The AFCC Guidelines and publicly funded parenting plan evaluations

• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Author: Andrea Jones
• Date: 01 January 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12694

COMMENTARY

The AFCC Guidelines and publicly funded

parenting plan evaluations

Andrea Jones

Provincial Manager of Clinical Services, Office of the Children's Lawyer

Correspondence

Andrea Jones, Provincial Manager of Clinical Services, Office of the Children's Lawyer, 393 University 14th Fl. Toronto, ONM5G

1E6.

Email: andrea.jones2@ontario.ca

INTRODUCTION

The Guidelines for Parenting Plan Evaluations in Family Law Cases (Guidelines) are the product of the Association of

Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) Task Force for the Revisions of the Model Standards of Practice for Child

Custody Evaluation (Model Standards).

In July 2019, then AFCC president, Matthew Sullivan, PhD, appointed a multidisciplinary task force to revise the

Model Standards which were published in 2006. The Task Force, comprised of an international group of legal and

mental health professionals, met for two and a half years to update the Model Standards.

As one of the task force members who works primarily within the public sphere, it was important that theGuide-

lines not only addressed private sector profiles, but public ones as well. The Guidelines that were approved by the

board of directors of the AFCC and released in June 2022, contain best practices for all who do evaluations whether

it be public or private in nature. In this article, I will highlight the importance of the Guidelines in publicly funded

evaluations.

TYPES OF EVALUATIONS

Parties engaged in a parenting dispute may choose different options to help resolve their differences. Hiring a mental

health professional to conduct a parenting plan evaluation is one way to address the dispute. If an evaluator is hired

by the parties, then it is a private evaluation. Aside from the usual steps of interviews, observations etc., private eval-

uators may also conduct other steps such as assessments of parenting capacity or other tests to inform their work.

The cost for such evaluations can be thousands of dollars, sometimes in the tens of thousands of dollars.

Publicly funded evaluations are usually performed free or subsidized to the user through government/public

funds. They are also performed by mental health professionals who are appointed by the court or a centralized sys-

tem. These evaluations may not include additional psychological assessments, but they still perform the key parts of

an evaluation. The resulting reports are submitted back to the parties and to the courts to help resolve the parenting

plan disputes. In the United States, Guardian Ad Litem appointments, depending on the state and their fee structure,

DOI: 10.1111/fcre.12694

© 2022 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.

58 Family Court Rev. 2023;61:58–61.

wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fcre