The NICHD protocol: Guide to follow recommended investigative interview practices at the barnahus?

Abstract

An important ambition among professionals in the Nordic countries over the last decade has been to enhance the quality of investigative interviews by using structured protocols in child forensic interviews. Today Iceland, Sweden and Finland are greatly inspired by the NICHD protocol, which is an internationally used protocol for the investigative interviewing of children, developed by Professor Michael Lamb and colleagues at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The NICHD protocol is based on research into children’s development of cognitive and communicative abilities and questioning techniques that enhance children’s capacities to provide accurate information about their past experiences. Researchers have recently also started to test a revised version of the NICHD protocol, which focuses on enhanced socio-emotional support from interviewers in order to manage children’s reluctance to reveal abuse. In our opinion, the use of structured, research-based interview protocols, such as the NICHD protocol, is a crucial step in addressing a main objective of the Barnahus model; providing better service for child victims of abuse by improving the quality of investigative interviews.