Children help train abuse responders
The guests of honor at a serious-topic training seminar Wednesday donned flip-flops, hoodies and an occasional Superman cape.
About 15 volunteer children, ages 4 to 14, pitched in on the weeklong training seminar for people who will be a part of a team that responds to child abuse allegations in Butler County.
Held in conjunction with Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month, the mass training by ChildFirst Pennsylvania was the first single-county, mass training held in the state, said co-founder Jason Kutulakis of Cumberland County.
Typically, the organization holds the training at its home facility and different organizations send four or five people at a time to be trained in multidisciplinary skills related to forensic interviewing of children.
Denna Hays, executive director at Butler County Alliance for Children, explained that beginning Jan. 1 the state changed laws regarding child abuse, broadening the definitions of abuse and perpetrator. Because of this, the caseload in all county agencies is expected to increase about 50 percent.
Creation of The Butler County Alliance for Children, a nonprofit organization, and the mass training were, in part, results of those changes.
John Hertzog, who investigated child abuse allegations for the city for eight years before becoming a county detective, also is returning his focus to child abuse cases as a result. He previously investigated auto theft for the county.
“This is the best training I’ve been to,” he said. “It focuses on the child.”
Hays said one of the goals of the training is to have a child undergo a single videotaped, forensic interview by a trained professional just once. In the past, children could be asked to repeat their allegations up to 50 times.
“This is a child advocacy model,” Hays said.
The children who volunteered to help in the training spent time in the morning with a therapy dog and the police dog from the Butler County Sheriff’s Office.
The trainees, all mandatory responders because they are employed in law enforcement or social service, then used the skills they learned to try to determine how the children spent their mornings. This, in some cases, included drawing sketches of the dog.
Among those in attendance Wednesday were Butler County District Attorney Richard Goldinger and Assistant District Attorney BT Fullerton.
“I am 100 percent behind this,” Goldinger said. “Although the (videotaped) interviews won’t replace a child’s need to testify in court, this will result in reliable disclosures which can be used in prosecution or it can be used to prove that we never need to go to court in the first place because the allegations are unfounded.”
