Join First Witness Child Advocacy Center and grow your understanding and knowledge of advanced topics within child advocacy.
For the first time, participants are invited to register and learn from the First Witness CAC National Training Center in one-time webinars. Our advanced trainings have previously been limited to organizational contracts, our 2024 Advanced Webinar Series intends to make our trainings accessible and open to child advocacy center, multidisciplinary team, and child maltreatment professionals across the United States.
Each webinar is held virtually and presented live by our team of nationally-recognized trainers. Certificates of completion are available after successfully attending each webinar, and Minnesota CEUs are expected to be available for certain MN professionals.
Questions? Contact Operations Director Madeline Kvale at mkvale@firstwitness.org.
Advocacy
The Power of Positive Childhood Experiences
April 17, 2024
FREE
As Health and Human Service Professionals, we are aware of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the lasting effects that they can have on a developing child. However, what is not discussed as much is the power of Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) and the resilience that can emerge through traumatic events experienced. This presentation explains the Child Advocacy Center approach and how we can promote PCEs through connection, acknowledgment, and support. By encouraging PCEs we can create a more connected community and strengthen our response to child abuse and neglect.
Building Advocacy Relationships with Resistant & Reluctant Caregivers
June 7, 2024
$25
This advanced session will guide advocates to dive deeper into the relationships that they have with social services and law enforcement alongside the families they serve in the advocacy role. We will discuss the implications and the intersectionality of the notorious systems labeled ‘non-compliant’ caregivers throughout a case and/or child maltreatment investigation. The training will share the advocacy perspective rooted in the work of Ellen Pence and the Advocacy Learning Center, bridging grassroots work of domestic violence to the child advocacy center field. Participants will learn about how to better advocate for caregivers labeled as non-compliant, resistive, or reluctant. Trainers will facilitate discussion among participants designed to help shed light on the lived experiences of families of families and how they may present to multi-disciplinary professionals from a systems perspective.
Safe & Strong Communities
September 10, 2024
$50
This training is offered to adults in youth-serving agencies, churches, sports leagues, and beyond. Participants learn how to recognize, respond, and report child abuse. More than mandated reporting, we delve into dynamics of child abuse, how to respond to a child in a trauma-informed way, red flags of child abuse, child resilience, Safe and Strong body safety curriculum, and more.
Porn, Let’s Talk About It
October 25, 2024
$50
Currently, only 62% of our nation’s states require education on healthy relationships. Adolescents are left to fill in the gaps of what healthy sex looks like by turning to media and pornography’s representation of sexual relationships. As child abuse professionals, we can help families understand the disparities of sexual education and encourage facilitating open and age-appropriate dialogue with youth to empower them to make informed decisions around their sexual health and identity
Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse: Working with NOCs Who Have Been Victims
November 15, 2024
$50
Sexual abuse can be generational. Caregivers who have experienced abuse, now walk through our doors after a report from their own child. Their child’s report may trigger a new crisis stage for parents in their own healing journey. Understanding common experiences and needs of adult survivors can help advocates support them in their efforts to help support their children.
Forensic Interviewing
Media and Pop Culture: How Our Culture Impacts Perceptions of Child Abuse and Maltreatment
May 17, 2024
FREE
This session will examine examples in our media, pop culture, and entertainment industry related to child abuse and maltreatment. These examples will highlight how public perception of child abuse is impacted and often normalized in ways we may not always realize.
ChildFirst® Expanded Interview Protocol
July 24-26, 2024
$500
Based on the nationally-recognized ChildFirstc Forensic Interview Protocol, this 2.5-day training provides a purposeful and legally defensible process for conducting expanded forensic interviews with children who may not succeed in a standard, single interview due to trauma, developmental, special needs or other complicating issues, including polyvictimization. This training is designed for investigative teams of law enforcement officers, social workers, prosecutors, child protection attorney, and forensic interviewers who have completed a nationally recognized basic child forensic interview training. This training will teach the expanded interview process as well as research supporting multiple, non-duplicative interviews with child victims and witnesses.
Recantation: Why Does it Happen and What Do We Do?
August 21, 2024
$25
This presentation will discuss the dynamics behind recantations of child abuse disclosures, both in forensic interviews and outside of forensic interviews. This session will review frequently asked questions about recantation, such as “why does recantation happen?”, “can we avoid recantation?” “how do we minimize the likelihood of recantation”, and “what do we do now?”. Participants will leave with an understanding of recantation and child abuse dynamics, follow-up recantation forensic interviews, and next steps for investigative team members in child abuse cases that involve full and partial recantations/retractions of children’s statements.
Understanding and Overcoming Complex Interview Dynamics
September 20, 2024
$50*
This presentation will discuss the unique and individual needs of youth in the forensic interview. Participants will be able to identify recommendations and considerations of multiple intersectionalities that can present in the forensic interview such as: Children with Disabilities, Diverse and Cultural Backgrounds, LGBTQIA+ Youth, and Children with no Non-offending Caregiver.
Interviewing Individuals with Disabilities
October 15, 2024
$50*
This session will explore how interviewing children and adults with disabilities differs from interviewing individuals without disabilities and will review best practices. Attendees will learn how to adjust the physical space for individuals with physical, mental, and/or developmental disabilities, as well as how to adjust their interview question structure and phrasing. This session will begin with an overview of best practices surrounding working with individuals with disabilities in general. It will then dive into forensic interviewing best practices and applicable research on interviewing children and adults with disabilities.
Interviewing and Working with Queer Youth: Understanding the Cultural Context
November 12, 2024
$50*
This session will cover the dynamics of interviewing and working with queer youth who are potential victims of violence or abuse. Topics discussed will include dynamics of abuse and violence in the queer community, barriers to service, historical context and power dynamics, risk factors, and suggestions for building inclusion into your practice, both on the individual level when interviewing queer youth, as well as the organizational level when working with queer youth in general.
*Scholarships may be available for advanced forensic interviewing sessions.
