Topic
New study finds systemic problems in parental capacity assessments discriminate against women.
Increasingly, women who claim spousal abuse are labeled ‘alienating’. Photo: Shutterstock.
Dramatic cuts to legal aid have left many poor people without lawyers, with troubling consequences.
Advocates say method can put abused women at risk, urge restoring legal aid cuts.
When a woman flees an abusive relationship, we expect the justice system will protect her and her children.
But a new report finds in some British Columbian child custody cases allegations of spousal abuse are used to paint the mother as mentally ill or an "alienating" parent, and instead recommend visitation, or even custody, for the abusive parent.
"Troubling Assessments: Custody and Access Reports and their Equality Implications for BC Women" is a new report released today by West Coast LEAF, a women's legal education and advocacy organization. The report looks at what are known under the Family Relations Act as Section 15 reports: parental capacity assessments conducted during child custody and access cases.
Often a useful tool for getting a third-party, outsider's view of parenting abilities, the report found they could also be biased against and dangerous for vulnerable women with abusive ex-partners.
While there are specific guidelines to follow for family counsellors and social workers regarding family violence and the use of these reports, psychologists in B.C. have no such criteria. In addition, judges often take assessors' advice at face value, and limited access to legal aid in B.C. prevents many women from challenging assessments they view as biased.
"West Coast LEAF believes that women's equality is not served by the regime governing custody and access reports as it currently stands," reads the report.
"A rights-respecting system of family law -- one that promotes best outcomes for children and families -- must invest in women's equality. Addressing these concerns and implementing reforms will bring us one step closer to this critical goal."
'Alienating mothers'
Women have been contacting West Coast LEAF for years hoping they could help them with bad Section 15 reports. In the last two years the organization began researching the issue.
They interviewed judges, lawyers, psychologists and social workers, and held forums with women who've undergone Section 15 assessments as part of their own child custody battles. The result is this report.
The report doesn’t deal in numbers -- either the number of women affected by bad assessments or the cost of the changes to the family law system they request. But Kasari Govender, West Coast LEAF executive director, said the issue isn't the numbers but the fact the assessments are so easily misused.
"The key is the systemic concerns we have: the lack of training for some assessors on the dynamics of violence, specifically violence against women and violence within intimate relationships, (and) cultural diversity and judging parental ability across cultural divides and the problems that can arise there."
Assessments are often used at the request of one parent in the hopes of discrediting the other, although judges often request them too. In British Columbia there are no common accepted guidelines or professional qualifications for conducting these assessments. However BC Supreme Court usually requires a psychologist conduct the assessments, while the lower courts use family justice counsellors.
Family justice counsellors and social workers must adhere to specific professional guidelines for completing Section 15 assessments, including taking family violence into account. But there are no such guidelines or specifications for psychologists.
Allan Wade, a therapist and internationally renowned expert on inter-personal violence, said he's seen a range of Section 15 assessments, from the very good to very bad.
"I've seen a number of cases over the years where the reports are so prejudiced and so incompetent that they're extremely harmful," he told The Tyee.
For example, Wade said he's seeing an increase in assessors labelling mothers who allege spousal abuse as "alienating."
"There are women in B.C. who want to report abuse to the authorities who are told by their lawyers 'Don't report the abuse. If you do, you'll lose your kids,' because they'll be called alienating mothers," said Wade, who is quoted in the West Coast LEAF report.
While some reports show their biases -- one example given to The Tyee was an assessor who continually makes negative remarks about parents who live in subsidized housing -- Wade said the bigger issue is the use of psychological personality tests for parents and children.
For example, when tests such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) are given to people under chronic stress, like victims of abuse or individuals in chronic pain, Wade said research has shown results are skewed.
"Unless the person giving the test understands that and accounts for that in their interpretation, they're at risk of wrongly attributing a mental illness to the victim, and I've seen that happen in a number of cases," he said.
"Many of the assessment devices that are used routinely in psychology are not particularly suited to addressing problems with violence."
Lost in translation
Psychological tests and Section 15 assessments also discriminate against women from different cultural backgrounds or for whom English is not their first language. The report found some psychologists refuse to offer psychological tests in languages other than English over fears it would skew the results. Translators are sometimes used instead to translate the questions and answers for the women.
The report alleges mothers have been judged harshly for their differing parenting styles, citing a mother who read her daughter stories in Farsi, and a South-Asian mother who couldn't afford a two-bedroom apartment, so she shared a bed with her young child. Normal practices in their home country, but used to paint them as bad parents in Canada.
There is little recourse for women who don't want to be assessed or want to challenge an assessment. Wade said informed consent is the right of parents, male or female, who are subject to a parental capacity assessment. But that right isn't recognized in B.C.
"In one case a woman consulted me because she was having a Section 15 report done, and she wanted to know what she should know in advance," he recalled.
"(I) provided her with a list of questions and she tried to ask the professional, and the person said 'Look, I don't have to answer your questions, I have a court order.' Then she had every reason to believe she wouldn't be safe because of the professional presentation of the (assessor)."
Access to lawyers to challenge assessments can also be difficult. In B.C. a single mother with one child must make less than $2,050 per month to qualify for legal aid. But a salary of $25,000 doesn’t leave enough discretionary spending to hire a lawyer to fight the report, either. Thus the report calls for increases to the limits for legal aid, too.
But it shouldn't just be up to lawyers to fight against individual reports, said forensic social worker Tracey Young, who is also quoted in the report. There should be province-wide oversight of reports to ensure parents -- both male and female -- are treated fairly by these assessments.
"There really is nobody monitoring or keeping track of this," said Young, who worked in child welfare from 2002 to 2009.
"I think that was one of the really important parts that came out of the report, is I think that there's not consistency across the board, there's no set of practice guidelines for whichever clinicians are doing this."
Psychologists underrepresented in report
While West Coast LEAF maintains the report is meant to highlight problems with the justice system overall, there is plenty of criticism for the lack of guidelines for psychologists. Although they sent out questionnaires to 15 psychologists randomly selected from the B.C. Psychological Association's website, only three responded.
Attempts to reach the B.C. College of Psychologists were difficult, too, with both sides saying miscommunication led to the college not participating in the report. The report's release was subsequently delayed by one week to provide the college time to review the findings.
But in a statement emailed to The Tyee, a spokesperson for the college said ultimately the two organizations respectfully agreed to disagree on the findings.
"The report does not comprehensively examine the existing nature and the quality of the education and training required of registered psychologists in British Columbia, the professional standards relevant to the preparation of Section 15 reports by registered psychologists, and the accessibility and efficacy of the College complaints process," read the statement.
"In addition, while the report provides insight into the experiences of some participants in custody and access proceedings, it does not provide a systematic analysis of the issues raised."
Both parties have agreed to keep lines of communication open and vowed to continue working on solving the issues outlined in the report.
In the meantime, the days of the Family Relations Act are numbered. With the new Family Law Act replacing the previous legislation over the next six months to a year, it's an ideal time to make changes to the laws surrounding parental assessments.
The new section outlining rules for parental capacity assessments, Section 211, isn't much different than Section 15. But there's still time to make changes, and in an emailed statement to The Tyee, B.C. Attorney General Shirley Bond said she would take the report's recommendations into consideration.
"As with any report that we receive, we will take the time to review their findings," read the statement.
"We will take the report’s recommendations under consideration as we move forward with implementation of the new Family Law Act."
Govender is hopeful government will adopt the report's recommendations regardless of the time or financial costs to government.
"I think it's really significant not to get caught up in looking at changes in family law in only the short-term costs, because we know that where better outcomes happen for children and for families, that that will ultimately save the system significant amounts of money," says Govender. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
17
Login or register to post comments
Hakuin
43 weeks ago
"justice" system?
in BC? Would be nice, but we're still stuck with a legal system. Since an abused woman is almost certainly going to also be a poor woman, there's no way she will ever be able to buy enough law to protect herself and her kids. And with the current band of cutthroats in Victoria systematically gutting all legal aid and deliberately underfunding the court system to create long (and convenient for them) delays, there's even less than no way.
snert
43 weeks ago
Should read
"New study finds systemic problems in parental capacity assessments discriminate against abused women."
Otherwise the article could appear to be totally ignoring the "systemic" problems that exist for men as well.
Perry
43 weeks ago
Hakuin, you got that right.
Hakuin, you got that right. We do not have a justice system, we have a legal system. There is a big difference. There is a great deal of injustice in our legal system.
While I was in law school at the turn of the century, I bumped into a BC Provincial judge at the Folk Festival who I had appeared before both as student counsel and as a witness. We had a long chat and every time I referred to the 'justice system' she corrected me and said it was a 'legal system'. She must have done that twenty times before I got the point. She was on sick leave, and seemed to me to be quite disillusioned with the revolving door court system down at the Provincial Court, where much of the chaos could be traced directly to the unjust war against some citizens who use certain drugs. She also expressed concern at the large number of people with untreated mental health issues who seemed to comprise the majority of those passing through those revolving doors. She was particularly concerned about the issue of undiagnosed and untreated Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
It bears repeating. We do not have a justice system, we have a legal system.
From the Free Legal Dictionary:
justice n. 1) fairness. 2) moral rightness. 3) a scheme or system of law in which every person receives his/her/its due from the system, including all rights, both natural and legal. One problem is that attorneys, judges, and legislatures often get caught up more in procedure than in achieving justice for all. Example: the adage "justice delayed is justice denied," applies to the burdensome procedures, lack of sufficient courts, clogging the system with meritless cases, and the use of the courts to settle matters which could be resolved by negotiation. The imbalance between court privileges obtained by attorneys for the wealthy and for the person of modest means, the use of delay and "blizzards" of unnecessary paper by large law firms, and judges who fail to cut through the underbrush of procedure all erode justice.
paisley
43 weeks ago
Garbage in garbage out
Just what we need, another propaganda report. Where does one start? Perhaps a few quotes on the methodology of this report, “We designed this research project to investigate the preparation, use and impacts of custody and access reports, with a particular focus on the experiences of immigrant, non-english speaking, and low income women.”
The admitted methodology of the LEAF report further states it’s reliability is partially based on experiences they have “heard” about and I quote,
“ the system surrounding these reports allows for the types of experiences we’ve heard about in our research( experiences that are not isolated in nature)” and a further laughable statement on methodology “ the system itself must be held responsible for allowing bias and misinformation about culture, gender, disability and power to operate within the family law system.” Yet this report lends itself to the very same misinformation.
This report demonstrates from the out set that it is yet another report born of bias and misinformation as it clearly attempts to paint a general picture of Canadian society while admittedly focusing on immigrant experiences. I mean who would have guessed that low income immigrants or refugees would bring a cesspool of misogynistic cultural and religious values to practice in Canada. Surprise, surprise.
Marilyn Kwong, a Simon Fraser University researcher pretty much sums up all the so called studies concerning family violence by saying “the failure to acknowledge the possibility of women's violence . . . jeopardizes the credibility of all theory and research directed toward ending violence against women”. http://www.fact.on.ca/newpaper/np990710.htm
Instead of credible data being reported that accurately reflects domestic violence issues there has been cherry picking for decades starting with the House of Commons report “ The War Against Women” which led to a multimillion dollar national inquiry of which the results of the inquiry paid for by the public that has never been fully released to the public( where the data finds that women are just as likely to engage in assaulting a spouse as men) and it’s use has been solely to demonize males.
Understandably the court system has great difficulty deciding or rather obtaining credible information in cases of child custody where abuse is alleged when one considers that it has been standard faire for lawyers to coach their female clients to claim physical abuse for legal advantage. I will agree that judges have not done their job in regard to stated claims of abuse by not seeking penalties for perjury.
While our politically correct continue to solely blame the one gender for societal violence and dysfunction the legal system and those that profit will continue to grow fat and happy. Women’s groups are doing no one any favours perpetuating myth and misinformation.
Fritz
43 weeks ago
Why I Avoid Abused Women
'...I don't have to answer your questions, I have a court order.'
"Those with extended schooling have lived for many years in a world where one routinely conforms to the demands of authorities. Thus for many MDs and PhDs, people different from them who reject this attentional and behavioral compliance appear to be from another world—a diagnosable one."
http://www.alternet.org/health/154225/Would_We_Have_Drugged_Up_Einstein%3F_How_Anti-Authoritarianism_Is_Deemed_a_Mental_Health_Problem/?page=entire
"Enabling behavior is often a symptom of poor self-esteem....a person who enables an abusive partner may feel that no one could love them for who they are, but only for what they can provide to others. This is why abusers often try to convince their partners that "no one else would want them."
http://counseling.uoregon.edu/dnn/SelfhelpResources/SexualAssaultSexualAbuse/AbusiveRelationships/tabid/388/Default.aspx
The first question in my mind is; are the child's best interests served by having as its role model a mother who is disordered? Answer: Probably not.
DSM V61.12 Physical Abuse of Adult (if by partner)
http://www.psychresidentonline.com/DSM.htm
The second question in my mind is, can psychiatrists/psychologists and their bible the "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual" even be trusted? Answer: Not likely.
A quarter century ago I worked one day a week with impecunious people to help them in conflicts with provincial and federal government. After half a year I stopped helping "abused" women go after the guy because invariably they went back to the guy or got another abuser to replace them.
The last one I helped back then came to me with 3 problems. One was to regain custody of her boy. Two was to obtain back welfare payments. Three was to sue her ex boyfriend when he got out of prison.
The boyfriend was in prison for beating her and selling drugs. MSP had paid for the reconstruction of her face but wouldn't pay for the cosmetic surgery so I was going to help her sue him for this expense. Shortly before his release date she went to visit him and a few weeks later he moved in with her. I never helped her with number 3.
Last year I helped a neighbour prepare her history for her lawyer to sue her ex for money and her history included (according to her) rape by him back as far as 1989 among many other abuses.
In February the guy she was living with told her they were through she then tried to move in with me, I said no, whereupon she told me she was going to go back to her ex. That was it, nada, nyet, nein, no more helping abused women.
The authorities are not interested in "equality" when it comes to this:
Between 1999 and 2004, more than half a million men in Canada had a partner who was
violent toward them.
http://www.child.alberta.ca/home/documents/familyviolence/doc_opfvb_booklet_men_colour.pdf
Hakuin
43 weeks ago
Fritz
you aren't avoiding abused women, you are avoiding stupid women. Victimhood doesn't confer sainthood.
Hakuin
43 weeks ago
paisley:
I once helped a woman move her stuff out of her Shaughnessy mansion. Her husband of fifty years got tired of her, she was put out on the curb like an unwanted cat. I also have a male relation who was physically abused by his wife.
Hakuin
43 weeks ago
paisley:
I once helped a woman move her stuff out of her Shaughnessy mansion. Her husband of fifty years got tired of her, she was put out on the curb like an unwanted cat. I also have a male relation who was physically abused by his wife.
paisley
43 weeks ago
It's all sad
Haukin...there are many cases of abuse both ways and in no way do I excuse any of it but if we are to help solve these problems we have to have accurate information not the spin that seems to prevail.
http://www.fact.on.ca/Info/dom/kwong99.htm
apple
43 weeks ago
Only a conspiracy theorist
Only a conspiracy theorist would believe that men and women are abused equally.
Look at the death statistics, for all the different kinds of homicides, almost all homicides are caused by men. Even among intimate partner violence, men who are killed are usually killed by a man either because they are the new boyfriend, are a friend, or are a relative. In the rare times that women are the killers, it is usually in self-defense.
It is ridiculous to suggest that men just happen to be more violent in all other areas where violence occurs except in this one narrow area where women are most at risk.
Reports like these are important. If the system doesn't respond to women leaving abuse women will feel they have to stay. And for these situations which involve children, we need to get these done right. We shouldn't be sending children to live with abusers.
snert
43 weeks ago
apple
Make sure you compare apples with apples.
There are several forms of abuse and although women tend to be victimized more by physical violence they certainly hold their own in dishing out psychological abuse.
I'm not trying to justify anything but I do wonder just how many women would still be alive today if they had just shut up and moved out. Are there any statistics on that I wonder?
paisley
43 weeks ago
All most all
"Look at the death statistics, for all the different kinds of homicides, almost all homicides are caused by men."
Even the US Department of Health and Human Services is involved in my “conspiracy theory”.
http://www.breakingthescience.org/SimplifiedDataFromDHHS.php
“children who died at the hands of one parent between 2001 and 2006, 70.8% were killed by their mothers, whereas only 29.2% were killed by their fathers.”
"We shouldn't be sending children to live with abusers."
Who abused and neglected children?
In 2006, nearly 80 percent (79.9%) of perpetrators of child maltreatment were parents, and another 6.7 percent were other relatives of the victim. Women comprised a larger percentage of all perpetrators than men, 57.9 percent compared to 42.1 percent.
dorothy
43 weeks ago
Not likely
"I do wonder just how many women would still be alive today if they had just shut up and moved out. Are there any statistics on that I wonder?"
Not likely. Just as there are no statistics on women who shut up and figure out how to deal with their partners anger issues effectively. I think that what bothers me most in discussions such as this is the perception that there are 'abusive men' and 'abusive women'. There are certainly people whom my instincts would direct me to abuse, had the required circumstances been present, due to the way they treated me. But since this is not the kind of contribution I wish to make to the world around me, I write such people out of my life. People who become abusive are feeling trapped, or afraid, or left to rot in their corner. Most can be helped. But this is never really on the table. Instead we 'assess' (Read: 'judge'). The only paramemter we query is the rightness of our judgement, when we could be doing so much more...
Ray Ferris
43 weeks ago
parental capacity reports
There is little difference between a parental capacity report, a risk assessment, an adoption study or a foster home study. They should all use the same basic skills of interview and communication. They should all be fact based and not opinion based. These are social work skills. Psychologists do not have the training for it and should only be brought into the picture if poor intelligence might be a risk factor. If psychosis is suspected a psychiatrist should be consulted. On line legal services describe the components of parenttal capacity assessments and stress that psycholgists should not do them without special training. The college of psychologists did used to have guidelines for custody and access reports, but they were virtually the same as those for family court counsellors, once more showing that a degree in psychology is not necessary. Neither the college of psychologists nor the association has guidelines for parental capacity reports. The college of registered social workers and the BC Association of social worker have no practice guidelines. I recently checked all these sources. Opinion should only be offered if backed up by reliable facts.
apple
42 weeks ago
Snert: Women do "shut up and
Snert: Women do "shut up and move out" and that's the time a woman is most likely to be killed. Women aren't killed in relationships they are killed when they leave. Statistics show the most dangerous time is up to 2 years after she leaves.
Paisley: use a credible source - breakingthescience.com is a men's rights activist page, says so right in the 'why' page. Try looking for some real statistics to back up your claims, in the search you may learn something...
snert
42 weeks ago
apple
No argument there but it is still not the complete picture. The concept of restraining orders needs a rather major overhaul.
Advocacy BC
42 weeks ago
Registered Social Worker Practice Standards
To Mr. Ferris, with the greatest of respect, the BC College of Social Workers does have a robust set of practice standards for custody & access reports prepared by RSW's. They can be found here:
http://www.bccollegeofsocialworkers.ca/resources/practice-standards/documents/StandardsofChildCustodyandAccess.pdf
The BCASW does not provide practice guidelines, because they do not govern the profession, nor is it their role to protect the public, which is the legal mandate of all Colleges, whether SW, or Psychology.
I'm dismayed that the dialogue has strayed from the important points of this report.
There are no provincial practice standards, no mandatory training, little cultural competence in conducting the reports and no general oversight from the province. Also, the issue of spousal abuse/high conflict parental relationships and exposure of children to this inter-personal violence is often not linked to risk issues for children when child custody & access recommendations are made in these reports.
I've written more about Sec. 15 reports here:
http://familylawnetwork.blogspot.ca/2012/07/custody-and-access-assessments-in-bc.html
As a SW, I've worked with abused & neglected children, the adults they grow up to be and adult abusers. Inter-personal and intra-familial violence is all traumatic and leaves deep wounds no matter the gender of the party inflicting, or experiencing it. It is usually rooted in people's early childhood/family life. In my practice, I try to help people put these experiences behind them, to heal and to move forward. The human spirit can be amazingly resilient given the right support and help.
Tracey Young, MSW, RSW