This online assignment will help prepare you for the Child Interview Paper. Please check out the Child Interview Paper instructions posted on Canvas, watch the following three videos (note: the first two are about an hour long each), and then complete the assignment below.
Interviewing Children: Getting More with Less by Thomas D. Lyon:
Interviewing Children: Getting More with Less by Thomas D. Lyon (Links to an external site.)
Interviewing Children: Getting More with Less by Thomas D. Lyon
Forensic child interviewing technique with Dr David La Rooy:
Forensic child interviewing technique with Dr David La Rooy (Links to an external site.)
Forensic child interviewing technique with Dr David La Rooy
Interviewing the Child Client: Approaches and Techniques for a Successful Interview:
Interviewing the Child Client: Approaches and Techniques for a Successful Interview (Links to an external site.)
Interviewing the Child Client: Approaches and Techniques for a Successful Interview
Interview Script and Plan for Child Interview. In preparation for the Child Interview Paper, each student will write a scriipt to interview a child (age 7 or younger) and his/her plan to conduct the interview (e.g., who they are interviewing, how they are explaining the project to the parent, where they will conduct the interview). The interview is to be on a topic of the students choosing (e.g., birthday traditions, holiday celebrations, favorite activities), but CANNOT be on child maltreatment. The Interview Script and Plan should both be included. The plan will include examples of questions you intend to use in the interview. The scriipt must include how you plan to conduct your interview with the child. You may add anything else you feel will make a quality interview.
Make sure to read the CHILD INTERVIEW GUIDE (Links to an external site.) front to back before beginning or you are going to be confused!! There are really clear instructions, and examples of all of the different types of questions I am looking for. I also recommend that you
Please note that you can’t write about the response of the child because you haven’t conducted the interview yet, this is supposed to be you planning the interview. You will talk about your plan, and write out the questions you will use; then AFTER THE PLAN HAS BEEN SUBMITTED AND APPROVED, you will use this plan/scriipt to conduct the actual interview; and after THAT you will write a paper about it, which could include the response of the child to your interviewing techniques. YOUR GRADE ON THIS ASSIGNMENT INDICATES THAT YOUR PLAN HAS BEEN APPROVED BY THE INSTRUCTOR. Please look for instructor feedback in addition to the recommendations from our peers in the response posts.
The following must be included:
(1) Preparing for the Interview: Student articulates carefully considering age, development, special needs, and formulated transition questions. Student explains who they are interviewing, how they are explaining the project to the parent, where they will conduct the interview. Review the child interview guide and discuss how you have prepared and will prepare for the interview. Talk about all of the content there that is relevant to the child you are interviewing.
Link: (Links to an external site.)
(2) Introduction: Student identifies the need to introduce self, explain job and role, and listed get acquainted type questions to help the child feel more welcome and at ease. Introduce yourselves as social work students from FAU learning to help children and families! Here you will actually write the questions and remarks you intend to make when beginning this portion of the interview. Number them, bullet them, whatever way of organizing them that you choose is fine as long as you response stays in outline form. Continue through the outline in this way.
(3) Documentation: Student articulates the need to tell the child about the documentation method being used. and explaining the purpose of the documentation.
(4) Ground Rules: Student lists questions related to Truth/ Lie, giving the child permission to correct, informing the child you don’t know what happened and need to hear it from them, and giving the child permission to decline to answer “right not.” Examine the content directly from the Child Interview Guide, pages 10 and 11, about ground rules. I also recommend using the Truth v. Lie Task/Picture in the Appendix. In addition, the first video goes into this.
See this clip:
(Links to an external site.)
(5) Write a paper on the Rapport Building/Developmental Assessment/ Practicing Narratives:
Watch this portion of the video:
(Links to an external site.)
Student lists open ended questions, addresses neutral topics, asked a question about a special event beginning to end, ended this section with a statement reiterating the need for the child to tell only about things that really happened.
(6) Transition to Substantive Issues:
The student formulates specific questions for this section, which: suggest as few details as possible, emphasize that the interviewer wasn’t there, are contextually appropriate, narrow the focus a little at a time.
(Links to an external site.)
During the transition between the pre-substantive and substantive phases of the interview, a series of non-suggestive prompts are used to identify the incident under investigation. The interviewer would only shift to more carefully worded and increasingly focused prompts (in sequence) if the child did not identify the target event. If the child makes an allegation, the substantive or free recall phase begins with an invitation, such as “Tell me everything that happened from the beginning to the end as best as you can remember,” followed by other free-recall prompts, such as “Then what happened?” As soon as the narrative is complete, the interviewer prompts the child with cued invitations based on the child’s response in order to obtain incident-specific information. For example, the interviewer might say, “Earlier you mentioned a [person/object/action]. Tell me everything you can about that.” Or, “You mentioned that he locked the door. Tell me everything that happened right after he locked the door.” The interviewer may reference details mentioned by the child to elicit uncontaminated free recall accounts of the alleged incident. Only after exhaustive open-ended questioning should interviewers begin to ask more direct questions, such as “Where were you when that happened?” If important details are still missing at the end of the interview, interviewers may ask limited option-posing questions (such as yes/no and forced-choice questions referencing new issues the child may have failed to disclose previously).
(7) Investigating the Incidents: Questions the student lists here should fully maximize the use of techniques that encourage narrative response- including questions that separate, invite, elaborate, focus with time segmentation and sensory focus, and clarify and elaborate. The incident that you are investigating can NOT BE child abuse or neglect, you are NOT to ask the child to pretend that this has occurred. You can investigate their birthday, their most recent field trip, a party that they attended, etc.
(8) Use of Interview Tools: Student identifies one or two tools that may be useful in this particular interview and explain why they were chosen.
(9) Closing: The student identifies the need to thank the child for their efforts, talking briefly about a neutral topic, and inviting the child to call with any questions or thoughts.
