A guest speaker at school discusses personal safety and the sensitive subject of child maltreatment, informing the group of second-graders that some secrets do not need to be kept. Impacted by the lesson, a student approaches his instructor and asks, “if my friend told me a really bad secret, should I tell?” After a handful of follow-up questions, the child shares that his best friend, Billy, told him that Billy’s father was touching his butt with his “private part.”
Having a reasonable suspicion that Billy is being sexually abused, the teacher makes a mandated report to social services. The case is screened in, and Billy is brought to a Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC)—one of hundreds of facilities accredited by the National Children’s Alliance to assess child maltreatment allegations.
Billy is questioned by a forensic interviewer, someone specially trained to speak with children about abuse, and the interview is audio and video-recorded. The interviewer spends time building rapport with Billy and practices getting the child to speak in a narrative style by asking for details about a neutral event from beginning to end. The interviewer also asks the child about family, people the child lives with, and things they may do with the family and other people in their lives.
The interviewer then transitions to the topic of concern by stating, “tell me about coming to talk with me today.” The child replies, “the social worker lady told me I had to talk to you.” The interviewer asks the child to “tell me everything the social worker lady told you.” The child simply says, “she told me I’m supposed to talk to you. I don’t know what about.”
The interviewer then explores more about the child’s family and what experiences are “OK” and “not OK”—a broader conversation than being touched because children can be violated without being touched. In this context, the child tells the interviewer that he does things with his dad that are “not OK.” When asked to explain further, the child shares that his dad “touches my butt with his dick.” The child gives myriad details of this conduct, explaining that he is naked on his bed, and that his dad is also naked and gets on top of him from behind and “puts it in” until “the sticky stuff squirts all over my belly.”