Thank you so much for your input

Yes.

There is a protocol developed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). It's described in the article by Lamb et al. (2007).

This is the full citation for the article:

Lamb, M. E., Orbach, Y., Hershkowitz, I., Esplin, P. W., & Horowitz, D. (2007). A structured forensic interview protocol improves the quality and informativeness of investigative interviews with children: A review of research using the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol. Child Abuse and Neglect, 31, 1201–1231

English child care professionals have used national guidelines for conducting interviews with children since 1982, First, the 'Memorandum of Good Practice' and then in 2002, ' Achieving Best Evidence' , which has gone through two revisions, the last in 2011, You can read about these guidelines and the research generated by them in a recent paper.

Hill, E.S. & Davies, G. M. (in press). Has the quality of investigative interviews with children improved with changes in Guidance? An exploratory study. Policing doi: 10.1093/police/pas046

I will be happy to forward a copy of Hill and Davies to anyone who is interested.

Thank you all for your insight. I would appreciate reading the article, if you could forward it to me.

Graham

I would be really grateful if you would be good enough to forward to me the paper. I hope you keep well.

Dave

Good to hear from you Dave-well thanks. Have attached a copy of the paper as requested

Graham

We have a protocol in Catalonia (Spain) to reduce secondary victimization and the number of interviews conducted, but we still lack an official protocol or guidelines to interview children in a forensic setting. Actually, we are working on it!

In Australia we have Child Protection Act(each state has their mandate and Policy and Privacy Act also further covers it - they are three laws that come to play - Child Protection, Protective Services and Health and even in the USA we have various policies and protocols - that need to be adhered to when working with children i.e. victims of neglect and/or abuse -

Gabriella from Italy. My ptofessor suggested some reccomandations documents issued after meetings held by lawers, psychologists and police officers, thou not officially adopted. I am attaching some files. They are in Italian. I will be happy to help you with the understanding of them, if you wish.

All the best and heartly seaon greeting!

Gabriella

Could not attach the second file. here it is.

Cheers!

And a third one.

(by the ay, how can I add more than a file? Thanks for your help)

Noemí, I would be interested in knowing more about that protocol to limit the number of interviews. Are they official guidelines issued by the Generalitat de Catalunya? Is there any document with a wriiten description of the protocol. If so, how could I get it?

Thanks! :-)

In America, there are numerous laws which protect the rights of youth. There is no set standard as rules, protocols, laws can vary from state to state. Rhere are rules for lawyers, the police, the prosecuting attorney, the judges, corrections officials, probation officers, etc, and anyone else who may want to interview a minor (youth). Also, we in America must alst take into consideration the protections spelled out in our Constitutioin and Bill of Rights. All in all, in America, there are "layers" of protections for minors (youth) on the national, state and local government level. It just depends upon the case and the situation.

I strongly encourage you to look at the guidelines of APSAc, the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. They have forensic interviewer guidelines which provide state of the art information on this. go to www.Apsac.org for more information. I have provided trainings in this area in the U.S., Chile, Argentina and Puerto Rico. Feel free to contact me. I'd be happy to help.

Lisa Fontes

Thank you all for your contributions. I am looking into all your suggestions. I have come to understand, that we do not have a standardised protocol for the E.U. in total, am I correct in my assumption?

Have you seen the Council on Europe Guidelines on Child Friendly Justice? These are extremely helpful.

The science on forensic interviewing of children is still evolving. Fifteen years ago we thought it was important to ask a child to explain the difference between truth and a lie. Then research showed this was not necessary or helpfu, but it is helpful to ask a child to promise to tell the truth. Of course each child and each situation is different. The NICHD protocol is widely used in the U.S. Many of us recommend that while interiewers should become familiar with the best protocols, it is more important to follow the child than the protocol.

Dear Jaume, I suppose you know about it already. It was published in 2006 after a very serious abuse case we had in Catalonia: 'PROTOCOL MARC D’ACTUACIONS EN CASOS D’ABUSOS SEXUALS I ALTRES MALTRACTAMENTS GREUS A MENORS'. The important thing is that we are working now (Universitat de Barcelona, Departament d'Interior, Direcció General d'Atenció a la Infància i l'Adolescència, Centre d'Estudis Jurídics i Formació Especilitzada, Síndic de Greuges) in a new guideline. We had this conference today about it: http://www.icab.es/?go=eaf9d1a0ec5f1dc58757ad6cffdacedb1a58854a600312cc919409e3de6daa946c4ef4d914cadf3ae0a81aac9cf3513e2188156c20f81f9d

The Juvenile Justice Act 2000 and its Amendment Act 2006 in India contain provisions for the issues mentioned.

I highly recommend the NICHD forensic interview protocol. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated by many controlled studies that have been published in peer-reviewed journals. See attachment.

Look atr the website http://psychotemoins.inist.fr/, which deals exclusively with that issue.