This wide-ranging volume combines the current findings and frontline knowledge working practitioners need to know about forensic interviewing of children in sexual abuse cases. Coverage begins with the basics: legal and ethical principles, interview planning and procedure, psychometric and cultural issues, pitfalls and how to avoid them. Perspectives from a trial lawyer and a district attorney lend real-life details on criminal court procedure, interview procedure, legal standards, and what is expected of expert witnesses. Not only is developmental understanding of salient issues concerning children's competency and suggestibility offered here, but also vital guidance on the controversies surrounding false memories and untrue accusations. Included in the coverage: Working with the multidisciplinary team. Childhood memory: an update from cognitive neuroscience. Disclosure failures: statistics, characteristics, and strategies to address them.Child abusers' threats and grooming techniques. Review of psychometrics of forensic interview protocols with children. Assessing the quality of forensic interviews with child witnesses. Forensic Interviews Regarding Child Sexual Abuse brings a wealth of robust practical information to professionals working with children, including clinical and child psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers.

Forensic Art Therapy is designed as an educational and informative resource for individuals from a diverse array of disciplines that engage in investigatory undertakings, interview victims and witnesses, and provide evidentiary testimony. The material presented serves as a primer for professionals that may present in court on behalf of a client. Ethical issues inherent in the forensic arena, as well as the use of novel scientific evidence in the form of drawings, legal proceedings, testimonials, and practical tips and strategies for effective witnessing, are shared. Research regarding a forensic art therapy investigative interview process, the Common Interview Guideline, examines the facilitative factor associated with the effect of drawing. When utilized as a primary resource within investigative interviews, drawing has the potential to offer support, promote empowerment and enhance disclosure. Understanding how drawing functions in investigative interviews and what it offers for the child, the team and the process contributes to on-going research and best practice. The text serves as a resource and a handbook for students and professionals that investigate, interview, testify and intervene on behalf of child victims and witnesses from the domains of child protection, law enforcement, prosecution, the judiciary, creative arts therapies, social work and allied practitioners in medicine and mental health.

A core issue for professionals responsible for addressing sexual abuse is how to correctly identify cases. Interviewing Children About Sexual Abuse: Controversies and Best Practice critically reviews the research and practice on the spectrum of issues related to interviewing the sexually abused child. Its chapters cover all the most important topics that interviewers must keep in mind, from the accuracy of children's memories to appropriate types of questions to include to the use of interview aids, and within each chapter is a comprehensive review of research and practice, leading to conclusions that can be used to guide practice in this most sensitive of assignments.

There are few things is our society that provoke such raw emotions as that of child abuse. Most people, justifiably so, are outraged when they hear of allegations of abuse, and their anger is intensified as they learn of what seems to be an inappropriate criminal justice response. However, the debate on child abuse usually happens though visceral emotions rather than facts. Taking emotions out of a child abuse debate is much easier said than done, but it is of utmost importance to identify the facts. When the reader has a better understanding of the scope of child abuse, they can become more objective but still maintain their passion about ways to protect this vulnerable and targeted population. Child Abuse, Child Exploitation, and Criminal Justice Responses is unique in that it offers the reader contributing facts based not only through scholarly research, but practical experience working in field, from this wonderful collaboration of criminal investigator and forensic nurse. Thus providing much personal insight and demonstrating how these two areas of expertise can join forces to achieve the objective of working as a team to facilitate safeguarding children. The authors also presents the research on this complex yet worthy topic by identifying the unique challenges of investigating these offenses while ultimately bringing the perpetrators to justice, and presenting the research from various perspectives of child abuse including both national and international issues and responses.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This edited collection explores the background and implementation of the Nordic Barnahus (or 'Children's House') model – recognised as one of the most important reforms related to children who are the victims of crime in the Nordic region. This book discusses both its potential to affect change and the challenges facing it. The model was introduced as a response to a growing recognition of the need for more integrated and child-centred services for children exposed to violence and sexual abuse. In the Barnahus structure, different professions work together to ensure that victimized children receive help and treatment and that their legal rights are met. This original study is organised into four broad themes: child-friendliness, support and treatment; the forensic child investigative interview; children’s rights perspectives; and interagency collaboration and professional autonomy. Each themed section includes in-depth chapters from different Nordic countries, outlining and analysing the practice and outcomes of the collaborative work engaged in by Barnahus from different perspectives. The introductory and concluding chapters offer a comparative lens useful for policy and practice implementation within the Nordic welfare state context and beyond, ensuring this book has global academic and practical appeal.

This book is a practical and thoughtful guide for the forensic interview of children, presenting a synthesis of the empirical and theoretical knowledge necessary to understand the account of child victims of abuse or witnesses of crime. It is a complex task to interview children who are suspected of being abused in order to gather their stories, requiring the mastery of many skills and knowledge. This book is a practical one in that constant links are made between the results of the research and their relevance for the interventions made when interviewing child victims of abuse or witnesses of crime and in understanding their accounts. This book also presents in a detailed and concrete way the revised version of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD-R) Protocol, a forensic structured interview guide empirically supported by numerous studies carried out in different countries. The step-by-step explanations are illustrated with a verbatim interview with a child, as well as other tools to help the interviewer to prepare and handle an efficient and supportive interview. Conducting Interviews with Child Victims of Abuse and Witnesses of Crime is essential reading for stakeholders in the justice, social and health systems as well as anyone likely to receive allegations from children such as educators or daycare staff. Although the NICHD-R Protocol is intended for forensic interviewers, the science behind its development and application is relevant to all professionals working with children.

For as long as we have been researching human memory, psychologists have been investigating how people remember and forget. This research is regularly drawn upon in our legal systems. Historically, we have relied upon eyewitness memory to help judge responsibility and adjudicate truth, but memory is malleable, prone to error, and susceptible to bias. Even confident eyewitnesses make mistakes, and even accurate witnesses sometimes find their testimony subjected to harsh scrutiny. Emerging from this environment, the Cognitive Interview (CI) became a means of assisting cooperative witnesses with recalling more information without sacrificing accuracy. First used by police interviewing adult witnesses, it is now used with many populations in many contexts, including public health, accident reconstruction, and the interrogation of terror suspects. Evidence-Based Investigative Interviewing reviews the application of cognitive research to investigative interviewing, revealing how principles of cognition, memory, and social dynamics may increase the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. It provides evidence-based applications for investigators beyond the forensic domain in areas such as eyewitness identification, detecting deception, and interviewing children. Drawing together the work of thirty-three authors across both the academic and practice communities, this comprehensive collection is essential reading for researchers in psychology, forensics, and disciplines such as epidemiology and gerontology.

This volume provides the first rigorous assessment of the research relating to the disclosure of childhood sexual abuse, along with the practical and policy implications of the findings. Leading researchers and practitioners from diverse and international backgrounds offer critical commentary on these previously unpublished findings gathered from b

The editors of this collection are experienced practitioners and teachers of forensic psychology. They have collected chapters written by nationally and internationally respected experts in applied research and practice to provide others with their best advice and knowledge on conducting evaluations for and testifying in court.

The volume is a collection of articles from scholars who pay particular attention to children and/or adolescents' voices, interpretations, perspectives, and experiences within specific social and cultural contexts. Contributions include research stemming from a broad spectrum of methodological and theoretical orientations.