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So let's talk about some of the team members.Let's go through some of them real quick

Social services or child protection services?

They're the ultimate in family intervention

They conduct risk assessments, safety planning

They usually have access to resources,foster care, shelters

They have ongoing contact with the family, which is very valuable when we have regularly

scheduled multidisciplinary team meetings and then they have responsibilities

for any type of reunification and providing services

My brothers and sisters in law enforcement, they're responsible for determining if a crime has been committed

Evaluating crime scenes interview of all involved parties to include the victim

any witnesses as well as interrogation or interview of the perpetrator

They collaborate with the other law enforcement agencies typically

that we talked about whether it's locally task forces, federally

or what have you They are also have a role in overall safety and their ability

to engage street officers and to monitor and pay attention to different addresses

to bring various information, as well as arrest and detention powers

Usually law enforcement has those, as well as filing any cases, criminal cases

to seek justice or prosecutors, whether they be criminal prosecutors

or family court prosecutors, they usually lead the investigative effort. I'm going to share something with you

Different entities operate differently

Some of the most successful multidisciplinary teams internationally are led by a very engaged prosecutor.

Now, that's a separate discussion and a separate training.

But that is very, very important.

They have the ability to direct any investigation because of their knowledge of the law and procedures and your communities.

They are the ultimate or should be the ultimate promoters of justice

of the of the criminal civil court process, as well as as I've mentioned.

They know procedure, forensic medical professionals. And I want to put emphasis on forensic.

One of the things we have learned the hard way

and I come back I come my my years, you know, 15, 20,30 years ago

in the early days of the bathhouses and children's advocacy centers and multidisciplinary teams

it was our responsibility to get this address

We have learned a lot about forensic medical evaluations

not any pediatrician emergency room doctor or any just multidisciplinary teams doctor

not has the appropriate knowledge to conduct sexual abuse

or sexual assault exams or to make forensic and medical diagnoses as it relates to any type of physical injuries.

So that's a whole area of discipline.But I want to put an emphasis on them being forensic

whether they be nurses, whether they be doctors or whether they be physicians assistants

But their role and the collection of evidence and documentation of this evidence

all of their work is now guided by protocols and at the very core, they diagnose by listening to the victim.

And then they try to make sure that this child, when they leave the facility, is going to be okay.

Mental health professionals, what good is all of the effort, efforts, as I spoke earlier

if the child victim is not going to be okay?

There's a great argument to be had about that whole discussion about being victim sensitive

and the trauma of going through a criminal court process

We can make this process for children much more victim sensitive and much less traumatic

And our mental health professionals are going to help us with this.

I do a separate training when we talk about or i talk to my law enforcement colleagues.

Have you ever talked to a child who was rocking back and forth

or have you ever talked to a child who while talking, just stopped talking and stared at the ceiling?

Or have you ever talked to a child whose voice seemed to regress?

And then I asked my colleagues in law enforcement, do you not post PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder?

Do you know the behaviors that go?

And usually our first responders know about all those be Behaviors, but they don't understand the significance of them

That's where mental health professionals come in

and can help us address at every stage of our interventions what the child's needs

So they look at it from a short, medium and long term all the way into the court process

Very important.Very vital.

If we want to make sure that these children come out the other end of our intervention efforts

Okay. And then overall advocacy and continuously looking at our shelter systems

in our systems and how we're approaching this and ensuring that upstream the policies

and legislations and the needs of this child and family are being met

as well as meeting the needs for criminal civil process. Our forensic interviewers are important.

They are, whether you're doing them themselves

I used to do them before we created our dedicated forensic interviewers

So I know what it's like to conduct forensic interviewers interviews of young children

and how difficult that is.But it's important to find out what happened

It's at the very core of our criminal cases

And having an idea of what it is that we need to address, both a forensic medical standpoint

as well as a safety standpoint

And I already talked about the important role that a multidisciplinary team coordinator plays

So what are some of the benefits of multidisciplinary teams?

Obviously, the victim centered, victim focus, victims sensitive

We can build that into everything that we do.

But it's also makes for a better case investigation a more defensible case so far

as any type of attacks that may come during the criminal process.

We are able to share information back and forth

obviously maintaining confidentiality where appropriate.

It creates a more efficiency

I don't mean that we're losing information quicker

I mean that the information coming to us that we need to make the decisions and do what we need to do is infinitely more efficient

Everything is looked at from a multidisciplinary perspective

I'll put it to you this way

Is it possible that when a child victim relays what occurred during an exploitation event or series of events

that law enforcement's going to look at that differently than a therapist?

Is the therapist going to look at that differently than a social worker?

And the social worker is going to look at that differently than a prosecutor

And the answer is, yes, you're going to hear the same things

but you're also going to pick up on different things That's why multidisciplinary teams are important

That's why we need to work together.

It creates that more holistic approach to what it is that we're doing

So we'll have better cases, much better outcomes not only for the victim

but non offending caregivers So how do we get started?

I'm going to tell you, this is not going to be easy

I know there are some people out there that are probably telling you oh my gosh, this is going to be so easy

No, it's not gonna be easy

It is not going to be easy because there are a bunch of things that have happened that we've got to address

There may be turf issues

There's going to be past bad experiences between you disciplines

You're going to have to forgive one another, and we'll talk about that in later sessions

We need initially to select the right people to be on the team

You're going to need to have agency by end and for some agencies

not only at the direct service front line, but from supervision and administrator

There may need to be legislative changes in order to begin this process

We need to figure out what cases we're going to investigate

and each case has its own unique needs that we need to look at

So there's a lot of work that's going to need to go into this

But let's talk about how do we get started?

My recommendation is that some entity has the ability to bring everybody together into a room

and have a major presentation on What the multidisciplinary team process needs to be and do

Now there may be discussion about do we start with Children's Advocacy Center,a Barnardo's

or do we start with the multidisciplinary team? I'm going to recommend you start with a multidisciplinary team

You can't have a Children's Advocacy Center or Barnardo's without a multidisciplinary team.

So far as locations and sites, you can start that process literally tomorrow

collaborating and coordinating.Obviously, there are some things we need to talk about

The topic of where we're going to meet.Where we're going to have the forensic interview conducted

That's a much bigger and broader discussion

That would be how I would suggest you look at it, because you're going to need to look at your jurisdictions

You're going to look at need to look at locations and where are you going to place the actual facility

It is vital in the early stages as you begin this process that front line professionals are involved

I will give you a hint

You frontline professionals, please let your supervisor and supervision know when they are addressing this

They know what's happening in their communities.They know what they need

They need to be a part of this future planning that's going to directly impact their ability to protect these kids.

Okay.I had a wonderful police chief whenever we had decision making

that had to do with how we're going to intervene and work together and collaborate.

And he always wanted to make sure that I was a part of those discussions because he said, and he's correct

I'm an administrator as a chief of police detective. Mike is the one who does this day to day

Each one of these disciplines has people who do this day to day

They have got to be a part of this process. Once you have the presentation about how to do this and why it's important to do this

not only from a standpoint of meeting the needs of victims and families

but from the standpoint of better cases to meet the needs of the multidisciplinary team members

We need to plan to meet at least bi monthly.

No longer, no, no farther out than a month and begin the process of talking about next steps and what needs to be done.

And when you have this next meeting, you need to have a fantastic facilitator

because you're going to be dealing with numerous and some of them are pretty, you know

pretty obvious because we've been through this process before

But they're going to be some typical topics that are going to come up

Some of it, as I said, is going to be surrounding turf

Some of it is going to be bad blood.Some of it is going to be just how you know

because many of our disciplines are so focused on doing the work every day

they haven't really had a chance to vision or dream how we could do this in a better way

So it's going to take some skilled facilitation to get us there

There's so much more to talk about.Obviously, as I said, this is important

for your community, your jurisdiction,your country topic.

But multidisciplinary teams are the answer to meet not only than victim's needs for sensitivity and just and as well as justice

I want to thank each of you for all you have done

We often forget about that as we're planning for the future

but every single one of you have made a difference in the lives of children

And I want to thank you for all that you've done.I understand

I want to thank you for all that you are doing

But more importantly, I want to thank you for being willing to look at a new way

and evolution of how we're going to do a better job of meeting the needs of our our children

our teens, and our young adults to bring not only justice, but healing to all of these children and victims of sexual exploitation

until the next time.This is Detective Mike

Thank you for all you do