The Views of Psychologists, Lawyers, and Judges on Key Components and the Quality of Child Custody Evaluations in Australia

• Author: Kay Bussey,Christopher J. Lennings,Katie M. Seidler,Alison T. O'Neill
• Date: 01 January 2018
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12323

ARTICLES

THE VIEWS OF PSYCHOLOGISTS, LAWYERS, AND JUDGES ON KEY

COMPONENTS AND THE QUALITY OF CHILD CUSTODY

EVALUATIONS IN AUSTRALIA

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Alison T. O’Neill, Kay Bussey, Christopher J. Lennings, and Katie M. Seidler

This study aimed to understand the expectations of and the agreement between professional groups regarding the quality of

single-expert reports written by psychologists (known as child custody evaluations in the United States). 13 psychologists, 18

family lawyers, 26 children’s lawyers, and 8 judges (N565) in New South Wales, Australia, rated the overall quality of

reports and the quality of various components of them. Interprofessional congruence on importance ratings allowed key com-

ponents to be derived. The results revealed that the overall quality of reports was rated positively, however, significant discrep-

ancies were found between importance and quality ratings on the various components, indicating that reports fall short of

expectations in many areas.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

Expert reports (child custody evaluations) written by psychologists are valued documents in assisting Judges making

child custody decisions.

There has been little research into the quality of reports written in family law proceedings.

This study found that reports were rated as satisfactory or better by judges and lawyers.

Psychologists rated report quality much higher than did legal professionals.

The study provides a list of key components that are deemed important inclusions in reports to improve their

usefulness.

Areas in need of improvement are identified for research and training.

Keywords: Child Custody Evaluations; Judges; Lawyers; Psychologists; Report Components; Report Quality; Single-

Expert Reports; and Survey.

INTRODUCTION

In family law proceedings, social scientists and psychologists are increasingly called upon to pro-

vide expert reports (Patel & Choate, 2014), especially in complex matters where there are allegations

of parental mental illness, substance abuse, family violence, or child abuse. Given the significance of

the decisions that follow, producing high-quality reports is of paramount concern to the psycholo-

gists, who write the reports; to lawyers, who represent the parties and the children; and to the judges,

who ultimately make the orders that shape the families’ lives. Despite the development of ethical and

practice guidelines, preliminary analyses of the content of reports submitted to the court suggest that

standards vary widely (Bow & Quinnell, 2002) and complaints made against psychologists who

practice in this area are high in Australia (Grenyer & Lewis, 2012) and the United States (Bow,

Gottlieb, Sigel, & Noble, 2010). To better understand what report consumers want, legal professio-

nals (mainly lawyers) have been surveyed regarding their overall satisfaction with reports and their

opinion on the importance and quality of report components (Bow & Quinnell, 2004; Bow, Gottlieb,

& Gould-Saltman, 2011). To date, however, there has been no empirical research about which com-

ponents of these reports psychologists consider important or whether there is agreement among the

Correspondence: aoneill@lscpsych.com.au; kay.bussey@mq.edu.au; clennings@lscpsych.com.au; kseidler@lscpsych.com.au

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 56 No. 1, January 2018 64–78

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C2018 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts