Assessing Child Welfare in Custody Cases

• The areas for a forensic psychology professional would be assessing the health of the parents and children. This is important in general because we will be able to evaluate the parents’ mental health condition. It will also help determine which household is stable for the child. They will evaluate stability, safety, financial stability, and the possibility for harmful influences. An important one would be the communication and coparenting skills that both parents are able to do. This will help with the child’s adjustment to the new living arrangements.

• This requires clarity, professionalism and the ability to adhere to ethical guidelines. We need to be sure that we are finding evidence based of off data gathered from the case. In most cases we need to avoid personal emotions about the case. However, to be frank there needs to be some emotion when it comes to cases with children.My mother reported this to the courts and my father did not like this. He argued with the judge that my mother was purposely keeping me away from him, despite having overwhelming evidence from the school recommending summer school. The courts ruled in my fathers favor, making me miss out on the education that I needed and making me endure mental abuse during the summer. I went to counseling and put on medication that year. My point to this is that we need to do better. APA