The police officer training program associated with the use of child-friendly hearing rooms for interviewing abused children with mental disabilities has ended successfully. The training was launched by the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice in collaboration with the Hungarian Association for Persons with Intellectual Disability (ÉFOÉSZ for short in Hungarian) and the Ministry of Interior in order to make the work of the police officers easier when interrogating children, whether they are entering the judiciary system as victims or as perpetrators, because telling the trauma they suffered is much more difficult for them.

Within the meaning of Regulation No. 32/2011 (XI. 18.) issued by the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, until the 1st of January 2014, at least one certificated child-friendly hearing room had to be installed at all county police headquarters, in which children under 14 years of age must be heard. The attitude of police headquarters in the capital city and county towns too has been exemplary almost everywhere, so now there are 21 hearing rooms across the country. Using these rooms, children are not facing the same treatment and way of interrogation as adults do; resulting in substantial decrease of trauma experienced during interrogations.

Apart the development of the right environment, to origanise of trainings related to appropriate usage of child-friendly hearing rooms is of vital importance as well, which training was made available to nearly 300 police officers at 21 locations, from Budapest throughout Debrecen to Pécs, thanks to the joint efforts of Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, ÉFOÉSZ and the Ministry of Interior. Throughout the training legal regulation was mentioned, the guardianship system and the new Civil Code, including the opportunity for supported decision-making. The program touched upon the presentation of the UN Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well. Furthermore such knowledge could be mastered by the participants as the methodology of easily understandable communication, by which in the future it will be easier to connect with mentally disabled people and children.

(Ministry of Public Administration and Justice)