Military Police Enhancing Ability to Support Victims of Sexual Assault

November 2, 2021 - Defence Stories

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Canadian Forces Military Police

Investigators with the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (CFNIS) recently took part in specialised training to enhance their ability to support victims of sexual assault while seeking to hold offenders accountable.

Dr. Lori Haskell is a nationally recognized expert on trauma and abuse, and on trauma informed approaches to mental health service delivery. She delivered training to CFNIS investigators on topics including neurobiology of fear and its effects on victims' behaviours, the effects of trauma on memory encoding, trauma Informed Interviewing, responses exhibited by victims to ongoing abuse and violence and trauma informed victim support.

What might appear to be an “irregularity” in the way a victim reacts, or tells her story, is actually a typical, predictable and normal way of responding to life threatening events.  Increasing awareness of what changes are required in both practice and policy to integrate neurobiological knowledge is a key objective of my work with police services across the country. – Dr. Lori Haskell

Ms. Myrna McCallum, a lawyer who specialises in trauma informed lawyering also provided training in cultural humility, vicarious trauma and resilience, and Indigenous intergenerational trauma.

Advanced training such as this is the result of listening to experts and recommendations from external reviews calling on the Military Police to enhance training with a focus on victim centric approaches to investigations in sexual assault cases. 

“We are a learning organization, continuously striving to improve our processes.  We adapt our approaches based on recommendations from many areas, including outside experts. This improves our capabilities as our investigators are often the first point of contact for victims and survivors. Training like this will help us to successfully bring perpetrators to justice while ensuring victims feel as safe and supported as possible throughout the process”.  – LCol Eric Leblanc, Commanding Officer, CFNIS.

The training took place over several days in September and October 2021 as part of the annual CFNIS indoctrination week. This is the second year this training has been offered and is an example of a number of additional training courses which MP personnel are receiving to increase their overall ability to support victims during investigations. However, it is not just CFNIS personnel who are undergoing extra training in this area.

All MP personnel are now mandated by the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal to take the ‘Victim Rights in Canada’ course which is designed to educate frontline MP personnel about the Canadian Victims Bill of Rights and will inform on the rights of victims of crime while an offence is being investigated. Further to this, all MP personnel must complete the RCMP developed ‘Using a Trauma Informed Approach’ course, which is designed to introduce the concept of trauma, the range of reactions to trauma, and how to conduct investigations using a trauma-informed approach.