CAMFT Annual Meeting
This past week I had the privilege of speaking to the Colorado Association of Marriage and Family Therapists at their annual meeting.  Part of my presentation was to give them an update on the work we are involved with in addressing the gap in parental evaluation services since the CFI rule changes went into effect last year.  For those of you that could not attend the CAMFT meeting, I would like to update you here.  Please refer to my last blog post for a full explanation of the current gap in affordable parental evaluation services.

The Problem
As described in our blog post in December, 2011, we have developed a significant gap in the availability of court appointed evaluators for the middle class parent is divorcing and who cannot come to an agreement on parenting time or decision making.  There is now a $2,000 cap on fees for a Child and Family Investigator and Parental Evaluators fees have historically been to high for the middle class parent. (Typically over $10,000.00).

The New Possibility!
Since my last blog in December of 2011, we have taken steps to use this breakdown in the system to allow for a re-look at the current process used to do a Parental Responsibilities Evaluation.  I invited a group of therapists from different backgrounds to come together to look at the current PRE process, look at what works and what does not work about the process and then to start from a blank sheet of paper to see if the process could simultaneously be improved upon and cost less.

The group included 6 therapists including one PsyD, one PhD. (a clinical professor at of Psychology at CSU), three LMFT's including Lisa Thomas, a past CAMFT president and Amy Maddox, also a former member of the CAMFT executive council. We also had a member who has a masters in Social Work and myself as the legal representative on the team.

Currently in the Testing Phase
The result of the work done by this group is a newly designed process titled PRE21 or a Parental Responsibilities Evaluation for the 21st century.  I could not be more excited about the possibility that this new process represents for middle class parents in need of parental evaluation services.  We are now in the testing stage.  Once the process has been fully tested we will present to groups and provide training opportunities.

Please feel free to give me a call at 303-329-3802 if you would like to discuss the PRE21 process in more detail and I will be sure to update you all as the process unfolds.

Happy Holidays Everyone!
I know for many people who are contemplating divorce that the holiday season can be very trying and I imagine that if you are a therapist you are very busy helping people through this time.  In fact, statistically, most people wait until the holidays are complete before they move forward with a divorce.  Understandably so.

New Need for 2012 custody cases 
However, I expect that in January, as in all prior years, there will be a large number of people calling who want to begin the divorce process.  This year there will be a new issue facing parents that are divorcing who cannot agree on parenting time schedules and decision making processes.  In the past, they would typically hire a CFI, (Child and Family Investigator) to assess the situation and make a report to the court on what parenting plan they see is in the best interests of the children.  Given the changes to the CFI rules, this general evaluation is no longer possible.  The new rules require that CFI's do narrow, fact based investigations only, with no analysis of the parent's abilities or psychological issues.  There is also a $2,000.00 cap on CFI investigations and reports to assure that they are not broad or too in-depth.  Many CFI's have said they will no longer do this work due to the financial cap.

So, if parents need a full child custody assessment the only other court ordered option available is what is called a Parenting Responsibilities Evaluation (PRE).  This can only be done by a licensed professional therapist (CFI's can be done by attorneys or non-licensed individuals).  In the past PRE's were VERY in depth and often cost more than $10,000.00 and were most often done by PhD's when there were allegations of parental psychological or addiction issues.   This is why CFI evaluations had become the primary custody evaluation tool for middle income parents.  As you can see, this creates a major gap in what is available in court ordered child custody evaluations.

New Opportunity to fill the GAP
For 2012 we are going to need a new form of a Parental Responsibilities Evaluation.  One that can fill the gap left by the narrowing of CFI investigations.  We need a PRE that is somewhat abridged, deals with the specific issues at hand, assesses the family dynamics, includes psychological analysis as needed and one that can be done for a reasonable fee.  This would be a breakthrough for our legal system in that it assures that you are using a licensed professional therapist for evaluating parental abilities and recommending a parenting plan while also making it affordable to the average parent.

Who can fill this gap?
Here are the qualifications for a Parental Responsibilities Evaluator:

1. A licensed Mental Health Professional who is competent by training and experience in the following:
• The effects of divorce and re-marriage on children, adults and families.
• Appropriate parenting techniques
• Child and Adult Psychopathology
• Applicable clinical assessment techniques
• Legal and ethical requirements of a PRE

It seems to me that you do not need to have a PhD to fulfill on these qualifications.  Depending on your specialty, I think that a good number of licensed professional therapists can fit well into these qualifications.

I believe that it is time to create an evaluation service/ tool that makes PRE's viable for the middle class divorce client.  As a family law attorney, I am VERY interested in seeing this developed and I am open to collaborating with therapists that wish to understand what attorney's and parents need to fill the parental evaluation GAP.  Please feel free to get in touch with me at leslie@matthewslaw.com to discuss this opportunity.  I also intend to put together a round table discussion on this topic in the beginning of 2012.  I will let you know on this blog and on our website at matthewslaw.com when it is scheduled.

I do not want to discourage people from continuing work as a CFI.  There is certainly still a need for CFI work.  It will be more narrowly defined by the court and will not go over $2,000 in fees but there will be a higher volume available since many former CFI's will no longer be participating.  The cap also makes CFI investigations available to people on tighter budgets.

I believe that the changes in the CFI rules have presented an opportunity to re-evaluate what is really needed in a full custody evaluation and how it can be done at a reasonable cost.  I am hopeful that the present GAP will be filled with something better than what our system has had in the past and something that will serve children and their best interests in these difficult situations.

Please forward this discussion to any licensed therapist you know who might be interested in designing a great evaluation process for divorcing families who need help deciding what parenting plan is best for their children.

Leslie Matthews