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​This open access book explores how legal proceedings in and out-of-court can be matched to the complex problems underlying disputes concerning child custody, residence and contact between parents. It focusses in particular on Nordic experiences of in and out-of-court mechanisms as means of resolving custody disputes. The contributors are internationally renowned and experienced researchers from the legal, psychological, and sociological fields who provide empirical as well as legal perspectives. They examine central legal, ethical and knowledge-based dilemmas in custody dispute proceedings. The findings speak to an international audience and suggest ways how to best realize the interests of the child. It transcends disciplinary, institutional, and jurisdictional boundaries in search of new knowledge.

This book addresses the concept of parental alienation – the belief that when a child of divorced parents avoids one parent, it may be because the preferred parent has persuaded the child to do this. It argues against the unquestioning use of parental alienation concepts in child custody conflicts.Increasing use of this concept in family courts has led at times to placement of children with abusive or violent parents, damage to the lives of preferred parents, and the use of treatments that have not been shown to be safe or effective. The 13 chapters cover the history and theory of'parental alienation'principles and practices. Methodological and research issues are considered, and diagnostic and treatment methods associated with'parental alienation'beliefs as well as those recommended by research and ethical evidence are analyzed. The connections of'parental alienation'with gender and domestic violence issues are discussed as are the experiences of individuals who have experienced'parental alienation'treatments. The book argues that'parental alienation'principles and practices should be avoided by family courts, in the best interests of children in custody disputes.This book will be useful reading for lawyers, judges, children's services workers including social workers, child protection court workers, and mental health professionals involved in child custody decisions.

​ ​ This book resolves a key problem that all evaluators need to attend to:, i.e., what constructs ought to be measured?, all the while giving them practical ways of doing this. It also presents data showing family court judges like the model, and it does this fairly briefly but in a way that is nicely embedded in the research literature.

This comprehensive volume brings to light little known implications of legal, economic, and custodial factors following a divorce. The Consequences of Divorce goes beyond the past decade's extensive focus on emotional and social adjustment outcomes to explore in-depth the post-divorce legal, economic, and custodial variables that impact the entire family. This important volume examines the economic conditions of both marriage partners after the divorce, the effect of legislative models on child support payment, child custody patterns and their impact on the family, and intervention strategies that take such custody problems into account. Teachers, counselors, researchers, and attorneys will be better prepared to offer support to family members after a divorce with the understanding of the economic and custodial conflicts that they will gain from this new book.The authoritative contributors examine statistics that show a marked decline in the economic well-being of women and children, which lead to questions of standards of adequacy for child support awards and an exploration of a new child support scheme from Australia. Different child custody arrangements are analyzed according to their consequences for each family member, providing valuable information for treating divorced families. Specific topics of interest include decreased parental involvement for fathers after a divorce, siblings separated by divorce, mothers without custody, and children's own viewpoints of custody arrangements. This informative book will lead to increased services to divorced families by expanding professionals'awareness of critical economic and legal issues that affect each member of the family.

Joint custody. Same?sex custody. Young children with the mother. Which is the best arrangement? Unfortunately, for those who seek a trustworthy solution, research has proven that there is no single best arrangement for all children. This timely volume, however, does offer a practical and realisic methodology with which to confront the challenging and often confusing issues facing the custody evaluator. THe only book of its kind, The Custody Evaluation Handbook offers a strikingly helpful model for evaluating and assigning weight to the mountains of disparate information accumulated during a custody suit. Written by an unparalleled expert in the field of custody evaluation, the book eschews what the author calls the negative incident model in which each parent responds to the custody process by compiling a long list of grievances against the hated opponent. It advocates, instead a test?based approach that measures how successful each parent actually is at the job of parenting. The book describes numerous tests and tools for eliciting reliable information from both children and parents. With an eye to learning the actual impact a parent has on a child rather than what a given parent may or may not be doing, the book emphasizes obtaining measurements from the involved child. Parent tests are designed to reflect the effectiveness with which a parent responds to typical childcare situations, and the degree to which a parent truly knows? and can satisfy the needs of? a particular child. The volume also sets forth concepts derived from extensive research that are particularly helpful in understanding parent?child interactions, and provides a specific system of nonadversary communication strategies that can be used and modeled in all interchanges with evaluation participants, and in the wording of all written reports. Readers will also welcome the numerous suggestions from evaluators all over the country on specific custody dilemmas they have faced. The book is based on many years'meticulous research and is informed by a number of conceptual approaches that include: The proven premise that whatever certain parents intend to communicate is often not what their children are, in fact, perceiving and reacting to The Utilization Model of Milton E. Erikson The Thomas, Chess, and Birch goodness?of?fit model of parent?child interaction Bandler and Grinders'assertion that the meaning of a communication is the response it elicits, regardless of the intentions of the sender Clearly, spelling out the targets of a truly comprehensive and reliable evaluation, The Custody Evaluation Handbook will be an invaluable handbook for custody evaluators and marriage and family therapists, as well as other involved mental health professionals.