The Best Interest of the Child

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=160 BGCOLOR="#333333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="03cdedc2ddualp.png"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dr. Wade Silverman, Ph.D"><U><B>Dr. Wade Silverman, Ph.D</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id8.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U><B>Contact Us</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id147.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="FAQs"><U><B>FAQs</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id16.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="About Dr. Silverman"><U><B>About Dr. Silverman</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id146.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Great links"><U><B>Great links</B></U></A></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id3.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Mind Reader© archive"><U><B>The Mind Reader© archive</B></U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="03d64643.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#666633" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B>Dr. Wade Silverman, Ph.D</B></FONT>    |     <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#0000BF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dr. Wade Silverman, Ph.D"><U>home</U></A></FONT></div> <div>                                                   </div> <div> The Best Interest of the Child</div> <bR> <bR> <div> As a professional, It is extremely difficult to observe your colleagues doing the sudden </div> <bR> <bR> <div> standard job peavine. Even more frustrating is the vague definition often associated with the </div> <bR> <bR> <div> concept of standard of care. Nowhere is this more on display than in family court. One of the </div> <bR> <bR> <div> major errors made by mental health professionals is to comment or apply our parent or child that </div> <bR> <bR> <div> they have not examined. Our second major error is to complete an entire evaluation in a single </div> <bR> <bR> <div> session. The third major error is the failure to use multi sources of data to arrive at an opinion.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> In a recent study by Budd Poindester, Felix, and Naik-Polan in <U>Law and Human </U></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <U>Behavior</U>, Volume 25, 2001. They investigated the adequacy of clinical evaluation of parents in </div> <bR> <bR> <div> child abuse and child neglect cases. Their sample consists of 190 mental health evaluation </div> <bR> <bR> <div> reports. They found a plethora of frequently occurring failures to meet acceptable forensic </div> <bR> <bR> <div> examinations including: 1. Single session evaluations. 2. No home visits. 3. Exclusive use of </div> <bR> <bR> <div> parents as data sources. 4. No descriptions of behavioral observations.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> One of the more dramatic errors may be due to the apparent bias involved in the </div> <bR> <bR> <div> evaluation. In this particular study, parents strengths were under represented while their </div> <bR> <bR> <div> weaknesses were over represented. Weaknesses were reported 85% of the time whereas strengths </div> <bR> <div> were reported on 42% of the time. </div> <bR> <div> Child protection deserves the highest priority and therefor services of the highest </div> <bR> <bR> <div> professional level. If we are to serve those who make these important decisions, we must offer </div> <bR> <bR> <div> quality forensic evaluations. These include evaluations that are comprehensive, to the point, </div> <bR> <bR> <div> unbias, and based on multiple sources and multiple observation. It is unacceptable and indeed </div> <bR> <bR> <div> unethical in some professions to make statements concerning individuals whom we have not </div> <bR> <bR> <div> examined.</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>