time period. I think back to even when I started 15 years ago, and the interviewing model that I was trained in doesn't even exist in the same iteration as it does from what I was trained. And so I will oftentimes come into contact with folks who are forensic interviewers who've been doing it for years, and I'll ask them about what model they were trained in, and everything I'll hear from them is, yeah, I was trained, but I was trained like 15 years ago or 20 years ago, or I've been doing it for 25 years. And then when I ask follow-up about their training, they haven't been trained in a new model. And so we'll talk today about the importance of training components and ways to increase our best practice, but, you know, that's kind of one example. And so that's where we started. That's certainly not where we're at now. Can we move to the next slide, please? So I still see lots of different types of interviews that are happening, and I want to just categorize those really quickly, because we're going to talk specifically today about forensic interviews, and a lot of times that gets thrown around as something that happens in all of our cases or with all of the kiddos that we're coming into contact with, and it's just not what happens. If you think about a forensic interviewer, a kid showing up to a child advocacy center, they are oftentimes in some form of disclosure. We've told kid at school, kid at school told the teacher, teacher questions the kid, kid gets sent to the principal, principal questions the kid, principal contacts parents, assuming they're not offending, and then parents question the kid. And so kids will have lots of interviews before they ever get to a child advocacy center, and that doesn't mean that they've had forensic interviews. I will have law enforcement or children's services who might go out first at that point of contact, right? So those are our first responder interviews, the person who's getting down the who and the what to determine whether or not there's anything else that needs to happen, right? Is this, what's the follow-up going to look like? We ask our children's services, we ask our law enforcement if they are going to make contact with the family before they come in for a full forensic interview, that they only engage them in minimal facts, right? So our children's services counterparts will frequently need to do some sort of safety assessment. Most of them have a expectation based on their policies to conduct first meetings with kids and families within 24 to 48 hours. And so understanding that those mandates are in place, that isn't always something that the CAC is able to accommodate. And so if that's the case or the situation, and they're going to make contact with the family before the child's been able to be seen at the child advocacy center, we don't want them to go through a full forensic interview in the home. We want them to just engage in minimal facts or just do their safety line of questioning if that's what needs to occur. Most CACs are going to try and get their kids in within 72 hours. That's what NCA will recommend. They want to try and get them in as quickly as possible in order to meet the needs of their multidisciplinary team, but also their accreditation standards. But that's not the reality for some child advocacy centers or for some spaces where you have one person conducting the interviews, depending on resources. And I've contacted CACs when we've been looking to arrange cases and it's two weeks out or three weeks out. And so sometimes we have that delay. Other types of interviews might be assessments or think about your health history screens, or questions that are going to be asked by the physician or the nurse, a therapist, right? The first time a kiddo is coming into a mental health session, there's going to be some sort of question and answer period where they're trying to determine from the child what's going on either medically or in terms of mental health. So that's something that could be considered an interview. And then we have more of an interrogation style. Lots of the law enforcement that I work with are really good interviewers of suspects, of our perpetrators, of our targets. And they believe that those are skills that will translate to victims as well. It's not typically what we see. Everything we know about how folks who have been traumatized disclose and how they present in forensic interviews is counterintuitive to what they share about suspects. So the kid that's talking tangentially and all over the place isn't going to be able to respond in the same way that a suspect would, because the suspect who's doing that law enforcement is clued in that that person's not telling the truth. And we know for kids who have experienced trauma, that that's just the way that they disclose information. And it would be expected or anticipated based on the neurobiology of trauma and what we know. And so that's oftentimes very confusing for law enforcement. Now that being said, I have talked to law enforcement that have had the forensic interviewer training, them using the skills that they get in training from forensic interviews with suspects can be incredibly helpful. So engaging suspects in rapport building to some degree, asking open-ended invitations and those prompts. I had one agent and detective who came up to me after he had spoken with a suspect and he was like, Jen, I couldn't believe it. I said, tell me all about it. The guy told me all about it. It's crazy how that works. And so definitely can be used towards suspects, not necessarily interrogation styles towards victim. It's one of the things I tell all the kids that I talk to. This is an interrogation. You're not in trouble with me today. And so I want you to feel safe and comfortable. I'll sometimes joke with kids and their families, depending on what their experience has been with children's services or law enforcement. Like I got enough kids at my house. You're leaving today with your parent. I'm not keeping any kids. But I want to try and remove this kind of interrogation and this fearfulness around talking to an authority figure as much as possible when I'm talking to children, because I don't want them to feel that pressure. But those are some of the different types of interviews that we might see. I know I saw something come through the chat. I can't see the chats easily or toggle between it right now. And so if there is anything that comes up that is something that needs to be shared while we're talking, Sarah and Amy, please feel free to chime in and share it if it's appropriate. Yes. So Karen says, in my experiences, I had often seen acute care medical providers interview children instead of obtaining a health history, potentially causing a problem in investigations. Yeah, no, absolutely. And we'll talk through who the interviewers are and some of those things. I tend to be a big believer in having a dedicated forensic interviewer. I understand and appreciate that that's not the reality for all child advocacy centers or for all spaces where kids are receiving forensic interviews. But there is certainly something to be said about having that coordinated response that hopefully we talk through or cover more of. Lots of times I will have kids that have come into the interview that will tell me I'm done. I'm done talking about this. I've already shared it with the caseworker. I've already shared it with the uniform officer who came to the school to take the report, and I don't want to tell anybody else about what happened. And so oftentimes that is because whoever was doing some of those initial interviews with kids were getting too much into the weeds or getting too much detail. And so by the time we came to the forensic interview, the interview that's likely going to be used in court or could be used in court, the kid was done. And then we look like we have conflicting statements, and it can definitely be something that can impact investigations negatively. If we do the next slide. Thank you. So what is a forensic interview? When we're talking about this, it's a neutral information gathering interaction that's conducted by somebody who is specially trained in forensic interviewing using that multidisciplinary approach in response to some sort of allegation of alleged maltreatment. And it can be used for any victim or witness of a potential crime. And so whether that's sexual abuse, which is what I think we traditionally think of it as being utilized for physical abuse, child torture, exposure to domestic violence or some sort of violent crime. I've had very successful interviews with witnesses of violent crimes. I think it's absolutely a platform that could be used more with folks that have seen very violent, intimate partner violence, or even homicides, child exploitation or child sexual abuse material cases. So in my current role within HSI, a large majority of the interviews I conduct are with our child exploitation groups. So we're kids who have been made to self produce images of their body, right? Traditionally, what we think of as child pornography, or who have had pictures taken of them surreptitiously, or who have had pictures taken of them by the target, either while they were engaging the child in sex acts. If you think about it, I'm actually surprised most of our traditional sex abuse cases aren't seeing more of this. But with the availability of devices where recording is possible, the opportunity to memorialize what we think of as traditional child sexual abuse is just increasingly present. And so I think it's only going to be something that continues to grow, these technology facilitated crimes. But child exploitation, forensic interviews are very helpful and successful with that population, as well as victims of trafficking. So traditionally, child advocacy centers are going to interview under the age of 18. Some of them will extend to 21, depending on developmental ability, or like nature of the crime. Federally, most interviewers will interview children and adults. That doesn't matter for us necessarily. But it's supposed to be something that's conducted in a way that is allowing the opportunity for the person that we're talking with to provide the information and the details about their experiences. I don't like calling it stories. I think that has a negative connotation associated with it. It implies that it's make believe or could be made up. And so when I'm talking through a victim's experiences or their accounts, I try very hard to be mindful of my language. And I don't use the word stories. All right, next slide. So what's the goal for our interviews? So what we want to make sure that we're doing is overall minimizing the trauma of the investigation for the victim. If you think about how child advocacy centers and multidisciplinary teams traditionally acted, and the reality is, in some cases still do if you have an MDT that doesn't function well together, everybody operated in their own silo. And so law enforcement would talk to and interview the child because that's what they needed. The screen just disappeared, or at least the presentation did for me. I don't know if that's the same for anybody else. But law enforcement would interview the child. They would get what they needed. Children's Services would then separately talk to and interview the child. They would get what they needed. Kid might get referred for a medical exam. And at that point, the physician or practitioner might talk to the child and get what they needed. But all of these people were operating and working within their own silo. They weren't working together. And so when we talk about minimizing the overall trauma that a victim experiences, that's what we mean. We don't want these people to function separately. That's the whole reason why multidisciplinary teams were created to engage this population. It was because we wanted to hear from them what would be, thank you, what would be most helpful. So that's why we have closed circuit TV or the two-way mirror, we don't want the investigation to be another thing that exploits or traumatizes this child. Whatever their experiences were with the maltreatment were enough. And so what are the ways that we can reduce it? We can reduce it by functioning as a multidisciplinary team. We can reduce it with the question types that we ask. We can reduce it with the way that we're treating them from the onset of their interaction with us, right? But there's lots of things that the interview can do overall to minimize that trauma. And we wanna make sure that we're doing that. We wanna minimize any and all contamination of the victim's memories of the events. So everything that we know about trauma and how trauma impacts the brain, right? Tells us that the memories themselves that kids have that people experience when a traumatic event occur aren't necessarily impacted by the trauma. They're stored in our brain, we still have them. Our ability to access them is significantly impacted especially our ability to access them in a way that's linear or when we think about the things that our prosecutors and our law enforcement partners want from the narrative that a person shares, the who, the what, the where, the timeline, all of those details in chronological order, right? Kind of wrapped up tightly with the bow can be really difficult for victims. If you aren't familiar with her, I cannot recommend enough Googling and listening to Dr. Rebecca Campbell. She's a neurobiologist out of Michigan State University and she's done some pretty amazing research around trauma and the impact that trauma has on victims of sexual assault or other crimes. But we don't want from our interview for somebody to say that we somehow led or were suggestive to the victim at all. And so that's why it's incredibly helpful for us not to have multiple interviews. And I don't mean multi-session interviews, that's different and we'll talk through kind of those differences. I mean, more specifically, we don't want there to be an issue with what the child has shared with us and that being called into question. Within the interview, we wanna maximize the information that we're obtaining from the victim about the events. I have certainly had out of thousands of interviews, interviews where I have left the room with the kid and I didn't feel like I had gotten the full accounting of what had happened. Whether that was because I didn't ask the right questions, whether or not that was because the process of disclosure is just what it is. And it is entirely dependent on whether or not that person is in a place or position where they're able to tell us everything. What we know from the research, right, is that over 50% of the time, most people don't disclose their abuse histories until they're adults. And that delayed disclosure is the norm versus something that is an extreme. And so if most people are waiting days or weeks or months before they share anything about what happened to them, their ability to recall it all in one session, especially if it was ongoing abuse, if there were multiple perpetrators or this kind of compounded trauma is going to be difficult. But what we wanna try and do in the interview is get as much of those questions answered as we can. A really good forensic interview is going to have the majority of the talking coming from that victim with the interviewer guiding through the narrative and the abuse scenario. But we don't want it to sound so question heavy or so interviewer heavy because that's when it can start to feel more interrogative. I will frequently provide feedback to new interviewers. Once I start hearing questions go like rapid fire because either you're not getting responses from the kiddo or you're not getting the responses that you thought you wanted. But once your pace changes and becomes much more rapid, it almost always starts to shift and feel interrogative. And so we wanna be really mindful if that's happening or if that's something that's going on that we're not adding to the problem, right? So I wanna be able to maximize what that child is telling me, what they're sharing with me. I also wanna maximize the integrity of the investigative process. And so that's what the non-leading, non-suggestive language comes into place and ensuring that the question types, the things that we're asking are going to be the most appropriate for that victim. Because ultimately we're the ones that have to defend what's being asked on the stand. And so you wanna be able to feel confident in your interview model, in your training and in your skillset in order to be able to do that. Next slide. Thank you. So these are the primarily the nationally recognized forensic interview models within domestically. And so you have Child First, you have ABSAC, you have NCAC, NICHD came around in the 90s. You have Radar out of North Carolina and then you have Corner House out of Minneapolis. And so when I had talked to you guys about the interviewing model that I was first trained in, so I was trained in Corner House's RATAC model. And that included touch inquiry and included some other things if anybody else has been trained in it. And they've totally adapted and changed their model since the time that I was trained in it. And so it's not even RATAC anymore, it's something different. And so I think it's incredibly helpful for folks to have been trained in more than one model. I think that gives you the best, most well-rounded appreciation for the ways that we conduct our forensic interviews and I think can be incredibly helpful. I know federally we require it, but I recognize that that's not something necessarily that all child advocacy centers necessarily have budgets for but I do think it's something that can be incredibly helpful. Even if you are seasoned and have been doing it for a while, a lot of these protocols offer some sort of advanced training component. And so I would encourage folks to do that even if I attend trainings where I don't feel like I got much new information. What I have found to be true is that I often find like renewed passion for the content and commitment to the work even if I don't feel like I'm getting new information. So that's just my experience. Can we move on to the next slide? So with all of those different interview models, I think one of the things that comes up a lot is, well, what's the difference? What's the same? And what does that look like for me as somebody that conducts forensic interviews? And so several years ago, there was a white paper that had come out that essentially walked through the different models and showed that they were a lot more similar than they were different. The places where they're similar is that all of them recognize the importance of a rapport phase. It might look different to some degree in terms of what it needs to cover, but all of them recognize the importance of rapport. Jodi Kwasin, Tom Lyon are currently working with me in my role and function at HSI to look at trafficking interviews and look at what encourages the most disclosure, what we know is a really difficult population to interview. And what they have found is that when they compare interviews conducted by forensic interviewers and interviews conducted by law enforcement who may have had forensic interview training, they have found that dedicated forensic interviewers are much more likely to engage in this rapport building phase in a way that is more thorough, I guess, paying more attention to it. And I'm not encouraging 45 minute rapport building phases and I've seen interviews conducted with 45 minute rapport building phases. I tend to be of the belief that rapport starts from the minute I start to interact with that victim, not in the room, not the minute I press record and the kid sits down, from the minute I go and meet that kid to the minute they see me walk past them, all of that for me can be categorized as rapport because they need to feel safe in my presence and they need to know that I'm invested in what they have to say. And so I'm making sure I'm approaching them in a way that's genuine from the very beginning. All of the protocols also have a substantive phase. And so that's really just looking at these open-ended prompts, right? And so getting all of the details you can around the disclosure and then moving into your closure phase. The exact way that those phases might present might look different in terms of the nuances of each of them as you move through them, but all of the protocols have those three things. Now, where they're different is in the interview structure itself. So is it scripted like NICHD? NICHD is a scripted model where it literally has this question, then this question, and this is what we say and this is what we do. Or is it more semi-structured and allow for more flexibility? What are the instructions that are being provided? Most of them are in agreement about which instructions are provided. And we're gonna talk through more about what those are. Where they differ is most of the protocols are gonna ask that you do the instructions in the beginning, right? While you're kind of engaging that report phase. Some of the other ones think it's better to embed them as you're going throughout. And so if I'm into the substantive phase of the interview and the kid says, I don't know, at that point you're orienting them to the statement of, I don't know. I'm so glad that you said you didn't know. If I ask you something and you don't know the answer, that's exactly what I want you to do. And so the timing of the instructions is where some of the protocols differ. The idea of the truthfulness discussion is another area. And so some of the protocols will have you elicit a promise to tell the truth, which Tom Lyon has done significant research on. Some of the protocols will kind of talk through this truth lie discussion. Most of what we see with truth lie is state and local dependent. When I talk to folks that are still doing it, it's not something that most of the counties in Ohio are doing anymore. But when I talk to folks that still are across the country, it's almost always a requirement from their prosecution, which is the only reason they're still doing it. Most of the research doesn't support that it's something that has to continue in terms of the forensic interview, but some of the prosecutors and their team still prefer it. So whether or not locally, that's something that's required of you or not, that is one of the areas where we still see differences within the models. If you look at historically, all of the expertise around question type when we first started this field of forensic interviewing was the use of WH question techniques. Those were preferred. Now we've seen this shift to more of an invitational probe and tell me all about, tell me about, tell me this, tell me that. And so when we talk about question appropriateness, where we see differences are, some of them have kind of purported that WH questions have the potential now to elicit more information than invitational probes. And so we're seeing kind of a resurgence of that WH question type, even to some degree over invitational probes, but it would just depend on the model and kind of what you're seeing. Almost all the models though discourage, not almost all, all of the models discourage leading questions. The biggest one is probably use of anatomical drawings or dolls. So we just kind of call that generally media within forensic interviews, but some of the models will differ about if you should even be able to use media within a forensic interview. And if you can use it, when can you use it? So Child First, I know teaches and trains on utilizing the anatomical body diagrams towards the beginning of interviews. Sorry, you're gonna see me moving cause I just got like a warning about my battery. So most of them will talk about using those drawings at the beginning or not most of them, Child First will talk about using those diagrams at the beginning of a forensic interview in order to orient the child more to their body and what's going on. Whereas most of the protocols actually talk now about not using any sort of media. So anatomical drawings until post-disclosure. So it's actually shifted very similarly to what we used to be taught around drawings not drawings around dolls. So it used to be all of the research said that dolls should only be used post-disclosure and as a demonstration aid. And now we're seeing that with some of the anatomical drawings as well. I've been to two CACs within the last two months, one in Indiana and one in Kentucky. And both of those CACs told me that they don't have anatomical drawings anymore, that either they're prosecutors or per their policy, they don't use them. And so what that means is that I've seen kind of a move back to like the gingerbread men. And I'd be very curious and please feel free to put in the chat whether or not the advocacy centers or the folks that are conducting your interviews, whether or not they are using anatomical drawings still. Cause I imagine we have representation to some degree. And it's been a very weird shift for me and caused a lot of conversations for us just around how that field is changing in regards to drawings. I will tell you, I still use them. I use them rarely. I use them more often with very young kids. And so the three or four-year-old who I might not understand from them what they're talking about in terms of which private place is being touched or is having contact. And so I wanted to provide clarity on that, but it just, okay. So are you guys able to still hear me? Yeah, we can hear you. Okay. I'm gonna have to figure out the audio on my end, but I'll do that in a second. Okay, next slide. So that's kind of the background that we see with the forensic interview models, the history of the child advocacy centers, that whole movement. And now I wanna talk more about the science of forensic interviewing, the nuts and bolts piece. Next slide, sorry. So one of the things that are unique about forensic interviews is that they should be hypothesis testing. And so when we have prosecution focused or interrogative style interviewing, those are generally a hypothesis affirming. Here's what we believed happened, and I'm gonna get the questions I need answered to prove that this happened. What we know about forensic interviews and the purpose of them is that they really should be hypothesis testing. So kid says that daddy touched their butt. I need to determine if this is something that's sexual in nature. I need to determine if this is something that is non-sexual, right? Is this a toileting or a hygiene issue? Is this not even a sexual abuse issue? And daddy touching my butt is really daddy beat my butt with a belt. And so as an interviewer, these are something that I will frequently do as I'm reading through the referral information, is what's being said, what does this mean and what else could possibly be going on? Because I wanna be able to rule out all of those alternative explanations for the allegation because I wanna make sure that I'm getting the most accurate and detailed information from the forensic interview. And I'll tell people constantly, before we leave the interview, before we close, we should be reasonably confident as interviewers that whatever's been reported to us in that interview session, isn't open to multiple interpretations. And so I don't wanna leave an interview and then I go back to my team and I'm like, so here's what she said, right? Here's what I heard. And they're like, well, that's not how I interpreted it. I thought she was saying this or I thought they were saying that this happened. We wanna clear up any of those questions or any of that confusion before we're leaving that interview. Who's the perpetrator? Are they clearly identified? Is there more than one perpetrator? And what are the actions? And has that been clearly articulated? Next slide. Okay. And so we wanna explore those hypotheses. We wanna clarify the context of any evidence. I'd be curious to hear from you guys too when we're talking through evidence, if it's something that's presented or not presented in the areas where you practice. And when I talk about evidence, that could be pictures, chats, it could be documents, police reports, whatever that might look like. And so what evidence might you have and have we gotten clarity around it? What is the meaning of the kid's sexual vocabulary? What it is that they know or don't know? Is that age appropriate? I know that can be pretty difficult and tricky. I've had to speak a lot on the stand about whether or not the kid's disclosure was made from what we would expect a child of their age to be able to report. And one of my arguments have always been a kid that's sexually abused or been exposed to sexual content and contact is going to have a different sexual vocabulary than a child that hasn't had any of those exposures. And so what we know in the research is that most kids by age 11 have been exposed to some sort of, not even just regular pornography, but violent pornography at that. I think that one becomes even trickier. And so, but what are they saying? What do they know? And am I able to answer some of those questions? We wanna get as much detail around the allegations and any other possible forms of maltreatment as we can. I generally screen for exposure to all things, right? So even if a kid's coming in because there is this traditional child sexual abuse allegation where uncle has touched or done something to their body, I'm asking if somebody else has ever touched or done something to their body. I'm asking if they've ever had to touch or do something to somebody else's body. I'm asking about exposure to domestic violence. I'm asking about physical discipline and physical abuse at home. I'm asking about exposure to media. If somebody has ever shown them pictures or videos of people without clothes on or ever taken pictures or videos of them without clothes on. We're asking all of those questions because the reality for most of the kids that we come into contact with in forensic interviews is that they have compounding trauma histories and there is a very high comorbidity between all of these different forms of maltreatment. And so where there's physical abuse, there's oftentimes exposure to intimate partner violence. Where there's sexual abuse, depending on the age of the kid, there might also be exposure to pornography. And so we wanna make sure that we're asking all of those questions to make sure that we have the best accounting for this victim's experiences, but also so we can make the most informed decisions around safety, medical and mental health follow-up and treatment. And we're only able to do that if we're asking the questions. Next slide. So the interviewer should be familiar with the facts of the case. When we're talking through, you know, trafficking or sex abuse, child sexual abuse material, right, what might some of the myths be? What might some of the misconceptions be? And how do we combat them? Knowledge of the elements of the crime. So I know in Ohio, we have most of our interviews at a local level at the Child Advocacy Center are able to be used in court because of medical hearsay exceptions. And so for those of us that were attached to a medical model Child Advocacy Center, that was really easy to get our interviews in under that medical hearsay exception. A lot of advocacy centers and in a lot of jurisdictions, they don't use that or don't have that as an option. And so in Ohio, the argument's always been, you know, what's the purpose of the interview? Is it investigative in nature or is it, you know, for the purposes of medical diagnosis and treatment? And if that's a dual role or not. I fully believe most forensic interviewers are also investigative interviewers. I recognize that you have to say what you need to say based on your jurisdiction, but we should have knowledge of the elements of the crime. If what we're trying to do is gather information around the abuse experience, I recognize in Ohio that 12 year olds aren't able to consent to anything sexual happening at all. And so if I'm talking to a child who's now 15 and I'm asking them about stuff that's happened to them, finding out how old they were when these things occurred makes the difference in some cases between a felony and a misdemeanor. And so it's very important for us as interviewers to have familiarity with those crimes. So if we are predominantly interviewing kids because of sexual abuse, I think it's imperative that you know age of consent. I think it's imperative that you know what elements need to be proven in order to meet whatever the threshold is for your cases. I told you guys most of what I do now is child exploitation and trafficking. Well, having a kid take a picture of their boobs and send it to you isn't a production crime in most places. It doesn't meet statutes to cover a federal crime. It doesn't meet statutes to cover most state crimes, but in some places it does. Now, if they take a picture of their genitals, that's a federal crime, but not the breast. And so if I'm talking to a kid and the only thing they're telling me is this guy made me take a picture of my boobs and send it to him, if I'm not following up and asking specifically about whether or not there was ever a time where pictures had to be taken of their vagina or their butt, then I'm missing the element that I would need to prove that this is a federal crime. What are the rights of the crime victims? What things do they have a right to know, deserve to know as part of what has occurred and how do I refer them appropriately? We talked about the different types of interviews. The only thing we didn't cover more thoroughly to this point was the idea around multi-session interviews. There's a ton of utility for multi-session interviews. It is not the same as having multiple forensic interviews about the same content. I don't recommend multiple interviews in cases where we just don't think that the kid told us the truth the first time because we know disclosure is a process, but if I know that I'm going into an interview with a trafficking victim who has been on the streets and under some sort of traffic control for the last five years, I don't expect that that's gonna be a quick interview. And I fully anticipate going into it that I might spend the very first time I'm doing an interview with that person just engaging them in rapport, just building that trusting relationship before we ever get to who their current trafficker is and what their trafficking experience has been. And so multi-session interviews are something that can definitely be utilized with this population where there have had compounding trauma, they're just really struggling, or we have the expectation that we have multiple offenders or years of abuse that we need to work through. So I encourage if folks aren't trained in multi-session interviews or don't have much of a concept for it, that that happens. Understand that how we talk to kids and the way kids respond is different than how we talk to adults in the interviews that we conduct and aren't necessarily translatable skills. Even when we're looking at the 16, 17 year old recognizing that though they might look like an adult, though they might believe they've been functioning as adults in adult scenarios and situations, they are still very much kids. And we wanna make sure that we are providing them the best opportunity to share with us about their experiences. I will say, I don't call my teenagers kids in interviews, they don't like to be infantilized. And I don't usually use even the word kids, although I recognize I've been saying it a lot with you guys during this conversation. I will say my job is to talk to people and I talk to lots of people every day about the things that they know and the things that might've happened to them. And today I just wanna talk to you for a little bit and then I'll kind of go into whatever it is that we're sharing. And I think everything else we've kind of talked through. Next slide. So as long as you're not in one of the protocols that has a very rigid kind of scripted response, I think having flexibility within your protocol is incredibly important. No matter how many sex abuse interviews I've done with daddy perps or grandpas, it can start to feel sometimes like you've been getting a lot of the same types of cases, which I think sometimes can lead to some complacency in our interviews, but it's important to recognize that each individual that you interview is gonna be different and that we wanna make sure that we are engaging them in the right way. In a way that's flexible and meets their individual needs. And we kind of follow this continuum of questioning that we're gonna talk about next. So very tiny, but these are the different question types that we will typically see. So those invitational prompts, right? Are gonna be our open-ended questions. I will tell you all of the different interview models have different ways of quantifying their question types. And so the words that I'm using right now might be different than the words that you've heard with your own protocols themselves. They all essentially mean the same thing. So our open-ended questions are gonna be our most ideal question types. So we're gonna encourage the most free recall and invite those narrative responses. They're legally sound and they're the least suggestive. Our focus questions, if we're thinking through an hourglass approach, right? Are going to be the ones that guide our victims to specific areas of interest. And so I might start with the, tell me everything about what happened the first time that your dad came into your room and touched you. And as they're going through their response, I might recognize that I need to be more focused. So when you say dad came to the room and threw you on the bed, tell me about what happened on the bed, right? Because in my experience, the stuff that you really wanna get to is oftentimes the things kids skip in their narratives. And so I might have to refocus them, reorient them to what it is specifically that I'm asking, right? So that cued approach. And then I might get very specific or very direct. So when you say that he put his penis inside of you, or when you say his penis touched your vagina, did his penis go on the inside of your vagina, on the outside of your vagina or both? Because that's gonna be the difference for me between a rape or not a rape, at least in the state of Ohio. And so there are sometimes we have to get very specific. I'm not introducing new information. I'm just clarifying the information that's been provided. What we wanna make sure we're avoiding is any sort of leading questions. A lot of times you'll hear leading questions tagged like right at the end. So dad touched you on your vagina, didn't he? Or dad touched you on your vagina, right? Those would be example of leading questions. We also wanna make sure we're avoiding coercive questions. So any sort of bribing, shaming, threatening, anything that's going to force the victim to say or do something that they're not willing to do on their own, it's never appropriate. And I've seen some of this when I've seen law enforcement talking to kids. Well, you'll be able to stop talking to me as soon as you tell me X, right? Like I wouldn't want to go on the stand as a forensic interviewer and defend that type of question. Next slide. These are some examples of the way question type might come through. And these will be ones that we might see like in a trafficking situation. So tell me everything about going to the embassy, right? That's our open-ended. You said the lady took care of your papers. Tell me more about that. More specific and direct. Who gave you the money? How much did the coyote charge? Coyote being the person that typically smuggles people into countries. Leading, she told you to lie to the police, right? He said he'd hurt you if he left, didn't he? And coercive, I'll help you stay if you tell me, right? So the last two being ones we want to avoid. Next slide. So again, all the interview models highlight the kind of idea for these phased approaches and a phased interview approach being the best way to conduct victim-sensitive or victim-centered approach interviews. Next slide. So here's a typical walkthrough of the interview structure. So I will typically say, you know, my name's Jennifer. My job is to talk to people. I talk to people about the stuff that they know and the stuff that's happened to them. I just want to talk with you now. With kids and with their families, I don't generally call what I do an interview. An interview sounds very formal and I think can be pretty intimidating. So I will tell kids like, look, we're just going to have a conversation. It's just going to be the two of us. Nothing you tell me is going to get you in trouble with me today. I will ask their name. I'll ask their birthday. I'll talk to them about the things they like to do for fun, whether that's, you know, school or sports. I will, you know, historically, when we talked about developmental screening, they wanted us to do all sorts of crazy stuff when I first started interviewing. And so use this picture frame as an example, right? And they would have us like use like markers in a box, like a tissue box and like, okay, if I put the marker here, is this marker on top of the box or is it under the box or something else? And if I put it here and what they wanted us to do is have kids name the colors of markers and count the colors of markers and be able to show where the marker was in relation to this box. And that somehow was going to be indicative to us about whether or not a child be able to disclose about their abuse experiences. And all I could really do is tell me whether or not the kid knew their colors, whether or not the kid knew how to count. But for years, I mean, we kind of just stood by the fact that this developmental screening was going to show whether or not that child should be able to disclose or not disclose. The best indication we have for developmental screening now is just paying attention during neutral questioning and determining whether or not the child's able to track the questions with us. So if you are asking questions of a kid and you're asking them in a way that should be developmentally appropriate and that kid's not able to track with you at all, it might not be the most helpful to move forward with the interview because there might be some sort of larger thing happening where they just aren't able to participate, right? That's your developmental screening. And narrative event practice is something that's come out within the last decade as being one of the single most important things we can do during rapport building in order to have children be able to provide more detail and more information when we get to the substantive phase of the interview. And so if you're not doing narrative event as part of your interviews, you're missing a really good opportunity to practice with children, a way to work through questions providing the most detail as possible. The reality is for most kids and most conversations that adults have with kids, we want them to be able to answer our questions. We don't really want to hear from them everything about all the things that they're doing. It's just not how most adults talk to kids. Now, as interviewers, when we're talking to them about their abuse experiences, I do want all of those details. I want to know what happened before and during and after. And for kids that aren't used to it, it can be a really difficult thing to maneuver through. And then we'll give guidelines. So I will typically give my guidelines before I do narrative event. However, people do it is going to be fine. I will say, you know, while we're talking, if I ask a question, you don't know the answer, it's okay to tell me that you don't know. I don't want you to make anything up. I don't want you to guess. If I ask you a question, knowing you do know the answer, no matter what the answer is, it's okay to tell me. If I say something while we're talking and I get it wrong, I want you to tell me that I got it wrong. If I say something while we're talking and I am like, if you're like, what is this lady talking about today? Then just let me know. And I'll ask my question a different way. But while we're talking, it's really important that we only talk about things that are true. I promise I'm going to be truthful and honest with you. And I just want you to do the same. Do you promise to tell the truth today? They say yes, no, whatever. And we move on. However, you work through that style, right? Is fine. I've heard people that will also say, I'm going to repeat back the things that you say. It doesn't mean that you said anything wrong. With kids under the age of eight, they think it's the research tells us it's, it's helpful to have kids practice, right? So if I'm doing the don't know instruction, I'm going to have that kid practice. So if I said what, if I asked you, what did I have for breakfast today? What could you tell me? And it's kids like, I don't know, exactly. I don't want you to guess if you really don't know. And then I will say, when I'm working through the interview itself, I do have times where I will provide that orientation too. So if a kid tells me they don't know, or if they correct me, I'll thank them. Yep, that's exactly what I want you to do. So I'm just reaffirming for them, whatever the guidelines are, the instruction is as we're going. We'll transition to the topic of concern. I will usually do that off of my narrative event practice. I most always use, tell me about your day to day. Tell me everything that happened this morning, from the time you woke up until the time that you came here today to talk with me. And so then my transition after we've worked through the narrative event is always, well, tell me why you came to see me or tell me what your parents told you about coming here today. There are lots of transitions to topic of concern that we're able to use that provide lots of opportunities for us. Before we ask or narrow our questions, we should be trying a couple of different transitions. Some kids might genuinely not know, right? But most kids have some idea, especially if they're coming to a child advocacy center. It's a little different than the federal interviews I conduct at this point. But most kids that are coming to a child advocacy center are somewhere in their abuse disclosure. And the CAC is a continuation of that disclosure process more than an initial disclosure, because they've told their mom, they've told the teacher at school, there's some reason that that kid got referred to the CAC and often it's because that disclosure process has already started. We want to get as much narrative description as we can. We want to ask all those follow up questions. We want to ask all those clarifying questions. Then we'll move into closure. And closure is going to look like, thank you for talking with me today. Is there something that I didn't ask you today that you think would be really important for me to know? I will oftentimes in closure tell kids, you know, I talked to lots of people and sometimes the way our brain works is once you leave this room, there's something else that you're going to think of that was really important that you want to share. Or there might even have been something that you weren't just comfortable sharing with me yet. And I want you to know if that happens, you can let mom know. Mom knows how to contact us and we can figure out another time for us to touch base. Same thing goes for me. If there's something else that we think of that would be really helpful for us to talk with you about, I'll just figure out another way for us to do that. But I don't want to leave the door completely closed because the reality of how disclosure works, right? I want them to know that there might be more information that they think of later. I also want to recognize that they might not have just been comfortable sharing with me at the time. And I want them to know that they have that option. Next slide, Karen actually asked if you can give a detailed example. I can't, I can't hear you. Give me one second to try and that all right. Try now. Karen has a question. Are you able to hear me? Yep. That's perfect. Yes. Okay. I took the headphones out. Sorry. And it changed something. Sure. No worries. She asked if you can give a more detailed example of developmental screening. Yeah. So the screen for most interviewers now is going to be less structured in the way that it used to be with counting markers and knowing your colors. And it's going to be more, how does this kid respond to questions that I'm asking? Are they answering the question that I'm asking? Are they tangential and just going somewhere else completely different? Sometimes for very little kids, this might be a place where I am using an anatomical drawing because I want to see if I can orient them to the conversation because with littles, is it that just not paying attention? Is this an offshoot of where they're at developmentally? And just that that's the way their brain functions. They're all a little bit like squirrel, you know? And so I will sometimes pull out the drawing because it's a way to refocus their attention and then walk through the body identification. So I'm circling the eye. Can they, can the kid tell me that that's the eye? Can they tell me that that's the arm? If I am talking to them about, tell me about the things you like to do or tell me about who's in your family. Are they able to answer those questions and are they tracking those questions? So sometimes it's more of, I don't want to say a feel, but it's more about how they can respond to the questions themselves versus like a formal screening, if that makes sense. Okay. Yeah. We, this is just repetitive. Sorry. Next one. And I was way ahead of myself. So I did this one too. Yeah. And so same thing with, I mean, this kind of competency assessment, it's, it's, it's more so how they're able to answer questions now legally. And for court purposes, you might see this be a little bit more nuanced, but for the purposes of the forensic interview, it's going to be kind of, as I described. Next one. Okay. You want me to go ahead and play it? Yes, ma'am. Sorry. A quarter cup at a time, a thin stream, supposed to be a thin stream, blend it really well, or you'll burn it. David, that's not right. Well, that's because I'm ladling and stirring at the same time and you're just standing there. Now's not the time to lose focus, darling. This was your idea. You're the one who allegedly made the enchiladas. Yes. So try to keep up. Okay. Next. Now's the time to sprinkle in the chili pepper flakes. We've already done that. What number are we on? Oh my God. Is this not your mother's recipe? Yes. And now I'm passing it on to you. So try to keep up. Oh, next step is to fold in the cheese. What does that mean? What does fold in the cheese mean? You fold it in. I understand that, but how do you fold it? Do you fold it in half like a piece of paper and drop it in the pot, or what do you do? David, I cannot show you everything. Okay. Well, can you show me one thing? You just, here's what you do. You just fold it in. Okay. I don't know how to fold broken cheese like that. I don't know how to be any clearer. You take that thing that's in your hand and you... If you say fold in one more time... It says fold it in. This is your recipe. You fold in the cheese then. Don't you dare. You fold it in. David. Oh, good. Now I see bubbles. David, what does burning smell like? So besides the fact that I'm completely obsessed with Schitt's Creek and love it so much, if we talk about the science of forensic interviewing and what are the phases and what's the approach and what are the areas that we need to make sure we're hitting, right? I can teach anybody how the steps that they need to do to do a forensic interview. What's really difficult to teach is how to fold in the cheese. And that's the art of forensic interviewing. And that is going to be very specific to who you are as individuals and who you are as interviewers. I've talked to lots of people who like the idea of forensic interviewing and then will go to the training and they're like, oh yeah, I got this. And then they'll start doing interviews and they're like, I don't got this. Because you can't prepare entirely for this art piece. And there's no way to plan for the exact way kids might respond to questions or how they might respond to the direction of the interview and any of those things. And so when we're talking about the art, that's the piece that's going to look different for everybody. And it doesn't mean there's a totally right way of doing things. There's definitely totally wrong ways of doing things, right? Leading questions, suggestive questions, some of those things. But we actually have some more freedom in this art component. And so one of the things I try and stress to interviewers as much as possible is being genuine to who you are. And I don't think there should just be this hat that you put on when you enter a room with a victim to conduct an interview and a hat that you take off. I think the best possibility for your interviews are going to be being who you are. And so that's that art piece that I would encourage people to figure out for themselves. I told you I'm a big believer in having dedicated forensic interviewers. And so in spaces where you have people that have to wear a dual hat, where you have children's services or law enforcement or your same nurses having to wear all of these different hats to be the investigator, but also the interviewer, to be the medical provider, but also the interviewer, to be the determining factor on safety, but also the interviewer, I think can start to be really tricky. Because if it's not something that you're able to do frequently, if it's not something that you're able to do consistently, it's really easy to lose the skill set and not be able to engage victims in a way that is best all around. One of the reasons that we find that to be so difficult is because of this concept known as interviewer drift. And so it is a really common occurrence that happens especially post-training where interviewers drift away from best practice standards to less favorable interview strategies. And so whether that's because of complacency, whether that's because of a lack of continued training, whether or not that's because they're just not doing them enough, we see this kind of shift. And so it's really important for new and even experienced interviewers to find opportunities to continue to build and maintain their skill set. One of the things that my old CAC that we required of our on-call forensic interviewers, because the way call schedules work, I'm sure you guys are familiar, to some degree, right, is that you might not get any or you might get hit every single time you're on call and have four call-outs. But there's not a ton of way to plan for that. And so one of the things that we required was if you didn't get called out for your shift, you couldn't go more than two weeks without doing an interview. Or you couldn't go more than four weeks, sometimes is what it would stretch to, but that wasn't even ideal. Because again, we know that interviewing is a skill, and if you're not using it, you are definitely losing it. Because the place to try and cut your teeth and figure it out is definitely not at 3 a.m. with an emergent sexual abuse victim in front of you who you're trying to get all of the things they need to determine whether or not they can arrest the dad or the kids going back home, right? Like that's not the place or space where we should be figuring out the best way to talk to victims. Next slide. So what are our takeaways for that? So interviewers have a responsibility to the field in order to stay up to date on best practice standards. It is constantly changing. I was just at the San Diego conference in January and got to listen to Tom Lyon. He presents annually on things that are changing. And I could not tell you how curiously I was taking notes as he was talking because it was very nuanced changes that he was recommending. But with the research, the expectation for responses was just night and day. And so a lot of times within this field, it's not big changes that we need to make. It's little changes that have the biggest impact. But if we're not staying up to date on the research, if we're not attending the trainings, we're missing out on some of those opportunities. And that's the other reason why if you have to wear multiple hats, it's just difficult, right? So like, which master am I serving today? Like, is it my forensic interview stuff? Is it my CPS stuff? My law enforcement stuff? My nurse practitioner stuff? It's really hard to stay up to date in all areas for having multiple roles. What I have found a lot of times where it's not dedicated forensic interviewers doing forensic interviews is that they don't have a place or a space for folks to engage in regular peer review or expert supervision, especially in spaces where you might be the only person conducting forensic interviews. And so who's supposed to be peer reviewing you in those situations? And so I strongly encourage if you are in spaces where you either don't have those opportunities, or don't have the staffing, where that's an expectation regularly, that you're still demanding it as professionals as something that has to be occurring. When we don't see that stuff taking place, I think, again, it's just another opportunity for some complacency. I've been to peer reviews, where the local team was providing feedback to one of their interviewers. And it was just a lot of smoke blowing. And a lot of like, that was amazing. That was great. And then I have like three pages worth of notes on areas that they could have improved or asked the question differently. And so if we're not getting honest and constructive feedback, we have no way of improving our interviews. And this isn't to say my interviews are perfect. I'm a believer that no interview is perfect. And I will still watch interviews back with myself, where I'm like, that kid gave me an opportunity there. Neither I wasn't paying attention enough, or I just didn't hear it. But it took me six more minutes to get to transition the topic of concern. And I had an in way sooner than that. And I expect that feedback from my peers when they're watching our interviews. So I still get regularly peer reviewed. Expert supervision is something I know people like Julie Kinniston does expert supervision. There's definitely spaces and opportunities for that from folks. But it should be something that we're we're making sure we're getting the feedback on the way that we're conducting our interviews so that we can have that improved best practice standard. And it's a nuanced skill. So I know I've said it at least twice already. But if you aren't using it, you are going to lose it. Even I was in Thailand for the last two weeks, and I have an interview tomorrow. And that first interview backing after two weeks is going to just feel a little rusty, because that's the reality of our interviewing. So yeah, next slide. Any questions, I'm being mindful of time, I want to make sure I give some space and opportunity for questions. If people aren't comfortable asking questions in a group forum like this, I recognize and appreciate that as well. So please feel free to save my email, save my phone number. If I can support in any way, I'm willing to do that. There is something, like I said that I can help out with. In the future, I certainly am available. I also appreciate Sarah and Amy helping me through all my technical issues today and appreciate you guys on the very quick tour of my house as I was running to get the charger for the phone. So I apologize for any kind of disruptions in that as far as that's concerned. We have a couple people in the chat thanking you for the presentation saying it's a great presentation. Excellent. You want to take a look at that if you get a chance. We also on behalf of IFN want to thank you Jennifer for sharing with us today. We hope everyone has several takeaways from today and to enhance their practice and or to take back to your team. Again, Jennifer, we thank you for being with us today and on behalf of the International Association of Forensic Nurses, we thank you for your time and we look forward to engaging in a future activity with everyone.

forensic interviewing

investigative process

neutral interview

forensic interview models

building rapport

minimizing trauma

obtaining accurate information

hypothesis testing

sexual vocabulary

forms of maltreatment

exposure to domestic violence

multi-session interviews