Children's services practice notes : for North Carolina's child welfare workers [2002 : December, v.8 : no.1]

Children's Services Practice NOTES jjj || For North Carolina's Child Welfare Workers ► From the NC Division of Soaol Services and the Family and Children's Resource Program Volume 8, Number 1 December 2002 Children's Services Practice Notes is a newsletter for North Carolina's child welfare workers produced four times a year by the North Carolina Division of Social Services and the N.C. Family and Children's Resource Program, part of the J ordan Institute for Families and the School of So¬ cial Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In summarizing recent research, не fry to give you new ideas for refining your practice. However, this publica¬ tion is not intended to replace child welfare training, regular supervision, or peer consultation— only to enhance them. Let us hear from you! If you would like to comment about something that appears in this or any other issue of Children's Services Practice Notes, please do so! Address your comments to: John McMahon J ordan Institute for Families UNC-CH School of Social Work Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3550 State Courier Number: 17-61-04 E: johnmcmahon@mindspring.com Newsletter Staff Lane Cooke, MSW, Advisor John McMahon, MA, Writer/Editor Visit Our Website To read this or past issues of Prac¬ tice Notes on line, go to <http:// ssw.unc.edu/fcrp/Cspn/cspn.htm>. FORENSIC INTERVIEWING AND CHILD WELFARE The forensic interview, a technique used to obtain a statement from a child in an objec¬ tive, developmental^ sensitive, and legally de¬ fensible manner, often plays a key role in child maltreatment investigations. If you do not already have a clear grasp of the who, what, when, where, why, and how of forensic interviewing, this issue of Prac¬ tice Notes is a good place to start. If you are familiar with forensic interview¬ ing, you may have questions about how this technique— which can seem so adversarial, given its focus on collecting court-worthy evi¬ dence— fits with the emphasis North Caro¬ lina puts on family-centered practice. This issue of the newsletter will also help you ex¬ plore these concerns so that you can en¬ hance your work with families. ♦ THE CONNECTION WITH FAMILY-CENTERED PRACTICE Perhaps the best way to illuminate the con¬ nection between forensic interviewing and family-c entered practice is to talk about North Carolina's new child welfare system reform effort, the Multiple Response System (MRS). MRS is an approach to children's services being piloted in 10 of the state's 100 coun¬ ties. MRS consists of seven strategies, one of which changes the way participating agen¬ cies respond to reports of child maltreatment. Under MRS, rather than treating every re¬ port as if it were potentially a serious case of criminal child abuse/ neglect, intake re¬ ports are carefully sorted into one of two ap¬ proaches. The first, the investigative assess¬ ment approach, resembles the classic child protective services (CPS) response in which workers perform a rigorous investigation, us¬ ing forensic interviewing techniques when ap¬ propriate. In the second, the family assess¬ ment approach, child safety is still the first concern, but the overall nature of the agency's contact with the family is much more supportive. It is anticipated MRS will become the new statewide standard for child welfare practice in the near future. When thinking about the MRS strategy for CPS it is important to keep in mind there is an expectation of family-centered practice in both the family assess¬ ment AND the investiga¬ tive assessment ap¬ proaches. Some people initially have difficulty with this no¬ tion. They ask: How can we be family-centered when we use a technique such as the forensic inter¬ view, which is designed to collect evidence that will stand up in court if the investigation leads to criminal prosecu¬ tion? Isn't it too adversarial? It is true that some parts of forensic inter¬ viewing and the overall investigative approach cannot be changed— for example, it is rec¬ ommended that CPS interview children be¬ fore speaking with parents. Yet even with these constraints, when we embrace family- centered principles, we can almost always manage to treat families in a way that makes it clear we value and respect them. When we do, chances are greatly in¬ creased that we will win the trust of the child and parents, gather the information we need, reduce trauma for the entire family, and help them achieve the positive outcomes we seek. ♦ How does forensic interviewing fit with family- centered practice?