Family Law

Dr George Hibbert MA, MBBS, Mrcpsych, DM, Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Lecturer. In the Legal Services Commission's consultation paper The Funding Criteria for Child Care Proceedings, published in March 2007, it was asserted that there was little evidence that residential parenting assessments are worthwhile. Yet evidence shows that one third of children admitted to an expert-led residential parenting assessment can be successfully rehabilitated to their parents. Office-based and community assessments cannot adequately deal with these complex cases and where these types of assessments are employed, the incentives for the expert are always to play safe and condemn the parents.

This article considers the different types of assessment that can be employed and explains in clear terms why, in the author's view, the complexity of the issues involved in dysfunctional family relationships cannot be assessed adequately without a properly controlled residential assessment. For the full article see May [2007] Fam Law.