Child Custody Determinations Research Articles

Chapter 5: Jurisdiction to Make an Initial Custody Determination

SummaryThis chapter explains the state and federal statutory scheme for the existence and exercise of jurisdiction to make an initial child custody determination. Grounds for declining jurisdiction are also discussed, including simultaneous proceedings pending in another state, inconvenient forum and “clean hands” considerations, and the federal preference for “home state” jurisdiction.The next chapter examines jurisdiction to modify a child custody determination.

Chapter 8: Enforcing Child Custody Determinations under the UCCJA and the PKPA

SummaryThis chapter explains the duties to enforce child custody determinations made by another state consistently with the UCCJA and PKPA. (Enforcement of foreign custody decrees is the subject of Chapter 10).

THE “WINNER‐LOSER SYNDROME’

The purpose of this paper is to outline some of the historical antecedents—in psychotherapy and family law—to the present state of child custody determination. Certain problems with the current approach to custody disputes, which some have called the “winner‐loser syndrome,” are identified; and a newer approach, referred to as the “parenting plan” model, is discussed.

Private Troubles, Private Solutions: Poverty Among Divorced Women and the Politics of Support Enforcement and Child Custody Determination

AbstractIn this paper, recent feminist analyses of the feminization of poverty thesis and proposals for a particular kind of child custody determination—the primary caregiver presumption—will be examined. The question of women's subordination in the context of child custody outcomes is of fundamental importance to the issue of financial support for raising children, and women's economic position in general. Yet the complexity and dialectical nature of this relationship is not fully appreciated in most analyses. As a result, recent progress in the area of family law reform may inadvertently entrench traditional assumptions about the role of women and men, perpetuating the myth of the male breadwinner, family-wage model.

Child Custody Determination: An Analysis of the Litigation Model, Legal Practices, and Men's Experiences in the Process

Child Custody Determination: An Analysis of the Litigation Model, Legal Practices, and Men's Experiences in the Process

Use and abuse of mental health experts in child custody determinations

AbstractChanges in standards for child custody determinations have resulted in an increased demand for mental health professionals to serve as expert witnesses. However, the entry of mental health professionals into custody disputes has been met with harsh criticism of the value of their contributions. Critics have generally pointed to the absence of substantive requirements for who may serve as an expert mental health witness, the ambiguities inherent in the best interests standard, the weak scientific basis for psychology and psychiatry, and the questionable measurement techniques employed by mental health professionals as reasons for increased regulation of forensic mental health services. This article critically reviews these concerns and proposes a regulatory model that addresses the salient issues.

Psychology and Child Custody Determinations: Knowledge, Roles, and Expertise (Book)

Psychology and Child Custody Determinations: Knowledge, Roles, and Expertise (Book)

Child Custody: Practices and Perspectives of Legal Professionals

To explore the attitudes and practices of both judges and attorneys involved in child custody determinations, the present study attempted to elaborate the views of legal professionals on different types of custody arrangements, the criteria that attorneys and judges employ in formulating child custody decisions (particularly joint vs. sole custody), the relative emphasis they accord to each, and policy recommendations for improving the context in which child custody decisions are made. The major findings reveal that legal professionals see joint custody as neither the most desirable nor the appropriate custody arrangement in most cases and they question the ability or motivation of divorcing couples to cooperate to the extent necessary for joint custody to be viable. Their policy recommendations demonstrate the openness of legal professionals to go beyond traditional judicial processes in arriving at custody decisions and underscore the need for close collaboration between the mental health and legal disc...

Child Custody Evaluations: Criteria and Clinical Implications

The present study examined mental health practitioners' views of the relative importance of various criteria in determining child custody in a divorce. A second focus was the possibility of differences between professionals regularly conducting custody evaluations and their inexperienced colleagues. A broad survey of both psychologists and social workers showed considerable agreement between the two professions in emphasizing relationships among the members of the family and the richness of the social environment in the prospective custodial home. Experienced and inexperienced professionals agreed on this basic approach to custody decisions. The clinicians' opinions are discussed in the context of results from the empirical literature that have demonstrated a relationship between specific variables and children's postdivorce adjustment.

The wisdom of Solomon: Criteria for child custody from the legal and clinical points of view.

The results of the analyses of items common to two separate surveys, one with judges/commissioners and one with mental health professionals, regarding the standards to be used in determining child custody in a divorce are reported. Although there were more areas of agreement between the two groups, group differences did emerge on a few items. Mental health professionals tended to give significantly greater emphasis to the quality of the relationship between parent and child, whereas the judiciary tended to give more emphasis to the legal/biological status of the parent-child relationship and to traditional family roles and structures. The implications of the findings are discussed.

Child advocacy and the adversary system: Round peg in a square hole?

Abstract This article includes a description of a recent adoption/custody decision of serious legal implications, with particular focus on the psychologists’ role highlighted by the appearance of six psychologists as “experts”; in the case. An argument for use of the consultation model, implemented by identifiable child specialists, in child custody determination is presented as an alternative to the multiple expert witness approach.

The Meaning of the Child's Preference in Child Custody Determination

The courts have long recognized the importance of the child's preference in child custody matters. Psychiatry and psychology have had mixed views regarding such a preference. The child's stated custodial preference is seen as a psychological statement by the child of how he/she has resolved the inevitable loyalty conflict that accompanies divorce. While not bound by this stated preference, there should be a commitment to not only elicit this preference, but to listen carefully to it and try to understand its complex meaning.

Child Custody Determination—A Proposed Psychiatric Methodology and Its Resultant Case Typology

Psychiatrists have yet to agree upon a method of psychiatric evaluation of children in custody disputes that can confidently produce a valid exposition of the “best interests of the child” or the existing emotional and psychological relationship between the child and parent. This article outlines a proposed method of psychiatric evaluation in custody cases. It emphasizes the need to see each family member alone and together with all other family members. It stresses the need for open and free discussions of all pertinent issues including the custodial preferences of the child.

Family Impact Analysis: Application to Child Custody Determination

This paper examines current changes in child custody determination policies and related programs. Family Impact Analysis, a framework for assessing the impact of legal and social policy on the family, is described as an objective approach of investigating the implementation of family legal policy. The utility of Family Impact Analysis is illustrated by its application to an analysis of child custody policy and a recently developed mediation counseling program used in child custody determination cases in the family court services of Hennepin County (Minneapolis), Minnesota.

Custody by Agreement: Child Psychiatrist as Child Advocate

The authors offer a new plan to help not only the large numbers of children involved in their parents’ divorces, but all the participants in divorce and custody disagreements. This plan stresses psychiatric values above legal ones and involves the fuller participation of the child psychiatrists in advocating for the welfare of the child. The paper presents an historical context for custody rights as well as currently emerging concepts and practices. A review of the child psychiatrist's role as an objective expert and as an expert witness is given, and also a brief review of what is helpful to children whose parents divorce. The authors’ nonadversarial model for determining child custody is proffered with a consideration of the benefits of an agreed judgment on child custody.

Behavioral Science Criteria in Child Custody Determinations

This is an investigation of the relationships between the characteristics of lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers and the criteria they employ when they are involved in child custody legal proceedings. The findings reveal disciplinary distictions, equity for the mother and father, and influence from demographic variables regarding the preference for criteria to be applied for child custody determination.

INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH IN THE STUDY OF MARITAL LAW (STUDY OF THE DETERMINATION OF CHILD COSTODY)

An interdisciplinary approach is an approach that uses various scientific fields in solving a problem. The determination of child custody is usually decided by considering the age of the child. Children who are not yet mumayiz are taken care of by the mother, but when the child is an adult, they are given the choice to live with the mother or father. Through this study, the author examines the determination of child custody according to Islamic law and the Marriage Law and by using psychology and economics. That the custody of children in care must be assigned to the right person. From this paper, the author concludes that according to Islamic law, the determination of child custody takes into account the age of the child. According to Law no. 1 of 1974 concerning Marriage, the determination of child custody before adulthood is decided by a local court judge. In psychology, the determination of child custody takes into account the mental or psychological aspects of the child. Especially in terms of the child's emotional closeness, closer to the mother or father. So that way, the child's condition will be better in living their daily lives and not getting pressure. Meanwhile, by using economics, the determination of child custody is seen from the financial stability of both parents, both from the mother and from the father. Because in carrying out child care requires financially established, so that the needs of children can be met properly. So, in determining child custody, it can not only be seen from the age of the child but can use other considerations. 
 Keywords: Child custody, Mother, Father

Poverty and the Law of Child Custody

T HE RELATIONSHIP OF A NATURAL PARENT or parent-surrogate to his children is a vital human relationship which has far-reaching implications for the growth and development of the child. It becomes the duty of the law to impinge upon the parent-child relationship at some of its critical points: divorce, separation, or death of the parents; delinquent behavior of the chvild; abuse or neglect of the child; and adoption of the child. In all these cases, the law has ultimately only one response to offer: It has the power to remove the child from his present home, whether that be with parents, foster parents, relatives, strangers, or an institution, and place him elsewhere either temporarily or for the duration of his minority. This power is typically exercised by a judge in a court hearing involving the general question of child custody, although the hearing itself may more particularly be concerned with a petition for divorce, adoption, guardianship, support, or a petition to make the child a ward or dependent child of the juvenile court.' The general purpose of this article is to ask whether the law, in its approach to the child custody determination, hinders or advances the child's smooth progress toward social, emotional, psychological, and physical maturity. Our more specific purpose is to discuss the extent to which custody decisions are affected by poverty, including the problem of whether poverty itself creates new situations that may give riseperhaps inappropriately-to custody decisions. Finally, we propose to raise again, hopefully from a different point of view, the general question of how custody decisions can reasonably be made.