flafccFLAFCC wishes to sincerely thank those sponsors, exhibitors and registrants who either donated their 2017 conference contributions to FLAFCC or to Hurricane Relief:
Florida Bar Family Law Section Donated $2,500 to FLAFCC
Sheldon Finman, Judge Hugh Starnes, Deborah Silver, Craig Fabrikant, Lisette Beraja and Diane Webb Donated registration fees to hurricane relief ($2,000 to the Red Cross)
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Note from the Editor: FLAFCC recognizes the complex scholastic history of parenting plan evaluations (child custody evaluations). Specifically, there continues to be debate over the appropriate use of psychological testing within the context of parenting evaluations. The following article is published to further the discussion and awareness of the limitations of psychological testing within parenting evaluations and offers the author’s views and opinions regarding the continued use of psychometric instruments in parenting evaluations.
By: Benjamin D. Garber, Ph.D. and Robert A. Simon, Ph.D.
And then there’s the story about the woman who showed up in the hospital emergency room barefoot, with bloody blisters on both feet, carrying a stunning pair of Italian leather, stiletto heels. Her wounds matched precisely the lines and curves of the footwear which was obviously too small for her feet. No one bothered to ask why she had worn the torturous apparel. It was clear that she valued form far more than function.
So it is with many Parenting Plan Evaluations. Individual adult psychometric instruments (tests for the sake of this article) add an intimidating sheen of quantitative science but seldom add real, reliable, and valid value to the effort to understand and serve the needs of one or more particular children. Worse, tests can create expensive and time-consuming strawmen that distract the court and consume its very limited resources to the detriment of all.
What is a Parenting Plan Evaluation (PPE)?
PPE is an empirically driven, child-centered examination of the family system. It serves to provide the court with an understanding of how best to understand the unique needs of each child. Contemporary standards and guidelines relevant to the conduct of PPE call for the evaluator to employ multiple and diverse methods so as to consider, alternative plausible hypotheses. (e.g., AAML, 2011, item 4.3[a]; see also AFCC 2006, item 5.4; APA, 2010, item 10). In practice, survey data find that evaluators commonly include individual adult and child interviews, individual, dyadic, and/or systemic observations, a review of relevant historical documents, personal references, and individual adult psychometric testing. In fact, surveys spanning the last twenty years find that more than nine out of ten custody evaluators include individual adult psychometric tests in PPEs.
What are Individual Adult Psychometric Instruments (tests) in the Context of a Parenting Plan Evaluation?
The field of psychometric assessment is a thriving commercial industry. The chief compendium of psychological tests includes reviews of over ten thousand instruments. Although the purpose, nature, means of administration, process of interpretation, reliability, and validity of these instruments vary immensely, they all share certain qualities:
Testing as Hypothesis-Generation and Bias-Checking
The debate among professionals about the use of tests in PPEs can become almost as intense as the conflict between the parents we are tasked to assess. Some professionals take the position that testing is a necessary component of an adequate PPE. There are those who recognize the limitations of the use of tests in PPEs and their associated potential to do harm. The most common rationale takes a middle road, recommending the use of tests to generate alternate hypotheses which then must be subjected to verification.
We recognize the invisible and invasive effects of confirmatory bias. We take this as the rationale behind the mandate to incorporate multiple and diverse methods. Used properly, data obtained via methods including, but not limited to, third-party references, historical records, interviews, and direct observations should help assure that conclusions are reached only when there is data convergence. This is because one is far more likely to be accurate and form opinions free from various cognitive biases (such as confirmatory bias) when looking at converging data rather than a single data point since unitary data points are far more likely to result in inaccurate and biased inferences and conclusions.
Testing, PPEs, and Diagnosis
While Florida Statutes 61.13(g) indicates that the mental and physical health of the parents is considered in determining the best interest of the child, PPEs are explicitly not intended to generate individual adult psychiatric diagnoses (AFCC, 2006, item 4.6[c]). This is in part because psychiatric diagnoses have no clear meaning for parenting or co-parenting capacity. This is not to say that a PPE cannot portray and describe the mental health and mental status of the parents and children. However, diagnosis, per se, has no demonstrated empirical nexus to parenting. Moreover, when PPEs generate diagnoses via testing, custody litigation becomes a competition to identify the parent with more or worse labels who is thereby deemed unworthy of parenting. In short, diagnosis is the medical model’s individualistic, reductionistic and static picture of an individual. PPE is a dynamic, strength-based picture of a growing family system. While it is understood that in Florida, the evaluator must assess and comment upon the mental health of the parties, in the context of a PPE, one can do this by describing mental health functioning and personal strengths and weaknesses. Diagnosis, per se, is not implied, by definition, in conducting an assessment of the mental health of the parties.
Summary and Recommendations:
We believe that a logical, empirical, and statistically-informed analysis of the use of individual adult psychometric tests in parenting plan evaluations is sufficient to caution against the practice. These tests are often not appropriately normed, have yet to demonstrate reliability, and cannot demonstrate that the test is actually measuring what it purports to measure for inclusion in PPEs. They are not necessary to satisfy the criteria of practice standards, practice guidelines, or the UMDA. Above and beyond these technicalities, however, we posit that the variables assessed by these test instruments are not the variables that are fundamental in a parenting plan evaluation. Parenting plan evaluations are not about individuals. Parenting plan evaluations are first and foremost about family systems.
For now, we recommend that the best practice is to omit individual psychometric tests from parenting plan evaluations. We look forward to the development of forensically normed, reliable, and valid measures of systemic functioning. Unless and until such instruments are validated for use in PPEs, evaluators are cautioned that if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.
This article is a brief digest of the forthcoming publication:
Garber, B.D. & Simon, R.A. (forthcoming 2018). Individual Adult Psychometric Testing and Child Custody Evaluations: If the Shoe Doesn’t Fit, Don’t Wear It. Journal of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, 30, ____.
Most citations have been omitted in the interest of brevity. These and related materials are available from the first author via www.FamilyLawConsulting.org.
Benjamin D. Garber, Ph.D.
Robert A. Simon, Ph.D.
Judge Tepper provides her favorite Early Childhood Courts Resources
Lynn Tepper, Circuit Judge, 6th Circuit, Dade City, Pasco County, Florida
Judge Tepper sits in Dade City, Pasco County where she hears all the Dependencies, Children and Families in Need of Services, cross-over cases for the families before her, and all of the Domestic Violence Injunction cases in East Pasco County. Her court in Dade City is one of six sites in the US implementing Project ONE [One Judge, No Wrong Door, Equal Access to Justice], a National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges [NCJFCJ] program. Her court is one of Florida’s Baby/Early Childhood Court (ECC) initiatives in conjunction with FSU, USF-SP & the Office of Court Improvement. OJJDP, 2017
1) InBrief: The Science of Neglect
Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University
Early experiences affect the development of brain architecture, which provides the foundation for all future learning, behavior, and health. Just as a weak foundation compromises the quality and strength of a house, adverse experiences early in life can impair brain architecture, with negative effects lasting into adulthood.
http://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/brain-architecture/
See also: http://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/ :
Science tells us that early childhood is a time of both great promise and considerable risk. Having responsive relationships with adults, growth-promoting experiences, and healthy environments for all young children helps build sturdy brain architecture and the foundations of resilience. Meanwhile, significant disadvantages can disrupt the developmental process and lead to limited economic and social mobility that threatens the vitality, productivity, and sustainability of society.
2) ACE’S by Vince Felitti, MD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me07G3Erbw8 Academy on Violence and Abuse
This is the full version of his presentation in 2006 and runs 1.5 hours. It discusses the findings that adverse childhood experiences have a significant impact on long-term health outcomes. Well worth the time. The Youtube link will also lead you to the 13-minute version. Published 2010.
3) Robert Woods Johnson Foundation
http://www.rwjf.org/en/library/collections/aces.html
http://www.rwjf.org/en/our-focus-areas/topics/early-childhood-development.html
http://www.rwjf.org/en/our-focus-areas/topics/mental-and-emotional-well-being.html Find links to Early Childhood Development, Family and Social Support, Social Determinants of Health and a wide array of resources & funding.
4) How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime, Nadine Burke Harris https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95ovIJ3dsNk
Published on Feb 17, 2015
This is one of the seminal TED talks on ACEs. Pediatrician Nadine Burke Harris explains that the repeated stress of abuse, neglect, and parents struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues has real, tangible effects on the development of the brain. This unfolds across a lifetime, to the point where those who’ve experienced high levels of trauma are at triple the risk for heart disease and lung cancer. This is a plea to confront the prevention and treatment of trauma, head-on.
5) National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine, Working with the Sensations that Trigger your Client’s Traumatic Memories with Bessel van der Kolk, MD and Ruth Buczynski, PhD
http://www.nicabm.com/neurobiology-trauma/free-confirmed/?del
Sights, sounds or smells can evoke feelings of fear, panic or terror. Guides to working with people who have been traumatized.
6) Why Aren’t Trauma Survivors Warned that Parenthood May Be a PTSD Trigger Christine Cissy White ACESCONNECTION, February 17, 2017
According to the National Center for Victims of Crimes, 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys will be a victim of sexual abuse. The abused children all have one thing in common they eventually become adults. Naturally, most of these adults become parents, many of whom have never spoken about what happened to them, leaving trauma symptoms to lie dormant, festering, until acts of Parenting 101 expose them to triggers which send them spiraling.
7) Brain Building Resources with VROOM: Created by the best & brightest in the field of Early Childhood Development.
BOOKS
8) Hillbilly Elegy, A Memoir of a Family & Culture in Crisis, J.D. Vance 2016 Harper Collins. This is an opportunity to peer into the lives impacted by the generational reach of ACEs. A biography by a 31-year-old attorney, a former editor of the Yale Law Journal and survivor of the Poverty of Appalachia and the Rust Belt.
9) The Sum Of My Parts, a survivor’s story of dissociative identity disorder, Olga R. Trujillo 2011 New Harbinger Publications, Inc. The life story of an attorney chronicling her heroic journey from survivor to advocate and her remarkable recovery from DID [formerly known as multiple personality disorder]. She unearths the abuse of her childhood, the impact of a nurturing individual in her life and her triumph over the most devastating conditions.
10) Resilience Trumps ACEs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pnhFmdz-ig
Jubilee Leadership Academy students tell their childhood stories of ACES and the hope and healing through Resilience cards that helped each build new skills and strategies! This 5-minute video captures why every person deserves to know about ACEs, brain development, and Resilience.
Lynn Tepper
Circuit Judge, 6th Circuit, Dade City, Pasco County, Florida
Dear FLAFCC Members and Visitors,
After making the tough decision to cancel the 2017 conference we are regrouping for 2018. Heartfelt thanks go out to our 2017 conference co-chairs, Deb Weaver and Wilhelmina Tribble. Many others put in countless hours including Sheba Katz, Mary Lou Wagstaff, Connie Byrd, Paul, and Maria Garcia, and Ann Luchini and Leslie Reithmiller of OSCA to plan the 2017 conference. Their efforts will pay off as we salvage work from 2017 and apply it to 2018.
My year as President is coming to a close. Though the conference cancellation was a disappointment, this year has been incredibly rewarding! We launched a new website, found our presence on social media, partnered with new family law groups, and forwarded our two primary initiatives: The Eldercaring Coordination project under the efforts of Linda Fieldstone and Judge Michelle Morley and the Family Court Intake Revision project spearheaded by Robert J. Merlin, Judge Sandy Karlan and Linda Fieldstone.
Please join us for the Annual Meeting which is open to all members. If you cannot be present I invite you to send me your ideas for growing and strengthening FLAFCC to make it your most useful professional organization. The Annual Meeting starts at 9 AM on December 2nd at The Florida Hotel and Conference Center, 1500 Sand Lake Rd, Orlando, FL 32809, 407-859-1500. The hotel is offering a special rate of $135/night for those attending the annual meeting.
See you in Orlando!!!
Sincerely, your president,
239-789-5078
jillsandersphd@msn.com
December 12, 2017
1:00pm – 2:00pm Eastern Time
Registration Opens November 15, 2017Eldercaring Coordination is a dispute resolution process, modeled after the concept of Parenting Coordination, for high conflict families regarding the care and safety of elders. Specially trained Eldercaring Coordinators (ECs) help manage high conflict family and interpersonal psychological dynamics so the elder, family, and stakeholders can address nonlegal issues independently from the court, reducing further adversarial court actions. Five states are currently piloting the Eldercaring Coordination Initiative. Preliminary research will be presented, as well as benefits observed and challenges faced in bringing this innovation to the court and legal community.
Member Registration: $15, Certificate of Attendance: $15
Non-Member Registration: $50, Certificate of Attendance: $20
Linda Fieldstone, MEd., is former Supervisor of Family Court Services, where she worked for 26 years within the 11th Judicial Circuit, Miami-Dade County, Florida. She recently brought her conflict resolutions services directly to the community, assisting families before, during or after court processes. Ms. Fieldstone is Past-President of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) and its Florida Chapter (FLAFCC). She was Secretary of the AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination, which provided Guidelines for Parenting Coordination in 2005. Ms. Fieldstone has been involved in research involving parenting coordination, provided numerous trainings on high conflict families and the court, consulted on court services implementation to international program providers, and written articles on those subjects. Most recently, she initiated the creation of the ACR and FLAFCC Task Forces on Eldercaring Coordination, a groundbreaking collaboration, which used the Parenting Coordination model to develop a process to benefit elders involved with high conflict families; five states including Florida are currently piloting the project.
Link to AFCCNET.org to sign up – Link