1st Edition
Ensuring Competent Performance in Forensic Practice Recovery, Analysis, Interpretation, and Reporting
The Need for Professional Competence
For all the attention given to the forensic sciences in the media and the law, there is a glaring deficiency in the promotion of standards of competence. In the midst of fascinating scientific advances in the field, forensic science still suffers embarrassments from highly publicized scientific controversies and shoddy or fraudulent practices. The enactment of the Daubert ruling, which questions the qualification of a scientific “expert”, demonstrates the courts’ attempt to regulate a profession that ought to be self-regulating. Libraries of books on technique can do nothing to promote forensic science without common governing standards of practice that ensures professional competence.
Common Ground
The first book of its kind, Ensuring Competent Performance in Forensic Practice: Recovery, Analysis, Interpretation, and Reporting promotes a common understanding of competence and demonstrates the application of standards and practice in all aspects of forensic science. Authors Fereday and Hadley, esteemed forensic scientists with forty and fifty years experience respectively, address the method and benefit of establishing occupational standards for collection of evidence, interpretation of scientific analysis, and appropriate methods of testimony.
Training and Assessment
The authors stress the standardization of proper training and testing procedures to ensure that every scientist employed in public and private practice has the credentials they require. They give clear guidelines for effective training programs based on occupational standards that support the development of competent practitioners. The book examines the importance of workplace assessments of competence against occupational standards and emphasizes the role and quality of those involved in the assessment process. The authors include several case studies demonstrating competence in practice and the methods to ensure consistent high standards in the future.
Personal Accountability
Competence
Key Roles in the Forensic Process
Standards
References
Standards
Some History
National and Scottish Vocational Qualifications
National and Scottish Vocational Qualifications: levels
Assessment of Workplace Performance against the Standards
References
Generic Standards
References
Use of Standards
Introduction
Using the Standards as a Basis for Training and Learning Programs
Summary of Units and Elements of Competence for the Professional Standards of Competence in Forensic Science
Unit 2: Examine Items and Samples
A Generic Training Program for Forensic Scientists Derived from the Professional Standards of Competence
Translating the Generic to the Specific
Using the Standards as a Basis for the Continual Assessment
of Competent Forensic Practice
Using the Standards as a Basis for Qualifications
Using the Standards as a Basis for Certification or Accreditation
References
Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners (CRFP)
Introduction
Why a Register?
Recent Developments
Role of the CRFP
How is Registration Achieved?
A Suggested Model for the Development of Registration
Assessments using National Occupational Standards
Finally
Skills for Justice
A Training Strategy
Appendix 1: Occupational Mapping Study for the Forensic.
Science Sector, DG Associates
Appendix 2: Recovery of Material of Evidential Value—Laboratory Based
Appendix 3: Seventy-Eight Uses of Occupational Standards
Appendix 4: Professional Standards of Competence (National
Occupational Standards in Forensic Science), Science Technology and Mathematics Council
Appendix 5: Competency Assessment
Appendix 6: Functional Map for Forensic Science
Biography
Keith Hadley, Michael J. Fereday
“... put a lot of information into a workable format for many forensic users...gave me a lot to think about. ... well written and informative; I will recommend to our membership in AFQAM.”
— Jana Champion, Director. Wisconsin State Crime Laboratory, and President, Association of Forensic Quality Assurance Managers