National Center on Forensics Community-Focused Webinar Series

In this webinar series, the National Center on Forensics (NCF) and FTCOE collaborate to deliver educational sessions based on specific needs identified by NCF research with community members. The NCF, funded by the National Institute of Justice, works specifically with death investigation professionals to develop educational content to meet identified needs. Through surveys, focus groups, and working groups, educational topics that are timely, pan-applicable, and practical are suggested, developed, and provided as a resource for the community, presented by experts in the field. 

The forensic workforce community is facing a crisis with less than half of the forensic pathologists needed to cover the US available, as well as increasing tensions, stress, and challenges in communicating every day and during crisis situations. Many counties have a limited caseload and cannot recruit full-time or permanent staff. Thus, a transient workforce of forensic pathologists, who cover multiple counties or move about the country filling gaps, has arisen. Experts in negotiating and organizing a transient workforce will present the challenges of utilizing these vital resources, the benefits and outcomes of recruiting temporary support, and best practices in fulfilling medical death investigation service goals. Other systems have organized themselves as a hub and spoke model where the limited availability of a forensic pathologist is kept centrally (hub) while individual counties or offices utilize alternative personnel for the initial investigations who are trained medical death investigators (e.g., the State of Virginia). How this was done, what it entails, the impact it has had, and the lessons learned will be presented. Lastly, recent political, pandemic, climate, and immigration-related crisis have impacted the short-staffed medical death investigation workforce where communication and keeping the public’s trust have been paramount. How to best communicate with the public, the media, other government officials, etc. is a valuable skill for forensic experts who work in high volume, high scrutiny environments. The lived experiences and best practices in this context will be discussed by seasoned experts.