Lynn Cook, MSW, CAPSW, received her MSW and Certificate in Trauma Counseling from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2008. She is the Children’s Justice Act Program and Policy Analyst with the Department of Justice, Office of Crime Victim Services, where she oversees statewide initiatives to improve the investigation, prosecution, and judicial handling of child abuse.
Previously, Lynn served as a Forensic Interviewer at the Milwaukee Child Advocacy Center of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, conducting more than 2,300 forensic interviews with children and teens who had experienced or witnessed violence and maltreatment. She continues to conduct forensic interviews at Safe Harbor Child Advocacy Center in Madison.
A contributor to the Wisconsin Forensic Interview Guidelines curriculum and a faculty member for statewide training, Lynn presents frequently at state and national trainings on child abuse dynamics. She is often called to testify as an expert witness in criminal trials in Milwaukee County and across the state.
Earlier in her career, Lynn spent seven years as a Sensitive Crimes Victim Advocate in the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, where she worked on hundreds of child sexual abuse cases from charging through sentencing. She has also worked in child welfare and primary prevention education and has instructed a course on criminal violence at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
- Gain practical tools to evaluate children’s statements within the context of parental conflict
- Understand how oversimplified terminology can lead to mistakes and further harm
- Apply a structured framework for assessing allegations of sexual abuse by a parent
- Improve accuracy and fairness in custody outcomes for children and parents
- Sharpen your ability to balance child protection with parental rights in disputed custody cases
- Family lawyers
- Guardians ad litem
- Attorneys handling CHIPS/JIPS cases
- Government lawyers
- Corporation counsel
- Family Court Commissioners
- Circuit Court Judges
- Family law mediators
- Family law paralegals