From the Desk of the Assistant Director- Forensic Interviewing/Victim Advocacy
It feels incredibly fitting to finally sit down and share this piece of my heart this week, of all weeks. Across the country, we are wrapping up National Forensic Interviewer’s Week. For most people, it’s a title that requires immediate explanation. For me, it is the title that has defined my daily purpose, my late nights, and my worldview for the last ten years.
As the Lead Forensic Interviewer at the Walker County Children’s Advocacy Center, I spend my days in a very specific, quiet room. I supervise a team of incredible interviewers who do the same. It’s a room with comfortable chairs, a few simple toys, and a recording system that captures history.
People often ask me, “How do you do that job?” or “How do you listen to that all day?”
The answer is simple: because someone has to be the bridge between a child’s deepest trauma and the justice they deserve.
Ten years means hundreds of stories. It means a decade of sitting across from tiny humans who have carried grown-up burdens. When you do this work for a decade, the details of the specific cases begin to blur into a single, beautiful, heartbreaking tapestry of resilience.
I remember sitting across from a six-year-old girl a few years back. She sat in the big, brown, leather chair. Her feet dangling a foot above the floor, nervously twisting a strand of her hair. For the first few minutes, we just talked about her favorite cartoons, her dog, school, and her family. However, when the conversation shifted, the air in the room grew dense.
She looked at me with wide, completely innocent eyes and asked, “If I tell you the truth, will the roof fall down?”
She had been told “the house would fall apart” if she ever spoke the words out loud. To this six-year-old, she took those words exactly and concrete. That is the weight these children carry. They aren’t just processing the trauma of what happened to them; they are carrying the crushing terror of what will happen to their families if they tell.
I looked back at her, kept my voice as steady as an anchor, and said, “The roof is strong, and I am right here with you. It won’t fall.”
And then, she whispered it. The whole story. Her entire truth.
In that moment, you don’t feel a sense of victory. You feel a profound, sacred privilege. I have been blessed (and I use that word with absolute intent) to meet these children. They are not just victims; they are the bravest souls walking the earth. To be the very first person a child trusts with their darkest secret is a heavy honor. It breaks your heart, but it mends it at the exact same time.
We don’t just interview children; we encounter their families. The mothers, fathers, and grandparents who walk into our center are completely broken. Their guilt is often a physical presence in the lobby. They question how they overlooked it….how they couldn’t protect them.
Part of my journey over the last ten years has been learning that the interview is just the first domino. Watching a mother realize that her child is finally safe, watching the exact moment the burden shifts from the child’s shoulders onto the legal system. That is where the healing begins.
But the job doesn’t end when the recording stops and the child leaves with a brave smile and a toy, candy, or snack.
The result of our work often happens under the harsh, unforgiving fluorescent lights of a courtroom. Stepping onto the witness stand to provide testimony concerning a forensic interview is a entirely different kind of battle.
When I sit in that witness chair, facing cross-examination, I am no longer just Jade. I am the guardian of that child’s words. Defense attorneys will dissect my techniques, question my training, and try to find a microscopic flaw in the way the interview was conducted. It is high-stakes, high-pressure, and entirely exhausting.
But every time the pressure mounts on the stand, I look past the lawyers and remember the child dangling their feet in my interview room. I remember the whisper. I remember the saying that the roof wouldn’t fall. My testimony is the shield that protects the integrity of their voice when they aren’t in the room to defend themselves. We go to court, so they don’t have to carry the burden alone anymore.
After ten years, the burn-out rate in this field is incredibly high. It takes a toll on your spirit. But as I look at the team, I have the privilege of working with here in Walker County, and as I reflect on a decade of service, I don’t feel defeated. I feel incredibly grateful. Don’t get me wrong, the job definitely has its frustrating days, weeks, months…. All of the above. But for the brave children I get to encounter, I am so grateful.
To every child who has ever sat across from me: thank you for your bravery. To the families who trusted me in their darkest hours: thank you for your resilience.
We will keep sitting in the quiet rooms. We will keep listening. We will keep fighting in the courtrooms. If we have anything to do with it, we will not let the roof fall. Happy National Forensic Interviewer’s Week (a little late) to my fellow colleagues. Let’s keep being the voice.
-JDK