Brief Overview: Cases of child abuse involving a teenage victim presents its own unique challenges for prosecution. Understanding adolescent brain development is important for forensic interviewers as well as investigators and prosecutors. Preparing the case requires not only thorough investigation but thoughtful communication with a teen victim to obtain the facts of the crime and provide essential information about the prosecutor’s role and judicial process. This approach will facilitate building a strong criminal case for prosecution. Expert Presenter: Beth Merachnik, JD, serves as the Deputy Director of the Association of Prosecuting Attorney’s (APA) Child Abuse Prosecution Project. She is the…

Brief Overview: This session’s goal is to bridge work of the Duluth Model Coordinated Community Response (CCR) in conjunction with the Child Advocacy Center model. Domestic violence and child abuse maltreatment co-occurrence is exceptionally high in child abuse investigations. These cases are further challenging due to intentional or unintentional contamination of memories ensuring secrecy by a batterer. Multi-disciplinary team members and systems partners may not recognize protective factors utilized by survivors and/or the non-offending caregiver. This session will incorporate research on protective measures and the experiences of domestic violence survivors from focus groups conducted in Duluth, MN. The session will…