Successfully engaging a sex offender during interview can make all the difference to the outcome of an investigation and to effective risk management. How can you maximise cooperation?

This course provides participants with a tried and tested methodology for developing, preparing and implementing effective interview strategies with perpetrators of child sexual abuse and those about whom there are concerns, both in the online and offline environments.

This training ensures that all participants will recognise the value of crucial information and teaches how to harness it in order to further develop the interview. By analysing a series of video interviews with offenders, participants get a first-hand opportunity to understand how interview skills can be implemented and built upon.

Designed specifically to help all involved in investigative interviews to build rapport, roll with resistance and assist the service users navigate a difficult circumstance, this training is for those professionals who work with those convicted/accused of sexual crimes against children.

Topics covered include:

• What encourages engagement in interview
• How theory informs practice in interview planning
• Protocols for interview planning
• Offence analysis and sexual offending against children
• Designing a layered interview approach
• Identified subject profiling
• Advanced techniques and practical skills in interviewing child sexual offenders
• Using the Sullivan Behaviour Analysis Tools (S-BAT) in designing interview strategies
• Demonstrations of interview planning and the delivery of interview strategy

This course provides core knowledge and skills for those whose work involves interviewing or meeting with sex offenders. It is particularly relevant to offender managers, social workers, and public protection officers. The content is beneficial to those engaged in risk assessments, intervention programmes, investigation and/or risk management. By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Use advanced techniques and practical skills to encourage engagement in interview
• Apply theoretical techniques to plan effective interviews
• Better analyse sexual offending against children • Profile a suspected perpetrator of sexual crimes against children
• Understand and apply the Sullivan Behaviour Analysis Tool (S-BAT)
• Utilise the Projected Personalities Matrix (PPM)
• Design a layered interview approach

“The interview, whether your regular monthly visit or part of a large-scale investigation, is the critical opportunity to gain information, develop insight and ultimately understand what is needed for safeguarding”. Dr Joe Sullivan, Contribution to the US Attorney General’s working party on Sexual Crimes against Children, California, May 2011