Poland

When Child is a Witness

The Nobody's Children Foundation implemented the Child Victim Advocate programme since December 2005. The goal of the programme is to improve the situation of children who have been victimized and who participate in legal procedures, such as interviews and court trials.

The article written by Teresa Jaśkiewicz-Obydzińska presents the cognitive interview – a method of enhancing memory through facilitating the process of recall. This method is used for interviewing witnesses, including child witnesses. The authors present the principles of the cognitive interview of children and describe its phases.

In the article presented here Maria Keller-Hamela gives the basic rules and practical step-by-step advices how to conduct the interview with a child - victim of crime.

In the paper presented below Małgorzata Toeplitz-Wiśniewska attempts to define the characteristics of a child's cognitive, emotional, motivational, and social development at different life stages, and formulate the resulting guidelines for interviewers, who elicit information about offences from children. Moreover, the article offers several recommendations concerning interviewing children, which stem from research on child witnesses’ credibility.