Conducting Scientifically Crafted Child Custody Evaluations

“The current judicial system attempts to find justice in a fundamentally unjust situation. Children of divorce wants their parents to kiss and make up. They do not want to live a life divided between every other weekend and Tuesday nights at Dad’s. ”

Review
Jonathan W. Gould’s text is one of the best researched and comprehensive books on child custody evaluations I have read. This book is invaluable to evaluators, attorneys, and judges who participate in these crucial decisions affecting the lives of children and their families.

Book Description
Author Jonathan W. Gould compiles the literature on child custody evaluation into a coherent, logically integrated format that can be applied directly to practice. This empirically based book represents state-of-the-art forensic techniques in the rapidly changing field of child custody evaluation. The author questions whether this minority comprises a unique population that requires separate, uniquely developed intervention protocols.

Comments
His case studies are compelling examples of the mistakes that dominate the real work products of the field. I love the way at the start of each chapter he presents a reasonable sounding evaluation (unless you know from experience what mistakes to look for), and then by the end of the chapter you understand that it was meant as an example of what NOT to do, and you now have a deep understanding of why.