Montco unveils new child-abuse interview method
Each time childern are interviewed about being a victims of abuse - by police, by attorneys, by child-abuse investigators, by medical professionals - they risk being retraumatized by that single event, or series of events, that will forever shape their lives, experts say.
Now, child-abuse victims in Montgomery County have a place to go where they can be interviewed by a trained professional just once, while all parties who need to hear their stories watch from behind a two-way mirror or a closed-circuit television system.
Mission Kids' Child Advocacy Center, in East Norriton, which officially opened yesterday, is a nonprofit agency backed by District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman designed to limit repeated interviews of child-abuse victims.
At the center, two forensic interviewers specially trained in child-abuse interviewing techniques will conduct sessions with children while all parties invested in the case can observe the conversation, Abbie Newman, executive director of the center, said.
With 640 child-abuse cases moving through the Montgomery County court system alone last year, it's important to make sure that each child is handled with care, Newman said.
She believes that even more cases of abuse exist, but that parents often hesitate to bring a case forward for fear of retraumatizing their children in repeated interviews.
"Parents often have the reaction, 'I don't want to put my child through more,' " Newman said.
"The goal of Mission Kids is to take away the 'through more' part of it."
Newman said that the two staff forensic interviewers are specially trained to ask age-appropriate questions in a setting with soft furniture and soft lighting.
"A police station is not meant to be child-friendly, it's meant to be intimidating," she said.
"A detective might be an excellent person to go after the perpetrator, but he's probably not been trained to talk with a child in an age-appropriate manner."
Parents or guardians still have to first report suspected abuse to police or Children and Youth, but all agencies involved in investigation of such cases have agreed to hold off on interviewing a child until the child can be brought to Mission Kids, Newman said.
Mission Kids is funded through donations and grants.
Those wishing to donate to the program may go to the center's Web site at: www.missionkidscac. org.
