Larsson and Lamb provide a helpful overview in this issue on memory retrieval and communicative ability and on ways these may be fostered in interviews with children. They explore three interview protocols that have been designed to improve the communicative ability of children: the cognitive interview, narrative elaboration and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) protocol. The authors conclude with the important point that while interviewers cannot change children's abilities, they can affect their own performance. Their overview summarizes the principal ways in which this can be done, and training implications thereof.
Good quality information is crucial in situations where children may have been subject to physical or sexual abuse, or witness to intimate partner violence or murder. Such information is essential not only for criminal law purposes, but also for effective family justice, child protection decision-making and good case planning. Larsson and Lamb argue persuasively that sufficient, well-founded data are available to inform interview practice, but generally this is not practised in the field. Similarly, training rarely meets adequate standards to have a significant impact on improving interviewer practice. These are very serious and depressing conclusions that should concern practitioners, service planners and public alike. Yet we can be sure that these deep deficiencies will only receive small mention in the next inquiry report or serious case review. The issue of effective communication with children was mentioned in the Climbie ´report (Department of Health, 2003), but did not emerge as a major issue or achieve the headlines that poor social work practice, supervision or management responsibility received in the aftermath of that extensive inquiry process. Yet examination of the sequence of events that affected Victoria Climbie ´brings into relief the central importance of effective communication with children who may be in difficulty. Victoria died through neglect and multiple injuries perpetrated by her aunt and her aunt's partner. She had been sent by her mother to this country for a better life and education, but died at the age of 8 years after months of sustained cruelty, brutality and neglect. Her aunt thought she had the devil in her and kept her away from school and public view. However, she was admitted to paediatric wards and so there were several opportunities for health and social workers to talk with her directly. Whether this would have made a difference is of