Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission

Jen Wallace - Program Manager for Sexual Assault Investigations (SAI)

I’m Jen Wallace, the Program Manager for Sexual Assault Investigations (SAI) at the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission, WSCJTC. After retiring as a criminal investigator from the Dept. of Defense, I learned of trauma-informed interviewing practices while working as a volunteer for the Seattle Police Department’s (SPD) domestic violence community response team and then in a civilian role with the SPD overseeing a human trafficking grant. I was first inspired by the Trauma Resiliency Model after taking the Level 1 training and then further intrigued about the potential for integrating wellness skills for officers and communities served by attending TRM Level 2 and the Community Resiliency Model Teacher Training. By that time, I was working with WSCJTC to build a sexual assault investigations victim interviewing course.

With the requirement to build interview training that would potentially improve victim comfort and reduce the number of interviews, members of the training team and I were convinced of its benefit in the training and in application. The interview training includes four of the six wellness skills; tracking, resourcing, grounding, and Reset (aka Help) Now! Officers, most of whom are detectives, learn the skills to apply to victims during interviews and themselves upon noticing a dysregulated nervous system. Officers report grounding as the skill most relied upon. Though, tracking is necessary to know that a skill like grounding is applicable. In the training, which includes interviews with professional actors portraying sexual assault victims, officers are encouraged to practice the skills. Likely, they have already been using some of the skills without knowing the neurobiological or nervous system impacts. Resourcing can be included as part of rapport building and tracking - or, self and situational awareness, is not a new strategy for officers. Also, resiliency pauses and any one of the Reset/Help now skills (especially taking a drink of water) may have been used by officers previously.

The success of integrating these techniques into the training and actual victim interviews was recently highlighted in a case review project conducted by members of the SAI training team at WSCJTC. In a survey conducted more than a year after the training, the majority of officers surveyed stated they continue to rely on the wellness skills for themselves and during interviews. Because resiliency and wellness is especially critical during the COVID pandemic, through the racial reconciliation and demands to defund police, our team is currently collaborating with the Trauma Resource Institute to build a resiliency-focused training offered through criminal justice community members into the community at large. With our 16 member multi-disciplinary team of CRM trainers, we are optimistic of reaching that goal. Other programs within the WSCJTC are also interested in CRM and how it might benefit their training programs. CLICK HERE or more information about how CRM is currently relied on in the WSCJTC training.

You can contact Jen Wallace at jwallace@cjtc.wa.gov