    [Senate Hearing 112-841]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 112-841

     PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN--THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING CHILD PROTECTION
                                 PROFESSIONALS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   before the

                         SUBCOMMITTEE ON ADMINISTRATIVE
                            OVERSIGHT AND THE COURTS

                                     of the

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                          ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                                  MAY 23, 2012

                                   __________

                              Serial No. J-112-77

                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

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                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                      PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
    HERB KOHL, Wisconsin                 CHUCK GRASSLEY, Iowa
    DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California         ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
    CHUCK SCHUMER, New York              JON KYL, Arizona
    DICK DURBIN, Illinois                JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
    SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island     LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
    AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota             JOHN CORNYN, Texas
    AL FRANKEN, Minnesota                MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
    CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
    RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
                Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
            Kolan Davis, Republican Chief Counsel and Staff Director
                                     ------

            Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts

                       AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota, Chairman
    PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont            JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
    HERB KOHL, Wisconsin                 CHUCK GRASSLEY, Iowa
    SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island     MICHAEL S. LEE, Utah
    CHRISTOPHER A. COONS, Delaware       TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
             Paige Herwig, Democratic Chief Counsel/Staff Director
               Danielle Cutrona, Republican Acting Chief Counsel

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                        STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS

                                                                       Page

    Klobuchar, Hon. Amy, a U.S. Senator from the State of Minnesota..     1
    Grassley, Hon. Chuck, a U.S. Senator from the State of Iowa......     3

                                   WITNESSES

    Witness List.....................................................    33
    Hanes, Melodee, Acting Administrator, Office of Juvenile Justice
      and Deliquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice,
      Washington, DC.................................................     4
        prepared statement...........................................    34
    Vieth, Victor, Executive Director, Natinal Child Protection
      Training Center, Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota....    12
        prepared statement...........................................    41
    Johnson, Michael, Director of Youth Protection, Boy Scouts of
      America, Irving, Texas.........................................    14
        prepared statement...........................................    76
    Newlin, Chris, Executive Director, National Children's Advocacy
      Center, Huntsville, Alabama....................................    16
        prepared statement...........................................    81
    Smith, Stephanie, Southern Regional Director, National Child
      Protection Training Center, Northwest Arkansas Community
      College, Bentonville, Arkansas.................................    17
        prepared statement...........................................    90

                        QUESTIONS FROM COMMITTEE MEMBERS

    Questions for Melodee Hanes from Senator Grassley................    94
    Questions for Victor Vieth from Senator Grassley.................    95
    Questions for Michael Johnson from Senator Grassley..............    96
    Questions for Chris Newlin from Senator Grassley.................    97
    Questions for Stephanie Smith from Senator Grassley..............    98

                             QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

    Responses of Melodee Hanes to questions submitted by Senator
      Grassley.......................................................    99
    Responses of Victor Vieth to questions submitted by Senator
      Grassley.......................................................   103
    Responses of Michael Johnson to questions submitted by Senator
      Grassley.......................................................   108
    Responses of Chris Newlin to questions submitted by Senator
      Grassley.......................................................   117
    Responses of Stephanie Smith to questions submitted by Senator
      Grassley.......................................................   119

                    MISCELLANEOUS SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

    APSAC, Winter/Spring 2012, article...............................   122
    Center Piece, Volume 2, Issue 5, 2010, NCPTC, article............   126
    Center Piece, Volume 1, Issue 9, 2009, NCPTC, article............   132
    National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, Volume 22, Number
      1, 2009, article...............................................   136
    OJJDP, February 2000, bulletin: Overview of the Portable Guides
      to Investigating Child Abuse: Update 2000 by Janet McNaughton.
      Link: http://www.brycs.org/documents/upload/portableguides.pdf.   138

     PROTECTING OUR CHILDREN: THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAINING CHILD PROTECTION
                                 PROFESSIONALS

                                  ----------

                            WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2012

                                   U.S. Senate,
      Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the
                                                Courts,
                                    Committee on the Judiciary,
                                                         Washington, DC
        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m.,
    Room SD-226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Amy
    Klobuchar, Chair of the Subcommittee, presiding.
        Present: Senators Franken and Grassley.

     OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. AMY KLOBUCHAR, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
                         THE STATE OF MINNESOTA

        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you, everyone, for being here
    today. And I am so honored to have the Ranking Member of the
    Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Grassley, here today, as
    well.
        Today we are going to be examining something that is quite
    literally a life-and-death issue, child abuse, more
    specifically. We are going to be focused on the need to provide
    adequate training to people across the country who work with
    children every day, people who are on the front lines
    protecting our children, people who need to be prepared to
    prevent, detect, and respond to cases of child abuse. This
    includes doctors, law enforcement officers, court employees,
    teachers, social workers, family lawyers, and clergy--anyone
    who interacts regularly with children from a position of
    responsibility.
        These professionals represent far-ranging occupations, but
    they are also potential allies in the fight against child
    abuse.
        I spent eight years as chief prosecutor in Hennepin County,
    which is Minnesota's largest county, and I saw all types of
    horrible crimes, but it really was the faces of the children
    that stick with you the most. Those that were affected by abuse
    really stick out in my mind, whether they were direct victims
    of abuse or because they lived in violent homes and it affected
    them forever and ever.
        It was heartbreaking to see these children. So many of
    them, after they would be witnesses to horrible crimes or
    themselves victims of horrible crimes, would continue to be
    proud of how they would do in school, continue to work to
    pretend everything was normal when we knew it was not. And so
    that is why we are so focused on this issue of making sure that
    we are training people right who work with these kids every day
    so we can prevent this from happening to other children and
    that we can do our best to help the kids who are victims.
        I think of the two-year-old child who died in Minneapolis,
    a case that we had. The police found him naked on the bathroom
    floor, malnourished, dehydrated, and having suffered blunt
    force injury; or Benjamin Mitchell, who was just two months old
    when he died because his mom just stopped feeding him; Kyle
    Lawver from Minnetonka, Minnesota, who was three years old when
    he died from a skull fracture and other injuries he received
    from his mom's boyfriend.
        It is just impossible for most of us to imagine this in our
    homes, but, sadly, it happens every day. But we also know that
    there are good people who are in a position to help every
    single day, as well. All the people that I mentioned earlier,
    those occupations, they are there on the front lines.
        Sometimes they are called child protection professionals,
    sometimes mandated reporters, because they are required by law
    to report abuse. There is no doubt, in my mind, that
    practically all of these people want to do everything they can
    and to do the right thing to stop kids from being exploited.
        But there is an issue, and, that is, sometimes well-meaning
    professionals, well trained in their respective fields, are not
    adequately trained to recognize or confront child abuse.
    Sometimes they are trying to do the right thing, but it is not
    the right thing in terms of getting a child to be a witness, in
    terms of getting a child to tell the truth, in terms of trying
    to figure out what we can do to stop the abuse.
        Our witnesses today have dedicated large parts of their
    careers to child protection issues. They have investigated
    child abuse cases, prosecuted the criminals who prey on
    children, and work to train child protection professionals in
    the various skills needed to address child abuse.
        I am proud that the National Child Protection Training
    Center is in Winona, Minnesota, a beautiful town, not too far
    from Iowa. Right? That is the most important part about it for
    today.
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Klobuchar. But it also is a beautiful river town
    and the home of Winona State, which is a great college that we
    are very proud of in Minnesota. I have visited it many times.
    And we are going to be hearing from two people affiliated with
    the National Child Protection Training Center on our second
    panel.
        Among its initiatives, the training center has developed
    curriculums to be used at colleges, law schools and medical
    schools, and has directly trained thousands of professionals on
    child protection.
        We will also hear from a representative of the National
    Children's Advocacy Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The NCAC has
    also made great strides in the fight against child abuse since
    its founding in 1985 and holds the National Symposium on Child
    Abuse every year.
        The Department of Justice is, of course, very involved in
    protecting our Nation's children, as well, through the Office
    of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and other
    offices within the Department.
        But as I am sure we will hear from our witnesses, there is
    much work left to be done. That is why I am working on
    legislation that would seek to build on the efforts of NCPTC in
    Minnesota, the National Children's Advocacy Center, and the
    Department of Justice and others.
        I believe there are very few issues that get people more
    concerned when they look at the real facts. It is always easy
    to talk about the numbers and to look at the trends and to look
    at what is happening, but when you actually see the faces of
    these children, I know what they have been through and hear
    their stories, you get committed all over again to making sure
    that we are doing everything we can to have adults trained the
    right way so that they can detect this and actually help these
    children.
        So with that, I turn it over to our colleague from Iowa,
    not far from Winona, Senator Grassley.

       STATEMENT OF HON. CHUCK GRASSLEY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM IOWA

        Senator Grassley. The effects of child abuse are profound.
    They have far-reaching consequences. Abuse, if ignored, can
    harm the health and well being of our young people. Exposure to
    abuse and violence at any early age can affect a child
    throughout their entire lifetime.
        Research has shown, and as our experts here today will
    echo, that preventing and intervening in child abuse is a key
    to improving the world in which we live and maintaining strong
    and healthy families.
        We are discussing ways that we can enhance training to help
    child protection professionals better detect, report and
    process child abuse. It is an opportunity to listen to each
    other, to understand what programs exist and learn how efforts
    can be improved.
        The hearing will mostly discuss programs under Judiciary
    Committee jurisdiction. There are many worthwhile programs that
    provide training to help state and local entities, law
    enforcement, juvenile justice, and health care professionals.
        There are programs designed to help communities combat
    human trafficking and protect children from online sexual
    predators. The Amber Alert Act program is a great public/
    private partnership targeting efforts to respond to child
    abduction and missing child cases.
        However, there are other programs that help victimized
    children who have, unfortunately, been taken from their home
    that fall outside of this Committee's jurisdiction, but are
    still very important for the purposes of this discussion.
        One example, the Court Improvement Program supports states
    in their efforts to improve the way they handle children who
    enter the child welfare system. This funding, authorized under
    the Social Security Act, supports efforts to improve the
    quality of legal representation for children, to help reduced
    caseloads and update systems to be more efficient.
        The States' highest courts collaborate with child welfare
    agencies, and, together, work to achieve safe, stable, and
    permanent homes for children.
        I raise the issue of foster care because these young people
    in our child welfare system are most vulnerable to abuse. Three
    years ago, I helped, along with Senator Landrieu, establish the
    Senate Caucus on Foster Youth. The caucus is an avenue to bring
    experts together, raise awareness about the challenges faced by
    children in the foster care system, including issues
    surrounding educational stability, substance abuse, and sexual
    exploitation.
        We have heard from youth and we have learned from experts
    on ways to improve how we deal with child abuse and neglect
    cases that occur in that environment.
        This month of May is the designated month for foster care
    youth. It is fitting that we are having this hearing today to
    discuss improvements to our prevention and intervention efforts
    of all children, including foster youth.
        While these programs are vital to ensuring the safety of
    children, that does not mean that we should simply continue to
    authorize programs without serious review. Given the potential
    for duplication and overlap among programs, it is important
    that we discuss opportunities to reduce this duplication and
    overlap so we get more for our money. Doing so will ensure that
    the limited taxpayers' resources available will help as many
    children as possible.
        These programs are vital to protecting children from
    victimization, but any dollar that falls through the cracks or
    is misspent is a dollar that takes away from those that need
    help. This is especially important in the current budget
    environment.
        I am glad to have Melodee Hanes here, acting Administrator
    of the Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and
    Delinquency Prevention. She has a distinguished background that
    includes working in Iowa for a long period of time, serving as
    an assistant county attorney in Polk County. She has had an
    immense impact on children throughout the country, including
    many in Iowa, and is dedicated to helping ensure that they are
    not forgotten.
        I also look forward to hearing the from other distinguished
    witnesses.
        Thank you. And welcome, Melodee.
        Senator Klobuchar. Well, thank you very much. I was going
    to do the introduction of Melodee Hanes, but Senator Grassley
    has done such a good job. I would just, again, reiterate that
    she is the acting Administrator in the Justice Department's
    Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
        We are just glad to have her here and glad that she has
    such a distinguished career in prosecuting in Iowa, as well as
    in Montana.
        So thank you very much. Thanks for being here.

      STATEMENT OF MELODEE HANES, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, OFFICE OF
    JUVENILE JUSTICE AND DELINQUENCY PREVENTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
                        JUSTICE, WASHINGTON, DC

        Ms. Hanes. Thank you very much. Chairwoman Klobuchar,
    Ranking Member Grassley, thank you so much for the opportunity
    to be here today.
        As indicated, and for point of record, I am Melodee Hanes.
    I am the acting Administrator for the Office of Juvenile
    Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the Department of Justice
    and within the Office of Justice Programs.
        You have asked that I address the specific issue today of
    training for child protection professionals to recognize and
    respond to cases of child abuse. OJJDP has done much good work
    in that arena, and I am very pleased to be able to share that
    with you today.
        As we talk about child abuse investigation and prosecution,
    it is most appropriate to acknowledge that today we are
    commemorating National Missing Children's Day.
        OJJDP's mission is to provide national leadership and
    resources to respond to the needs of all youth who come into
    contact with the juvenile justice system. This means all kids
    along this spectrum, children who are on the front end, who are
    victims of abuse, neglect, exploitation, but, also, children
    who are on the back end of that spectrum who commit acts that
    cause them to fall into the criminal justice system.
        And what we have learned through 38 years at OJJDP, through
    our research, through our programs, through our experience, is
    that these are all the same kids, the ones on the front end and
    the ones that end up in the system.
        Studies indicate 55 percent of children who are abused or
    neglected are at risk to be arrested as juveniles; 96 percent
    are at risk of committing violent crimes.
        With statistics like this, it seems only a matter of common
    sense that the best practices in the investigation and
    prosecution of child abuse on the front end is going to go a
    long ways to save lives and resources on the back end.
        I can assure you, from my personal experience as a child
    abuse prosecutor for many years in Iowa and then in Montana,
    that effective multi-disciplinary investigations and
    prosecutions of child abuse by specifically trained
    professionals save lives.
        That is why excellent programs, like the National Child
    Protection Training Center at Winona State University in
    Minnesota, are so critical to this field.
        In fact, there were many times in the heat of battle that I
    would call Victor Vieth, when he was the director of the
    National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse, for a
    lifeline to help me in matters that were beyond my expertise.
        The research and work that we have done over the years at
    OJJDP focuses on finding the best practices through evaluation
    and science to really know for a fact what works and what does
    not work. It is our Congressional mandate at OJJDP, then, to
    share that information with the field through training.
        We have done just exactly that with regard to investigation
    and prosecution of child abuse cases, and I am happy to say we
    have supported training in the field to law enforcement
    officers, prosecutors, judges, and child advocates.
        Our training covers the whole spectrum of important topics
    regarding investigation and prosecution of child abuse. It
    includes the investigation and prosecution of physical abuse,
    of neglect, of sexual abuse, and identification and assistance
    to children who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation.
        We have provided training on the investigation and
    apprehension of perpetrators of Internet crimes against
    children. And we have assisted in training for search and
    recovery of missing children.
        We provide these training opportunities to child abuse
    professionals through several of our initiatives. And I cannot
    go into detail about all of them, but I would like to mention
    them.
        Defending childhood: a significant and major initiative of
    this attorney general to reduce the incidence of children's
    exposure to violence by encouraging communities to work
    together collaboratively, in a multi-disciplinary fashion, to
    reduce exposure to violence.
        The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces: There are
    61 that we support across the United States and territories.
        The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: the
    Congressionally designated resource center to help in the
    investigation of children who are missing or exploited.
        Amber Alert, as was referenced in your opening statement:
    the nationwide initiative that requires states to implement and
    maintain a plan to deal with missing children, as well as the
    model courts program and our Tribal Youth Program to provide
    best practices in Indian country for the investigation and
    prosecution of child abuse.
        Even though we have limited budgets and the constraints on
    funding have caused us to tighten our belts, OJJDP programs
    aimed at enhancing the prosecution of child abuse cases and
    protecting this Nation's children are a top priority of this
    Attorney General.
        It is our firm commitment at OJJDP to continue this work
    despite the challenges because it is our belief that working
    together, we can make a difference for America's children.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Hanes appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
        Senator Grassley, do you want to start with questions?
        Senator Grassley. That is nice of you. Thank you very much.
        You testified that OJJDP currently supports nearly 50
    projects that provide multi-disciplinary training on a broad
    range of child protection issues.
        I would like to know how the Department determines if these
    projects are successful and how it takes what is learned and
    shares it with others.
        Does DOJ conduct an internal audit or audits to ensure that
    grant recipients are using evidence-based practices for
    responding to child abuse?
        Ms. Hanes. Senator, we, as I indicated, have, obviously,
    tight budget constraints in these days. We want to make the
    best use of every single dollar, and implementing performance
    measures with every one of our grants is something that we do
    as a matter of course at OJJDP.
        But it is also particularly a focus of this Attorney
    General to rely on those things that work through robust
    evaluation, through science, that can tell us specifically the
    programs that work and those that do not.
        A good example would be the Zero-to-Three courts that I
    think, Senator Grassley, you assisted in obtaining
    discretionary funding for in Polk County, Iowa. We know through
    evidence and research and performance measures in that program
    that, in fact, it does work and improves the outcomes for young
    children that go into foster care.
        So it is a top priority of this Department that we rely on
    science-based programming, and then it is our job to
    disseminate that to the field.
        Senator Grassley. Do you know of any consolidation or,
    maybe better, are there any opportunities for consolidating any
    of the programs under your purview with other Federal funding
    initiatives?
        Ms. Hanes. Yes.
        Senator Grassley. And I would say efficiency purposes
    maybe.
        Ms. Hanes. Absolutely. And, again, because we have
    tightening budgets, we have looked for ways to really leverage
    with other divisions within the Department. A great example is
    Defending Childhood. That is targeted at reducing children's
    exposure to violence.
        We released study findings in 2009 indicating that 60
    percent of children in America are exposed to violence. To
    address this problem, we worked very closely with the Office of
    Violence Against Women and Community-Oriented Policing, the
    Office of Victims of Crime, and we sat down together,
    identified our individual funding streams.
        For example, at OJJDP, this targeted toward the courts. At
    OVW, their funding stream is targeted toward kids who are
    exposed to violence in a domestic violence situation.
        We pooled our various streams of funding to complement each
    other into a river of funding for one primary objective, and
    that is to reduce children's exposure to violence. We worked
    together to draft, together, a solicitation. It was awarded to
    eight sites. And together, I am happy to say that these
    agencies still meet as one to make sure that there is proper
    oversight and implementation of the project.
        Senator Grassley. On another issue, since teachers are
    required by law to report suspected child abuse and they,
    obviously, at least nine months out of the year, observe
    students every day and are in a position to notice changes,
    could you tell me how you think how effective are teacher
    reporting laws and what additional training may be necessary to
    provide to teachers to ensure that they report suspected child
    abuse to the proper authorities?
        Ms. Hanes. Mandatory child abuse reporting laws were really
    the turning point for the onset of prosecution and
    investigation of child abuse cases. The importance of those
    laws cannot be overstated. And the training of teachers is, in
    part, our responsibility, along with the other Federal agencies
    that we work with, to assure that it is state-of-the-art
    training to help teachers identify, to properly understand the
    dynamics of children who are neglected or abused or being
    exploited, and to make the proper reports.
        Senator Grassley. Thank you.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much, Senator Grassley.
        Welcome, Ms. Hanes. Thanks for being here.
        First of all, I know that the funding for the Office of
    Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has been reduced in
    recent years. How have the cuts affected your ability to train
    child protection professionals?
        Ms. Hanes. Thank you, Senator. We have seen a reduction of
    50 percent since the day I walked in the door in 2009. That is
    a significant reduction in funding.
        We have had to make incredibly difficult choices about what
    we are able to fund and what we are not. And our inability to
    fund some programs does not reflect on the fact that they are
    excellent or state-of-the-art. It is just simply a limited
    amount of resources.
        So we have experienced a significant reduction in what we
    are able to do. The good news is we have learned to do business
    a bit differently and we have started to leverage private
    partnerships.
        We learned last year that 60 percent of students in Texas
    were expelled or suspended at least once, and the Attorney
    General made it a priority to address that issue, because those
    kids then tend to channel into the juvenile justice system.
        We were able to form new partnerships we have never done
    before with Atlantic Philanthropies, with the California
    Endowment, as well as with the Department of Education.
        So we have learned to do more with less. It has been
    difficult and challenging and restricted our ability to provide
    proper training.
        Senator Klobuchar. Last week at our Judiciary Committee,
    FBI Director Muller testified and I discussed with him the
    resources the agency, FBI, dedicates to child protection,
    including child abduction rapid deployment teams, the Innocence
    Lost national initiative, and the Innocence Images national
    initiative.
        We found out there that the FBI has only four expert child
    forensic interviews. So they are in a lot of demand across the
    country. They do good work, but there are only four of them.
        I know you are not at the FBI, but do you think that the
    DOJ offices, including the FBI, given those numbers, and, also,
    other segments of the department, could benefit from broader
    collaboration with places like the National Child Protection
    Training Center and the National Children's Advocacy Center?
    Because I am thinking if these numbers are so low, even though
    they are very well-trained agents and in demand, that maybe
    there needs to be some more coordination with the specialized
    training institutes, maybe a wider availability of training
    opportunities on skills such as forensic interviewing.
        Ms. Hanes. While there may be four child forensic
    interviewers at the FBI, there are 12,500 police departments
    across this country. We can just hardly do enough to provide
    training to all of those officers.
        There are 2,300 state prosecutors' offices that handled
    over 2.9 million felonies since 2007. It is hard to overstate
    the necessity to be able to provide the important specialized
    training for the investigation and prosecution of child abuse.
        I know from experience in the courtroom in Iowa that the
    absence of those skills, the inability to know what to do and
    how to investigate a case--I can tell a dozen stories.
        Senator Klobuchar. Do you want to tell one?
        Ms. Hanes. Yes, I do. When I was a brand new lawyer in 1987
    in Polk County, Iowa, there was a five-month-old baby,
    Jonathan, who suffered burns over 50 percent of his body and it
    was clear that the mother's live-in boyfriend had inflicted the
    injuries. And Jonathan was taken to the hospital, where he
    fought for his life.
        And over the next three days, the law enforcement
    authorities fought with the juvenile justice--or the juvenile
    court investigators over who needed to go out and do this
    investigation.
        In the meantime, mom reconciled with the boyfriend. The
    evidence was destroyed. And a couple of months later, Jonathan
    was returned to this home. Six months after that, another
    physical abuse allegation was received, again, the same
    perpetrator and the same child subjected to that.
        At that point, in Polk County, we decided we are never
    going to let that happen again, and so we began to seek out
    best practices, like multi-disciplinary investigations and
    working together, some of the practices that we at OJJDP
    provide training for, and it made a vast difference in reducing
    the number of Jonathans in Polk County.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you, and thank you for doing that.
        One last thing. Despite that story and the stories of
    improvement that I know we saw in the State of Minnesota, as
    well, with the training--and we are so lucky to have the Winona
    Center right in our state. But according to the Fourth National
    Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, only 50 percent of
    the Nation's identified abused children in 2010 actually had
    their cases investigated.
        What kind of training do you think that we need to provide
    to improve these numbers?
        Ms. Hanes. The training needs to be broad-based and
    multifaceted. Child abuse is complex and investigating these
    cases and prosecuting them requires a sophisticated level of
    expertise. Often it involves complex medical evidence and
    difficult evidence to acquire.
        And so the training is really necessary across the spectrum
    from the first investigator that receives the report, of
    understanding the dynamics of child abuse through the police
    officers, the CPI workers, the courts, the prosecutors, the
    defense attorneys, and then, on the back end, anybody who is
    working with the family in recovery and trauma-informed care.
        It is by far not simple and it is ultimately one of the
    most important things we can do for our children.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much. Thank you for your
    good work.
        Senator Franken.
        Senator Franken. Madam Chairwoman, I would like to thank
    you for your leadership on this issue. From your days as a
    prosecutor in Minnesota to your days as a Senator, you have
    been a champion for the children of our State.
        I am proud to cosponsor your Child Protection Training Act,
    and I would like to recognize all the hard work you have put
    into that bill.
        Your last remark about how hard this is, so important to
    this hearing. The Federal Government estimates that there are
    more than 750,000 instances of child abuse each year. Of
    course, one instance of abuse is one too many, but 750,000
    instances is just hard to wrap your head around.
        The Chairwoman's bill will address this problem by creating
    a national plan and a national commitment to train people how
    to recognize and report abuse, and that, I think, speaks to the
    complexity that you are talking about.
        This is a complex issue and people need that training to
    come in at the beginning and address it and to prevent--
    hopefully, to prevent more Jonathans.
        Thank you for your testimony, Acting Administrator Hanes. I
    am interested in the Defending Childhood initiative that you
    described. As I understand it, that initiative is intended to
    address children's exposure to violence.
        I sit on the Indian Affairs Committee and I have heard
    testimony about the cycle of violence in many communities.
    Children who are exposed to violence are more likely to commit
    acts of violence when they become adults. And you talk about
    the complexity of this.
        We are talking about, on reservations, the pathologies that
    come from cultural trauma. We are talking about drug abuse,
    alcohol abuse, talking about mental illness.
        Can you talk a bit about the Defending Childhood initiative
    and how it would go about breaking the cycle of violence?
        Ms. Hanes. I would be delighted to, Senator Franken. Thank
    you.
        The Defending Childhood initiative began in 2009 as a
    result of the study that I referenced earlier that OJJDP did in
    conjunction with the Center for Disease Control, indicating
    that 60 percent of children in this country are exposed to
    violence in the home, school or community.
        And it is not just a bad result in terms of criminal
    justice, as you referred to it, but it is a bad outcome for
    these kids. Research indicates that they suffer psychological
    damage, emotional damage, but, also, and importantly, physical
    consequences.
        These children seem to have much significantly increased
    physical problems, as well. So it becomes not just a criminal
    justice issue, but a health issue for our children.
        In response to the study, the Attorney General, carrying on
    really what he began as Deputy Attorney General in 1999 with
    Safe Start, began the Defending Childhood initiative. And it is
    a demonstration project, a collaboration, as I explained to
    Ranking Member Grassley, between several divisions, where we
    fund eight sites to encourage the community to develop a
    strategic plan to work together, in a multi-disciplinary way,
    it takes a village, to reduce the incidence and impact of
    children's exposure to violence.
        We have proceeded beyond the strategic planning and now
    eight sites are implementing those plans and we are providing
    assistance to them. Two of those sites are, in fact, in Indian
    country in South Dakota and in Montana.
        At the same time, we are providing assistance to each of
    those sites with the best practices that we can give them
    across the spectrum of the children's exposure to violence,
    whether it is domestic violence, whether it is in the schools,
    whether it is gangs in the community.
        We are arming these sites with the best practices that we
    have from our research to implement them in their communities
    to reduce the exposure to violence. And we are also evaluating
    the sites at the same time to assure the best value for our
    investment.
        Additionally, the Defending Childhood initiative has
    another component that I would like to share with you, and that
    is the Task Force on Children Exposed to Task Force on Children
    Exposed to Violence. It is a task force appointed by this
    Attorney General of 13 of the best and brightest experts across
    the Nation to look at the issue of children's exposure to
    violence in this country, including in Indian country.
        They have conducted four hearings across the United States,
    and we expect them to make findings and recommendations to the
    Attorney General, hopefully by the end of the year, with
    concrete next steps of what we call can do to reduce children's
    exposure to violence.
        Senator Franken. Thank you. My time is out. I would just
    like to make two comments.
        This is why, in VAWA, I think the element of Indian country
    is so important and I also think why it is so important, again,
    in VAWA, that we have transitional housing and enough
    transitional housing when there is domestic violence so that a
    mother can take her children out of a setting where there is
    violence.
        And I think that we have to remember how much we do pay
    down the line for this, and it is penny wise and pound foolish
    not to be funding these programs.
        So I thank you very much for your work.
        And I thank you, Madam Chair, for your work in this and
    leadership.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
        I think Senator Grassley had one more question. Oh, you are
    okay. Thank you.
        All right. Well, thank you very much, Ms. Hanes. It is very
    informative, and thank you for your work you have done with
    kids for so many years.
        Now, we are going to bring up our second panel. Thank you.
        Alright, well thank you all for being here. I am going to
    introduce each of you and then we will have you get started.
        First, we have Victor Vieth, a friend. He serves as the
    Executive Director of the National Child Protection Training
    Center at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota.
        Before his work with the center, he prosecuted child abuse
    cases in rural Minnesota and the American Bar Association, the
    National Bar Association named him one of the 21 young lawyers
    leading us into the 21st century.
        Mr. Vieth has trained thousands of child protection
    professionals and written extensively on the issue of child
    abuse. I remember, as Hennepin County attorney, being able to
    be there when they inaugurated the center. He has done great
    work and we have worked very hard to keep that center strong.
        So thank you for what you are doing on behalf of thousands
    of kids who are never even going to know that you helped them.
        Michael Johnson joined the Boy Scouts of America in July
    2010 as its youth protection director. From 1982 until 2010, he
    served in the Plano, Texas, Police Department in a number of
    different capacities. In 1988, he began focusing exclusively on
    the investigation of crimes against children.
        Mr. Johnson serves on the board of the American
    Professional Society on the Abuse of Children and has worked to
    change state laws with respect to child abuse.
        You should know, Mr. Johnson, that my in-laws were scout
    leaders and that, in fact, my husband and his five brothers
    were very involved.
        Five of the six boys, Senator Grassley, became Eagle
    Scouts, and I never like to say which one did not make it,
    because I do not like to embarrass my husband.
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Klobuchar. So in any case, we welcome you here
    today. He rebelled and disobeyed.
        Next, we have with us Chris Newlin. Chris has been the
    Executive Director of the National Children's Advocacy Center
    since July 2005. He was formerly the Executive and Clinical
    Director of Harbor House, which is the Northwest Georgia Child
    Advocacy Center in Rome, Georgia.
        He is a former board member of the Georgia Association for
    the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, and the former president of
    the Children's Advocacy Centers for Georgia. He also served as
    a counselor and forensic interviewer at the Children's Advocacy
    Center's Services of Greater St. Louis.
        Thank you for being here, Mr. Newlin.
        And then, finally, we have Stephanie Smith. Stephanie Smith
    is the Southern Regional Director for the National Child
    Protection Training Center at Northwest Arkansas Community
    College in Bentonville, Arkansas.
        From 1998 until 2009, she served in the Hamilton County,
    Indiana prosecutor's office, specializing in crimes against
    children, including physical and sexual abuse, neglected, and
    Internet-related offenses.
        Ms. Smith was also a member of the advisory board for
    Project Safe Childhood, which was a Department of Justice
    effort, which we just heard about from Melodee Hanes, to
    promote education about the dangers for children on the
    Internet.
        Thank you all for being here. And we will start with Mr.
    Vieth.

     STATEMENT OF VICTOR VIETH, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CHILD
     PROTECTION TRAINING CENTER, WINONA STATE UNIVERSITY, WINONA,
                               MINNESOTA

        Mr. Vieth. Thank you, Senator Klobuchar.
        Two weeks into my career as a prosecutor, I was asked to
    litigate a termination of parental rights case. The most
    dramatic moment of that trial came when a young social worker
    was grilled by the defense attorney about all the things he did
    wrong during the investigation.
        When cross-examined about removing the baby from the home,
    something he lacked the legal authority to do, the social
    worker began to cry and said, ``The baby was covered with
    maggots. I didn't know what I was supposed to do.''
        None of us in that case knew what we were supposed to do.
    And absence of training on child abuse at the undergraduate and
    graduate level, a shortage of quality training for
    professionals in the field left us to figure it out as we went
    along.
        Twenty-five years later, many communities face the same
    struggle. To address this, I would like to focus on two
    reforms.
        First and foremost, we must end on-the-job training for
    future child protection processionals. Both research and the
    near universal experience of frontline child protection
    professionals confirm that very little, if any, instruction on
    handling these cases is provided at the undergraduate or
    graduate level.
        As a result, many professionals in the field go years
    without being fully trained on even the most basic aspects of
    handling a case of child abuse. When this happens, cases are
    not properly investigated or are not investigated at all.
        According to the most recent National Incidence Study, 70
    percent of the most serious cases of child abuse identified by
    NIS researchers were not investigated.
        To address this, Winona State University examined many of
    the best training programs for professionals in the field and
    partnered with the National Child Protection Training Center
    and the National District Attorneys Association in developing
    an intensive interdisciplinary minor called child advocacy
    studies, or CAST. We have also developed CAST graduate programs
    for medical schools, law schools, even seminaries.
        These courses have dramatically improved the knowledge and
    skills of these professionals. We have replicated CAST in 27
    institutions of higher education from 17 different states, with
    the realistic goal of 500 CAST universities by 2018.
        Second, we must realize that although there is a role for
    national child abuse conferences and providing ongoing training
    for professionals in the field, the most effective training
    will always be at the state and local level.
        Ten years ago, there were a number of high-quality forensic
    interview training programs offered by CornerHouse, APSAC, the
    National Children's Advocacy Center, and other stellar
    organizations.
        Unfortunately, the intense nature of these courses limited
    the class size to no more than 40 professionals and, thus,
    impacted only hundreds a year. But beginning in 2000 and
    continuing until today, the National District Attorneys
    Association and now the National Child Protection Training
    Center worked with CornerHouse to establish five-day forensic
    interview training programs that met national standards, but
    that were taught at a State level.
        Twenty States implemented the reform and very quickly we
    went from training hundreds a year at the national level to
    training thousands a year at the State level.
        A forensic interviewer who graduated last year from our
    Pennsylvania course wrote us, ``What an amazing week. Wednesday
    night at dinner, I told my team members that the most
    incredible transformation had happened. I've gone from feeling
    like I was pretending to know what I was doing to a feeling of
    competence. You have no idea how much that means.''
        When discussing these and other reforms, we must keep in
    mind that high-quality training is the determining factor of
    whether or not many children will be spared from abuse.
        As one example, a child protection worker who went through
    one of our State trainings, she wrote us, ``Right after your
    training, I had a new sexual abuse case at the homeless shelter
    where a five-year-old was the victim. The police officer was
    floored at what I was able to now get out of the child without
    asking one leading question. When we were done, I told him we
    needed the clothing, we needed the photos of the room. This is
    the first case in our county where this type of evidence will
    be available to the prosecution. Thank you so much for giving
    me the knowledge I needed to do it right.''
        Senators, in empowering frontline child protection
    professionals like that to do it right, we will speed toward
    the day our country can say to hurting children, in the words
    of Aeschylus, ``Suffering, when it climbs the highest, lasts
    but a little time.''
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Vieth appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
        Mr. Johnson.

    STATEMENT OF MICHAEL JOHNSON, DIRECTOR OF YOUTH PROTECTION, BOY
                    SCOUTS OF AMERICA, IRVING, TEXAS

        Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Senators and Ranking Member,
    Senators Grassley and Franken. It is a pleasure to see you and
    meet you.
        I realize that I am the guy who responds at two in the
    morning when there is a shaken baby case. I am the guy that,
    when that child is sexually assaulted, I am the police
    detective, along with my child protective services colleagues,
    that responds.
        Frankly, our country needs solutions to abuse and
    exploitation of youth--professionals that are highly trained to
    prevent, respond and protect our youth.
        I am a 28-year law enforcement veteran. I investigated, as
    a detective, 24 years, primarily the area of child abuse and
    neglect and exploitation.
        I am a founder of our local children's advocacy center, its
    multi-disciplinary team, and I helped create a family violence
    unit protocol for ours. So we were not just looking at child
    abuse. We were looking at all issues that occur within the
    home.
        I have interviewed, responded, investigated, interrogated
    all aspects of victims, witnesses, and perpetrators of all
    types of abuse and exploitation of our youth. I have trained
    thousands of law enforcement investigators and child protective
    service workers, prosecutors, advocates, therapists, both
    nationally and at my colleague--a national conference in
    Huntsville, Alabama, the APSAC, San Diego Children's
    Conference, all the national conferences.
        I have trained at both State and regional levels, some of
    the most effective trainings I have been involved in, over 300
    in my 12-year training career, at local levels in communities.
        Senators, why am I here? The safety of our children
    mandates that every jurisdiction in America be able to respond
    effectively to child abuse, maltreatment and exploitation with
    highly trained, fully functional investigative multi-
    disciplinary team members.
        When I began investigating abuse, little or no training was
    available and there was no support system, somebody that you
    could call. So at two in the morning, when I needed somebody to
    call, I was dependent on the other detectives or maybe a
    prosecutor who was nice enough to give me their cell phone
    number, and we would muddle our way through it.
        I came to realize that abuse investigation needed training
    in numerous areas prior to being assigned their first case, and
    I think that is important for all of us to remember. They need
    to be trained prior to their first case.
        I had to have knowledge in the areas of evidence, evidence
    collection, forensic interview of children, adolescent victims,
    youth and adult witnesses, non-offending caregivers, the
    dynamics involved in neglect, abuse, perpetrator dynamics,
    typology, deception, abusive head trauma, you name it, all
    prior to my first assignment.
        Thus, when I first became a child abuse detective, I, quite
    frankly, had no idea what I was doing. The answer for what we
    need was clearly summed up in the testimony that I submitted,
    an article by Robert Giles, in which he makes a compelling
    argument for the importance of multi-disciplinary
    investigations.
        Unfortunately, it is not enough to form an MDT. Those team
    members must be properly trained.
        If you were to then follow up with these same
    professionals--when I present at national conferences, I
    usually will ask the question of my law enforcement colleagues,
    ``How many of you are adequately, properly trained before first
    assignment?''
        Of 100 law enforcement officers, all of them typically will
    raise their hand and say that they were not adequately,
    properly trained before their first investigative assignment.
        If you were to follow up with those same investigators
    three years later, that number would be the same. This is
    fundamentally unacceptable.
        There are three things that we need to do to address this
    issue. First, we need to increase and create, actually,
    undergraduate and graduate programs to provide proper education
    and training.
        Number two, we need large regional conferences and not rely
    solely on national conferences for these trainings. The best
    trainings occur at the local level where we can address the
    specific issues of that community, address the specific laws
    and procedures, and give that intensive training.
        And, third, that training needs to be hands-on and
    specific. One of the proudest moments I had in my professional
    career was actually helping to design the child abuse house,
    the mock house on Winona State University, where we can take
    police detectives, social workers, forensic interviewers,
    whoever is a part of that multi-disciplinary team training and
    have them go through real life, situationally specific
    incidences.
        We would rather them make those mistakes there instead of
    making those mistakes in the field where a child's life may
    hang in the balance.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you very much, Mr.
    Johnson.
        Mr. Newlin.

        STATEMENT OF CHRIS NEWLIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
            CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER, HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA

        Mr. Newlin. Thank you very much, Chairwoman Klobuchar,
    Ranking Member Grassley, Senator Franken, my distinguished
    panelists. It is an honor to be here and to speak about this
    issue that all of us at this table have dedicated our lives to.
        I remember when I--my first job out of school, I was
    working in a residential treatment program for kids who had
    emotional or behavioral problems. And during the five years
    that I worked there, while I was going to graduate school, I
    began to hear the stories of these kids, that all of them,
    every single kid that I saw for five years that was in this
    program had experienced multiple forms of violence, sexual
    abuse, physical abuse, domestic violence in the home, substance
    abuse in the home, much like Melodee Hanes was talking about
    earlier.
        And it just challenged my view of the world. It said, ``How
    can this be? Is this what's really happening to our children
    out there? '' And this was further reinforced when I began to
    work at a children's hospital providing treatment and a girl
    named Cary said to me one day, after she had been--she had been
    sexually abused by her dad on two occasions, and I was seeing
    her in treatment.
        And she looked at me 1 day and she said, ``If I had it to
    do all over again, I wish I hadn't told.'' And all I could
    think about--I remember that day like it was yesterday, where
    we were sitting, the time of day, what the weather--everything,
    because this was a transformative moment.
        She indicated that the way the system had responded to her
    was absolutely more traumatic to her than being sexually abused
    twice by her father. Now, that is a sad commentary and I think
    that is a mutual commentary that we all have our own stories.
        We have all gone different directions, but my efforts said
    we need to have a better process in place to bring together the
    people so that we are not re-traumatizing children, that we are
    doing a good job.
        And that led me to the Children's Advocacy Center movement,
    which, in my opinion, has revolutionized our Nation's response
    to child abuse.
        Throughout the United States, there are more than 850
    children's advocacy centers that last year served over 270,000
    children. These are children where there were allegations of
    sexual abuse, physical abuse, exposure to other forms of
    violence or witness to murder.
        These programs are clearly demonstrated to be highly
    effective, better access to medical care, better access, higher
    caregiver satisfaction ratings.
        All the research that Senator Grassley had asked about
    before is solidly supporting the intervention of these CACs,
    and they are making a big difference in our country.
        The NCAC has a two-part mission. When we were founded by
    former Congressman Bud Cramer, the idea was we need to provide
    quality services at home, but we also need to be training
    professionals, because his experience was the same as everyone
    at this table, which is there is not good quality training out
    there.
        Since the late 1980s, we have trained more than 70,000
    child abuse professionals in the United States. And part of
    that is at our national conference, but even more of that is
    through our online trainings or trainings that we are
    increasingly doing out in the field at the state level on all
    types of topics, most commonly, forensic interviewing, how to
    elicit information from children, and how to coordinate the
    multi-disciplinary response to child abuse.
        Why is this important? Senator Franken mentioned earlier it
    has an impact on our country, and it does. The research clearly
    says that women who have been sexually abused have 16 percent
    higher health care costs across their life span. And if a woman
    was both sexually and physically abused, those health care
    costs are 36 percent higher.
        When we talk about the rising cost of health care and the
    health of our Nation, this is an issue that ties all the way
    back to exposure to violence, and especially child abuse. And
    it affects our Nation's economy, too, that individuals--we know
    from the research that individuals that have been sexually or
    physically abused earn $8,000 less per year on average than
    their non-abused peers.
        So this is an issue of child abuse. All of us have looked
    into the eyes of children on a daily basis when we were on the
    front lines. But it is also an issue that affects our Nation's
    future, our Nation's health and economy. And so I think it is
    incredibly important that we support these efforts.
        We have done a training survey recently and we found that
    over 94 percent of the professionals that responded to this
    survey, over 2,100 professionals, 94 percent did not have all
    the training that they needed and over 65 percent of the
    organizations where they worked have less than $5,000 a year
    for an annual training budget. That is not per employee, that
    is for everybody.
        How can you possibly learn to take on these difficult tasks
    when you are challenged with having such little resources?
        So a few recommendations. Number one, I think we must
    increase Federal funding to help support the response to child
    abuse. I fully support that we also need to address this issue
    in college and in graduate and undergraduate programs. That is
    part of it, but there is emerging research all the time that
    will require us to have continuing professional education over
    the life span.
        We know so much more now than we did 20 years ago, and in
    20 years we will be even better off.
        So thank you very much for the opportunity to testify.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Newlin appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you very much.
        Ms. Smith.

       STATEMENT OF STEPHANIE SMITH, SOUTHERN REGIONAL DIRECTOR,
     NATIONAL CHILD PROTECTION TRAINING CENTER, NORTHWEST ARKANSAS
               COMMMUNITY COLLEGE, BENTONVILLE, ARKANSAS

        Ms. Smith. Thank you, Chairwoman Klobuchar, Ranking Member
    Grassley, Senator Franken, my friends on the panel.
        In 1998, I finished law school and left a lucrative career
    to work in a prosecutor's office for one-third of my previous
    annual salary. The only explanation I can give for that
    seemingly strange decision was that I really, really wanted to
    work for fair and just treatment of children in this country,
    and somehow I knew this job would take me there.
        Two years ago, my last week on the job as a deputy
    prosecutor, was spent trying a case of child sexual abuse. It
    was a very difficult case, and, at the conclusion, the victim
    hugged me and she said, ``Thank you. No one has ever fought for
    me before.'' And we did not even win that case.
        It was the perfect way for me to leave my frontline career
    as I moved into training others using what I had learned from
    my experiences. And as much as I would like to take credit for
    that thank you, I cannot, because I am no one special.
        In the world of child protection professionals, I am just
    one more person who wants that fair and just treatment for
    children, who wants a better life and opportunity for children
    to achieve their potential, all children.
        What did make me different from the previous prosecutors
    who had ignored that victim's cry for help was that I had been
    given the tools I needed to fight. When I was first put in the
    position of handling child abuse cases, my boss knew that I did
    not have the necessary background. She knew that law school had
    not prepared me to present the testimony of a child witness in
    court or how to protect that child from aggressive defense
    attorneys.
        She knew that neither law school nor my previous caseload
    had equipped me to help investigators understand how important
    even the most minute detail was in presenting a case of child
    abuse. She knew that no one had ever helped me understand the
    dynamics of a family in crisis or a community that would
    support an abuser over the child.
        She knew all of that because she had been in my shoes. So
    she mentored me. She did everything she could to find training
    opportunities and the funds to send me for those trainings. She
    covered my caseload herself so I could fly 1,000 miles,
    sometimes more, to get the training.
        I am no one special, but my circumstances were, because it
    is, unfortunately, all too common that many of those who
    currently supervise child protection professionals do not
    understand the importance of that specialized training or they
    do not have the funds to send their people.
        So thousands of prosecutors, detectives, social workers,
    forensic interviewers, victim advocates, and even judicial
    officers work each day with one hand tied behind their back for
    lack of knowledge or lack of a place to get information.
        They need encouragement and support to become better
    fighters, and one of the best means of doing that is giving
    them accessible training that is affordable even for small
    jurisdictions.
        Regionally based trainings can be held more often. They can
    be designed for smaller groups, and smaller groups will
    encourage our multi-disciplinary teams to attend together,
    because we can make those trainings focused.
        Smaller groups allow for greater participation and more
    interaction between our professionals and the trainers. When we
    conduct trainings at our regional center, the participants not
    only talk with the trainers one-on-one, they often bring case
    files with them and ask us to review.
        These smaller settings benefit the trainers, as well. It is
    very easy for us to help assess what the needs are out in the
    field so that we can adapt and quickly tailor more trainings to
    help those who are working these cases.
        Greater frequency of these trainings means that a
    professional is never precluded from a useful training because
    they had a court case scheduled the one time a year that
    important training was being held. Instead, they will have two
    or three opportunities over a 12- or 18-month period to access
    the training they need.
        And these trainings can be more hands on. They do not have
    to be restricted to lecture-based settings to accommodate
    hundreds of participants. And this is why many of our
    evaluations say ``It is one of the best trainings I have ever
    been to.''
        Those hands-on courses can be designed to encourage our
    multi-disciplinary teams to attend together, and, thus,
    reinforce the concept of interdisciplinary unity in these
    cases.
        This approach provides frequent, relevant, cost-effective
    training for more of our front line, ensuring that they are
    equipped to fight for every child every day. Those who work so
    tirelessly for children deserve often to hear the phrase,
    ``Thank you for fighting for me,'' at least until the day they
    no longer need to fight.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Smith appears as a
    submission for the record.]
        Senator Klobuchar. Well, thank you very much, to all of
    you. That was very straightforward, but, also, passionate
    testimony, which we do not always get all the time, and I
    really appreciate the work that you are doing, all four of you.
        Do you want to start, Senator Grassley?
        Senator Grassley. I appreciate that opportunity. And when I
    am done questioning, if I can have your leave, I would like to
    go.
        Administrator Hanes mentioned--and by the way, this can be
    for any or all of you, whoever wants to respond, but I hope a
    couple of you will respond.
        Ms. Hanes mentioned that 60 percent of the children were
    exposed to some form of violence, crime and abuse. Now,
    whatever statistics each of you might use, given your expertise
    and work in the field, what do you make of this statistic? And
    what do you see as trends in child abuse, getting worse or
    staying about the same, or maybe some of our work is beneficial
    and it is getting less.
        Any of you.
        Mr. Johnson. Senator Grassley, I am also on the board of
    directors of the National Alliance of Child--what is it, NACA?
    Native American Children's Alliance. I am sorry. I get all my
    acronyms mixed up. And it always bothers me anytime I hear
    these statistics about abuse and neglect because they do not
    take into consideration Indian country, typically.
        I know for a fact that there are some--my Native American
    colleagues are on reservations where every single female child
    has been sexually abused at least once. So I take that into
    consideration.
        The other thing my colleagues, Mr. Newlin and Victor, they
    can talk statistics and research, but when you are in the
    field, it is that one child at a time, sir. That is what is in
    front of you. That is what you have got to address, regardless
    of whether the stats are going up and down.
        My colleague, Dr. Finkelhor, refers to the fact that the
    incidence of reported abuse appears to be going down. Well, you
    might want to talk to the people over at the ICAC task force to
    see what is happening online.
        So I feel like with the affirmation effect that the
    Internet has on child sex offenders, we see not only in law
    enforcement--we see that it is not only getting worse, sir, but
    the incidences are higher and it is more threatening.
        And I think that it really pushes the point that we need
    professionally, highly trained investigators to address this
    issue in our communities.
        Senator Grassley. Go ahead, sir.
        Mr. Vieth. I think I could comment on that. I think child
    abuse is declining. The NIS studies that were referenced before
    would bear that out. And there are different thoughts in the
    field as to why that may be.
        But I tend to agree with those researchers who say child
    abuse is declining because are so much better off than we were
    25 years ago. We have made significant strides. Chris mentioned
    one of those with the CAC movement.
        But as Senator Franken pointed out, 750,000 incidence is
    still way too many. And so I would urge Congress to continue
    the momentum. The things that we have talked about today are
    not stopping what has gone before, but to take it to a higher
    level.
        I would also urge you and others, if you are not familiar
    with, to take some time and to acquaint yourself with the
    adverse childhood experience studies. I reference them in my
    written testimony. They are done by the Centers for Disease
    Control, they began in 1998, where researchers noticed a
    correlation between obesity and child abuse, and then they
    wondered what else is there a correlation of.
        And so they queried 17,000 men and women who had gone
    through an HMO and they discovered there was a statistical
    correlation between child abuse and virtually every medical and
    mental health condition that you could envision, even things
    like liver disease, heart disease, cancer.
        And essentially, what those pioneering studies have
    concluded, if we could significantly reduce child abuse, we
    would significantly reduce virtually every medical and mental
    health condition that we are facing today.
        Senator Grassley. Go ahead, sir.
        Mr. Newlin. Thank you very much, Senator Grassley.
    Actually, the statistic is maybe even a little bit more
    alarming. The 60 percent--it is actually about 58 percent of
    kids are exposed to at least one form of violence per year. So
    in the past year, 58 percent of kids have experienced some form
    of violence.
        Now, those numbers are a little bit inflated because that
    also includes peer-to-peer violence, so kids at school and
    stuff, and I am not sure we necessarily equate that to sexual
    abuse or physical abuse.
        But the problem is that violence is a pervasive theme in
    our country and the trend is--one of the trends is recognizing
    that it is not just physical abuse or sexual abuse or this. It
    is this concept of polyvictimization, that the cumulative
    effects of different forms of exposure to violence really can
    be harmful to a child.
        And Victor was mentioning the ACE (Adverse Childhood
    Experiences) study and everything lines up. The A study says we
    have all these health impacts. That is why our cost of health
    care is higher for these individuals. Those issues go hand in
    hand.
        I clearly believe there is a reduction in child sexual
    abuse. We are making progress. We are improving. What we are
    actually improving is our detection rate. Our ability to detect
    abuse that actually is going on has doubled over the last 20
    years.
        We are now able to detect much more commonly when abuse is
    occurring and able to intervene. The sad thing is that we are
    still woefully understaffed at the local level to be able to
    respond to those needs.
        Senator Grassley. Could I ask one more question?
        Senator Klobuchar. Of course.
        Senator Grassley. And this is a question that I ask for any
    program that is up for reauthorization in this Committee or a
    lot of other committees. And since you folks are out there
    seeing how these programs work, I always ask if you have any
    suggestions for improving existing grant programs, and,
    particularly, if you see overlap or anything, opportunities for
    consolidation. And maybe you do not have any suggestions, but
    if you do, I would like to have that information, because you
    see the programs where the rubber meets the road.
        Mr. Vieth. I have a suggestion. Do you?
        Mr. Newlin. Yes, I do. It will be interesting. We will see
    if our suggestions align.
        Part of the entire CAC movement is all about eliminating
    duplication of service, and what we have been able to find just
    by the CAC model is that we actually save money compared to the
    traditional method of investigating child abuse.
        So we are all about trying to maximize what we are able to
    do. At this time, and I know this may be a monumental
    challenge, there is support through the Health and Human
    Services and the judiciary focusing on the issue of child abuse
    and training.
        I believe if there was some way to really more cohesively
    integrate those efforts, and that is one of the recommendations
    I made in my written testimony, to coordinate some of those
    efforts at the government level, that would be advantageous.
        At the front lines, back in our community, that is what we
    are doing. We have Health and Human Services working with law
    enforcement and prosecutors and mental health professionals. So
    if there was a way to strategically allocate the funding so
    that it is working in concert with each other, I think that
    would be advantageous.
        Mr. Vieth. I have two quick comments. First, what I see at
    the national and state level is that all of the national
    organizations really do make a concerted effort to coordinate.
        For example, Chris and his team take a leadership role in
    spreading the children's advocacy centers, and we support that
    in every way we can.
        We have taken a leadership role in reforming undergraduate
    and graduate training. Chris has supported that every way that
    he can. The reason we have a CAST program in Alabama is because
    Chris brought that initiative to his community.
        And I have seen OJJDP make a concerted effort to have all
    of us work together, as well. So that is a positive and goes to
    your issue of your concern of duplication or overlap.
        My one suggestion for Congress is when you are disbursing
    research dollars under a grant program, it is very important to
    have a team of researchers and frontline professionals be
    working together to review those proposals. Mike talked about
    it in his written testimony, as did I.
        But what we have seen is Federal dollars will go to support
    a research project that has nothing to do with what frontline
    professionals are actually doing on the front lines.
        I have seen projects funded by Congress where we are
    researching a certain aspect of investigation which is based on
    a research team's review of one or two cases. But those of us
    who are on the front lines are looking at that study, saying,
    ``Well, that happen so rarely that maybe there are better
    research projects that would better help us on the front
    lines.''
        So that is my one suggestion. We have to make a concerted
    effort to have frontline professionals working with researchers
    in determining research projects funded by the government.
        Senator Grassley. Thank you all. Did you want to respond,
    too?
        Mr. Johnson. Yes, sir. One quick addition. Not all
    communities can support a children's advocacy center, but every
    community can have a multi-disciplinary team. And there are
    still a lot of--there should be joint investigations, law
    enforcement, child protective services, prosecution, all the
    things that we know are the best practices for those multi-
    disciplinary teams. But there are a lot of very rural, Native
    reservation communities that do not have that ability and they
    should have the access to the exact same high quality research-
    based, practical training as everybody else.
        Senator Grassley. Thank you. Thank you very much.
        Ms. Smith. Sir, if I could just add one thing, because Mike
    has kind of brought this to my head.
        One of the most important things about this coordination,
    whether it is a CAC or a multi-disciplinary team on a
    reservation, training these people to work together, training
    them in best practices ultimately saves us money, because when
    folks know how to do the cases and they know how to work
    together, they, first of all, get to the root of the problem
    more quickly.
        If they do a thorough investigation, we are much more
    likely to resolve the case without having to drag it through
    the judicial process for a couple of years.
        I started keeping statistics in my county when I first took
    over on my job and because we had a great team going, we were
    getting confessions and guilty pleas in 85 percent of the cases
    where we had a substantiated disclosure.
        And so we know that we saved resources on the back end, but
    we also got those children the services they needed more
    quickly.
        Thank you.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you very much.
        Senator Franken.
        Senator Franken. Thank you again, Madam Chair, for this
    hearing.
        Mr. Newlin, I want to ask this question about the young
    lady who said she wished she had not told about being sexually
    abused by her father, because I am interested in learning about
    what is done wrong and how that is corrected.
        And so what was her experience that made her come to that
    conclusion? I do not think that in all this testimony we
    necessarily hear--we get snippets of it, but what the wrong way
    to do this is and how that can be--how that is reformed by CAST
    and the other programs that we are talking about here.
        Mr. Newlin. Thank you very much. Cary changed my life and,
    hopefully, I have allowed her to help change the lives of
    others.
        Her experience was of the old school and, unfortunately, is
    still the current school for some children who experience abuse
    and neglect. She was interviewed in intimidating environments
    multiple times, having to go to a child protective services
    office, having to go to a police department, having to go to
    the hospital. The hospital was not the problem, but for her,
    she was interviewed in a way that was accusatory, was not
    supportive, was not developmentally appropriate, was not
    trauma-informed.
        So her experience from that initial contact is ``I am
    finally having the courage to talk about what my dad has done
    to me on two occasions, and I am being treated like a
    criminal.''
        And that is criminal, and that was her initial experience.
    And then for her to face the challenges that many children face
    when it is intra-familial abuse, where she was--there was all
    kinds of talk and rumor and innuendo in her community and her
    neighborhood. All of those issues were really harmful to her.
    And feeling--all she wanted, she wanted her dad to get some
    help and she did not want him to do it anymore.
        And her being able to have a voice in that process was--she
    just was not being heard. And because of all of that, that is
    why she said ``I just don't want to do it? '' And that is
    exactly the same experience that Bud Cramer had when he started
    the entire CAC movement. He had a grandmother that came into
    his office and said, ``This is crazy. My granddaughter has been
    interviewed over and over and over. Don't you people talk to
    each other? '' And he said, ``We better.'' And that is what led
    to the movement.
        Thank you for the opportunity to respond.
        Senator Franken. So what is the training like to address
    that exactly? In other words, what do people learn, Mr. Vieth,
    when they go through the training? What is the corrective to
    that? What is the reform?
        Mr. Vieth. First of all, we are trained how to talk to
    children in developmentally linguistically appropriate ways so
    that we get accurate information.
        Senator Franken. How old was this young lady?
        Mr. Newlin. She was 13 at the time, really smart, bright,
    articulate, everything going for her.
        Mr. Vieth. And when I say developmentally linguistically
    appropriate ways, that also includes teenagers. They have their
    own language. They have their own issues. We have a separate
    training program just for interviewing adolescents or
    teenagers.
        We have to understand the very dynamics that Chris is
    talking about as a team and figure out how to address that.
    Oftentimes, children have a non-offending caretaker that is not
    supportive. That is the number one risk of recantation, and a
    lot of times that non-offending caretaker is mom. And somebody
    on the mental health team needs to sit down with her and help
    her process her issues.
        Senator Franken. Recantation.
        Mr. Vieth. Yes. You take it back. You make an allegation of
    sexual abuse, you realize all these pressures are there, and
    you take it back.
        The number one risk of recantation is when the mother is
    not supportive of a child. So somebody needs to be working with
    her, processing her issues, her fears, such as, ``Gosh, why
    wouldn't my child come and make this disclosure to me as
    opposed to keeping it silent so long? What does it say about me
    as a mother that I wasn't picking up on what was going on in my
    home? ''
        Helping the child immediately access mental health
    services; figuring out what fears, trepidations the child has
    about court or other processes and trying to alleviate those as
    quickly as possible; making sure the child doesn't stand alone.
        One of the most stressful things for kids is to think the
    entire case is resting on their shoulders. That should never be
    the case.
        In the written testimony, there is an article we have on
    corroborating evidence. We teach that there is always
    corroborating evidence in sexual abuse cases. You should always
    have 10 to 15 pieces of corroborating evidence if you know how
    to look for it.
        How to properly talk to the suspect so that you can get
    incriminating statements, if not a confession. All of those
    sort of things tend to reduce the stressors in the family and
    the more quickly we can work to address whatever the underlying
    issues are.
        Senator Franken. Thank you. I know I am over my time. I
    have one little, short question.
        Mr. Johnson, Senator Schumer has introduced the Child
    Protection Improvement Act, a bill that would give youth-
    serving organizations access to FBI background checks, and I
    support that bill.
        What steps do the Boy Scouts take to screen volunteers and
    employees who work with children? And do you conduct background
    checks or do you rely on FBI background checks or do you access
    those; and, if so, how valuable are those checks in keeping
    kids safe?
        Mr. Johnson. If you are talking about the fingerprint-based
    background checks, my understanding is that last year that was
    not funded and that program is gone.
        Senator Franken. Right.
        Mr. Johnson. The Boy Scouts of America did not have access
    to that.
        Senator Franken. Right. We are trying to get that back.
        Mr. Johnson. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. That is very
    important.
        Now, I will say this. From my background in law enforcement
    investigation, criminal background checks is not the sole
    answer. It is a part, one of many tools that we utilize in the
    Boy Scouts of America.
        We have an ongoing process that we think is very important.
    We want families to be involved in the scouting program, but we
    understand that we are a part, with other youth-serving
    organizations, in addressing this risk of child molesters and
    predators accessing youth through our organizations, whether it
    is Boy Scouts or any other organization that serves youth.
        So we onboard information with our parents when they
    initially get involved. There is actually a handbook in the
    front of all of our Cub Scout, Boy Scout, and Webelo guides. We
    have an application process. We check references. There has to
    be an approval at the local level of this individual.
        But the other big part of what we do is two pronged. We
    have what are referred to as scouting's barriers to abuse. You
    cannot review any information from any prevention program that
    is out there and not find some aspect of a Boy Scout policy in
    reference to protecting kids; specifically, our two-deep
    leadership policy and never any one-on-one contact between the
    youth and any of our volunteers. And that is something that
    should spread through society at large.
        What we do, we conduct criminal background checks. We use
    Lexus-Nexus to utilize those. But we realize and we acknowledge
    that that is not the sole answer.
        I have some pens. I would be proud to pass them out. We
    have a motto called ``Youth protection begins with you,'' and
    that is a personal appeal to every parent, every volunteer,
    everybody in society that if you suspect that a child is being
    abused in any way, you have an responsibility to not only stop
    the abuse, but to report it, whether it is to the organization
    or to the authorities, given what has taken place.
        We take that issue very seriously at the Boy Scouts of
    America.
        Senator Franken. But you would like to see these FBI
    background checks again available to organizations that use
    mentors.
        Mr. Johnson. Sir, absolutely.
        Senator Franken. Thank you.
        Mr. Johnson. Every tool that we can have to protect kids,
    we need to have it. And I do not think it is an issue that
    really--I think it is a given, sir. It should be done.
        Senator Franken. Thank you.
        Mr. Johnson. You are welcome.
        Senator Franken. Thank you, Madam Chair. And, again, thank
    you for your leadership on this.
        Senator Klobuchar. Thank you.
        Mr. Vieth, in your written testimony, you stated that it
    would not take much, certainly not a large investment of
    Federal financial resources to fundamentally and forever
    improve the training of child protection professionals.
        I was struck by that statement. And could you explain
    further what you meant and explain why you could do this
    without a big investment?
        Mr. Vieth. Some years ago, we submitted to OJJDP a proposal
    for $3 million over 5 years, 600 per year, and we calculated
    how, within that five years, we could easily put the
    undergraduate reform in 100 universities and the graduate
    reforms in dozens of additional institutions.
        And just think about that for a moment. At Winona State
    alone, we have 450 students in the CAST minor and in the 27
    institutions, we have several thousand students. And as we
    expand this to 100 universities very quickly, all of a sudden,
    tens of thousands of folks will be graduating with the sort of
    knowledge it took the rest of us five or more years of on-the-
    job training to acquire.
        So they will be able to handle from the word go every
    aspect of child protection. And we are also teaching them how
    to be community leaders, how to identify what factors are
    contributing to abuse in their community, and then how to
    tailor a prevention program that is uniquely suited to those
    particular dynamics.
        The old adage that you can give someone a fish or teach
    them to fish and the latter is much more effective, if we can
    teach NDTs from the word go how to really buildup their
    programs in individual communities, this would have a
    transformational impact on the country very quickly.
        If you look at my testimony, on pages 32 to 35, we talked
    about the forensic interviewing initiative. Look how quickly
    that spun out over the country, with 20 state programs. And
    those maps show how in each state virtually all of those
    counties very quickly were trained.
        Senator, I was in Pennsylvania two weeks ago, and I was
    having dinner with an MDT, and one of the child protection
    workers told me, ``I have been in the field for a decade, and I
    just went through this program, and it is a night-and-day
    difference of how qualified I am now to do this work.''
        We can begin to do that in college and we can spread those
    reforms quickly and have a huge impact.
        Senator Klobuchar. Very good. I know this concept that
    these classes--this training could be integrated in these
    curriculums makes so much sense to me.
        When you used those letters that I thought were really
    moving about these officers that finally felt they could do it,
    or a prosecutor, do what they had--I think one of the letters
    said pretending they were doing before, what kind of mistakes
    do people make?
        And I will tell you my own experience, luckily, not a
    violent case. I was at a private law firm and we were over
    prosecuting for six months or so misdemeanors for the city of
    Minneapolis. And what I most remember from it was this case we
    had, again, non-violent, but one of the witnesses was five
    years old.
        So I talked to her a little. I did not know quite how to
    handle it. And then I put her up on the witness stand for the
    judge to decide if she was able to give testimony and I asked
    her if she knew the difference between the truth and a lie. And
    this incident had happened when she was four.
        I said, ``Do you know the difference between the truth and
    a lie? '' She said, ``Yes. But when I was four, I told a lot of
    lies.''
        [Laughter.]
        Senator Klobuchar. So I thought, OK, this has not gone like
    it is supposed to go, and she was not allowed to testify.
        So it was such a minor story, but it gives you can example.
    I can just imagine when people do not know how to quite work
    with these kids, what can happen, or maybe even whether or not
    they should be witnesses or not and how you make that
    determination. If you could address that.
        Mr. Vieth. I can give you an anecdote from Minnesota very
    similar to what you are referencing. We consulted on a case
    where a prosecutor in Minnesota called us in a panic and said,
    ``My four-year-old child who was sexually abused by her dad was
    just declared incompetent by the judge. What do we do? ''
        So we asked her to have a transcript of the competency
    hearing and we very quickly figured out it was not the four-
    year-old who was incompetent, it was the judge. The judge did
    not know how to properly question a preschool-aged child.
        And some of the errors the judge made were this. She asked
    the child, ``If I told you I had a black Labrador at my house,
    would I be telling you the truth or a lie? '' And the child
    said, ``Well, you would be telling me the truth.'' And in the
    judge's order, he cited that and said, ``Well, she should have
    said that `I don't know, I've never been to your house. I don't
    even know if you have a dog.' ''
        That is developmentally inappropriate. The four-year-old is
    just going to assume the judge is telling her the truth. So she
    is going to say absolutely. And there were a whole series of
    questions like that where the judge, well meaning, simply did
    not know how to question a child.
        And if that prosecutor had not known about us--and we spent
    all night--Amy Russell, our deputy director, spent all night
    and did about a 100-page affidavit, going through every single
    question and pointing out how, under research, that every
    question was inaccurate, that child would not have had her day
    in court. The case would have been dismissed.
        But after we did our affidavit, the judge reversed his
    decision and the case was allowed to go forward.
        Senator Klobuchar. I read one study that showed that two-
    thirds of public defenders and one-third of prosecutors
    admitted questioning children in a manner designed to confuse a
    child.
        Can you comment on this dynamic? Is that ethical? And how
    do you address this issue in training?
        Mr. Vieth. It is not ethical and it is one reason it is so
    important to get into law schools. I want to commend you for
    your leadership when you were a Hennepin County attorney. You
    worked with us at the MDA and we developed a law school course
    at Hanline specifically on child abuse, and that course has a
    component on ethics, what is the ethical thing to do with a
    child witness.
        It is not covered in current ethics courses. We are not
    examined on ethics, and that is why you get studies like that.
        I once interviewed somebody for a position at the National
    District Attorneys Association and I asked him, ``How do you
    prepare a child for court? '' And he said, ``Well, some people
    think this is a bad idea, but I don't really talk to the child.
    I don't prepare them at all. So they'll be extra-emotional when
    we come to court. And I always make sure I parade them in front
    of the offender and that will double my chance that they're
    going to be emotional.''
        And he actually cited research. He said, ``There's research
    saying most jurors expect a child to be emotional.'' So he
    said, ``Long-term, I'm doing the child a favor.''
        That is just one of many examples I hear across the
    country, and we need to begin to address that in law schools
    and develop some very specific ethical codes for both
    prosecutors and public defenders.
        Senator Klobuchar. Mr. Johnson, I saw you nod your head
    when you were thinking probably of past trials. I was picturing
    you as a police officer getting very mad watching these or you
    understand what can happen in these court cases.
        But if you could address that, as well as what you saw as
    some common mistakes that officers would make without training?
        Mr. Johnson. Senator, you are looking at old school police
    child abuse investigation. I investigated child abuse before
    there was anything called CACs, NDTs, there was anything called
    forensic interviewing, back when police officers and the CPS
    workers just interviewed kids and there was no training. And so
    you just did what you thought.
        And I can tell you--this is a confession, if you will,
    where I would go in--I thought the best practice was to go to
    the child's house and to interview the child in their bedroom,
    get on the floor with them and talk to them in their bedroom,
    not taking into consideration I am probably literally laying on
    the crime scene and a part of the crime scene.
        And I remember--and what is weird about this is this
    worked, but I remember taking my badge off my belt and having
    kids put their hand on the badge and swear to tell me the whole
    truth and nothing but the truth, and then we would talk about
    the details of their victimization, because I understood that
    the details from them about what happened were core and
    critical to my ability to corroborate, set up the opportunity
    to interrogate their father, and then to provide a product for
    prosecutors to prosecute.
        Personally, as a police detective, I think it is
    fundamentally wrong for children to have to testify in a
    criminal court of law, but I realize that and a dollar will not
    get a cup of coffee at Starbuck's. I prepare all my children,
    and I owned them, I probably owned them too much to have to
    prepare in a court of law.
        I have as a goal, as most of us from our team are
    prosecutors, CPS workers and therapists, that we do not want
    them to, but we prepare them to go into a court of law. And
    whether or not we win, get a guilty--and I think you know
    exactly where I am going with this--or whether or not justice
    is served with a sentence, if that child had to testify, we
    felt like we had failed, and that is a goal that we own.
        I think you know personally, any prosecutor knows that has
    been in that courtroom and had to prepare children to do a good
    job to testify in a criminal court of law in front of their
    offending abuser, whether it is a father, a brother or
    whomever, you know what that dynamic is.
        Senator Klobuchar. Very good.
        Mr. Newlin, I understand there are about 800 children's
    advocacy centers around the country, and the national center in
    Alabama has been a model for those centers.
        Can you talk about how they work together and if there is a
    benefit for how they are organized?
        Mr. Newlin. Thank you very much. Yes. Huntsville was the
    genesis of the CAC movement and it quickly began to spread. The
    850, approximate, CACs in the U.S. are organized under the
    National Children's Alliance, which is a national membership
    organization, but all operate independently.
        I think you heard some of the panelists speaking about the
    need for training at the community level, and that is really
    what the CAC movement has been. It has been a grassroots
    movement.
        It has to be supported. It has to be owned by the local
    community, receiving external resources to help that, but it
    has to be a real drive at the local community between law
    enforcement and child protective services and the prosecutors
    and the mental health professionals, and that is well supported
    by the Department of Justice through the Regional Children's
    Advocacy Centers, which do exactly what we have been talking
    about on this panel.
        They go into communities, they provide training and
    technical assistance. They customize that training to exactly
    what the community needs to help those communities be more
    effective in their daily response to child abuse and to work
    more effectively as a team.
        I do think, though, that an important part that we have not
    really--we have talked a lot about the investigation and the
    response to child abuse. I always try to make every decision
    based on what would I want if it was my child.
        And when I think about this, I think I am fully invested in
    the investigation of cases, but we should not lose sight of the
    importance of mental health services for kids to help them
    recover, because if we think about really what helps them heal,
    going to court, having someone prosecuted, it may be helpful
    for them, but that is not their primary focus.
        I do not want us to ever lose focus from the need for us to
    provide evidence-based mental health practices, mental health
    practices that we know will help children heal and recover,
    because that is how we are going to help them be more
    successful as adults.
        Senator Klobuchar. Very good. Thank you very much.
        Ms. Smith, you talked about the Internet part of your work.
    I understand you spend a lot of time focused on safety on the
    Internet. We have been doing some work actually in the VAWA
    bill right now.
        Senator Hutchison and I had a bill that is included to
    update some of our laws for Internet stalking not just
    exclusively for kids, really for anyone. And could you talk a
    little bit about how that has changed some of the child
    protection work and other work that we have done, the new
    technology and how--there are all kinds of issues, as we know,
    with everything from bullying among kids to people stalking
    them to predators on the Internet that later leads to abuse.
        Could you talk about that aspect of this? I am just
    thinking back to some of our early cases when I was county
    attorney, when it was just new with child pornography and
    officers showing up at the scene, turning on the computer and
    then it had been triggered to erase everything on it.
        Ms. Smith. Yes.
        Senator Klobuchar. Things like that. And, obviously, there
    are huge forensics issues across the country about trying to
    train officers in that area, as well.
        Ms. Smith.
        Ms. Smith. Absolutely. Thank you, Senator. That is a
    multifaceted issue. One aspect is how those who would prey on
    children now have one more easy tool to do it. Another one is
    that children are so technology savvy, we have had children--
    teenagers in forensic interviews who were texting the
    perpetrator on their phone while in the very early stages of
    this, before we realized we cannot let children go into the
    room with their phones, because we do not know what they are
    going to be doing if they are in love with their perpetrator.
        So from the most minute aspect like that to training first
    responders in a house, do not touch the computer, do not
    destroy evidence, to what the Internet crimes against children
    task forces are seeing.
        And our county established a local metro task force to work
    with the state ICAC, and we did it for a couple of reasons. One
    of them was that we, fortunately, had some people who were
    really good forensic analysts and who could help with that,
    but, also, the detective in that unit came out of
    investigations primarily who were doing crimes against
    children.
        And what they were doing was helping not just the cases
    they were doing, but their own people to recognize that we can
    find incredible amounts of corroboration by investigating what
    technology has out there, but we also can find predators that
    we would not find otherwise, because very often those who are
    using that technology are preying on children and have not
    gotten caught.
        And that is a whole new aspect to the training needs that
    we need to have for--we talk with our forensic interviewers,
    and I am sure Chris' folks are doing this with their training,
    as well, how to incorporate that technology piece in. So that
    technology becomes an aspect of every investigation that we
    consider.
        Whether it is sexual abuse or physical abuse, there will be
    some kind of documentation on those computers of how life is in
    that family or how life is with that child or how that child
    communicates with her friends or his friends, because whatever
    is of interest to him will have been of interest to a
    perpetrator.
        I am not sure if I got exactly where you wanted to go,
    but--it is not?
        Senator Klobuchar. No, it is very good. Thank you very
    much.
        I wanted to thank all of you for being here today. We had,
    I think, a really good discussion. We are working on
    legislation, as all of you know, with my colleagues to make
    sure that we continue the funding for this important training
    work.
        I have just seen it firsthand in Minnesota and am so proud
    of the work that Mr. Vieth does, as well as everyone on this
    panel. And it has really been actually quite a--I meant what I
    said at the beginning. Sometimes people are very bureaucratic
    in their testimony, and this was very personal, which I truly
    appreciated and I think it brought home the enormous need that
    we have here and how we can really be smart about our
    resources, but still make sure these officers are getting
    trained and some of the testimony that came out about the costs
    of this if we do not do anything, just the mere fact that kids
    that grow up in violent homes are--something multiple times, I
    think I have heard the number 76 times more likely to get
    involved in violence themselves; that it is a self-fulfilling
    cycle here if we do not stop it.
        So I want to thank you for what you have done. I want to
    also thank our staff who have worked on this, Craig Kalkut and
    Sammy Clark, as well as Maria Laverdiere, and everything that
    they have done to get this hearing going, as well as the staff
    of the Judiciary Committee; and, Senator Sessions, who could
    not be here today, but is my Ranking Member, and Senator
    Grassley, as well.
        So thank you very much. We will hold the hearing record
    open for a week.
        And with that, the hearing is adjourned. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
        [Questions and answers and submissions for the record
    follows.]

                                A P P E N D I X

                  Additional Material Submitted for the Record

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        Prepared Statements of Witnesses and Committee and Subcommittee
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                   Questions from Senator Charles E. Grassley

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                             Questions and Answers

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                    Miscellaneous Submissions for the Record

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        Submissions for the Record Not Printed Due to Voluminous Nature

        Overview of the Portable Guides to Investigating Child
    Abuse: Update 2000 by Janet McNaughton
            http://www.brycs.org/documents/upload/
            portableguides.pdf