Upcoming In-Service Law Enforcement Training Courses

FirstCall is designed to assist first-line responders from child protective services and law enforcement in obtaining information from potential child and adolescent victims or witnesses at case initiation. FirstCall is designed to aid in determining the need for a formal forensic interview and/or medical evaluation at a specialized evaluation center such as a local Child Advocacy Center. FirstCall is a child-friendly, best practice interview model that offers sufficient flexibility to accommodate varying types of cases and children’s developmental levels.

To ensure interview quality and ease of learning, the model provides suggested scripting for novice interviewers and scaffolding for more experienced interviewers, while offering sufficient flexibility to accommodate varying types of maltreatment experiences, developmental levels, and disclosure histories. By design, RADAR places special emphasis on forensic balance, with the dual objective of minimizing false positive as well as false negative errors in case decisions. RADAR is adapted from the NICHD Investigative Interview Protocol developed by Michael Lamb and colleagues, the Cognitive Interview developed by Ronald Fisher and Edward Geiselman, and 80 years of combined experience in child forensic interviewing by the RADAR Model developers. RADAR works best with individuals who are functioning developmentally at age 5 and above.

Like its predecessor, RADAR JR emphasizes forensic balance, with the dual objective of minimizing interview errors contributing to either false positive or false negative case decisions. RADAR JR offers a practical, teachable model for interviewing preschoolers that is grounded in current research and three decades of forensic practice. RADAR JR is designed for children who are functioning developmentally between age 3 to approximately age 5 ½. In contrast, the original RADAR protocol works best for children who are functioning at age 5 or 5 ½, at a minimum.