Experts' approaches when interviewing children and evaluating their care needs

Experts are often hired by the courts in child protective system (CPS) cases to evaluate children's care needs and they may also provide information about the best interest of the child. Although experts' reports are quality-secured by the Expert Commission on Children (ECC), we lack insight into the evaluative approaches used by experts.

This study examines (a) the type of child- interviews and observational methods used by experts, (b) the extent to which experts explicitly refer the concept of the best interest of the child, and (c) whether the content of experts´ assessments is associated with the quality of their evaluative justification.

299 expert reports, including information about the child and the family, were collected from the ECC. We employed observational design and correlational statistics. Reports are analyzed using a coding system based on references from the ECC covering interview- and observational practices (inter-rater reliability, α = 0.89).

Experts interviewed 222 children. Of those not interviewed, 56 were younger than five years. Within these interviews, 94.5% were conducted with limited use of evidence-based tecniques. Observations were conducted in 36% of cases. The child's best interest references appeared in 12%. The quality of experts' evaluative justification was positively associated with the depth of descriptions of the child's care needs.

Experts predominantly rely on non-standardized interview methods and infrequent observational assessments. Explicit articulation of the best interest of the child is uncommon. The findings highlight substantial variability in experts' methodological approaches and call for more transparency of experts' work.