Parenting Plan & Child Custody Evaluations: Using Decision Trees to Increase Evaluator Competence & Avoid Preventable Errors
If the parenting plan evaluator uses the scientific method described by these authors, s/he will make judges, attorneys and parents (if not happy) satisfied that the analysis of all the data produced by the parents and their counsel was thoughtful and thorough and transparent. In addition, it will assist the evaluator in confronting his/her own biases and short cut thinking. It is not just the evaluator who can benefit from this process: judges and lawyers should consider consciously adopting this method to better their own decision making. --Marjorie A. Slabach, JD, retired judicial officer, presided over Family Court in San Francisco Superior Court 1997-2011Drozd, Olesen, & Saini have integrated aspects of current research on cognitive errors and applied this knowledge in a superb manner to assist child custody evaluators to think more clearly and with greater awareness of the ways in which personal and professional biases may interfere with our ability to produce the best work product we can. Their application of the fast and slow thinking paradigm and their development of checklists and flow charts to help guide us toward more systematic examination of our thinking are challenging, new, and welcome additions to the child custody literature. - --Jonathan W. Gould, PhD, ABPP, Diplomate in Forensic Psychology, Charlotte, NC; author of Conducting Scientifically Crafted Child Custody Evaluations (2nd Ed) and co-author of The Art and Science of Child Custody EvaluationsDrozd, Olesen, & Saini have integrated aspects of current research on cognitive errors and applied this knowledge in a superb manner to assist child custody evaluators to think more clearly and with greater awareness of the ways in which personal and professional biases may interfere with our ability to produce the best work product we can. Their application of the fast and slow thinking paradigm and their development of checklists and flow charts to help guide us toward more systematic examination of our thinking are challenging, new, and welcome additions to the child custody literature. ---Jonathan W. Gould, PhD, ABPP, Diplomate in Forensic Psychology, Charlotte, NC; author of Conducting Scientifically Crafted   Child Custody Evaluations (2nd Ed) and co-author of The Art and Science of Child Custody Evaluations