Forensic family evaluations: a comprehensive model for professional practice

This paper describes a model for forensic family evaluations (FFE) that arise from issues of child custody and maltreatment. FFEs are comprehensive assessments that utilize a variety of data collection methods. The FFE has three basic stages: beginning the evaluation, collecting data, and presenting the evaluation findings. In each stage there are a number of professional and administrative stations. Each stage of the FFE presents unique challenges: maintaining internal and external independence, managing issues of convergent validity, and monitoring written and verbal output. Each of these stages, stations, and challenges is discussed.