PARENTAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENT - An answer to Anonymous

Parental Capacity Assessment 

An Anonymous respondent asked for information about this, but placed the response on a post that is several years old. The original post was published on May 3, 2011. It is unlikely that the Anonymous person will be able to find that post again so here is a current post that hopefully catches the person's attention. I referred the query to my colleague, Ray Ferris, an expert on child protection and specifically the work of the Ministry of Children and Families in British Columbia (MCFD).

Here is Anonymous' post followed by Ray Ferris' answer.

Anonymous  August 21, 2017 at 5:48 PM

Wayne .. hey I am a dad of five girls one of them autistic and we had traveled in a truck to keep moving while home schooling the girls once in a house we were case filed by child protection and they have decided to go with the mom after a forced break up the problem that I am having is the fact that no dad has ever been so close with a bunch of kids as I and I had basically raised them on my own now separated for over half of a year they want me to do the assessment for the court and from what I read 95% of the time they recommend against the parent in question is there a recommendation for betterment of situation as to please the courts I mean what do they look for I can only be the dad that I am theirs. So if you are truthful and your self you fail but if you study to mimic what they want you pass ? tell you what I will check this site in a couple of days just to see if there is any good advice have a great night

                        
Ray Ferris  August 26, 2017 at 4:55 PM
There is no short or easy answer to your situation. I do not think a PC is the most important thing to go on, but I will tell you about them anyway. A parental capacity assessment should be a fact based report with as little room for subjective opinion as possible. 'The facts should speak for themselves. There are very few reliable guidelines foe PCA reports. In the part or Canada where I live the college of psychologists has no guidelines and neither does the college of social workers. The law society does have guidelines and they specifically state that psychologists are not qualified to do parental capacity reports without further training and mentoring. They also state that psychometric testing should not be a routine part of an assessment and should only be used in special cases. Regardless of guidelines and training, the only true protection for the public is in the skills and integrity of the assessor. Facts should be sought like level of schooling, job training, work history, marital history and any history of alcohol and drug abuse, or any criminal record. Also telling the truth about the negatives in your life. Right away I would want to talk about your statement that you were travelling in a truck to keep moving. This looks like serious instability to me. You would need to convince an assessor that you were capable of finding and maintaining a decent home for six people and capable of maintaining them. I do not know the age of your girls, but if I were you or your representative, I would want to have them interviewed to find out what they want. If the authorities decide to leave them with their mother, I would want to know that the girls have been interviewed by a third party to find out if they want to keep in touch with you on a regular basis.

Ray Ferris

PARENTAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENTS (2nd part of 2 parts)

Parental Capacity assessments (2nd of 2 parts)

Written by Ray Ferris. Ray Ferris is a retired child-protection worker and the author of The Art of Child Protection and occasional contributor to this GPS blog.

Let me tell you about a recent case in Victoria family court. A parental capacity assessment was done under contract to the director. This document completely dominated all the judge’s decisions. The PCA was full of serious flaws and I list them below.

1. The psychologist took five months to do the report, claiming it was necessary to read thousands of pages of legal documents. He did no such thing. He read reams of ministry records that he had no business doing because it made him clearly partial and he is supposed to be impartial.

2. He stated he followed standard guidelines, but he failed to state whose guidelines.

3. He stated he was an expert witness before the court. He was not. An expert witness has to be qualified at a court hearing and his expertise can be challenged. His testimony has to stand up to examination and cross-examination under due process.

4. Under section 64 (2) b of the CF&CSA the judge may consider any written submission or documents he considers relevant. So legally a PCA has no more standing than say a school report or a letter of support for a parent.

5. In soliciting input from other professionals such as psychologists and registered counsellors he misrepresented himself. He said he was doing a court ordered assessment. He was under contract to the director.

6.Because of this misrepresentation others felt obliged to share information, which they would otherwise not have done. One of them stated that had he known, he would have not considered him to be impartial and would have been reluctant to help him. ( In one Vancouver case, the judge did not trust the PCA ordered by the ministry, nor the one contracted by the parent and so he ordered his own to be done. Speaks for itself. )

7. The parent sent relevant sections of the PCA to all the professionals who were quoted. They all provided letters confirming that he had misrepresented himself and made a number of changes to their information so that it was skewed in favour of the director. Some of them specifically asked him if he was audio recording the telephone interviews He said he was not, so they took careful notes of what they said. He presented their input as verbatim in his report and so misled the court.

Conclusion. I could go on, but that is enough for a blog. I write this for those readers who may be suffering from a surfeit of parental capacity assessments. I hope this information is of help to you in instructing your lawyers how to deal with these reports, because most lawyers swallow the psychobabble and do not know how to challenge it. Do not hesitate to contact me if you need help with this sort of problem, rtferris@telus.net

PARENTAL CAPACITY ASSESSMENTS (1st of 2 parts)

Parental Capacity assessments (1st of 2 parts)

Written by Ray Ferris. Ray Ferris is a retired child-protection worker and the author of The Art of Child Protection and occasional contributor to this GPS blog.

Parental capacity assessments, or PCAs are the sacred cows of the family courts. Neither the courts, nor the lawyers nor the social workers understand the parameters and limitations of these assessments. So for the benefit of any readers who may be at the mercy of the MCF I will give you the basics.

PCAs are one of a related group of family studies, which require the same skills to accomplish. These are adoption home studies, foster home studies, custody and access reports, general social assessments and risk assessments. All these studies should be carefully compiled and factual family histories done with the emphasis on normal social functioning. Families who have normal educational achievements, good work records and stable housing do not suddenly change their natures and haul off and injure kids or become negligent. One needs to know the risk factors such as parents, who have poor education, poor work records, poor financial histories, serial marital relationships, histories of alcohol and drug abuse, family violence and so on.

I am grateful to Zabeth Bayne for digging up good guidelines for me. These are not issued by the professions of psychology or social work. Neither the college of psychologists nor their association has guidelines for parental capacity assessments and the same goes for social work. The guidelines come from the Law Society in its online education program. They clearly state that psychologists are not qualified to do PCAs without further mentored training. Yet psychologists are hired all the time to do them and they follow no firm guidelines. Guidelines also only recommend psychometric testing in special cases. Also that any psychometric testing should not be done be the same person who does the parental capacity assessment.

Now we have the courts leaving it all to psychologists to determine the outcome of cases. Judges abandon their judicial responsibilities and leave it all on the shoulders of untrained psychologists. Usually the ministry pays for these assessments, and it is well known that so-called expert opinion favours the hand that pays. Repeat business may be in mind. (contact me if you have a question, rtferris@telus.net.)