IS THERE ANY MAGIC IN A FAMILY REPORT: HOW GOOD ARE EXPERT REPORTS IN THE FAMILY COURT? Chris Lennings, Alison O’Neill and Katie Seidler LSC Psychology – Sydney
SIGNIFICANCE OF EXPERT REPORTS Expert psychological reports are a necessary and important part of judicial decision making in the Family Court of Australia (Chisholm, 1997)
COMPLAINTS RE: EXPERT REPORTS Complaints made to the Health Care Complains Commission (HCCC) about expert psychologists and their reports are on the rise (Wilmouth, 2007) Psychologists working in the Family Law area are reported to registration boards more frequently than any of their colleagues in other branches of psychology (Neoh, Papaleo & Kennedy, 2010)
ARE WE AS GOOD AS WE THINK WE ARE? Poor report quality made up 14% of all reports of psychological misconduct to the National Registration Board for Psychologists (Grenyer & Lewis, 2012) “Custody evaluations have become the target of much criticism within the past decade. Experts in child-custody evaluation have produced a long litany of complaints concerning deficiencies and abuses in custody evaluations ” (Grisso, 2010)
IRELAND (2012) STUDY Alarmingly, a study by Jane Ireland in 2012 found more than two thirds of psychologists’ reports submitted to the Family Court in the UK were of an unsatisfactory standard. ALISON O'NEILL aoneill@lscpsych.com.au
WHAT ARE WE INTERESTED IN? 1. What makes a good (useful) report? 2. How do Lawyers perceive psychologists’ expert report? 3. What psychologists think makes a good report? 4. And how psychologists rate themselves on writing such reports?
FORENSIC GUIDELINES Witt (2010) developed a forensic report check-list to reduce errors and omission: 1. organise the report coherently 2. state a forensic referral question clearly 3. include only data relevant to the forensic opinion 4. separate observations from inferences 5. consider multiple sources of data 6. use appropriate psychological tests 7. consider alternate hypothesis 8. support opinions with data 9. clarify connections between data and opinions and 10. eliminate professional jargon.
NEED FOR RESEARCH Plethora of literature available on how to write expert reports (Gould, 1998 and Stahl, 2011). Several studies have surveyed lawyers and judges on their opinion about the quality of expert reports (La Fortune, 1997).
RESEARCH BY SURVEY La Fortune’s survey of legal consumers was largely encouraging, with positive ratings for experts' knowledge (81%), professional behaviour (75%) and quality of evaluations (72%). In addition, three fifths of the sample (61%) provided positive ratings of the quality of experts in Court testimony. However, the lowest rate of endorsement was for quality of reports submitted to the Court, with only 50% of respondents giving positive ratings of report quality.
ONLY TWO STUDIES USED ACTUAL REPORTS Few studies have reviewed the reports themselves. There remains a dearth of research within the Family Court. Bow & Quinnell (USA) and Professor Jane Ireland (UK) “An actual review of child custody evaluation reports is a more accurate indicator of evaluation practices and procedures”. (Bow & Quinnell)
OBSTACLES This type of research (i.e. assessing the actual reports) is “complicated by confidentiality issues, willingness of mental health professionals to share their work, and lack of readily accessible reports from private practitioners. These factors have deterred needed research in the child custody area ” (Bow & Quinnell, 2002)
METHODOLOGY – STUDY 2 Study 2 will survey three different professional groups working in the Family Court system in NSW: 1. Expert Psychologists 2. Judges 3. Independent Children’s Lawyers …regarding their opinions on what constitutes a high quality report, according to the criteria used in Study 1.
METHODOLOGY – STUDY 2 Psychologists and Lawyers will be asked to rate their perception of: o the importance of each criteria o how well they believe they (the psychologist) typically address that criteria in the reports they write o the overall quality of the reports they write for the Family Court.
ALISON O'NEILL aoneill@lscpsych.com.au
RESULTS Note – when referring to lawyers we had two types ICLs (n=26) and Family Lawyers (n=18) Total = 45 (but only 42 completed all portions of the survey In the main differences between these two groups were negligible so we have collapsed data for these two groups. Psychologists n=13. Representativeness? Note as psychologist sample is small and sample sizes are asymmetric, P<.01 is taken to be a satisfactory test of significance, p<.05 is interpreted as “trending”.
OVERALL SATISFACTION ANOVA for mean rating of overall satisfaction.
SLIGHTLY BETTER NEWS Overall rating of reports by lawyers: the table shows that all lawyers thought reports were at least good or better, none indicated that reports were poor. The results were normally distributed, the table shows that 45% of lawyers thought that expert reports prepared by psychologists were very good or excellent.
OVERALL QUALITY
A WORD ABOUT METHODOLOGY First we analyzed the difference between lawyers rating of importance of each of the report variables, then we asked the lawyers to rate how well they thought psychologists actually did. On almost every variable lawyers ascribed more importance to the report writing element than their rating of psychologist competence. That is, most elements we will discuss were thought of by lawyers as important or very important but psychologists were rated as falling between poor and very good. Rarely was the excellent category used. To our concern quite a few lawyers rated individual elements of psychologists’ reports as poor, suggesting despite an overall adequate rating some elements of psychologists reports were seen as well below standard.
LAWYER OUTPUT TYPICALLY LOOKED LIKE
CONFIDENTIALITY
PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS
METHOD
PROFESSIONAL ISSUES ALISON O'NEILL aoneill@lscpsych.com.au
PSYCHOMETRICS Variable� � Mean� Mean� F� Significance� Lawyer� Psychologist� (d.f.� 1,53)� Psychometrics� in� Imp� 3.65� 4.00� 2.16� n.s� report� � Actual� 2.92� 4.00� 21.59� P<.001� Relevance� of� choice� Actual� 4.28� 4.38� 0.14� n.s.� � Imp� 3.28� 4.46� 19.03� P<.001� Risk� Assessment� Imp� 4.40� 4.53� 0.46� ns� � (Domestic� Violence)� Actual� 2.77� 4.30� 31.14� P<.001� � ALISON O'NEILL aoneill@lscpsych.com.au
STRUCTURE ALISON O'NEILL aoneill@lscpsych.com.au
CONTENT
PARENTING SKILL Variable� � Mean� Mean� F� Significance� Lawyer� Psychologist� (d.f.� 1,50)� Child� care� history� Imp� 4.333� 4.846� 8.93� P<.01� � Actual� 3.461� 4.462� 16.85� P<.001� Child� parent� Imp� 4.667� 4.846� 1.52� n.s.� relationship� � Actual� 3.641� 4.692� 20.93� P<.001� Parenting� Capacity� Imp� 4.667� 4.923� 3.34� n.s.� � Actual� 3.564� 4.692� 37.93� P<.001� Discipline� Technique� Imp� 3.949� 4.154� .95� n.s.� � Actual� 2.821� 4.000� 17.07� P<.001� Affection� and� Imp� 4.333� 4.538� .937� n.s.� nurturance� � Actual� 3.179� 4.308� 21.76� P<.001� Parental� strengths� Imp� 4.564� 4.692� .648� n.s.� � Actual� 3.316� 4.308� 13.35� P<.001� Household� routines� Imp� 3.897� 3.923� .02� n.s.� � Actual� 2.667� 3.846� 15.23� P<.001� �
OBSERVATIONS AND CHILD
FORMULATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS
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