The family law detection of overall risk screen (FL‐DOORS): Utility as a repeated measure for assessing change in family violence risk over time

• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Author: Anna T. Booth,Bradley J. Wright,Heather Pearce,Claire Ralfs,Jennifer E. McIntosh
• Date: 01 April 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12714

ARTICLE

The family law detection of overall risk screen

(FL-DOORS): Utility as a repeated measure for

assessing change in family violence risk over time

Anna T. Booth

1

|Bradley J. Wright

1

|Heather Pearce

2

|

Claire Ralfs

2

|Jennifer E. McIntosh

1

1

School of Psychology & Public Health, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia

2

Relationships Australia South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Correspondence

Anna T. Booth, School of Psychology & Public

Health, La Trobe University, 1 Plenty Road,

Bundoora, VIC 3086, Australia.

Email: a.booth@latrobe.edu.au

Abstract

Conflicted parental separation is associated with risks to

safety and wellbeing for all family members. The Family Law

DOORS (FL-DOORS; Detection of Overall Risk Screen) is a

standardized screening framework to assist identification,

evaluation, and response to family safety risks. The FL-

DOORS has previously been validated in two large

Australian samples (N=6089) and found fit-for-purpose as

an indicator of family violence and wellbeing risks in sepa-

rated families. Now, using pilot data from a community

mediation context, we examine its utility as a repeated mea-

sure for detecting change in safety and wellbeing over time.

A pilot cohort of 67 parents engaged in a mediation service

for parenting and/or property disputes completed the FL-

DOORS at intake (T1) and approximately 8 weeks later (T2).

We assessed T1-T2 change scores and correlations in

change between variables and used MANOVA to determine

if clusters of related scales discriminated change across

time. Findings support the psychometric capacity of the FL-

DOORS for use as a repeated measure in risk monitoring.

We also note possible effects of this early screening process

DOI: 10.1111/fcre.12714

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use,

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© 2023 The Authors. Family Court Review published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Association of Family and Conciliation

Courts.

Family Court Rev. 2023;61:359–371. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/fcre 359