Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, welcome everybody. We are super excited today to have Jamie Vogt join us to talk about extended forensic evaluations. Jamie is near and dear to our hearts, but we're going to ask her to introduce herself to you just very briefly and tell us who she is and what she does, and then we're going to dig into something for which she's just an absolute expert these extended forensic evaluations. So, hey, jamie, how are you doing?

Speaker 2: 0:26

I'm fine. Thank you, Ron.

Speaker 1: 0:27

And so tell us all about yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:29

Okay, I am a licensed professional counselor in Oklahoma. I have been in this field for over 30 years and working with child abuse investigations, with a special focus on forensic interviewing and working with families in high-conflict divorce.

Speaker 1: 0:52

And so, Linda, you've been working with Jamie forever.

Speaker 3: 0:56

I don't even remember where we started. It's been that long.

Speaker 2: 1:00

Yeah, that's right, it's been a really long time.

Speaker 1: 1:03

So, linda, to help people understand why Jamie is just so amazing, can you tell us a little bit from your perspective? What is it that Jamie adds to our work as family law?

Speaker 3: 1:13

professionals, educated, trained, licensed, certified, all those things you want to say to do the extended forensic evaluations, and I don't know how broad a territory she covers, but she's the one I would trust, period.

Speaker 1: 1:46

So, jamie, can you just give us for someone who has zero idea about what an extended forensic evaluation is. Can you just tell us just generally, what is that?

Speaker 2: 1:53

Sure. The extended forensic evaluation evolved out of the necessity to develop a process that helps with children who are going to be interviewed regarding allegations of child abuse. It started with what we've learned in the forensic interviewing process about talking to children and asking about experiences that they may have had, to provide information that's going to help investigators determine whether actual abuse has occurred or not. I think the forensic interviewing process is a process that works well for children that are in active disclosure phase. In other words, they're ready to come forward and talk about their experiences. Forensic interviewing is a multi-phase process that helps children with recalling information and providing details again about experiences they may have, and those are what we call frontline forensic interviews. It's both forensically sound and therapeutically sensitive.

Speaker 1: 3:04

So what does it mean to be forensically sound?

Speaker 2: 3:07

It means that it will stand up to the rigors of the court questioning. It takes into account establishing the foundations for statements and that are supported by the research and literature on how kids talk about their experiences of abuse. And then the therapeutically sensitive is being considerate of what children may be going through at the time and which may impact their statements. For instance, they may be stressed, they may be upset, they may be developmentally delayed or they may have developmental concerns because, as we know, kids at different age have the ability, the cognitive ability, the developmental abilities, to talk about events differently and recall different information.

Speaker 3: 3:54

So how is the work that you do very different, or is it from the frontline people like Department of Human Services, the sheriff, police officers, detectives, that some people may have had experience with?

Speaker 2: 4:15

Sure, my initial training was in forensic interviewing and by the time that I left the Child Advocacy Center in Tulsa I'd interviewed over 3,000 children, and that process has been established again regarding the research, the literature, what we know about how kids talk about their experiences and the things that we need to be considerate of when we're talking to children at different ages and the expectations for what information children can provide at different ages. And we know that we also take into account issues of suggestibility and memory and how that applies to how we ask questions, how we provide opportunities for children to tell us about their experiences, because we know that children can provide very good information and they can be great historians of their events, and so we know they have the ability. But it's incumbent upon the interview to be sensitive to what kids can talk about and not set them up for failure or expect them to tell us about things that are past their developmental abilities and their cognitive abilities. So all of that is rolled into the initial forensic interviewing. But how the EFE differs is that we know sometimes kids are able to provide that information in a short amount of time or in a limited amount of time that is usually correlated with their attention span. So, for instance, very young children, preschool-age children, can probably handle a 15-minute, 20-minute interview. Elementary-age children can handle a little bit more like a 30-minute interview and older-age children can handle more. You know, an hour interview, hour and a half.

Speaker 2: 6:10

But again, we want to correlate that with their attention span. How long can they stay focused? How their energy level, are they able to continue focusing on the question? Are they too tired, et cetera. So, because that is limited, what the extended forensic evaluation provides is an opportunity to be interviewed in a more relaxed environment. We can take our time. We can help establish some basic assessments of understanding. If kids understand very basic developmental issues such as do they know colors, do they know numbers, can they participate in what we call a dialogue back and forth, so that we establish what we call communicative competency? Are you asking kids questions that they understand and are they providing you feedback and responses that indicate they did understand your question? And so there's not the rush oftentimes that is associated with the frontline forensic interviews, because they do have a limited amount of time to get the information and then to take next steps based on what happens in the child forensic interview.

Speaker 3: 7:30

And are they usually just one time.

Speaker 2: 7:34

The frontline forensic interviews are usually a one-time process, although nationally I think they have come to understand. Sometimes kids have so much information they need multiple sessions and so there are some interview models that look at multiple frontline forensic interviews. Usually they're done like a few days in a row and different. I think different CACs, child advocacy centers would probably have different criteria for what they determine is needed in multiple session frontline forensic interviews or just the one-time forensic interviews. But even those are different than the extended forensic interview process, which isn't just the interview, just the interview. It incorporates also documents, other interviews, caregiver interviews, information from mental health professionals, the DHS records, medical records, it may be SANE exams, for instance, it could be information from teachers.

Speaker 1: 8:49

So there's a multitude of information that goes into the final assessment of whether a muse did or did not occur, and so one thing that I've come across in the past is you may have a child who is too young to know what on top of or underneath of means that's a great point, because there is some assessments.

Speaker 2: 9:07

Yes, there are some assessments we can do in the EFE that the original frontline forensic interview doesn't allow time for.

Speaker 1: 9:16

Right.

Speaker 2: 9:17

And there are models that show that, but again, not everybody has the time to assess that.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Because that's a really critical distinction in some of the statutes for criminal sanctions. If a person was touched above the clothes or beneath their clothes and if you have one of those frontline evaluations where they didn't first establish the developmental capability of the child to differentiate between above or below, you may ask a child or suggest to a child inadvertently that the touch was underneath the clothes. When it turns out the child didn't even understand what that meant.

Speaker 2: 9:52

That's a very good point and you're right, there are some protocols that help establish that with children and not all interviews take the time to do that. But you're right, Inside, outside is very important. Above, below, those are all very important concepts for kids to be able to articulate and kids we know can be coached right. They can learn or follow a script if somebody were to coach them, and they can talk about words. Kids often do repeat words that they don't understand.

Speaker 1: 10:23

So do adults. Good point.

Speaker 2: 10:26

Good point, good points. I say the same thing about suggestibility. Very young children are suggestible. So are adults. Yeah Right, that's why we have grocery store aisles filled with all kinds of products you did not intend to buy when you walked in the store, but you walk out with a grocery cart filled with products that grabbed your interest.

Speaker 1: 10:44

You walk out with a grocery cart filled with products that grabbed your interest and I guess those caregiver interviews help you identify phrases or patterns of speech that you could then associate with what the child had said and say oh well, maybe this is parroting what the parent said, because it's how that parent speaks or talks about a specific situation.

Speaker 2: 11:02

Correct. There's a lot of information I gather from the parent or caregiver interviews because what I'm looking for is perhaps the conversations they've had with the child and how they typically experience the child and what they know about the child, their view of the child's statements, for instance, the actions they took when they initially became aware of the statements, et cetera. So there's a lot of information again about what the environment the child's been exposed to. That helps again put some of what the child's statements may come about in context.

Speaker 3: 11:41

That happens even just when we're doing regular therapy. Right exactly come about. In context, that happens even just when we're doing regular therapy, right when we do the intakes with the parents, we can tell a lot of that same verbiage comes out with the kid Right, exactly.

Speaker 2: 11:55

And you know, and it's interesting too, because all the information is important in the final assessment, because, for instance, I had one parent that talked about the child's limitations and they were very primitive in their drawings, et cetera, and this was for a very young child and then she presented to me, or actually during the evaluation, the child drew a picture for me that didn't match what the mother described as her typical drawings, for instance, that the mother brought to the interview, which didn't fit with what the child demonstrated in the session. So things like that, again, it's important. So you have some foundation for the opinion you do draw, based on what you've experienced with the adults. Okay, even though you're not evaluating the adults, it's all about the children and the children's statements.

Speaker 3: 12:53

So, Jybi, since you have so much experience and training with both kinds of forensic interviewing which is, just so people know, very rare, I think, for any licensed therapist to have training in either of those things. You know, I had some very sparse training many years ago from the DA's office, and it was basically what not to do, what not to talk to a child about, because there were people trained to do that Sure, and he made sure we realized that this was not a training for that. This is a training to teach you what not to do, and so I do know where that line is when I'm talking to a child about anything, and so you, more than I think anybody would, know where is that line. And I think a lot of our listeners don't understand why, what happens that makes it and who decides it too, that okay, there's been this first frontline forensic interview, but then why would there ever need to be another one?

Speaker 2: 14:15

So I think initially when the extended forensic evaluation was developed, it evolved out of criminal cases that there was concerns. Was there a crime that was committed here? I think, however, the EFE, a process that was developed, didn't withstand the rigors of the criminal court. There were too many therapeutic techniques involved and things that would be considered touchy-feely, for instance, that wouldn't translate well in a criminal court. So I don't know that it's been used much, if at all, in criminal courts. What we did find a place for the EFE was in family court, where it's very complicated. There's family members that are possibly involved, there's a lot of things that impact, you know, children's statements that may not rise to the level of criminal charges but could be, but couldn't be proven, but still raise a level of concern and the need for judges to be making decisions about a child's safety and the well-being of the child and the family. And I think that's where the EFE has found a home is better in family court.

Speaker 2: 15:46

And so how you would choose to then ask for an EFE was, if you had a child, go for a forensic interview and then the DHS and law enforcement could not decide from the child's interview if something occurred. They have concerns, but it doesn't rise to the level of substantiating an allegation of abuse or for the police to be able to file charges based on the child's statements. You may send that then to the trained interviewer for an EFE to gather more information over time, and where we often said we'll put the child in therapy and just see if the child says anything to their therapist and then we may pursue something down the road. Well, most therapists are not trained in forensic interview, so even if the child makes disclosures, the attack can be. Well, how did you ask those questions? What did you say? Did you read to a child a book about body safety, or a child that was traumatized by child abuse?

Speaker 2: 16:57

And now we have issues that I mean. Now we have questions about whether there's been suggestibility or are you affecting the child's memory, et cetera. So then the therapist gets attacked for just doing therapy. But somebody who's been trained in the EFE process is very aware of the statements and everything that occurs in those sessions can be critiqued and will be critiqued, which is why I video record all of my interviews so that all parties can see how I ask the question and then how the child responds, which is also very helpful, because behavior is often helpful in assessing how did the child make a statement and how did they behave? What facial expression did they make? I mean did they?

Speaker 2: 17:47

pull in? Did they withdraw? Did they act kind of like they don't care, like they were talking about a grocery list rather than a traumatic event? There's things that are powerful to view, and typical therapists are not going to record their individual sessions with a child. So, again, the whole process of the extended forensic evaluation is based on the fact this will probably go to the courts and everything will be critiqued, and so everything again needs to be forensically sound and therapeutically sensitive.

Speaker 1: 18:23

Oh, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. From the attorney perspective, I can understand that some parents may be thinking to themselves. It sounds like what you're saying is that this EFE is not rigorous enough or isn't capable of giving a result that would stand up under the criminal justice burden of proof around a reasonable doubt. And so why should we trust it in the family law system? But I don't. I don't understand you to be saying that necessarily.

Speaker 1: 19:00

And what happens, I think, is there. There are resting decisions and there's charging decisions. So you may have someone who you arrest or interview because you have a suspicion that maybe they molested reasons completely unrelated to the child's statements. There may not be a decision to charge a crime, but that child is still within a family system and the family court is still going to have to determine what to do next, even though there's this cloud hanging over that parent-child relationship related to the possibility of abuse. And so, even if you're not going to be using it in a criminal matter, you still have to go through the process of figuring out what to do with this family system and to touch on the different burdens of proof.

Speaker 1: 20:02

You've got proof on a reasonable doubt in a criminal case, depending on what you're doing in the civil matter. You may have preponderance of the evidence, which is just a little more than 50%. You can have clear and convincing evidence, which is a higher standard, either of which are as high as the proof on a reasonable doubt. So I think that's the whole sort of constellation of factors that you have to consider when thinking why would I have an EFE if the EFE isn't something that they're going to be using necessarily in a criminal case?

Speaker 2: 20:29

You know, I think the fact that this process doesn't necessarily fit with a criminal case has more to do with our legal system's demand for evidence, which makes sense I mean, you're talking about somebody's rights but also our court system wasn't developed with kids in mind. We've had to make adaptations to accommodate children, but the reality is we can't always get from kids what we need as adults to establish fact, to establish that they understand what they're saying or whatever. We have a wealth of literature, research, et cetera, understanding how children talk, about their experiences, et cetera, but the reality is it's still an adult court system that we're trying to accommodate children in. And just because a three-year-old doesn't have the cognitive abilities to provide witness identification and all the details that go into a cross-examination that would need to occur Because of our Sixth Amendment, right, you have the ability that the accused has the ability to face the accused's accuser Ron, you'd say that much better than I did.

Speaker 2: 21:55

But you know, under cross-examination a three-year-old's not going to hold up to that type of rigorous questioning, right? But yet that's the defense attorney's responsibility to advocate for his clients. So just because kids aren't to the developmental level of an adult brain and can't provide the details, et cetera. For us, that we would expect an adult to be able to do doesn't mean the child isn't being truthful and doesn't mean the child isn't talking about an experience that they've had. With their level of understanding and awareness of what they've experienced, very young children always don't understand. They've experienced abuse when they have, and they may have feelings about situations, but they don't have the language skills to describe what they've been through, but that's not their fault, right. But they don't have the language skills to describe what they've been through, but that's not their fault, right?

Speaker 1: 22:55

Our legal system has to do its best to accommodate the child, but it still leaves a lot of questions, and some of these questions can be answered with time and sometimes they just can't because the child development is not there yet, and although parents have a constitutional right to be free from unnecessary interference in how they raise their children, interfering with that right is much less of an intrusion into a person's life than locking them up for 20 or 30 or 40 years. And so it makes sense that what you said just makes perfect sense. And what's the alternative for the courts? I mean, do we say, oh well, the kid said it and so we believe it, or the kid said it, but we don't believe it? I mean, having this process, the CFE process, in place fits the family court system, which is designed with kids in mind, correct, unlike the criminal court system.

Speaker 2: 23:50

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. That's exactly right and it is absolutely imperative to have trained professionals that know how to do that and provide this opportunity for kids to tell us about their experiences and for the observers of the information be able to understand what kids are trying to tell us and be able to compare that again to tell us and be able to compare that again to the research and the literature about what we know about children telling us about statements and what goes to their credibility and the veracity of their statements. What fits with the research that tells us this. More than likely, this child is telling us about the truth or something that they experienced.

Speaker 1: 24:32

Yeah, and as an attorney, this is why I don't ever talk to kids. If I'm representing a parent, I don't like talking to children. If I'm the parenting coordinator, if I'm the guardian ad latem, I'm required to meet face-to-face with the children and talk with them. But I never want to be the one who's making a determination that should be made after an extended forensic examination because, despite having experience in talking with kids, I don't have anywhere near the level of experience or training that I would need to make this kind of determination, which is why, as a guardian ad litem in a case with alleged abuse, my first reaction would be I need Jamie or I need another person who can do an extended forensic evaluation so that I'm not making I'm not, I'm not messing up the information that's available to me, I'm not, you know, polluting the pool of information that's available to me, and then I just rely on what you're able to tell me and go with that, because it's better than what I could come up with on my own.

Speaker 2: 25:34

Well, and I appreciate that, because I think, again, that goes to explain why putting kids in the courtroom to testify is problematic. Right, because the people that are going to be asking these child questions are not going to be trained forensic interviewers in the courtroom. It's going to be the legal profession and, by no fault of their own, they're not going to have the same skills to know how to ask questions to elevate accuracy, whether their intent is to do so or not. But it's a problem. But again that's our court system not accommodating kids.

Speaker 3: 26:06

Well and the environment's scary enough for us adults. On the witness stand. My goodness, right, right. Yeah, it's all about that so what would both of you say to people who are listening in other parts of the United States, much less all over the world, because we do have listeners to our podcasts everywhere when there isn't a J-Main next door?

Speaker 2: 26:32

what do they do? That's a great question because I know the EFE process has taken a beating in courts and they're time consuming. They need strong professionals providing the EFB process and because they're scrutinized heavily, as they should be. But still it's a tough arena to work in. But it's the right thing to do for children and I don't know what the answer is to where they go. I mean, I've had requests from judges in surrounding states of Oklahoma contact me to ask if I could do an evaluation, and I have, because there's so few professionals trained in this it's hard to find them.

Speaker 3: 27:24

But then of course, then, and how do they Go ahead? How do the attorneys in family law and judges in family law know who is and is not trained?

Speaker 2: 27:35

like you, I don't know I've been asked if there's other parties that do the EFE. Sometimes I've conflicted out or there's a variety of reasons. They want to try somebody else and I don't know of anyone else to refer. I know of another psychologist trained in the EFE process, but I happen to disagree with the fact she doesn't record her interviews and I think that's a crucial part of this process to accommodate our legal system. So they know how I arrived at my conclusions and I'm very transparent about my work. I think that is crucial to being respectful to the families that are going through this and to the court system. That it's just important that I think again, that step occurs. There's no way around it, because you have to see how children talk about their experiences and you have to see what the evaluator did. For instance, me nodding my head when I'm asking a question is influencing, possibly, the child to answer yes, right. So you need to see everything from body movements.

Speaker 1: 28:47

And that's. You know, counselors, I think when you become a therapist, I think something physiological happens that makes your head nod the active listening skills.

Speaker 2: 28:57

The active listening right, right, but you can't do that in a forensic interview, because everything's critique and everything you know, you really pull apart the things that could influence a child's statement. As we know, three and four year olds are highly suggestible and as kids age they're less suggestible. But, like I said, even adults are suggestible. Our research supports that probably after the age of 10, they're no more suggestible than adults, but even adults are suggestible.

Speaker 1: 29:26

Right, and it's really critical from my perspective when I find out, as the attorney or guardian ad latem in a case, that a parent has suspected that a child has been abused and then, before doing anything else, talking to DHS or doing whatever they take the child to an individual therapist, then I'm thinking to myself oh no, because now I have no idea what to do with the information, because the mission statement of an individual therapist is so different from doing an EFE.

Speaker 1: 29:57

And it seems to me that the proper order has to be if you suspect that a child has been injured in such a way, you have to inform DHS, inform the police, have that extended forensic done if it's available to you, and only then, after you get the result from the EFE, does the individual therapist know what they're actually working with. Right, because if the parent does the intake with the child and the parent informs the therapist that the child was abused, well then now that individual therapist, their mission, given to them by the parent, is to help the child process the trauma, and that trauma is going to be possibly now, but the therapist has suggested it is.

Speaker 3: 30:43

Right and is Correct, Right and or they come with that mission of you need to find out more details so we can take this to court and perhaps get an emergency custody order against the other parent. I've been in that position a lot.

Speaker 2: 31:01

Right, and that's again the value of the EFE because it is recorded and at the very least it's for legal purposes and the courtroom should the attorneys need to critique how the answers were obtained. But it's also for therapy that it can be handed to the therapist to review, just like you were saying. The therapist can review it and see what the child said. You don't have to repeatedly ask a child and get the details to know what you're working with and what trauma the child may have experienced. Hopefully it's contained in that EFE process, the interviews and the report, which is not just for legal purposes, it's also for therapeutic.

Speaker 1: 31:42

And an individual therapist. The standard individual therapist will not stand up to cross-examination about any of this and I would say what do you all think? Maybe 80%, 90% of individual therapists if they find out court's involved, they're out the door.

Speaker 2: 31:59

They refuse right, Because it is a tough environment for therapists to work in the court.

Speaker 3: 32:07

I don't know how they are able to refuse if they did talk to the child, like you said, ron, in the middle of the process, where they didn't belong, and then they refused to go to court and say what they were asking the child.

Speaker 1: 32:26

Well, you can subpoena them and you can make them testify, but very often I think what you will get is unhelpful to everybody. Sure, in terms of the response, sure, I mean, it's going to turn into I don't recalls and I don't know, right, wow, and they're not taking. You know, their notes that they take after a session are summaries of what occurred and not the details of what occurred. And so if you try to ask someone to dig into the details of what got them to the summary, right, they very likely legitimately will not recall.

Speaker 2: 32:59

Right, right, wow, right Right Wow.

Speaker 1: 33:02

Thank you for joining us this week. As we heard from Jamie Vogt about the history of extended forensic evaluations, we learned what one is, when one may be appropriate, why one is maybe appropriate in family law settings when it's not in criminal settings. Next week, we're going to learn some more detail about the process that Jamie uses to make sure that her extended forensic evaluations are therapeutically sound and forensically appropriate. This is really important information for anyone involved in the family law setting, from parents whose child may be having an extended forensic evaluation to the attorneys, guardians, ad latem counselors, judges and other family law professionals involved in these cases. Thank you and have a great week.