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.

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.

It also includes ethical standards and guidelines for child custody evaluations from various national, state, and local organizations. Sensible, lucid, and insightful, this book is an important contribution to our understanding of how child custody evaluations are conducted and an excellent resource for psychologists, evaluators, social workers, family court and private mediators, judges, attorneys, and graduate students.

"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 book presents the latest data-based approaches to understanding and assessing relevant child, parent and family factors in child custody evaluation.

Tens of thousands of readers have relied on this leading text and practitioner reference--now revised and updated--to understand the issues the legal system most commonly asks mental health professionals to address. Highly readable, the volume demystifies the forensic psychological assessment process and provides guidelines for participating effectively and ethically in legal proceedings. Presented are clinical and legal concepts and evidence-based assessment procedures pertaining to criminal and civil competencies, the insanity defense and related doctrines, sentencing, civil commitment, personal injury claims, antidiscrimination laws, child custody, juvenile justice, and other justice-related areas. Case examples, exercises, and a glossary facilitate learning; 19 sample reports illustrate how to conduct and write up thorough, legally admissible evaluations. New to This Edition *Extensively revised to reflect important legal, empirical, and clinical developments. *Increased attention to medical and neuroscientific research. *New protocols relevant to competence, risk assessment, child custody, and mental injury evaluations. *Updates on insanity, sentencing, civil commitment, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Social Security, juvenile and family law, and the admissibility of expert testimony. *Material on immigration law (including a sample report) and international law. *New and revised sample reports.

Addresses key topics such as the best interests of the child, custody and time share, divorce and its impact on children and children's developmental needs.

A call for safety and accountablilty.

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.

Each year, over one and a half million children experience the divorce of their parents. The goal of this book is to contribute to the advancement of knowledge regarding children of divorce, especially the practice of evaluation as it pertains to child custody. The reality of custody evaluation work invokes a plethora of specific circumstances regarding each family that must be taken into consideration. To work towards this goal, the author integrates scientific findings, relevant theory, and professional experience in a manner that is conceptually sound and useful in practice. Each chapter begins with a Practice Checklist to emphasize what is needed to engage in careful deliberation. Major topics include: applications of game theory to child custody; uncertainty in judgment from Nobel Prize-winning research; time sharing; collecting information from parents and collaterals; observing parental interaction with children; parental alienation; research on strategic behavior in divorce disputes; and gatekeeping. In addition, domestic violence, child abuse, substance abuse, relocation, report writing, ethics, guidelines, risk management, and practice improvement are discussed. This book also contains important new research on the PAI, PCRI, and MMPI-2 specific to child custody evaluation. This well-written text is an excellent resource for domestic relations attorneys, judges, family counselors, child protection workers, human services, advocates, and mental health professionals.