Bilingual Education

The Role Of The Evaluator

Last Updated Aug 20, 2008 03:30 AM

Performing a forensic evaluation expands and complicates the clinician’s familiar role of diagnosing and treating psychiatric illness and raises the important issues of competence, agency, and ethics. It is extremely important for the clinician to understand the differences in roles and to keep these roles separate. Wearing “two hats”--therapist and forensic evaluator--with a family is inappropriate and complicates both the therapy and the evaluation (Bernet, 1983).

Competence as a forensic specialist (Gindes, 1995) is crucial because a well-trained clinician with a background in evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment must demonstrate additional important skills, including an engaging interview style, an understanding of family and interpersonal dynamics, a breadth of knowledge in child and adult developmental issues, and familiarity with family law and legal process in the local jurisdiction. The clinician should have obtained continuing education on divorce and custody, know when to consult with a colleague or mentor, be aware of local laws and court procedures, and maintain integrity and sensitivity to ethical issues.

Treating clinicians are advocates or agents for children and ideally are partners with parents or guardians in the therapeutic alliance. In contrast, the forensic evaluator, while guided by the child’s best interests, has no duty to the child or his parents. The forensic evaluator reports to the court or attorney involved rather than to the parties being evaluated. Thus, the aim of the forensic evaluation is not to relieve suffering or treat, but to provide objective information and informed opinions to help the court render a custody decision. Forensic evaluators must be mindful of this role and convey this in full to all parties before beginning the evaluation.

Ethical issues are frequently encountered in forensic evaluations. The potential evaluator must consider whether he has biases or prior involvement with any of the parties involved in the case that might alter the professionalism of the evaluation. The evaluator must have sufficient time available to complete the evaluation in a timely manner and adequate scheduling flexibility to work with the judicial system. Although the fees for forensic evaluations are usually higher than for clinical treatment, fees should not be exorbitant but within the community standard. The evaluator in almost all circumstances should not refer any of the parties to himself for treatment following the custody evaluation to avoid a conflict of interest.


AREAS FOR ASSESSMENT

A number of issues are common to many, if not all, custody disputes and frequently arise during the evaluations. If these issues are not raised by the families, the clinician should initiate discussion about them. Collecting data on these issues provides a sound basis for the evaluator’s opinions and recommendations.


CONTINUITY AND QUALITY OF ATTACHMENTS

The assessment of the quality of the attachments between the parents and the children is the centerpiece of the evaluation. In the opinion of most courts, the concept of “the best interests of the child” has as much to do with the parent-child relationship as with the validity of each parent's plans for the child. The evaluator should assess the parent-child connections, recognize and protect the opportunities for the child to maintain continuity with attachment figures, and consider how these attachments should enter into the forensic recommendations (Rutter, 1995).


PREFERENCE

The child's stated preference of where he or she would rather live may also be an issue (Schowalter, 1979; Alexander and Sichel, 1991). Judges tend to give more weight to stated preference when the child is 12 years old or older. Small children infrequently volunteer a preference. When they do, the evaluator should assess its meaning and whether the child came to this opinion freely, or was rehearsed or heavily influenced by a parent (Yates, 1988).


PARENTAL ALIENATION

There are times during a custody dispute when a child can become extremely hostile toward one of the parents. The child finds nothing positive in his or her relationship with the parent and prefers no contact. The evaluator must assess this apparent alienation and form a hypothesis of its origins and meaning. Sometimes, negative feelings toward one parent are catalyzed and fostered by the other parent; sometimes they are an outgrowth of serious problems in the relationship with the rejected parent. This phenomenon, which some have called a “syndrome,” while others have objected to that characterization, has been addressed by Benedek and Schetky (1985) and by Dunne and Hedrick (1994). Courts have great difficulty interpreting these dynamics and turn to evaluators for guidance.

See also Bilingual Education 390 1 - 8