As an independent practitioner and licensed psychologist, I have been conducting court ordered custody evaluations for twenty-four years. I read and also hear synopses of the literature through my custody peer group. I was excited to be asked to review a book about custody evaluations. In the category of ‘book,’ Jonathan Gould’s tome came to mind. So I was a little surprised, and somewhat disappointed, to get a slim volume in the mail. In fact, Eric G. Mart’s Issue Focused Forensic Child Custody Assessment, published by Professional Resources Press, is 58 pages, not counting the Appendices.
When I encountered a long explanation about Competency Evaluations starting in the second paragraph, I flipped back to reread the title to make sure I hadn’t misperceived. Don’t get me wrong – the explanation was fascinating since I do not do Competency Evaluations. By the time I was done reading it, I was wondering why I don’t, since they sound so much more defined and clear cut than Custody Evaluations. And that is Dr. Mart’s point – there are standards – legal ones- that one can focus on when assessing competency. Unfortunately, the standards are not so clearly defined for custody evaluations.
My expectations were really raised because I thought Dr. Mart was going to describe a nice, step–by-step, guide to make Custody Evaluations similar to those Competency Evaluations. He illuminated several of the psycholegal models of custody and the guidelines which exist. His discussion was fascinating. I was disconcerted however, to read that his opinion about comprehensive custody evaluations is that, “the current state of the science in this area at the present time is not sufficiently developed to provide reliable and valid conclusions about the best interests of children who are before the court in custody matters.”
He posited three existing models for custody assessment: “comprehensive”, “mini-evaluation”, and “issue focused”. He described some of the problems with the first two models and then wrote about the “issue focused” evaluations which he says have also been called “minimalist” or “problem focused”. However, I was surprised to see that he then listed 18 topics which I consider to be relevant to assess in the course of a comprehensive custody evaluation. These items included custody time, special needs of the children, abuse issues, and psychological functioning of the parents, and so on.
The idea of the Issue Focused Evaluation is for the Court to pick, from the list, which areas need to be assessed. I am not sure how this would work in my jurisdiction since the attorneys often write a Consent Order, agreeing to have a Custody Evaluation, and choose the evaluator, before anything has been heard in a courtroom. They have a hard enough time agreeing to do that, let alone agreeing as to which of a multitude of topics should be evaluated! I imagine I would end up mediating between the attorneys or they would tell me to pick what I thought was relevant! Also, what would happen when an item was not checked and then the poor evaluator discovered that it was heartbreakingly relevant? [E.g., Substance abuse by a parent, which the spouse didn’t identify, but about which a child told the evaluator.] Would the evaluator then be overstepping their bounds if they addressed this when it had not been selected as an area of assessment?
Dr. Mart discussed each topic on the list minimally, piquing interest but not thoroughly illuminating. He raised issues such as the Daubert test and whether bonding assessments would pass. He never addressed individual Parental Fitness Evaluations and how they may differ, or be similar to, Issue Focused Evaluations. His “Custody Evaluation Agreement,” in the Appendix, looks to me like an agreement for Parental Fitness Evaluations of two individual parents.
I was most surprised when he ended by saying, “In many child custody situations, a wide-ranging assessment that explores many facets of family functioning is the appropriate way to proceed, and to do less risks a harmful disposition for the family involved.” What happened to his concerns about reliability and validity? It turns out he does not like mini-evaluations and prefers issue focused evaluations to those!
Although the discussions in this book were interesting to me as a custody evaluator, I wish Dr. Mart had been clearer throughout the book about which type of evaluation he was discussing. I found it confusing and was left wondering about the applicability of his approach. I felt he was trying to stimulate a debate and possibly more research, which would be welcome.
