Ten Child-Centered Forensic Family Evaluation Tools

An Empirically Annotated User's Guide

Thank you for purchasing Ten Child-Centered Forensic Family Evaluation Tools. You are welcome to download, print, and copy the forms below to use with your clients. You are welcome to use them as much as you want. Your purchase of the book/manual gives you permission to do this, but please do not share it with your colleagues or anyone. We appreciate your help.

Kind regards,
Megan Hunter, Publisher
Unhooked Books
High Conflict Institute Press

Message from Dr. Garber

Your purchase of this volume constitutes license to copy and administer any one or more of the resources contained herein for professional purposes, including graduate level education. Your choice to use any one or more of these resources further constitutes acceptance of any associated liability.

These resources are not to be construed as psychometric tests. They have no established reliability or validity. They do not generate diagnoses. These are simply standardized protocols with which the family law professional can begin to collect, organize, compare and contrast data obtained from litigating caregivers. In particular, these resources have proven to be extremely valuable when they are front-loaded in an evaluation, that is, when prospective evaluation participants are asked to complete and return them in advance of first interviews. Used in this manner, these resources can assist the evaluator to streamline the evaluation process, to focus on particular areas of concern and to better understand and explore the areas in which caregivers agree and disagree. Front-loading these resources can also provide the evaluator with critical process-oriented information relevant to the manner in which participants organize, prioritize and meet deadlines more generally.

The reader is reminded that these resources, like so much relevant to mental health evaluation and family law process, are very language- and culture-dependent. The resources contained in this volume generally require respondents to have an eighth grade education, a mastery of English, and to have been enculturated in the contemporary United States. Administration and/or interpretation of these resources with individuals who do not meet these minimal criteria are likely to confound what is already a very complex and controversial process, namely, evaluation in the context of child-centered litigation.

Finally, and most obviously, data collected via administration of these resources, singly or in any combination, must not be mistaken as sufficient for any child-centered evaluation process. Under the best of circumstances, these resources can help to build a framework that the evaluator then fills in with data obtained via interview, observation and assessment so as to best understand the child and the family and thereby advise the court.

B.D. Garber, PhD
February, 2015