Abstract
Dr. Monit Cheung’s book provides critical tools for professionals working with the survivors of child sexual abuse and their families, as well as perpetrators. Combining her 34 years of professional social work experience and current best practices, Dr. Cheung provides a practical framework with extensive consideration of the legal system in the United States, as a reference for professionals involved in forensic interviewing, court preparations, and treatment for victims, alleged victims, perpetrators, and alleged perpetrators in child sexual abuse cases. The introduction and the first chapter provide an overview of the history of child protection and the basic guiding principles and evidence-based rationale for forensic interviewing. The second and third chapters focus on assessing and screening for child sexual abuse, including protocol for disclosure and nondisclosure cases, Type I and Type II errors, competency checks, and the truth and lie ritual. Chapter 3 also focuses on multidisciplinary collaboration and the role of religious organizations in child sexual abuse cases. Chapter 4 reviews the best practices for interview protocol, and the fifth chapter addresses court preparation, including the different roles and responsibilities professionals maintain in court proceedings. Chapter 6 discusses evidence-based practices for treatment of child victims, adult child victims, family members, and perpetrators with a special focus on prevention programs. The seventh chapter addresses secondary trauma and the importance of self-care for professionals involved in child sexual abuse cases. The last chapter provides an overview of current concerns of professionals working in the field of child sexual abuse, especially the issue of recovered memory. Extensive tables and figures are included at the end of the book as well as a DVD with two types of cases for the reader to further review and practice with the forensic interviewing protocols.
This book makes several valuable contributions to the literature on child sexual abuse. First, this book emphasizes the importance of a multidisciplinary approach. In order to reduce trauma to the victim and the family, all individuals involved with the alleged victim, such as parents, school personnel, church personnel, law enforcement officers, medical professionals, forensic interviewers, nonforensic interviewers, child welfare workers, child care workers, child advocates and support persons, as well as legal prosecutors and defense attorneys, must collaborate and adopt a unified approach to provide support and treatment to the victim. Additionally, this book highlights the importance of adopting a similar team approach for the treatment of perpetrators. Second, Dr. Cheung provides readers with several resources to enhance their understanding of the perspective of child victims and actual forensic interviews through presentation of Julie’s case, which is a compilation of several actual cases, as well as a DVD with two forensic interviews.
A third contribution of Dr. Cheung’s book is its focus on forensic interviewing and treatment for alleged perpetrators. While there has been previous literature on child sexual abuse and approaches for working for victims and perpetrators, respectively, this book provides comprehensive information for engaging in forensic interviewing and treatment of both victims and perpetrators. Dr. Cheung advocates for the importance of providing prevention and intervention services to perpetrators in order to end the cycle of abuse.
While this book provides readers with comprehensive information about how child sexual abuse cases are addressed both criminally and civilly as well as by religious bodies in the United States, this book does not focus on child sexual abuse cases and court preparation in the global context. This book could be improved with a more comprehensive discussion of culturally responsive practices for engaging families of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, as well as in different societal contexts.
Overall, this book is very well written and engaging. The application of the case scenario at the end of each chapter provides the reader with an opportunity to address and review the concepts presented. The book also includes practical tips for professionals, parents, and teachers to utilize throughout the stages of a child sexual abuse case. Additionally, the included DVD supplements the reader's understanding of appropriate forensic interviewing techniques for child sexual abuse cases. This book is highly recommended for undergraduates, graduate students, academics, and professionals involved in the provision of prevention and intervention services for child sexual abuse cases.