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Children's Advocacy Centers defend MDT model, call for clearer evidence practices and better agency participation
Summary
Forensic interviewers and CAC directors told a Louisiana task force that the multidisciplinary team (MDT) model reduces retraumatization but that uneven attendance, short local retention of original interview media and low survey response rates undermine continuity. Witnesses asked the task force for attendance rosters, better DCFS participation and clearer chain-of-custody rules.
At a Louisiana legislative task force hearing, forensic interviewers and Children’s Advocacy Center directors described how the multidisciplinary team (MDT) approach concentrates law‑enforcement, social‑service and medical responses into a single videotaped forensic interview to limit repeated questioning of children.
"When CACs came along ... kids are only having to be spoken to one maybe two times in full depth," said Shannon Grow, a forensic interviewer at the Lafourche Children’s Advocacy Center, explaining that the MDT observation room allows investigators and DCFS staff to monitor interviews in real time. Grow said her center has conducted 205 interviews this year for Lafourche and Assumption parishes and stressed that therapeutic follow-up is limited by CAC budgets.
Witnesses described large differences in how centers manage evidence. At some CACs staff burn a copy of an interview and hand the original DVD or jump drive to law enforcement immediately; local copies are then erased after a short retention window. "We burn a copy and give it to [law enforcement] ... our computer maintains it for two weeks ... after three weeks it's erased from our hard drive," a Baton Rouge CAC representative said. Other CACs keep written summaries and store case data in the national database used for accreditation.
Directors said some differences stem from practical constraints — some CACs lack secure cloud storage and rely on DVDs — while other practices reflect local MOUs signed with partner agencies that set custody and access rules. Tanya Haas, executive director of the Baton Rouge CAC, offered to reissue a one‑week survey that had generated about 50 responses from roughly 500 recipients, and to bring attendance rosters for all 14 state CACs to the task force. "We reached out to all 14 CACs ... we heard back from all except four," staff reported.
The CAC representatives asked the task force to collect roster and attendance records for the past year, to re‑run the survey through executive‑director channels to increase response, and to work with DCFS and law enforcement to identify the appropriate representative to attend monthly MDT staffing meetings.
The task force chair said staff would follow up and that those documents would inform budget and legislative recommendations planned for the next session.
