Due tomorrow 2pm

Forensic Interviewing of Children Best Practices

Forensic Interview Protocols • Please review the Popular Forensic Interviewing Protocols

content page in Canvas.

• You should be able to …

• describe the general consensus amongst professionals as to what techniques are considered “best practice”

• explain the major similarities and differences between the interview protocols

• identify challenges/questions/concerns pertaining to certain interviewing techniques

Best Practice • There are certain elements of a forensic interview that are

considered best practice. These elements are often research based and agreed upon as important to improving the likelihood of obtaining an accurate and complete report from a child.

• There are situations where some elements are not included in an interview but the interview would still be considered “good”. For example, if a child comes into the room and tells about being hurt it is okay to allow the child to continue talking. If this happens, it may not be required that the interviewer engage the child in narrative practice.

• Interview preparation

• Rapport Building

- introduction - instructions - truth/lie - narrative practice

• Discussion of relevant experiences (i.e., Topic of Concern)

- use of open invitations to elicit a free narrative - detail gathering - considering alternate explanations

• Closure

- respectful end to the conversation

Forensic Interview Protocols: Similarities

best practice

Forensic Interview Protocols: Differences

• How and when interview instructions and truth-lie discussions are conducted

• How to transition to the topic of concern

• Use of anatomical diagrams

• Use of anatomical dolls

• Certain protocol options (e.g., exploring family relationships, questioning children about other forms of maltreatment)

Interview Preparation

• Interview preparation

- Regardless of what information (if any) is available to interviewers, protocols advise an interviewer to prepare before meeting with a child.

- Be sure room is prepared for your interview and you have all materials you might need.

1. Rapport The purpose of rapport building is to establish a working relationship with the child and to provide a foundation for the interview process. Rapport building typically includes the following:

• Introduce Self & Setting

• Instructions/Ground Rules

• Tell the Truth

• Narrative Practice/Episodic Memory

The Rapport building phase should take approximately 8 minutes. Research shows that interviewers who engage the child as described gather more details in the next phase of the interviewer (i.e., when talking about potentially abusive experiences).

Introduction • Self: The interviewer should introduce himself/herself

to the child as someone who talks with children. Importantly, the interviewer’s job is to listen and ask questions because they don’t know the child or the child’s experiences.

• Setting: The interviewer should explain certain parts of the room including that the interviewer is recording the conversation in case they forget something the child said. It is also important to mention that only people with special permission are able to view the tape.

Introduction

NICHD example introduction, textbook appendix p. 431.

Instructions/Ground Rules The interviewer should explain …

• the child might not know an answer.

• the child might not understand a question.

• the interviewer might make a mistake.

The interviewer can do this by providing instructions to the child and practice with the concepts.

“Don’t Know, Don’t Understand, & That’s Not Right”

NICHD example instructions.

Tell the Truth • Please review the video posted in Canvas about truth-lie

discussions

• Know that truth-lie discussions are often included BUT young children may not understand the questions they are asked. Further, truth-lie discussion do not predict honesty. Children who are older are better able to differentiate between truths and lies but are also better liars.

• Note: It is important you remember that children can provide inaccurate information for different reasons. Lying is a concern but typically is not an interviewers greatest challenge. Also important to remember is that humans are not very good at detecting lies.

Tell the Truth • Please review the video posted in Canvas about truth-lie

discussions

- “It is very important that you only tell me the truth today. The truth is what really happened.”

- “Do you promise you will tell the truth today?”

- Research shows that asking a child to promise to tell the truth does predict honesty. Though, it is NOT a filter. In lab studies, some children still tell lies even after they promise to tell the truth.

Narrative Practice • The conversation style of a forensic interview is one

where the child is the informant and the adult is unknowing. This is not a typical conversational arrangement for children and so, some children need practice informing the adult about his/her experience.

• Narrative practice allows for the interviewer and child to talk about specific experiences he/she has had and the interviewer is unaware. The experiences talked about in narrative practice should not be abuse related.

Narrative Practice • The interviewer should use open prompts to encourage

the child to provide a free narrative (i.e., a description of the experience in his or her own words).

• The interviewer should encourage the child to focus on a specific experience versus a general script for events (e.g., tell me about your soccer game yesterday versus tell me about what you do at soccer).

• Narrative practice allows: the child to practice being an informant, the interviewer to practice asking developmentally appropriate questions, and encourages rapport

2. Substantive Phase • Transition to Topic of Concern

- Open invitation to provide a free narrative

- Explore details using developmentally appropriate questions

- Consider alternate possibilities for a child’s statement (i.e., test alternate hypotheses)

2. Substantive Phase The purpose of the substantive phase of the forensic interview is to provide the child the opportunity to talk about the experience/s of interest. Interviewers attempt to gather information about the alleged/suspected abuse in a way that promotes accuracy and completeness. The interviewer should allow the child to describe his or her experiences in his or her own words. The interviewer can ask age appropriate questions that probe for additional details.

Question Types • Open invitations promote free recall memories

• e.g., tell me what happened

• free recall memory reports are more likely to be accurate than recognition memory

• free recall memory reports tend to be brief and often lack the amount of details needed to defend cases in Court

• interviewers often need to follow up/probe for additional details using more specific/direct questions

Question Types • more specific/direct questions vary in helpfulness

• some allow the interviewer to be more focused but still encourage the child to tap into recall (versus recognition memory).

• e.g., Tell me more about (something the child already said); Wh- questions that are age appropriate

• Some direct questions limit the amount of details a child is likely to add into their response

• e.g., option posting questions

Question Types Note: Standard terminology for question types may vary but the general concepts are similar

Tentative guide for age appropriate question types — please remember sentence structure and context are also important to consider

Alternate Hypotheses • interviewers should consider the plausible and possible

reasons for a child’s statements (e.g., the child may have been misunderstood, the injury may have been accidentals, the child is being abused, etc.)

• the interviewer should then collect evidence (e.g., additional statements from the child, details about the event in question) that will help them better understand which explanation is most likely

• Case features will help an interviewer determine how to explore alternative explanations

Alternate Hypotheses • decreases the influence of bias

• increases the likelihood of gathering accurate information

• encourages detail gathering

• improves ability to defend the case in Court

Use of diagrams • not endorsed by all interviewing protocols

• ChildFirst® is one of the protocols that allows for the use diagrams

• ChildFirst® encourages the use of diagrams to establish common language for body parts

• ChildFirst® allows for diagrams to be used before or after a disclosure of abuse

Research on the use of diagrams • field studies show more forensically relevant information is

elicited from children but accuracy cannot be determined with these types of studies (Aldridge et al., 2004; Teoh et al., 2010)

• lab studies show there is an increased risk for false identifications when compared to asking children about touch with open questions

• researchers recommend NOT using diagrams to elicit disclosures of abuse (see Poole & Dickinson, 2011)

• researchers and protocol developers should work together to better understand the effects of using diagrams with children to talk about touch events

Use of anatomical dolls • not endorsed by all protocols

• ChildFirst® is one of the protocols that allows for the use of dolls but has strict guidelines

• ChildFirst® advises dolls should only be used in age appropriate ways*

• ChildFirst® only allows for the use of dolls following a disclosure of abuse when certain elements are ambiguous (e.g., child doesn’t have the words to describe an action)

* suggests children should understand the dolls as representations of the child/other person; research is still needed to better understand children’s use of dolls as representations

Research on the use of anatomical dolls • most research does not support the use of dolls

with children

• research may be needed to consider the use of dolls as demonstration aids in contexts similar to their use by ChildFirst®

• dolls should only be used in age appropriate ways*

• may be used before or after a disclosure of abuse

3. Closure • Transition to Topic of Concern

- Open invitation to provide a free narrative

- Explore details using developmentally appropriate questions

- Consider alternate possibilities for a child’s statement (i.e., test alternate hypotheses)