Attiitudes of Attorneys and Judges Toward Joint Custody and Its Litigation

The purposes of this research were: (1) to determine the consequences of joint custody as perceived by judges and attorneys (2) to determine whether attitudes toward the concept of joint custody influence judges' and attorneys' attitudes toward the Louisiana joint custody law, and (3) to determine the relationship between attitudes of judges and the percentage of awards for joint custody. Forty-four judges and 110 attorneys completed and returned the questionnaire used in this paper. It was concluded that judges and attorneys views some of the beneficial consequences of joint custody as occuring more frequently than others and more frequently than the detrimental consequences. Attitudes toward joint custody and attitudes toward the Louisiana statute were not found to be significantly related. A positive correlation was found between judges' perceptions of the frequency with both parents and the percentages of cases in which judges award joint custody. No significant correlation was found bewteen percentages of awards for joint custody granted by judges and their attitudes toward Louisiana's statute.     

Ethical Issues in Child Custody and Dependency Cases

Abstract

The emotional and psychological risks to children of high conflict divorce have led to the increased involvement of mental health professionals in child custody cases. Numerous service models (Greenberg & Gould, 2001; Johnston, 2000; Johnston & Roseby, 1997) have been developed to assist divorcing families in minimizing family conflict and supporting children'S needs. This underscores the need for judges and attorneys to understand the ethical and professional standards that underlie competent mental health practice in forensic cases. The practices of mental health professionals providing court-related services may have a substantial impact on the validity of their professional opinions, the effectiveness of services provided to children and families, and children'S development and adjustment. The authors suggest core ethical and clinical issues to be considered by all psychologists who work in the context of custody disputes. It is hoped that these professional practice suggestions will also be useful to attorneys and judicial officers in assessing the quality of mental health professionals' opinions.     

Parent-child supervised visitation within child welfare and custody dispute contexts: An exploratory comparison of two distinct models of practice

This paper aims to untangle the assumptions and goals of supervised visitation services in the child welfare and custody dispute contexts, through presenting a legal analysis and review of social science literature. There is confusion in the literature on the specific roles, duties and expectations of supervised visitation services in facilitating parent-child contact within child welfare and custody disputes. A framework is outlined for understanding supervised visitation services in general. The overarching tenets of these services are discussed, and the assumptions of safety, protection and parent-child contact are explored. The legal context of supervised visitation in Canada is outlined, specifically examining the ‘best interest of the child’ principle and comparing the legal backdrop of visitation in child welfare and custody disputes. The social science literature is then reviewed with the goal of discerning supervised visitation across child welfare and custody disputes. The limited research on outcomes for children and families after utilizing supervised visitation services is discussed. This paper concludes with cautions and considerations for policy and practice for supervised visitation in child welfare and family law contexts, as well as recommendations for both fields.     

Testing,One, Two,Three, Testing: An Attorney Perspective

SUMMARY

This article addresses the attorney perspective on the use of psychometric testing in the context of family law child custody evaluations. Although attorneys, judicial officers and child custody evaluators “use” psychometric testing in family law matters, the ways in which each discipline uses the information gleaned from the results of these tests as administered to child custody litigants can differ substantially. This article distinguishes the attorney perspective from the mental health perspective in the use of the results of such tests.     

When Form Fails to Follow Function

Abstract

Benjamin and Gollan'S (2003) new primer on conducting child custody evaluations, published by the American Psychological Association, presents the authors' flawed evaluation protocol with little discussion of the risks and benefits of the practices they advocate. The authors fail to note where their model varies significantly from the custody evaluation guidelines required by law in some states, and promulgated by various professional organizations. The most troubling practices include not interviewing and assessing pre-adolescent children, destroying videotapes of interviews and observation sessions, organizing the evaluation around parental allegations, use of a suggestive allegation checklist, and limiting consideration of information from collateral witnesses to declarations submitted under penalty of perjury.     

Abusers gaining custody in family courts: A case series of over turned decisions

Abstract

This article presents findings and recommendations based on an in-depth examination of records from 27 custody cases from across the United States. The goal of this case series was to determine why family courts may place children with a parent that the child alleges abused them rather than with the nonoffending parent. We focused on “turned around cases” involving allegations of child abuse that were at first viewed as false and later judged to be valid. The average time a child spent in the court ordered custody of an abusive parent was 3.2?years. In all cases we uncovered the father was the abusive parent and the mother sought to protect their child. Results revealed that initially courts were highly suspicious of mothers' motives for being concerned with abuse. These mothers were often treated poorly and two-thirds of the mothers were pathologized by the court for advocating for the safety of their children. Judges who initially ordered children into custody or visitation with abusive parents relied mainly on reports by custody evaluators and guardians ad litem who mistakenly accused mothers of attempting to alienate their children from the father or having coached the child to falsely report abuse. As a result, 59% of perpetrators were given sole custody and the rest were given joint custody or unsupervised visitation. After failing to be protected in the first custody determination, 88% of children reported new incidents of abuse. The abuse often became increasingly severe and the children's mental and physical health frequently deteriorated. The main reason that cases turned around was because protective parents were able to present compelling evidence of the abuse and back the evidence up with reports by mental health professionals who had specific expertise in child abuse rather than merely custody assessment.     

Safety First

Abstract

A substantial percentage of contested child custody cases involve allegations of domestic violence. The impact on the psychological health and physical safety of the child exposed to domestic violence has only recently become a focus of the courts' and child custody evalu-ators' attention. Currently, the majority of state statutes include consideration of domestic violence in “best interests” child custody criteria. However, many of the statues do not provide the child custody evaluator the specific criteria to consider, especially if the domestic violence allegations have not been previously reported to authorities prior to the commencement of separation and divorce proceedings. This article presents the first three steps of the six-step Safety First Model, designed to assist the legal and psychological professions to focus on the priorities on the safety of children exposed to domestic violence.     

Relocation Cases: Analyzing Relevant Evidence

SUMMARY

This article offers a format for analysis of evidence in relocation cases where both parents are fit to have primary custody of the child. The suggested analysis of evidence in family relocation cases after dissolution of marriage results in a positive and workable resolution of the issues presented to the court. The end point is a workable plan for parenting in the best interest of the child. The format balances the interests of both parents and the child in compliance with state, federal and international law.     

Evaluating Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse Within Complex Child Custody Cases

SUMMARY

This article provides a framework for identifying and assembling the interdependent elements of a child custody evaluation with allegations of child sexual abuse. The identification of several myths regarding child sexual abuse (CSA) introduces the subject matter of this article. A forensic evaluation model (Heilbrun, 2001) is then used to organize the custody evaluator's tasks into the following sequential classifications: (a) preparation; (b) data collection; (c) data interpretation; and (d) communication of results. Through this model, the entwined tasks of evaluating the child's needs and the parents' capacities to meet the child's needs, while simultaneously examining the question of child sexual abuse, are addressed.     

Exploring Three Functions in Child Custody Evaluation for the Relocation Case: Prediction,Investigation, and Making Recommendations for a Long-Distance Parenting Plan

SUMMARY

The psycho-legal dilemmas posed by child custody relocation cases are discussed in terms of the four decisional alternatives facing the court and evaluator. Different legal contexts for relocation are reviewed in terms of their implications for the custody evaluation. Complexities involved in the evaluator's function of making predictions for the court are presented. The need to conduct careful investigation on both risk and pragmatic factors is highlighted by case illustrations. The obstacles of crafting of long distance parenting plans that will be in the best interests of the child are presented as governed by the goal of harm mitigation.     

The child welfare service's assessments in custody cases that involve minors

The percentage of breakdowns in marriages, cohabitations and civil partnerships is increasing in the Western world, resulting in questions of child custody. In Norway and other Western countries, there is little knowledge of the support system's work in child custody cases. This article focuses on the assessments Norwegian child welfare service employees conduct in 37 cases about child custody. We explain why they sometimes conduct investigations of reports and at other times do not.

‘Street-level bureaucracy’ is the theoretical reference framework for interpreting the interviews. Assessments and decisions of the child welfare service in custody cases vary from one service to another. It is relatively difficult to predict whether the notifications will be investigated or dropped. Decisions are the result of a jigsaw puzzle of risk assessment, interpretations of legislation, cooperative procedures and an understanding of the county social welfare board. Notifications concerning violence and notifications from family counselling offices stand out since generally they result in investigations.

Child welfare services' handling of notifications regarding custody questions is challenging as these cases are in the grey zone between the Children Act and the Child Welfare Act. Child welfare workers want clearer guidelines for the cases on which they are to work. However, new rules cannot replace the professional and ethical assessments the child welfare service workers have to make in each individual case.     

Child Custody Evaluations in Cases Involving Sexual Abuse: A View from the Bench

SUMMARY

Psychological evaluation and testimony play a critical role in child sexual abuse cases, especially in custody and visitation cases. While the evaluation generally cannot determine whether sexual abuse has occurred, it can provide useful information to assist the court in deciding matters of custody and access in the face of the allegations. Judges need to know the standard of practice for the development of expert opinion in order to be able to evaluate testimony offered by custody evaluators. The informed judge can develop useful input by outlining expectations within the order for evaluation and actively regulating the gate for admission of expert testimony. Elements of a model order for custody evaluations addressing allegations of sexual abuse are proposed.     

The Effect of Social Class on the Adjudication of Criminal Cases: Class-linked Behavior Tendencies,Common Sense,and the Interpretive Procedures of Court-appointed Defense Attorneys

This article addresses some important issues concerning the effect of social class on criminal case outcomes. Although the findings reported here support Donald Black's (1989) argument that a defendant's relative social class effects the quantity of law applied to a criminal case, they also indicate that this influence occurs through actors' interpretive procedures. Specifically, one group of court-appointed defense attorneys link behavior tendencies to court actors characterized as different social class types. These behavior tendencies are expressed through the grammar and rhetoric of “common sense”—a knowledge system which is evoked throughout all types of judicial proceedings. The attorneys' expectations of court actors shape their behavior such that lower-class defendants are likely to endure a greater quantity of law. The article concludes with some suggestions on how researchers might reconsider studying the effect of social class on criminal case outcomes.     

Parental Alienation in Light of Attachment Theory

Abstract

Few ideas have captured the attention and charged the emotions of the public, of mental health and legal professionals as thoroughly as the concept of parental alienation and Gardner's (1987) Parental Alienation Syndrome. For all of this controversy, the alienation concept stands outside developmental theory and without firm empirical support. The present paper explores alienation and its conceptual counterpart, alignment, as the necessary and natural tools of child-caregiver attachment (Ainsworth & Wittig, 1969; Bowlby, 1969) and of family system cohesion. This conceptual foundation offers developmentalists, clinicians, and family law professionals alike a common language and valuable instruments with which to understand those relatively infrequent but highly charged circumstances in which these tools are used as weapons, particularly in the context of contested custody litigation. The need to establish baseline measures, child-centered interventions, and legal remedies anchored in the attachment model is discussed.     

Substantiation of Sexual Abuse Allegations

Professional practices and decision-making procedures in investigation of child sexual abuse were studied by interviewing child protection professionals in the southeastern U.S. regarding 175 allegations of abuse. Investigation procedures used, factors associated with the decision to substantiate, and the child protection workers' degree of confidence in their decisions were recorded for each allegation. It was found that substantiated cases: (a) involved significantly older children; (b) were more likely to involve intrusive types of abuse and children of minority race; and (c) were less likely to involve a visitation or custody dispute. Characteristics of the child's disclosure served as the primary basis for substantiation decisions, although medical evidence and affective and behavioral indicators also contributed to the decisions. Case workers were less certain of their decisions when allegations involved young children and adolescents and when allegations were made in the context of custody disputes. In terms of investigatory procedures, anatomical dolls and drawings were rarely used, alleged offenders were interviewed in fewer than one quarter of the cases, and medical and law enforcement consultations were obtained at a higher rate than mental health consultations.     

Evaluating the Probative Value of Child Custody Evaluations

Abstract

The ultimate purpose of a child custody evaluation is to assist children and their families to restructure their family lives after divorce. A competent forensic work product is defined, in part, by the eval-uator'S use of current state of the art forensic methods and procedures applied to child custody evaluations (Gould, 1998). In this paper, a detailed structure for reviewing the reliability and relevance of a child custody advisory report is provided in order to help these professionals produce a work product of greater weight and sufficiency to the court and a work product that is increasingly useful to the families we seek to help.     

Factors Related to Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse Cases

ABSTRACT

This study explored how various factors regarding the victim, offender, abuse situation, and case evidence were related to prosecution decisions in child sexual abuse cases. Data were collected from records of 200 closed child sexual abuse cases served at a southwestern United States agency during 1989–1990. Results indicated that cases involving recently reported abuse and offenders who were charged with abusing multiple child victims were significantly more likely to be prosecuted than cases involving less recently reported abuse and offenders charged with abusing only one victim, respectively. In terms of the victim-offender relationship, prosecution was most likely for cases with offenders who were strangers, next most likely for acquaintances and step and extended family members, and least likely for biological nuclear family members. Also, cases with medical evidence of abuse were more likely to be prosecuted than cases without medical evidence only when serious abuse was involved. In addition, prosecution was significantly less likely for cases with younger victims than for cases with older victims. Seriousness of abuse, the presence of medical evidence, and recency of abuse did not account for this victim age-prosecution status relationship. Furthermore, no cases involving possible custody disputes were prosecuted. Implications are discussed concerning the need for focused and integrated efforts in responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.     

Review of Empirical Research on Child Custody Practice

ABSTRACT

This article reviews the current state of child custody practice and its significant changes over the past 20 years. Three types of research methodology are reviewed regarding child custody practice: survey research with child custody evaluators, survey research with judges and attorneys, and content analysis of child custody reports. The assessment of specialized issues in child custody evaluations, such as sexual abuse and domestic violence, are addressed as well. Factors promoting change in child custody practice over the years are discussed, along with areas needing further improvement and research.     

Response to Amundson,Lux and Hindmarch: Critique of Investigative Practices Article

ABSTRACT

This article responds to a commentary by Amundson, Lux and Hindmarch (2005), in which they offer a pejorative criticism about our article (Austin & Kirkpatrick, 2004) in which we described the investigative component within comprehensive child custody evaluations–something they label as “maximalist” evaluations and contrast with a model they prefer called the “minimalist” approach. We believe our approach to custody evaluations is in keeping with the current standard of practice and professional guidelines.     

Reviews

Books reviewed: Whiteside, Richard, The art of using and losing control: adjusting the therapeutic stance Whiteside, Richard, The art of using and losing control (video) Yapko, Michael, Breaking the patterns of depression Love, A., Moloney, L., Fisher, T., Federally-funded family mediation in Melbourne: outcome, costs and client satisfaction Moloney, L., Fisher, T., Love, A., Ferguson, S., Federally-funded family mediation in Sydney—outcome, costs and client satisfaction Moloney, L., Fisher, T., Love, A., Ferguson, S., Federally-funded family mediation in Sydney—synopsis, key findings and recommendations Ackerman, Marc, Clinician's guide to child custody evaluation Everett, Craig, Child custody: legal decisions and family outcomes Irvine, John, Who'd be a parent? The manual that should have come with the kids! Greenspan, Stanley with Lieff Benderly, Beryl, The growth of the mind and the endangered origins of intelligence MacKinnon, L., Trust and betrayal in the treatment of child abuse