Custody Evaluation #2 - The Custody Recommendation
Have your own psycho ex? Get a FREE Report on "Why Co-Parenting Doesn't Work", or learn how to win child custody with a custody coach.
Continuing from the prior installment, the observations of DW, the children, and the overall observations and impressions, comes the recommendation by Gloria, Custody Evaluator #2.
RECOMMENDATION:
With the permission of the Court to make recommendations in this matter, and based upon the available clinical data, it is my professional opinion, within a reasonable degree of certainty, that the best psychological interests of S1 and S2 are served as follows…
What exactly does that mean, anyway? It’s a lot of really big, cool sounding professional words that don’t mean shit. What does “available clinical data” mean? What amounted to a couple of hours, at most, with any one of us? She does so with a “reasonable degree of certainty?” How does one measure that? It’s so blatantly misleading and unprofessional that it should be illegal to have it as boilerplate language on these reports. At least they could try to be somewhat honest about it and say, “Based upon the very limited interaction that I had with this family and collateral contacts, and with absolutely no real certainty other than my opinion about myself and the report I’ve decided to throw together at the last minute… and absent any hard-and-fast true clinical data… and with a caseload that is making our files burst at the seams - I make the following recommendations to the court and thank them for referring the thousands of families that go through the Family Court Room like an assembly line to our organization to the tune of several thousand dollars a pop monthly:”
Too much?
LEGAL CUSTODY: The parties should retain joint legal custody.
RESIDENTIAL PLAN: Primary physical custody of both children should remain with the mother and partial physical custody should be with the father. The children should share time with their parents as follows:
- Father should have partial custody of the children on alternate weekends during the school year. The school year should be as defined in the school calendar. The weekends should alternate where the children will spend one weekend in the Father’s home in [home-state] and the second weekend spent locally to reduce the amount of time the children are traveling.
- Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas should be alternated by the parents each year.
- The children should spend ALL of the other school holidays and breaks in which there is a three day weekend, exclusive of the holidays noted above, with the father in [home state].
- Father should continue with providing all of the transfers of the children when they will be in [home state]. Mother should retrieve the children at the start of her custody periods when they are with their father locally. Father should provide Mother with the location for the next custody period in writing two weeks in advance.
SUMMER SCHEDULE: Commencing the Sunday following the last day of school until the Sunday prior to the last full week before school restarts, the custody schedule should be as follows:
- The children should spend three (3) weeks with father in [home-state] followed by one week with mother in [custody state] for the entire summer schedule as defined above.
- During the summer schedule, the parties should meet at [the half-way exchange location] for all exchanges of the children.
- The parties should vacation with the children during their respective custody periods.
- The children should spend a 24-hour period with mother on Mother’s Day and her birthday and a 24-hour period with father on Father’s Day and his birthday.
- Each party should celebrate the children’s birthdays on that party’s respective weekend either before or after the actual birthday.
I don’t even know where to begin with picking apart these specific recommendations, so I’ll save it for the Custody Evaluation 2 Post-Mortem.
CLINICAL RECOMMENDATIONS:
It is recommended that during the school year, both S1 and S2 be placed in short-term therapy to support their working through of the grief and anger that they are experiencing due to the parties’ divorce process. It is further recommended that S1 be provided with a male therapist and that each parent meet with each of the children’s therapists initially and further as directed by the therapists.
RATIONALE:
The children have strong bonds with both of their parents and long separations from either parent will be experienced as a substantial loss by them. The behavioral problems most recently exhibited by S2 are likely a manifestation of his acting-out against mother as she is a more available target at this time. Although separation from his mother for three week increments may be stressful for a 4-year old, S2 will be 5 next May and will have access to better coping strategies that he will develop in therapy.
—–
I said to DW that these recommendations that I read are COMPLETELY THOUGHTLESS. There is simply no other way to describe it and I say this regardless of whether or not this was written with me getting all of the benefits and PEW getting all of the short-shrift.
Read that last paragraph over. Aside from the fact that no evaluator ever documented any concerns regarding long periods of separation from their father (and a very involved one such as I was) - there is no court order for therapy. When you’re dealing with a high-conflict, even disordered ex-spouse, there is no guarantee that the child is ever going to get into therapy. EVEN IF THE CHILD DOES - exactly what “coping mechanisms” is a 4-5 year old going to employ to deal with the break up of their family? THE KID IS ONLY 4 YEARS OLD!!!
The thing that tends to be scariest about these evaluators is their complete self-importance, their lack of credibility, their laziness (as exhibited by the contradictions between their assessments and their recommendations and the problems most of their recommendations actually cause)… and the complete lack of thought that goes into their evaluations and reports. They have fat case loads. They get paid several thousand dollars per referral, and the referrals are AUTOMATIC by the family court judge. They’re paid up-front. They’re completely prohibited from being called to court and account for their assessments and recommendations.
HOW THE FUCK DO I GET THAT JOB? Better yet, what do I need to do to own that business?!?!
Next Segment - The Custody Evaluation #2 Post-Mortem and results of the hearing on this matter.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:33 am
That is awful. It’s hard to even read. I don’t understand why the assumption is that mom is best when that is so clearly not the case….parents are best when both are capable and engaged and responsible.
October 16th, 2009 at 10:59 am
I’ll break it all down on Monday’s post. I’m not sure if it’s fair to the readers to say that the level of incompetence isn’t completely obvious - but when someone in the middle of the mess can really define just how absurd the report is, I’d like to believe it offers a level of clarity that simply reading the report itself can’t provide.
October 16th, 2009 at 11:39 am
I had a similar order that on “three day weekends” daughter would be with me. The time PEG accused me of DV and I spent the night in jail was a 4-day weekend (Friday and Monday were holidays). I purchased plane tickets for us (not cheap) from SoCal to the east coast to attend a birthday celebration for my Mom’s 60th.
PEG wouldn’t release daughter to me, saying “it’s not a three-day weekend.” After years of dealing with this kind of crap, I finally decided to call the cops. Stupid, stupid move.
PEG and daughter waited inside, planning in secret, until the cops got there. I showed them the court order, they interviewed my daughter and PEG, and then cuffed me. “They both say you shoved her and were screaming.”
“But, I didn’t, and wasn’t. What about this court order?” “Sorry, it’s policy — we have to arrest somebody and a witness says you were the aggressor.”
12 hours in lockup. TRO issued against me. $5K to retain a Criminal Defense attorney (no charges ever ended up being filed). No celebrating Gramma’s birthday back east and seeing snow. $700 in plane tickets flushed (I think I got partial credit back). Worst of all, daughter was forced by the psycho to tell lies about her Dad to law enforcement officers.
This was the day I realized I was in nothing less than a war, and began filing for custody in earnest. Clearly she would stop at nothing to destroy me and would not hesitate to recruit daughter into the conflict. All of this over her warped interpretation that a 4-day holiday weekend didn’t meet the criteria for a 3-day holiday weekend.
There are no court orders specific enough to be immune to twisting or being rendered “confusing” by a psycho ex.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Now if you take MR’s story with Grammas b-day selebration in a lock-up and continue with even partial story that we all reading here, you will understand why men stop visitation. Every time you try to do something nice for your child, you get hit by lies and false acusations.Nobody beleives you and everybody “protects” the PEW. One day you get tired and say, “you know what dear PEW, you are right and I am wrong, I will stop doing nice things because it’s not worth it, you will ruin it anyway. And BTW, find another man to call the police on him, because I am out. Don’t even want to see my child to avoid this mess, you wanted the child all for youself - you got it”.
October 16th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Custody Evaluation is a scam, plain and simple. I’d venture that most of the “Evaluators” that are out there are jilted women out to make sure that no other women get SCREWED like they did–and don’t confuse them with the facts.
Our “evaluation” said much the same, even though it has become crystal clear that The Egg Donor is a full-blown psychotic mess.
Scam. It seems like we must live in some alternate reality when they’re allowed to write drivel like that, submit it to the courts, screw up your children’s lives, and charge you thousands for it with no repercussion even after they’re proven completely wrong.
Hate the system.
October 19th, 2009 at 11:44 am
i do believe you can challenge their decision, go to trial, and they will have to testify in court.
October 19th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
No, we won’t. As part of the “court-connected” custody evaluation program, you sign a waiver that prohibits you or the other party from calling the evaluator to testify about any aspect of their report.
You can read about the details here: http://www.thepsychoexwife.com/custody-evaluation-process/
So, you’re ORDERED by the court to go to the county evaluation company. You’re ordered to sign all of the paperwork and comply or be found in contempt.
THIS is precisely why I bitch so loud and long about this process because it’s RUN by the county and affiliated with the county court. One hand washes the other.
You cannot call them to account for their recommendations, report, observations… nothing.
This is why it’s so scary when someone tells you, “The court gives a great deal of consideration to the evaluator’s report and that’s very difficult to overcome.” You’re left to wonder why you are made to sign away your right to have the WITNESS (and that’s what they are) TESTIFY about their findings.
When I tell you that they could write anything that they want in the report and never be held accountable - I mean it. That’s a serious, serious situation.
November 9th, 2009 at 6:21 am
OMG I’m not alone I thought I was fighting the system single handedly all be it from my tiny rock in Atlantic. I to have a partner with bi-polar who continues to make my chidrens life hell. Im fighting for custody and the lies are comming from her at a rate of nots
July 26th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
I am glad to know that I am not alone, but I am sorry to say that I am not alone.
The court is trying to force me to utilize a Level 2 Parenting Coordinator who was implemented by my PEW’s former attorney.
A level 2 has the ability to make bindinig recommendations to the court so in essence, they have the ability to supercede your parental rights.
I have refused to comply with the order and have requested transcripts for the hearing that initiated this BS.
It is such a long story, and one that I would like to forget and move away from. But the PEW who definitely has BPD just contiues to utilize the court system to her benefit. Hearing after hearing, no communication, no civility, no concern for our son’s relationship with BOTH parents, just her own personal agenda and a hell bent attitude to make my life as miserable as she can. I have lost everything but My son. And now she is trying to take him away from me.
No domestic violence, no addiction problems, just a father who loves his son more than anything in the world.
The PEW goal……take him away from me. Why? What did I ever do to her?