APRI Highlights - Fall 2004

Exciting Developments at the National Child Protection Training Center

Victor Vieth Director National Child Protection Training Center

As the National Child Protection Training Center begins its second year of operation on the campus of Winona State University, we are pleased to report these exciting developments.

Web site. Our newly designed Web site contains a great deal of helpful information for attorneys and others handing civil child protection cases. In addition to our publications, we have added statutory and case law summaries from every state. Readers can access this information on our Web site, www.ndaa-apri.org (click on NCPTC in the right column.) Click here to go directly to NCPTC Web site.

Additional resources for Half a Nation by 2010. We have created an e-mail list for the faculty and administrators of the Finding Words states to interact with one another. We have also developed a Half a Nation newsletter that contains substantive information on forensic interviewing as well as reports from each of the states admitted into the program. The newsletter will be produced semi-annually.

National Conferences. The National Child Protection Training Center will host the following conferences in Winona, Minnesota, in the next year:

• Finding Words. This intensive five-day forensic interviewing course is conducted in collaboration with CornerHouse, a non-profit interagency child abuse evaluation and training center located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
  
  
• ChildProtect is a five-day trial advocacy course designed specifically to meet the needs of civil child protection attorneys. Students will be taught and critiqued by many of the nation’s foremost child abuse experts. Each student will be required to evaluate a fact pattern and proceed with a child protection or termination of a parental rights case. Students will conduct direct examinations of social workers, police officers and psychologists and cross-examine witnesses offered by the parent respondents. After being critiqued, students will have the opportunity to implement the suggestions and conduct the exercise again. The exercises will be videotaped and students will be able to observe the videotapes to assess and improve their skills.
  
  
• When Child Abuse Hits Home. This four-day course will offer students cutting edge workshops on emerging trends in child protection cases. Topics include search and seizure issues for child protection attorneys, trial strategies, establishing “reasonable efforts,” emotional neglect, the correlation between animal and child abuse, interviewing children with developmental disabilities, cultural sensitivity, and the impact of Crawford v. Washington on child abuse cases.

For dates, additional information, or to apply for one or more of these conferences, visit our Web site or contact the National Child Protection Training Center at ncptc@ndaa-apri.org or 507-457-2890.