Other Training Opportunities

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Specialized Training

CornerHouse trainers provide seminars and training sessions that can be developed to meet the unique needs of specific audiences. This includes speaking at conferences, conducting agency in-services, or contracting for specialized training services. Areas of expertise include, but are not limited to: forensic interviewing; child sexual abuse; child witnesses to violent crimes; memory and suggestibility; and appropriate utilization of anatomical dolls. The cost for this training is generally $2,200.00 per day or $275.00 per hour for a negotiated number of participants. If your agency is interested in a Specialized Training, please contact, Training Assistant, Sandy Heitkamp @ 612-813-8310.

ChildFirst™ Training

The ChildFirst course is a five-day forensic interviewing course for prosecutors, law enforcement, child protection and forensic interviewers. It is presented, in partnership, by CornerHouse and the National Child Protection Training Center (NCPTC). The CornerHouse training model brings the expertise of trainers who are also practicing forensic interviewers, a research-based and developmentally flexible interview protocol developed by CornerHouse (RATAC®), a multi-disciplinary team approach to training, integration of pertinent research in the field, and an emphasis on outcomes through a written exam and interview practicum exercises. Attorneys and other staff from NCPTC bring expertise in legal aspects of the child abuse investigation including testifying in court, preparing children for court, corroboration, suggestibility and extensive research and case law knowledge. This collaboration makes the course truly multi-disciplinary in its design and execution.

The seed for the ChildFirst training may have been planted on October 10th, 1994 when Victor Vieth, the now Director of the National Child Protection Training Center came to CornerHouse as part of a team of six law enforcement investigators, child protection workers and a prosecutor from a rural Minnesota county. The team came to CornerHouse to learn the crucial skill of interviewing potential child victims so integral to the competent investigation of child sexual abuse cases. Vieth was so greatly impacted by the gravity of these cases and the tools he had learned at CornerHouse that trying and winning child sexual abuse cases soon became a paramount priority in his small county. Vieth believed strongly that the training he and his colleagues received at CornerHouse was instrumental in the county's dramatic success. Over fifteen years later, CornerHouse and NCPTC have an ongoing partnership to manifest our shared organizational goals of assuring high-quality forensic interview training is available and accessible to child abuse professionals.

Currently, one National ChildFirst™ course is held annually in November. For more information or to register, visit www.ncptc.org.

ChildFirst™: Train the Trainer

In partnership, CornerHouse and NCPTC execute a train-the-trainer program, assisting states and international entities in establishing their own 5-day, highquality forensic interview training courses, modeled after the original CornerHouse training program and based on the CornerHouse Forensic Interview Protocol RATAC®. This course has been replicated in 16 states: South Carolina, Indiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, Georgia, Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, Arkansas, Delaware, Virginia, Connecticut, Oklahoma and in the country of Japan. To implement the train-the-trainer program, CornerHouse and NCPTC work with state and local officials and child abuse professionals to develop state-of-the-art courses that are tailored to the unique dynamics of individual states or international entities. Following initial certification, every Child First program maintains an ongoing relationship with NCPTC & CornerHouse, to ensure continued, high-quality training courses.

If your agency is interested in bringing ChildFirst to your state or foreign country, you are invited to submit an application that can be downloaded from www.ncptc.org. Please contact Susanne Walters, Project Consultant, at 941-234-3058 to learn more about this exciting opportunity.

“The most complete training I have ever attended.”

— Training Participant

“I learned more from [my CornerHouse trainer] than from top experts in the field.”

— Training Participant