APRI Highlights - Winter 2002

National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse

Victor Vieth, Director

In 1998, APRI’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse launched Finding Words, a forensic interviewing course for law enforcement officers, child protection caseworkers and prosecutors. The course was modeled after and developed in collaboration with CornerHouse, a child sexual abuse evaluation and training facility in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The response was overwhelming. We received over 400 applications from child abuse professionals hoping to be counted among the first group of 40 students admitted to the course. To date, over 350 students have successfully completed Finding Words. Unfortunately, hundreds of child abuse professionals have been turned away from the course because we simply cannot meet the demand. Out of this tragedy was born the vision of Half a Nation by 2010.

The goal of APRI’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse is to establish in half of the states a high quality, five-day forensic interviewing course modeled after Finding Words. The concept is patterned after one in Minnesota where 85 out of 87 counties have received training through our partnering agent, CornerHouse. We intend to work with state and local officials and child abuse professionals to develop state of the art courses that are tailored to the unique dynamics of individual states. In this way, state investigators and prosecutors will have a shared basis of knowledge and a protocol most likely to be accepted in their jurisdictions.

South Carolina is the first state to take advantage of this opportunity. Partnering with the Children’s Law Office (CLO), a program of the University of South Carolina Law School and the Assessment and Resource Center (ARC), a nationally accredited Children’s Advocacy Center, APRI expects to approve the South Carolina program by the end of the year.

With new funding from the Children’s Bureau (Administration for Children, Youth and Families), APRI is launching Half a Nation by 2010 as a national demonstration program over the next four years. Part of that funding provides for systematic evaluation to determine whether improved interviewing skills increase the likelihood that children’s reports will be substantiated, cases will be prosecuted and offenders will be convicted.

APRI has selected the states of Indiana, New Jersey and Mississippi to participate in the program in 2002. More than 40 additional states have requested applications to participate in the program in future years. APRI intends to work with each state seeking admittance into the program until the project is complete.

President Kennedy once told of a boy who threw his hat over a high wall so that he would have no choice but to follow. APRI’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse has tossed its hat over the wall of justice and we have no choice but to follow. Though ambitious and fraught with obstacles, the successful scaling of this wall will enable children reported into the system to share their experiences, so that some who would have died will live.

For more information about APRI’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse and Half a Nation by 2010, contact ncpca@ndaa-apri.org.