Family Court Review最新文献

We are currently facing an unprecedented increase in adolescent mental health problems resulting in alarmingly high levels of depression, anxiety, and suicidality. Significant mental health problems among youth pose unique challenges to families in the process of separation and divorce, as well as to family law professionals across all disciplines. The current adolescent mental health crisis calls for new ways of approaching our work with high conflict families to promote family connectedness and shift away from adversarial approaches that may exacerbate conflict and further destabilize families. As a conclusion to the special issue on adolescent mental health needs, the authors make multidisciplinary best practices recommendations and advocate for systems level changes in recognition of the needs of youth in crisis at this pivotal developmental stage.

Children and adolescents who are having difficulty coping with stress often present with complaints of physical discomfort. Effective treatment approaches exist for many of these issues. Among high-conflict parents, however, children's medical issues can become another canvas for conflict, with parents focused more on blaming one another for the child's distress than on options for assisting the child. Professionals can be drawn into the conflict to such a degree that they overlook essential steps for addressing and managing these issues. The authors present a research-informed model for managing medical and psychophysiological issues amid parental conflict.

This article touches upon theories accounting for the rise in adolescent anxiety and depression and how the prevalence of adolescent anxiety and depression affects how we navigate parenting plan evaluations. This article also discusses the importance of screening youth for depressive and anxious symptoms and assessing family, parental, and youth risk and protective factors related to adolescent depression and anxiety. This article also highlights the importance of assessing for mediating factors that increase the risk of anxiety and depression in youth in the context of parental separation, such as interparental conflict, financial difficulties, and limited contact with one parent. This article also identifies various methods of assessing depression and anxiety, including the adolescent interview, observations during the interview, and self-report measures. Additionally, this article discusses potential interventions that address mediators of the impact of divorce, such as parenting problems, family conflict, or the parent–child relationship.

The mental health system in the US was not meeting the increasing needs of teens before the pandemic started in 2020. The pandemic served to stress adolescents and their parents while significantly limiting the availability of services. Separated parents may have disputes about whether adolescents have mental health care needs, what services the child needs, where those services will be obtained, and who will be involved. The Parenting Coordinator as a dispute resolution professional can assist families in reaching agreements and meeting their teen's needs for care.

This article discusses a recently enacted Colorado law that aims to reduce the youth suicide rate by lowering the age of consent for psychotherapy from age 15 to age 12. The author discusses the challenges therapists face when young adolescents seek therapy without parental consent in cases involving interparental conflict. Suggestions for managing adolescent-directed therapy are offered.

An increase in adolescent distress and mental health symptoms has been clearly documented since the COVID-19 pandemic, as has increased exposure to adverse childhood experiences. Layer on top of these stressors being a youth of divorcing or separating high conflict families, and adolescent symptomatology can suddenly become a flashpoint for parental attention, division and conflict. Approaching cases using an ecological and family systems framework is necessary for accurate conceptualization and assessment of best interests in the context of child custody evaluations. Doing so ensures that adolescent mental health does not become a red herring in high conflict cases, leading to undue focus on the adolescent's mental health without considering other salient factors in the case, such as the broader parent conflict. Programs offered at the Center of Excellence for Children, Families & the Law at William James College designed to improve the lives of youth by addressing parental conflict are described.

High conflict co-parents engage in recurrent litigation that significantly strains the court system and exacerbates their conflict. Given barriers to their engagement in service delivery (e.g., level of conflict, transportation, child care), it is vital to evaluate targeted interventions and to examine different intervention modalities (e.g., online, hybrid). This study compared court involvement and rates of parental agreement among 178 high conflict cases that received a multi-component intervention, either in-person or in a hybrid version. Results demonstrated no significant differences between groups in the change in number of court negotiations, child-related issues, or court services from before to after-intervention completion or in the proportion of parenting cases who reached an agreement. Both versions demonstrated significant reductions in parents' court involvement from before to after-intervention completion. These findings suggest the need for future research to evaluate the comparative efficacy of hybrid programs and in-person programs for high conflict co-parents with greater methodological rigor in light of the current study's findings and limitations.

Texas' foster care system is overpopulated, underfunded, and doing a grave disservice to the children in its care. Specifically, the foster care system is violating the constitutional rights of children regarding how they must be taken care of while in the State's custody. Parents whose custodial rights were involuntarily terminated now have a clear path for petitioning to regain their rights thanks to Texas House Bill 2926. Much of House Bill 2926's value is lost in the legalese used to write it, which is the problem my proposed solution, The 2926 Project, aims to remedy.

In 2019, the family treatment court (FTC) best practice standards (the Standards) were published to clarify attributes of FTC programs associated with superior child, parent, and family outcomes. The Standards cover the breadth of FTC operations including program structure and leadership, substance use treatment and complementary services, and behavioral responses to participants. This study aimed to develop an instrument (the Model Standards Implementation Scale; “MSIS”) that stakeholders can use to assess implementation of the Standards by individual FTCs. The MSIS balances usability with scientific validity. Interrater reliability (IRR), internal consistency, and several types of validity were assessed. Results indicated moderate to strong IRR, high internal consistency, mixed known groups validity depending on Standard, and high convergent and divergent validity. Initial findings suggest good validity and usability of the MSIS for evaluating FTC Standards' implementation. Notably, the process of using the tool functioned to educate FTC team members on the Standards. Although implementation of the MSIS is a resource-intensive process, the opportunity to receive constructive feedback proved to be an effective incentive for initial and subsequent participation in the evaluation among FTCs. Future research is needed to examine predictive validity, including association between Standards' implementation and family outcomes in FTCs.