WA police officer to study with FBI

A policewoman from the Kimberley has won a scholarship to study with the American Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Sergeant Christina Johnston from the Dampier Peninsula, north of Broome, is one of three West Australian Police officers who secured scholarships to further their police studies overseas.

Sergeant Johnston says she plans to fly to the United States later this year to study the techniques police use to interview child abuse victims in remote North American communities.

"The model that we use at the moment is very good, but I think there's different areas that we can look at," she said.

"Interviewing indigenous children are very different to interviewing Caucasian children, so I'm hoping to improve my skills in interviewing indigenous children and hoping to bring them back to actually have a more conducive model.

"[I want to] find out about child abuse in their remote communities and find out how they manage child abuse investigations and their service delivery to the remote indigenous communities and sort of the different support services that are available to them."