Custody evaluation
Custody evaluation (also known as "parenting evaluation") is a legal process, in which a court-appointed mental health expert or an expert chosen by the parties, evaluates a family and makes a recommendation to the court for custody matters, usually including residential custody, visitation and a parenting plan. When performing the custody evaluation, the evaluator is expected to act in the child's best interests. Procedure. If the issue of child custody is not settled before trial and the parents have serious concerns about each other's ability to parent the children involved, especially for the high-conflict  cases, a child custody evaluation may be ordered by the court. Many states have laws that regulate the appointment of custody evaluators and procedures for evaluation. The Court can order either a full or a focused evaluation. Evaluation cost is normally established by the evaluator, but the parents can split the charges according to their court order. The American Psychological Association publishes guidelines for custody evaluators. Also, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts publish guidelines that apply to the custody evaluators. Custody evaluation vs. litigation. There are significant differences between custody evaluation and a regular court procedure, such as: Criticism . A custody evaluation process must respect basic due process, but is much less formal than a judicial proceeding. A judge may base a custody decision on the final report of the evaluator despite the relative lack of due process in the custody evaluation process. Thus, it becomes possible that testimony and evidence that normally would not be permitted in the court proceeding could become a basis for the court decision. Concerns about the evidentiary basis for a custody recommendation include: Critics argue that the lack of formal process may infringe the legal right of a person to the procedural due  process, which is guaranteed by Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. Also, if a custody case is appealed, the lack of a formal record makes it very hard to object to the content of a final evaluation report. As custody evaluators are often paid on an hourly basis, some critics argue that a conflict of interest may arise because the evaluator may financially benefit from unnecessary prolonging the evaluation. Even when the evaluator is paid a fixed amount, the evaluator may request additional evaluations or proceedings that could produce a financial benefit. A client might be afraid  to object because the evaluator could potentially give a bad evaluation in retaliation. A possible conflict of interest could also arise if the mental health professional who provides a custody evaluation later seeks an appointment to serve as parenting coordinator for the parties, or seeks the appointment of a partner from the same practice. Some states and the AFCC guidelines explicitly prohibit that practice, but many states allow the practice. As most custody evaluators are not lawyers, an evaluator may make mistakes of law that affect a custody recommendation. For example, orders drafted based on an evaluator's recommendation may  omit mandatory state requirements, such as the requirement to set forth the minimum amount and access of parenting time for noncustodial parent. Some critics argue that no scientific evidence exists that a child custody evaluation results in a better outcome for children. They suggest that research data on the subject shows that child custody evaluations can have negative effect on the family. One survey suggests that 65% of parents believed that the child custody evaluation in which they participated was not in their children's best financial interest, one in four parents believed that their children experienced negative effects from  the evaluation, and one in five parents reported their children were worse as a result of the child custody evaluation.