Custody Evaluation #1 - How the Process Allegedly Works
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It’s taken a little bit to get back on track for my experience with custody evaluations. There would be 3 of them. To catch yourselves up on the events leading up to it, check out the post Heading Towards Custody Evaluation #1.
Hindsight is a very powerful thing. As if things weren’t scary enough in this situation, I’m left wondering what I would have done “if I knew then what I know now.” Let’s see what is offered by the County Evaluation Program (which I’ll call “Custody Evaluations, Inc.” Let’s look at what is said versus what is meant… or what the words’ true meanings are.
Since parental access and other divorce related issues are usually surrounded by a high degree of emotionality, Custody Evaluations, Inc. combines a conciliation and evaluation approach. Incorporated within the Custody Evaluations, Inc. model are elements of parenting education and co-parenting counseling, conciliation efforts, and evaluation methods. The combination of these elements in one procedure has both time-saving and cost-saving benefits.
I can tell you that we received no parenting education. We received little-to-no conciliation efforts with the exception of the evaluator’s desire to listen to all of PEW’s unfounded, unsupported false accusations of every conceivable sort. The “evaluation method” - a misnomer - left a lot to be desired.
As for the notion that it offers both time-savings and cost-savings benefits - it offers neither. It extends the litigation for at least another 2 months and at a cost of a couple thousand dollars. It’s laughable that Custody Evaluations, Inc. believes that they do either in any but the minimum of cases. They make things worse by interjecting their own beliefs and biases into the mix, giving one side or the other (usually the high-conflict ex-spouse) more ammunition to prolong the agony for the parent who just wants equal time with the children they love.
Most parents sincerely believe they know what is in their child’s “best interests.” What they may not fully realize is that the “best interests of the child” constitutes a legal standard that only a judge will decide. To assist the court in the adjudication process, Custody Evaluations, Inc. provides either an Agreed-Upon Parenting Plan or a Recommended Parenting Plan as well as a full clinical report.
This quote really gets to me. Clearly, parents do not know what is in the best interests of their own children. The courts and evaluators do… after a mere 6-hours of only the most rudimentary of interactions. So, you’ll either come to an agreement, which is impossible with the disordered, high-conflict person in the mix; or they’ll make a recommended parenting plan, which almost always favors the mother. Good luck fathers!
By asking parents to meet together to outline their issues and concerns and by promoting the importance of co-parenting skills in sustaining the final arrangement, Custody Evaluations, Inc. seeks to define parents not as “adversaries,” but as parenting partners who will continue to have an important relationship with each other long after a divorce decree ends the marriage.
That’s not what our evaluator did. PEW went on crying jags and read through 2 handwritten pages of every fabricated accusation under the sun. I was made to answer for them, which I did not except to say that none of them were true and ask direct questions requiring PEW to support her contentions. She could not. I, on the other hand, expressed genuine concerns about her stability and decision-making, supported by documentation and legal proceedings which the evaluator dismissed outright as irrelevant. This flies directly in the face of what they claim to be doing “for” you.
One cannot underestimate the benefit to children when parents can agree on a custody arrangement rather than engaging in protracted legal proceedings. For that reason, we believe that the Custody Evaluations, Inc. process is helpful to parents and children and encourages the emotional healing necessary when families are forced to restructure.
They made no such effort. Period.
Procedures (some, not all):The Custody Evaluations, Inc. evaluation will focus on the following: a) a history of the present custody arrangement; b) the concerns of both parties about the present and future custody arrangement; c) a brief history of the relationship of the parties; d) a social history for each party and for the child(ren); e) the findings regarding the parties’ fitness to parent [mental health and addiction issues]; f) the parties’ personality strengths and weaknesses; g) the parties’ parenting and co-parenting strengths and weaknesses; h) a Recommended or an Agreed-Upon Parenting Plan; i) a rationale for the Plan; j) any other findings that the evaluator considers germane to the court’s determination of what is in the child’s best interests. Psychological testing is not a necessary part of the conciliation/evaluation effort, but it may be employed at the discretion of the evaluator and/or the director in certain limited circumstances. A Home Study may be employed at the discretion of the evaluator’s and/or the director’s discretion.
Pretty straightforward.
More on Procedure:
First, each parent meets individually with the evaluator to discuss his and her concerns and to provide extensive background information. Then a joint meeting is held with both parents to review and evaluate the disputed issues and to discuss the development of co-parenting skills and the impact of co-parenting on the post-separation or post-divorce adjustment of the children. Next, the child (or children) meets with the evaluator individually and/or with siblings and/or with the parents. Each child of appropriate age will have individual interview time with the evaluator. Then, the parents have a second joint meeting to review the evaluator’s findings regarding the children and perhaps help the evaluator better understand the clinical material that has unfolded. The next meeting is reserved for collateral parties if it is deemed that their participation is necessary. At the last joint meeting between the parents, the evaluator summarizes his/her findings to date and a Parenting Plan is developed. If there is no agreement on a Parenting Plan at this last meeting, after the evaluator has had the opportunity to review all of the data, his/her final recommendations for resolving the dispute become part of the report to the court.
Well, except when they openly dismiss documented evidence of erratic, irrational, and downright criminal behavior, a history of mental health issues and supporting evidence of same provided by one party (the father) while entertaining the hysterical rantings of someone who failed to support a single accusation made. THEN the above would apply.
Obtaining and reviewing documents:
The parties should bring to their first meeting, or otherwise forward to the evaluator in advance of the first meeting, copies of any documents that they wish the evaluator to review. The evaluator will keep these documents as part of the clinical file. They will not be returned. In accordance with the ex parte restrictions listed below, the parties must make available copies of these documents to both attorneys (or directly to a pro selitigant).
Important records include the children’s school reports for the last three years, school evaluations, and previous psychological/psychiatric evaluations of children, parents, guardians, etc. Less helpful are personal diaries, e-mail correspondence, and police reports. Audio tapes and videotapes generally shall not be reviewed.
Does anyone else find anything wrong with the fact that police reports, restraining orders, audio tapes, video tapes are not reviewed? I mean, what would be more important for an evaluation than actual demonstrations of how a particular party acts in “real life” and not with weeks of preparation to play-act for a custody evaluation? As for reviewing important documents - well, that just doesn’t happen.
The Consent and Waiver Form stipulates that:
* The clinician shall report all findings to the court.
* The respective attorneys, but not the parties, shall receive copies of the report.
* The parties waive their right to call the clinician for testimony in court.
* The parties shall also waive payment and report filing deadlines.
* Each party shall pay the Application Fee within fourteen (14) days of the custody conference or hearing.
* All fees shall be paid in a timely manner in accord with Custody Evaluations, Inc. policy.
* The parties will cooperate in scheduling so that all necessary appointments can be completed within 4-6 weeks.
I bolded the most problematic of the things that the client “waives.” Given the problems and lack of justification for the ultimate recommendation, the failure to follow their own rules and procedures - they are absolved from any accountability for the reports and recommendations that they make.
Read it again, folks. They have no accountability. They do not have to justify or otherwise support why they make the recommendations that they do. That means, they don’t have to listen. They don’t have to follow the rules. They could sleep through every single session, make a recommendations, and there is nothing you can do about it. If you go to court and explain that they slept through the recommendation or that their report is incorrect - you have no way to show it. You are at the complete and utter mercy of the custody evaluator. When you waive your right to call them in for questions, clarifications, explanations - you have no recourse.
And that’s the beauty of the “system.” You pay your attorneys. The judges are paid. Everyone who works within the system are paid. You are automatically ordered to go to the county’s Custody Evaluations, Inc. at considerable expense. You have no choice. You pay. Then you pay some more. Then you pay and pay and pay and pay until you have nothing left to pay. You pay until you have less than nothing left to pay.
And yes… had things gone entirely my way from the get-go, I would never have had cause to look deeper than the surface and I would be just that much more ignorant of just how sweet a set-up the system has.
Only as I was preparing my post did I find this out about “conflict of interest” policies:
Custody Evaluations, Inc. evaluators shall not have dual relationships with Custody Evaluations, Inc. clients, (e.g., serving as a therapist to one member of the family and then as an evaluator in the custody dispute). A evaluator shall disqualify himself/herself as an evaluator:
* where she/he has had prior professional or personal contact with that Custody Evaluations, Inc. client, or with members of her/his family, or with significant others of the client;
* when that evaluator has been a client of the attorney, or vice versa.The new Custody Evaluations, Inc. client should report any prior or current association with an evaluator at the time of the custody conference.
Of course, there are conflicts which may not be known to the client who is responsible for reporting this. I only just discovered that in a later evaluation, a member of the group of evaluators in Custody Evaluations, Inc. served as our psychological tester. A clear conflict of interest based on the fact that she couldn’t be independent and unbiased with access to the recommendations of her colleagues. After all, the tester wouldn’t want her “findings” to conflict with the evaluation and recommendations of a colleague now, would she?
Next up… How Things Went Down…
