Child Custody Decision Making: The Search for Improvement

A Review of Research Relevant to Custody and Access Disputes

“…The available longitudinal studies do not allow a determination of its relative importance over other concurrent factors such as parenting ability and absence of ongoing litigation (Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980;Hetherington et al, 1979;McDermott et al, 1978). The importance of this has not been tested directly in studies of children of divorce.…”

Children in Divorce, Custody and Access Situations: The Contribution of the Mental Health Professional

“…These include: the parenting capacity; the parent-child relationships; the needs of the child-food, shelter, education, medical care and any special needs; the location of the competing parties and whether this is stable; the length of time the child has lived in one stable environment and the desirability of maintaining continuity; and the reasonable preference of the child. Other criteria suggested were the moral, mental and physical fitness of the competing parties, but, at least in one jurisdiction (British Columbia, Canada), these are only considered if they interfere with the capacity to parent (Custody, Access and Guardianship, Fifth Report of Royal Commission on Family and Children 's Law, 1975), An agreement should be established with referring agents (Derdeyn, 1975;Rothschild, 1978;Krell, 1978;McDermott et al, 1978), who are frequendy lawyers for one or other competing party, that all contesting persons should be available for assessment and that the report should be made available to the judge or a lawyer appointed for the child (also known as a "child advocate" or "amicus curiae"). Both Gardner (1978) and Suarez (1978), however, feel that amicus curiae is more hindrance than help.…”

Children of Divorce: Can We Meet Their Needs?

“…Thus, in some instances, the scope of services provided may be quite narrow. For example, the joint program between the Family Court of Honolulu and the University of Hawaii's Department of Psychiatry was a temporary project which examined the effect of employing innovative techniques designed to improve the reliability of custody recommendations to the court (McDermott, et al, 1978). Other programs endeavor to furnish a considerably wider range of services.…”