September 23 Ask the Experts Eric Friedlander, MS Beyond the Test Result: Understanding Addiction in Family Law Working with families where substance use is at issue is one of the most demanding areas in family law. The job requires racing between hearings, reports, and progress notes, trying to make a fair determination on facts that rarely hold still. At that pace, it's easy to fall back on the shorthand our systems have built around addiction: a positive test means unsafe, a clean test means safe, a relapse means the case is closed on trust. It makes sense under this much pressure. It's also, more often than not, the wrong call.
September 23 Ask the Experts Kellsey Forest, LICSW Pet-Related Abuse as a Marker of Coercive Control in Family Court Assessments Family court evaluators often investigate allegations of domestic violence, child abuse, coercive control, and post-separation abuse. In that work, pets are easy to overlook as collateral or as a simple dispute over property. In some families, however, threats to harm a pet, refusal to return the animal, withholding veterinary care, provoking the animal, or using a child’s bond with the pet to intimidate the other parent are not peripheral details. They may provide important evidence of coercive control, child trauma exposure, post-separation abuse, and parenting-capacity concerns.
August 25 Ask the Experts Natalie Malovich, PhD & Samuel J. Sorensen, JD It's Just a Phone…Or Is It? Managing Technology to Reduce Conflict in Coparenting Rick is helping his five-year-old daughter get ready for school when he notices a set of small numbers written neatly on her thigh. “What’s that, honey?” he asks. She responds, “Oh, that’s Mommy’s phone number…so I can call her if I don’t feel safe.” Julie is at an appointment with the custody evaluator and hands her a stack of photos. These include a picture of several beer bottles in a trash can and a wine bottle on a pantry shelf. When the examiner turns to her with a puzzled look, Julie explains, “I think this shows you what a heavy drinker Nate is,” adding, “The girls worry a lot about this, so they take pictures to show me.” Continue Reading.
July 22 Ask the Experts Jennifer Myers Harrison, PsyD, ABPP, ATR-BC A Trauma-Informed Lens for Family Court: 10 Tips for Applying It Across Roles Families arrive in our courtrooms and offices at some of the hardest moments of their lives. Many carry histories of harm that long predate the case in front of us, and the legal process itself can stir those histories back to the surface. A trauma-informed lens helps us see this clearly. It does not ask every professional to become a therapist, and it does not ask us to set aside neutrality or critical judgment. It asks us to understand how adversity and fear shape behavior, and to do our work in a way that does not add to the harm. What follows are ten practical considerations for bringing that lens to family court, whatever role we play. Judges, evaluators, mediators, parenting coordinators, minor's counsel, attorneys, and treating clinicians each have a different vantage point, but the lens is available to all of us.
June 24 Ask the Experts Lisa Aronson Fontes, PhD Suing for Damages from Domestic Violence: Torts in Civil Courts A civil suit against a domestic abuser can provide survivors with a sense of justice and a financial cushion. There is always more to a separation or divorce case than the single overt incident that may have been “the last straw” provoking a couple to separate. People who manage to escape an abusive relationship want safety first, for themselves and their children. Next, many long for justice.