NYFFT Oral Statement

Presented by: Summer O’Brien, CEO/Co-Founder

For Release: Blue Ribbon Commission- Oral Statement on Forensic Custody Evaluations

September 9, 2021

Purpose: To provide the public with the opportunity to address the Governor’s Blue-ribbon Commission on Forensic Custody Evaluations. The commission is comprised of judges, forensic evaluators, attorneys, parents, survivors of gender-based violence, and domestic violence advocates and is tasked with issuing recommendations to the Governor regarding the use of forensic evaluations in custody determinations.

NYFFT Mission: NYFFT’s mission regarding its participation in the Blue-Ribbon Commission is to maintain a stance on equality and to open discussions surrounding biased family court custody rulings. The recent push for reform in the opposite direction of shared parenting and parental rights is seen in such Bills as Bill S1584 and Kyra’s Law, A. 5398. The logic behind adding more layers to custody determinations, is that it will protect more children from harm and abuse from their parent(s). These Bills demand that Forensic Evaluators, many who hold Ph.D.’s need more training in domestic violence to fulfill their duty to the court and offer safe and fair determination. When the reasons for child violence and family conflict is in fact the involvement in Family Court or Criminal Court due to temporary orders of protections. NYFFT will address the adversarial effects on families due to the lack of due process, gender bias, complex court structures, financial hardship, and family dynamics.

Below, please see NYFFT’s statement regarding Forensic Custody Evaluations.

Statement:

Good evening, my name is Summer O’Brien, I’m the CEO/Co-Founder of New York Families for Tomorrow, Corp, a nonprofit aimed at parental equality, rights of parents to have shared parental responsibilities post-divorce/separation and education in parenting methods regarding co-parenting. Thank you for allowing this opportunity to speak on a subject that can be seen has complex and alarming for families across the Country. It’s important to educate the public in all matters affecting their family’s and children. Therefore, I would like to address the process and or adversarial issues arising from a court ordered Custody evaluation.

New York State has published Guidelines for Child Custody Evaluations (updated 2009), these guideline address how the CCE should be conducted along with maintaining the child’s psychological best interest. These guidelines contradict with the goals and mission of the role of the child’s attorney (GAL). Whereas, the AFC is to represent the child and their wishes regarding physical custody and the CCE is to represent the families but mostly the child’s best psychological interest, these polar roles disregard the family’s or child’s wish altogether in some cases. Cases involving both a CCE and AFC are sources of stress and deception for the families and children. Currently, there is no law or process dictating the procedure for ruling on opposite findings from the custody evaluator and AFC, other than remaining the decision back to the sitting Judge for his/her ruling based of the best interest of the child, and completely discarding the effort, time, financial hardship, emotional stress, extended exposure to a court system and professional opinions.

It is my professional opinion has a paralegal and family court educator, that stricter definitions are needed before adding additional layers to the BIC standard. In 2006, the Matrimonial Commission Report recommended guidelines and concluded that use of forensic evaluations is important, and they should continue to be used when the issue of custody is complicated or specific needs must be address, such as, mental health of the parents, needs of the child, OR ALLEGATIONS OF ALIENATION OR CHILD ABUSE. All these reasons for evaluations are still used today yet, the public will spend hundreds of hours in court determining the definitions before proceeding. What do complicated custody cases look like? What’s the measure for determining a complicated case? Most cases are already considered contested when children are present…Will cases involving distain for a parent (minus abuse) be consider “complicated”? Will AFC’s make the decision for the request of a Forensic Evaluation?

These are just some of the many questions to answer through open dialog and hopefully taken under careful consideration by this commission.

In closing, I believe the forensic evaluator works in contrast to an attorney for the child role and this should be reviewed for procedural issues prior to any order of an evaluation for custody and removal of the AFC in light of such order; AND

More detailed reasonings behind ordered CCE must be address, including scope, criteria, legal issue, and a written reasoning citing those reasons for the evaluation.

Without a micro-level approach for enhancing the effectiveness of any child custody evaluation, and or making changes to promote a global increase in positive family court outcomes; then forensic evaluations will continue to be watered down opinions with no scientific weight for the child’s well-being.

Thank you for your time and supporting New York State’s goal of improving our Family Court system.