The Batterer As Parent: Implications for Court and Protective Practice
Lundy Bancroft
Men who batter, including those who are also abusive to children, are surprisingly successful at escaping accountability in court and protective processes. This workshop explains why the background, public image, and behavioral patterns common to abusive men help them to persuade professionals to shift the focus of responsibility to the victim, including blaming her for the children's statements or symptoms. We also look at how misconceptions about abusers can lead professionals to underestimate risk to children or to discredit bona fide reports of child abuse committed by domestic violence perpetrators.
The Child Sexual Abuse Disclosure War: How We Won the War But Lost the Peace and Why It Matters in Abuse and Domestic Violence Cases
Mark Everson, PhD
The Disclosure War was fought in vain. The war involved a dispute about the nature
of the sexual abuse disclosure process and, by implication, the nature of best
practice in child forensic interviewing. Our field decisively won the argument that disclosure is difficult for
many children and that delays, denials and gradual disclosures are common. However, during the dispute and its
aftermath, we made a number of unfortunate concessions concerning what is
considered to be best and accepted interview practice. The implications of
these concessions as well as possible remedies will be discussed.
Child Sexual Abuse: The African American Experience
The sexual assault of
children is unconscionable and unforgiveable. The experience is horrific,
terrifying and often leads to untold ramifications over the lifespan. When the
intersections of domestic violence, racism, sexism, and components of African
American culture are present, the untold ramifications compound exponentially. This
workshop will provide attendees opportunity to understand how the trauma of child
sexual assault impacts the childhood and adult life of African American
survivors, explore ways to engage the African American survivor and family,
reexamine the benefits of their current counseling/helping strategies, and
consider other assistive strategies that may be culturally appealing and
engaging.
CeCe Norwood, MA
Sex Offenders: Denial, Deception and The Seduction of Professional Staff
Anna Salter, PhD
This session will focus on how offenders use denial to undermine victims. It will review methods and techniques that offenders use to deceive victims, their families, therapist, jurors, and the community at large. The emphasis will be on methods that detect deception and on techniques which are widely thought to detect deception, but which do not. Finally, the session will review methods offenders use to seduce staff. This part of the session will be based on interviews with offenders who have seduced staff repeatedly in a secure setting.
A Study of Turned Around Cases
Joyanna Silberg, PhD
This presentation will share the results
of a case analysis of 27 custody cases involving the abuse of children. In
these cases, a judge initially ordered the children into unsupervised contact
with an abusive parent, and then a later judicial decision protected the
children from abuse. Applying her expertise on child trauma, dissociation,
and treating the child survivor to the case analysis, Dr. Silberg will
discuss what happens to children in court systems when they are abused
within the family and the family goes through a divorce. Concepts such as
parental alienation and coaching regarding sexual abuse will be covered.
Working with families to minimize the trauma will be emphasized, as well as
learning to differentiate between situations of high conflict and situations of
abuser-victim dynamics. Dr. Silberg will present recommendations
derived from this case analysis about how to approach allegations of abuse in
contested custody cases so that children are more consistently protected.
