Denmark: Systematic Forensic Medical Screening of Children in Cases of Suspected Physical Violence

  ECPA 2022 (working with a particularly vulnerable crime victim)
  Third place

The Systematic Forensic Medical Screening of Children in Cases of Suspected Physical Violence is a cross-sectoral co-creation project that tested out an existing intervention in practice over a period of two years (2020-2022). This cross-sectoral project has implemented a new procedure ensuring that all children from the capital area of Copenhagen were offered a forensic medical examination following the video-recorded investigative interview. This means that no preliminary selection of cases is carried out once the case has been reported to the police and the video interview has been decided. This examination firstly ensures that objective medical evidence is systematically documented alongside the child’s verbal description of abuse and, secondly, that the child’s general health status is screened. The set-up ensures that the abuse and the consequences thereof will most likely be discovered in a timely manner. The preventative issues are stopping the abuse, supporting the child and keeping the child in focus.

The project ran between 1 April 2020 and 30 June 2022.