A Comprehensive Guide To Child Custody Evaluations Mental Health And Legal Perspectives

Whether assessing general family functioning or specific areas of conflict, professionals preparing child custody evaluations require sound knowledge of three interrelated fields: up-to-date legal issues, psychological findings, and forensic procedures. This book covers these three essential areas to walk readers through the evaluation process clearly and concisely. It further provides a unique combination of legal guidelines with social science research.

This book is a combination of two previously published books by Phil Stahl/Sage, Conducting Child Custody Evaluations and Complex Issues in Child Custody Evaluations. The book was written as a guide to help students and practitioners walk through the process of conducting a child custody evaluation, a critical skill for a variety of mental health practitioners. The book will cover the mental health expert's many possible roles as a therapist, mediator, evaluator, consultant to attorneys, expert witness, and more. It also address the best interest of the child, legal custody and time share, divorce and its impact on children, and children's developmental needs. The second part takes a step-by-step approach on how to conduct the evaluation, including how to work with children and parents, psychological testing, and writing up the report. The final part, complex issues, draws from the 1999 book, and covers issues such as domestic violence, non-violent high-conflict homes, relocation, special needs children, substance abuse, cultural issues and the alienated child. The author's writing style is friendly and easy to read, making complex material easy to comprehend and implement.

Whether assessing general family functioning or specific areas of conflict, professionals preparing child custody evaluations require sound knowledge of three interrelated fields: up-to-date legal issues, psychological findings, and forensic procedures. This book covers these three essential areas to walk readers through the evaluation process clearly and concisely. It further provides a unique combination of legal guidelines with social science research.

This important contribution to understanding the whole process of conducting child custody evaluation, based on the author's extensive experience, examines in detail the complex questions and issues involved. The many topics addressed include: interviewing parents and children; testifying in court; writing custody evaluations; assessing the capacity to parent; assessing the attachment of children to their parents; planning custody and parental access; children's adjustment to divorce; domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse; mental illness; parental alienation; and on-going evaluation.

"This text is excellent and very timely. Philip Michael Stahl's second volume is the perfect supplement to his Conducting Child Custody Evaluations because it deals with specific issues of great concern to evaluators: parental alienation, allegations of sexual abuse, domestic violence, move-away situations, and high conflict families. The chapter dealing with child considerations is also very well done. His discussion of developmental considerations is clear and supported by the latest research in the field. I also liked his treatment of children's reaction to parental conflict, weighing the needs of the individual child with the needs of the sibling group, and giving the child a voice while protecting their privacy. I also appreciated his discussion of components of the evaluator's recommendation, use of psychological testing, Rosemary Vasquez's discussion of cultural issues, tackling the terror of testifying and ethical issues. Phil Stahl has written a very important text. It is timely, well written, and comprehensive. Nice work!!!" --Hugh McIsaac, Oregon Family Institute When performing a custody evaluation, how do professionals deal with the issue of domestic violence? What impact does one parent's moving away have on the evaluation? How should an evaluator handle high-conflict divorces? Over the past five to ten years, there has been a significant increase in the use of child custody evaluations by the courts. At the same time, the issues have become more complex and difficult. In this book, the author provides a theoretical and practical understanding of many of the factors that make custody evaluations complex. A key component is the integration of disparate research findings into a comprehensive resource that will enable the evaluator and the court to understand these complex issues. A second component is to provide a thorough understanding of the fact that divorce brings with it a set of complex needs, and evaluators and the courts must develop a paradigm for weighing these needs in a comprehensive manner. This book provides that paradigm.

This work is a combination of two previously published books - 'Conducting Child Custody Evaluations' and 'Complex Issues in Child Custody Evaluations'. The book was written as a guide to help students and practitioners walk through the process of conducting a child custody evaluation, a critical skill for mental health practitioners.

"The Clinician's Guide to Child Custody Evaluations, Third Edition is written by one of the leaders in the field. it is as essential to the subject of child custody as the stethoscope is to medicine. This edition, an update of a classic, is a must-read for everyone from the novice to the expert's expert." - Leslie M. Drozd, PhD, Editor, Journal of Child Custody A practical and comprehensive guide for conducting child custody evaluations. Clinician's Guide to Child Custody Evaluations addresses the entire custody evaluation process from beginning to end. This New Third Edition reflects the abundant recent research in this area, including new evaluating and testing findings and new ethical guidelines from the APA. This edition also features fully up-to-date coverage of important legal decisions affecting child custody. With many chapters completely revised and rewritten, the third Edition covers: * Roles the mental health Practitioner can play and operate within the legal arena * What encompasses a custody evaluation * Ethical considerations and responsibilities involved in custody disputes * How to interview, make behavioral observations, and collect collateral information * Standards, applicability,and administration of tests * Specialized child custody instruments such as the Ackerman-Schoendorf Scales for Parent Evaluation of Custody (ASPECT) * How divorce affect families * Evaluating parents' behavior * How to prepare for the courtroom process * Maltreatment, including neglect, abuse, and domestic violence * Placement schedules * How to write reports, draw conclusions, and render opinions Each chapter ends with critical issues for the practitioner to consider. The accessible reference format provides a quick review of relevant discussions in the text. In addition, this book includes convenient guides to relevant legal terms, documents forms, APA guidelines, and codes of conduct. Based not only on current research but also on the author's considerable experience with thousands of evaluations, Clinician's Guide to Child Custody Evaluations is the definitive guide to this field for students and practitioners.

The legal system requires mental health professionals to provide research summaries to support their evaluations in child custody cases. Contributions from leading developmental researchers, legal professionals, and clinicians describe how scientific evidence is properly used in court. Timely and current, this book helps evaluators access the best information to fulfill their obligations to their clients and the court. The Second Edition adds chapters on family observation, parental alienation, and sexual abuse. Forensic psychologists, family lawyers, and judges will be equipped with the most current information to aid in custody decisions.