VidaNyx Honors Forensic Interview Professionals for Giving Voice to Survivors of Abuse

Establishes Inaugural National Forensic Interviewers Week July 11-15, 2022

OMAHA, Neb., July 12, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- VidaNyx, a leading evidence management platform, is honoring and celebrating the specialized professionals who play a key role in child abuse investigations by establishing July 11-15, 2022 as the inaugural National Forensic Interviewers Week. Just four years ago VidaNyx set out to solve a very specific problem – how to use technology for good to innovate a better way to protect recorded interviews of child survivors of sexual assault. The secure software platform replaces the practice of copying and circulating sensitive testimonies of trauma to various partners on DVDs and jump drives which unnecessarily expose testimonies to the risk of human error and malicious intent. To date over 115,000 child forensic interviews have been protected, saving over $19MM on the costs of DVD creation, distribution, long term storage, and transcription, as well as over 95,000 people hours.

Forensic Interviewers provide developmentally sensitive, culturally appropriate, legally defensible forensic interviews of children and adolescents when an allegation of abuse has been made or if they have witnessed a violent crime. Often employed by child advocacy centers, they may also be a part of federal investigative offices, local and state law enforcement, prosecution offices, or child protective services.

"Forensic Interviewers deserve special recognition for the vital role they play in giving voice to children who have experienced unspeakable trauma," says Sara Boyd, CEO of VidaNyx. "They quickly build rapport and trust, and many times they are the first person to whom a survivor of abuse discloses their entire story. If not for this specialized profession, the necessary information needed to activate services to support a child's pathway to justice and healing might not be disclosed in an intentional, child-oriented and trauma-informed manner."

Each year, nearly 700,000 children are abused in the US and these families are supported by a network of more than 900 child advocacy centers. Nearly 90% of the time, children are abused by a family member, or someone they know in trust.

"The work that Interviewers do is positively courageous, helping children to disclose in a manner that is non-traumatic, non-leading, and acts as a gateway to all the rest of the wonderful services of child advocacy centers," said Teresa Huizar, CEO of the National Children's Alliance partnering with VidaNyx on recognizing National Forensic Interviewer Week. "If you're a Forensic Interviewer, whether you're a part of a child advocacy center or law enforcement, or child protective services, we are so very grateful for your service."

"I hope Forensic Interviewers know that being the person a child discloses their story to is a tremendous opportunity to make a tremendous difference every single day," says Chris Newlin, MS LPC, the Executive Director of the National Children's Advocacy Center and a former Forensic Interviewer, "We appreciate VidaNyx and their support of Forensic Interviewers and the multidisciplinary team."

VidaNyx (pronounced Vee-DA-Nix) is mission-driven to be the global leader in digital evidence management through a secure video evidence software as a service platform. The cloud-based solution controls, stores, analyzes and shares video and digital evidence to serve the needs of agencies that protect victims and support criminal justice. Trusted by over 8,000 agencies throughout the US, VidaNyx is easy to use, HIPAA Compliant and VOCA approved. For more information, visit vidanyx.com.

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214.577.9955

SOURCE VidaNyx Inc.