Child support and justice-involved military veterans.

The study examines and evaluates the effectiveness of a federal and county collaboration in Pennsylvania designed to help military veterans with child support arrearages in the criminal justice system. The study focused on the veteran participants (n=232) identified psychosocial problems, their range of justice involvement, strategies to mitigate, address barriers and legal dilemmas through the collaborative. The average age 40, majority male, Caucasian, divorced, enrolled in Veterans Administration (VA) healthcare, serving on supervised parole or probation, homeless episodes, and income <$500.00 per month. In general, the findings enhance the limited body of knowledge about military-veteran child support and provide strategies and specific insight into the problems veterans face on individual, familial, and societal levels.

The care of Filipino juvenile offenders in residential facilities evaluated using the risk-need-responsivity model.

According to the risk-need-responsivity model of offender, assessment and rehabilitation treatment should target specific factors that are related to re-offending. This study evaluates the residential care of Filipino juvenile offenders using the risk-need-responsivity model. Risk analyses and criminogenic needs assessments (parenting style, aggression, relationships with peers, empathy, and moral reasoning) have been conducted using data of 55 juvenile offenders in four residential facilities. The psychological care has been assessed using a checklist. Statistical analyses showed that juvenile offenders had a high risk of re-offending, high aggression, difficulties in making pro-social friends, and a delayed socio-moral development. The psychological programs in the residential facilities were evaluated to be poor. The availability of the psychological care in the facilities fitted poorly with the characteristics of the juvenile offenders and did not comply with the risk-need-responsivity model. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Beliefs and Recommendations Regarding Child Custody and Visitation in Cases Involving Domestic Violence: A Comparison of Professionals in Different Roles.

Research is lacking on differing perspectives regarding custody cases involving domestic violence (DV). In a survey of judges, legal aid attorneys, private attorneys, DV program workers, and child custody evaluators (n = 1,187), judges, private attorneys, and evaluators were more likely to believe that mothers make false DV allegations and alienate their children. In response to a vignette, evaluators and private attorneys were most likely to recommend joint custody and least likely to recommend sole custody to the survivor. Legal aid attorneys and DV workers were similar on many variables. Gender, DV knowledge, and knowing victims explained many group differences.

Do specialty courts achieve better outcomes for children in foster care than general courts?

OBJECTIVE: This study assessed the effects of unified family and drug treatment courts (DTCs) on the resolution of cases involving foster care children and the resulting effects on school performance. METHOD: The first analytic step was to assess the impacts of presence of unified and DTCs in North Carolina counties on time children spent in foster care and the type of placement at exit from foster care. In the second step, the same data on foster care placements were merged with school records for youth in Grades 3-8 in public schools. The effect of children's time in foster care and placement outcomes on school performance as measured by math and reading tests, grade retention, and attendance was assessed using child fixed-effects regression. RESULTS: Children in counties with unified family courts experienced shorter foster care spells and higher rates of reunification with parents or primary caregivers. Shorter foster care spells translated into improved school performance measured by end-of-grade reading and math test scores. Adult DTCs were associated with lower probability of reunification with parents/primary caregivers. CONCLUSION: The shortened time in foster care implies an efficiency gain attributable to unified family courts, which translate into savings for the court system through the use of fewer resources. Children also benefit through shortened stays in temporary placements, which are related to some improved educational outcomes.

Shared physical custody after family split-up: implications for health and well-being in Swedish schoolchildren.

AIM: In Sweden, shared physical custody following a parental separation has emerged as means for children to keep close relationships with both parents. Previous studies show that children benefit from regular contact with both parents, who share responsibility for their social, emotional and economic welfare. In this study, we investigate any associations between family arrangements, that is, two-parent, single and shared physical custody families and child health outcomes and whether this association was modified by parent-child communication. METHODS: Data on 11- to 15-year-old children from the 2005/2006 and 2009/2010 Swedish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey were analysed using multivariate logistic regression. RESULTS: Children in shared physical custody were more likely than children in two-parent families to report multiple health complaints (OR 1.26) and low well-being (OR 1.71). When variables of parent-child communication were entered in the model, the initial differences remained between children living in shared physical custody and those living in two-parent families. CONCLUSION: Children in shared physical custody and single-parent families are more at risk of negative outcomes compared with children in two-parent families. This association was not modified by parent-child communication in children in shared custody families, indicating that the communication equals that in two-parent family children.

Forgotten children? An update on young children in institutions across Europe.

The worst of institutional care was brought to public attention in Romania during the 1990s when pictures of severely deprived and malnourished children were shown around the world. However, many European countries have high rates of young children in institutions, where the physical care of the child predominates, with social/emotional needs a secondary concern. Yet institutional care is a very poor substitute for positive family care, increasing the risk of development delay, attachment difficulties, neural growth dysfunction and mental health disorders. This article provides an update on a series of projects that have highlighted this issue in Europe, arguing that babies and small children aged less than 3years old, with or without disability, should not be placed in residential care without a parent or primary caregiver. This principle has been discussed by the UN General Assembly (2009) and specific guidelines have been produced for all 193 member states.

Maternal custody status and living arrangements of children of women with severe mental illness.

The authors report results of a pilot study on the custody status of 20 women with severe mental illnesses who were parents of a total of 76 children. The mothers had some of their children living with them and others dispersed among kinship and nonkinship arrangements. Qualitative findings illustrate how bewildered these women were about the status of children placed outside the home and their ability to obtain custody or maintain contact with their children. The authors suggest that social workers working with women with severe mental illness inquire about and "map" the whereabouts of women's children, help mothers mediate legal and social services delivery systems, and help mothers exercise their rights when there is risk of termination of parental rights.

Integrative family therapy for disputes involving child custody and visitation.

This article describes integrative multilevel family therapy for disputes involving child custody and visitation, a multiple-level systems-based treatment specifically targeted at those engaged in intractable conflicts over child custody and visitation. Parents and children engaged in these conflicts are at risk for a variety of difficulties. Key aspects of the approach include the articulation of clear therapy contracts, the utilization of multiple therapy session formats, the maintenance of a systemic perspective, intervention on multiple system levels, the tailoring of intervention strategy based in an assessment of the locus of difficulty in each case, planning for intervention over time, and working at the interface of the legal system in order to impact on these problems.

Measuring contract agency performance with administrative data.

This article uses administrative data to analyze the relative performance of contract agencies-those organizations under contract with a city child welfare agency to provide out-of-home care services to children placed in the custody of the public agency-by examining how long it took children placed in out-of-home care to return home to their families. The objective was to determine whether credible empirical evidence could show a relationship between length of stay and the agency providing care. Agency level reunification rates are widely distributed around the mean, indicating that contract agency performance differs and that "agency effects" leave an independent imprint on a child's out-of-home care experience.

Mediation in kinship care: another step in the provision of culturally relevant child welfare services.

With rising numbers of children entering the child welfare system and declining numbers of available foster homes, the foster care system has increasingly turned to placements with relatives to meet the needs of children removed from parental custody. Nowhere is this situation more evident than in the African American community. But the child welfare system did not invent the concept of kinship care. The foundation of current mediation practice can be traced to several ancient cultures, including African culture, where the kinship network often provided mediation services in the resolution of disputes. As an ethnocentrically designed child welfare system grapples with how to best incorporate kinship care into its array of services, conflicts between kinship caregivers and the foster care system have arisen. It is suggested that the application of mediation to conflicts in agency-kinship family relationships can serve as yet another step in social workers' efforts to provide culturally relevant child welfare services.

Joint custody and shared parenting. Research and interventions.

Joint custody is a reality for many children of divorce. This article first examines the structure and forms joint custody takes, and then explores what is known about shared parenting from research that is relevant to clinical work with families of divorce. An overview of interventions for children and families of divorce that are relevant to coparenting issues follows, along with what is known about their effectiveness. The final section presents several modes of intervention to assist families in maximizing the effectiveness of shared parenting situations for children and their parents.

Children of Armageddon. Common developmental threats in high-conflict divorcing families.

This article traces how parental vulnerability to the feelings of humiliation and loss (inherent in highly conflicted divorce and custody litigation) distorts parenting capacities and parent-child relationships in distinctive ways, putting children at risk for specific kinds of developmental difficulties. Pre-oedipal children often fail to achieve a complete separation from their primary caretakers. Oedipal children, already struggling with separation issues, manifest sexualized anxiety and discomfort with gender identity. By latency, these children present as fragmented within themselves and in relationships with others. Each stage-specific response is discussed and illustrated. It is argued that mental health and legal professionals can use this in-depth understanding of child responses to help parents reframe their disputing agendas in terms of the child's developmental concerns and preoccupations to produce custody settlements that are more protective of the child's best interests.

From competition to complementarity. Legal issues and their clinical implications in custody.

In the 1970s, the "best interests of the child" doctrine focused custody litigation away from parental competition and toward meeting each child's needs. Yet, artifacts of the parental preference doctrine remain entrenched in custody law and practice. The evolving "best interests" paradigm requires redefining "custody" as development, implementation, and adaptation of individualized plans that provide a structure for complementary parenting. This article explores this paradigm shift while providing an introduction to the realities of child custody proceedings and family law courts. The article also identifies the ways in which mental health professionals can work most effectively with the legal system for the benefit of children of divorce and separation.