NCJ Number
180443
Date Published
February 1998
Length
39 pages
Annotation
Participants in a seminar focusing on child protection issues related to child sexual exploitation were surveyed to assess the training's impacts on the police officers, child protective services investigators, prosecutors, and other personnel.
Abstract
The Fox Valley Technical College conducted the 4.5-day course under a grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The course aimed to provide information and investigative techniques to enhance the ability of professionals to conduct successful investigations of child sexual abuse. The evaluation measured participants' perceptions of their own investigative ability in these cases, their assessments of their agency's organizational competence in this area, and the extent to which the course provided new and useful information and techniques. It also measured the course's effectiveness in improving investigative skills, motivating positive organizational change, and participants' overall opinions of the course. The survey received responses from 73 of the 200 participants surveyed from training conducted in Los Angeles and San Jose, Calif., Charleston, S.C., and Nashville, Tenn. All participants reported that the seminar provided new information and investigative techniques, 60 percent reported that agency leaders were considering implementing ideas from the program, and 52 percent had actually implemented some of the ideas from the program. Twenty-nine percent reported that the training had much influence on their agency's creation or expansion of specialized responses to child sexual exploitation; 67 reported some impact. Participants also provided responses on many other aspects of the training. Findings were overwhelmingly positive. Tables, footnote, survey instrument and cover letter, and list of student comments