Page 68 - South Mississippi Living - April, 2025

MY JOURNEY IN
CHILD ADVOCACY STUDIES
story by Keith R. Stovall, 2024 CAST Crusader Award Recipient photo courtesy of Children’s Advocacy Centers of Mississippi
In 2006, I thought I was closing the chapter on my career in child advocacy. I had recently started working at Copiah-Lincoln Community College, enjoying my new role and settling into campus life. Then came a call from the Pike County District Attorney’s Office, asking me to testify as an expert witness in a sexual battery case. Several months earlier, I had conducted the forensic interview of the child involved, and I agreed to provide testimony.
Before heading to the courthouse, I reviewed my forensic interviewing training manuals from 2001, along with a collection of books and articles I had accumulated over the years. After lunch at a local diner, I walked into the Pike County Courthouse in Magnolia, Mississippi, prepared to deliver what I believed would be my final contribution to child advocacy.
I took the witness stand and was sworn in as an expert witness in the field of forensic interviewing. The prosecuting attorney asked about my credentials and the training I had received. I spoke of the years I had committed to the field and the training
necessary to become a forensic interviewer. I then shared my professional opinion on the forensic interview I had conducted with the victim. The defense attorney subjected me to a rigorous cross-examination, challenging my training, the field of child advocacy, and the validity of forensic interviewing on behalf of children. After delivering my testimony, I returned home to my new life at Copiah-Lincoln Community College. The defendant was found guilty and sentenced, and I moved forward, unaware of the lasting impact of that day.
Three years later, the Mississippi State Supreme Court upheld the conviction, and the case set a national precedent for the admissibility of forensic interviews in courtrooms across the country. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my testimony left
an enduring mark on the field of child advocacy. It wasn’t necessarily the quality of the forensic interview or even the effectiveness of my testimony. The defendant had committed an egregious crime, and Mississippi had developed the necessary tools to effectively prosecute this – and similar – crimes. I did not
68 | April 2025
www.smliving.net | SOUTH MISSISSIPPI Living