Silent Tears Report:Findings & Recommendations

Victor ViethNational Child Protection Training Center

The Silent Tears Project

• Selected seven representative counties• Interviewed 166 front line professionals

(90 questions in 21 categories) with final notes exceeding 1,000 pages

• Developed an online instrument taken by an additional 404 professionals

• Every professional interviewed said their undergraduate or graduate training on child abuse was insufficient or non-existent

• This is true for law enforcement, prosecutors, child protection workers, mental health professionals, doctors, nurses, forensic interviewers, etc.

• This is consistent with 40 years of research

Inadequate undergraduate and graduate training

USDOJ Report

Reform undergraduate & graduate training

Undergraduate & Graduate reforms

• 26 undergraduate programs• 3 law school courses• An emerging online LLM • 1 medical school program • 1 residency curriculum• 2 seminary programs

Thirty-three CAST colleges, universities, law schools, medical schools, and seminaries

States with CAST universities or colleges

Inadequate training in the field

• Most professionals reported inadequate training continued into the field

• 64% of DSS workers said they had no undergraduate or graduate training on child abuse and 18 % said they had no training in the field

• Most professionals called for more training with a strong preference for experiential, laboratory training in small class sizes

Voices from the frontlines

“I don’t need anymore PowerPoint presentations—I don’t remember what’s on the slides. I need trench training.”

--Law enforcement officer

Training recommendations

• Minimal standards of at least 40 hours of training before being assigned to respond to child abuse cases

• Emphasis on experiential learning• A training facility to conduct “trench

training”• Training portal • Address unique needs of rural practitioners

Training facilities

Winona State University

Mock House

NCPTC Training Site

The collection of evidence: recommendations

• Crime scene photographs in every case• MDTs set a goal of at least 5 items of

corroborating evidence in every case• Within 5 years, conduct forensic/investigative

interviews within 2 hours of a report to the authorities

• Prosecutors involved throughout the case

Faith and child protection: voices from the silent tears report

• A number of child protection professionals lamented that church leaders keep child abuse “in house.”

• “Many perpetrators seek their victims through religious affiliations. Here at the Center we see many cases where churches cover it up. The minister, the faith community has covered up what happened by encouraging families to forgive and forget…”

Faith and child protection: voices from the silent tears report

• One victim of CSA was excommunicated because she “couldn’t forgive immediately.”

• One clinician told of a victim who called for 6 months but declined to give her name “because you don’t go against God” and claiming “pure children aren’t abused.”

Consistent with numerous studies

• 93% of convicted sex offenders are “religious” (Abel)

• The most egregious sex offenders are active in faith settings (Smallbone 2006)

• Most offenders use a religious or spiritual theme in the abuse (Vieth 2011)

• In review of 34 studies of 19,090 adult victims, the majority had spiritual injuries (Walker, et al 2009)

Faith can also aid in healing

• Religious and spiritual forms of coping “contribute to decreased symptoms, greater self esteem, and overall greater life satisfaction.” (Bryant-Davis 2012)

• Religiousness can moderate posttraumatic symptoms for child abuse survivors (Walker 2009)

• In a study of 2,964 female child sexual abuse survivors, researchers noted “significantly more posttraumatic symptoms” in survivors with no current religious practices. (Elliott 1994)

Military chaplains

Hospital chaplains

Fire department chaplains

Law enforcement chaplains

Corporate chaplains

How about…

Chaplaincy Training

Silent Tears and Prevention

Daro & Donnelly: When prevention falls short

• When proponents “oversimplify” or promote “singular solutions”

• Prevention is complex and will differ from community to community and thus puts prevention in the hands of front line professionals

• Silent Tears: coloring counties blue, prevention sentinels, prevention retreats (review of past cases, etc)

Many more recommendations

• Improving differential or alternative response• Juvenile sex offenders• Expediting legal processes • Improving mandated reporting

“Till the night be passed”

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to act is to act.” –Dietrich

Bonhoeffer