The Child Custody Evaluation Report: Toward an Integrated Model of Practice

Pickar, Daniel B.; Kaufman, Robert L.

doi:10.1080/15379418.2013.778702

Cited by 7 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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Section: Risk and Protective Factors With Special Needs Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, a risk assessment shifts the focus from the possible harm caused by an individual parent to the risk of potential harm from environmental circumstances (Austin, 2008b). In general, risk factors are likely to produce more accurate predictions if they are based on scientific research rather than intuition or clinical judgment (although clinical judgment will sometimes serve an important role in custody determinations; Pickar & Kaufman, 2013). Drozd, Olesen, and Saini (2013) note that parenting plan evaluations can be understood as risk assessments in that the evaluator weighs the relative assets and shortcomings of different plans for a particular family.…”

Section: Risk and Protective Factors With Special Needs Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Parenting Plans for Special Needs Children: Applying a Risk‐Assessment Model

Pickar¹,

Kaufman²

2015

Family Court Review

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Family courts are seeing an increasing number of separating or divorced families who have a special needs child. These cases present complex challenges for family law professionals charged with crafting parenting plans based on best interests standards. For many of these children, the typical developmentally based custodial arrangements may not be suitable, given the child's specific symptoms and treatment needs. We present a model for understanding how the general and specific needs of these children, as well as the demands on parents, can be assessed and understood in the context of divorce. This includes an analysis of risk and protective factors that inform timeshare and custodial recommendations and determinations. The risk assessment model is then applied to three of the most commonly occurring childhood neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders likely to be encountered in family court, namely, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depressive disorders, and autistic spectrum disorders. There has been a dramatic rise in the population of children with neurodevelopmental, psychiatric, and medical syndromes whose parents are disputing custody in the family courts. Family law professionals of all disciplines should develop a fundamental knowledge base about the most commonly seen special needs children in family court, such as those with neurodevelopmental conditions like autistic spectrum disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and severe depressive disorders (especially with teenagers), which may involve suicidal or self‐harming behaviors. Commonly recommended parenting plans may be inappropriate for many special needs children, as some function significantly below their chronological age and pose extreme behavioral challenges. A systematic analysis of risk and protective factors should inform timeshare arrangements and determinations with this varied population, including the safety of the child and severity of the disorder, parental commitment and availability to pursue medical, educational, and therapeutic services, the parental attunement and insightful about the problem, and the differential parenting skills of each parent.

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Section: Risk and Protective Factors With Special Needs Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Risk and Protective Factors With Special Needs Childrenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parenting Plans for Special Needs Children: Applying a Risk‐Assessment Model

Pickar¹,

Kaufman²

2015

Family Court Review

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“…An attorney working within the litigation model may find a ready audience for finding flaws in the report and attributing bias to the evaluator when a report does not support a parent's position. Pickar and Kaufman () suggest that attorneys assist their clients to understand and absorb the custody recommendations and the reasoning behind them, manage the parents' responses, and work with their clients about responding to make decisions based on the report. An attorney's mental health consultant, as a trusted expert, could play a valuable role in explaining an evaluator's reasoning and work with the client's emotional reactions to an evaluation report.…”

Section: Expert Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As part of a therapeutic model of jurisprudence, custody evaluators should be challenged to learn new skills to more effectively present information from evaluations to courts, parents, and their attorneys. Pickar and Kaufman () have written about the importance of a “high‐quality” evaluation report written for the multiple audiences of the court, attorneys, and the parents. They posit that there need not be a contradiction between the kind of evaluation report that satisfies forensic guidelines, with the court as the primary client, and for clients themselves because careful presentation of information based on sound procedures and research‐based analysis are important for both.…”

Section: Informational Powermentioning

confidence: 99%

The Place for Custody Evaluations in Family Peacemaking

Lund¹

2015

Family Court Review

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Custody evaluations can serve the dual purpose of providing neutral, objective information to the court while also contributing to the possibility of earlier settlement, which coincides with the therapeutic jurisprudence goal of more positive outcomes for children and families. Research suggests that most cases settle after custody evaluations. However, most of the literature is focused on the use of custody evaluations for litigation. Evaluators, attorneys, and mental health consultants can influence parents to focus more on children's needs and less on their conflict as they go through the evaluation process. This article urges family courts to develop processes and require professionals to learn skills needed for an interdisciplinary process to utilize evaluations in peacemaking.Key Points for the Family Court Community:All custody evaluation processes should aim to reduce and/or shorten children's exposure to parental conflict. Evaluators, attorneys, and mental health professional consultants should use the evaluation process to influence parents to be more aware of their children's needs and less invested in their adversarial positions. Evaluators should learn to write and orally present information and state opinions with consideration of the parents themselves as consumers of the custody evaluation as well as the court. Attorneys and mental health professional consultants should help clients review the report, process their emotional reactions, and consider their options for settlement versus litigation in terms of emotional and financial costs to the family. Court processes should be developed to contain the time and cost of custody evaluations and provide dispute resolution after custody evaluations.

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“…This is critical. In preparing reports, the evaluator would keep in mind that parents will be readers of the report (Pickar and Kaufman , as described in Lund ). Reports would present information and make formulations (hypersensitive to the way language is used) that help parents understand one another, the needs of their children, and the dynamics of their conflict engagement.…”

Section: Conclusion: Limitations and Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing Conflict: A Discursive Analysis of Family Law Conflict

Ney

2015

Conflict Resolution Qtrly

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Assumptions that disputants are responsible for their conflicts are embedded in many of our practices for engaging conflict, when, in many instances, rational‐legal institutions we rely on to do our conflict business, not individuals, may be causing and sustaining our conflicts (Cloke 2001). Using a discursive framework that draws on Foucault (1980) and Bacchi's (2009) methodology of problematization, this article critiques a psychological assessment tool used and required in a custody and access evaluation in the context of family law to show how institutional structures and context matter when third parties work with conflict.

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The Child Custody Evaluation Report: Toward an Integrated Model of Practice

Cited by 7 publications

References 51 publications

Parenting Plans for Special Needs Children: Applying a Risk‐Assessment Model

Parenting Plans for Special Needs Children: Applying a Risk‐Assessment Model

The Place for Custody Evaluations in Family Peacemaking

Constructing Conflict: A Discursive Analysis of Family Law Conflict

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