Dear Esteemed AFCC-California Members, The world generally and the world in which we work can sometimes seem like a very dark place. Extremists shout down those wanting to investigate shades of gray. Old Manichean ideas of good and evil, winners and losers, sinners and saints, are everywhere. Just read any Yelp review! I joined AFCC because of its cutting-edge research on children and families going through family dissolution. I joined because of AFCC’s community […]
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The world of CCE’s has undergone a drastic change since March of 2020, when the world closed down due to COVID-19. We are far from the early days of the pandemic when we discovered the viability of conducting child custody evaluations (CCEs) safely and reliably using videoconferencing (VC) and other remote technology. VC had previously been used in other clinical and forensic populations to provide useful and reliable data with valid and trustworthy results. Milfred […]
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Dear Esteemed AFCC-CA Members, Well, another year has gone by and the COVID-19 pandemic is still here, and most of us have accepted the fact that working both virtually and in-person is our ‘new normal’. Also, it is noteworthy that, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were forced to pivot at short notice and put on our first virtual conference. Not surprisingly, the conference was well attended and had a range of dynamic presenters […]
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“Ask Three Mentors” is a question-and-answer column, produced exclusively for Insights, that highlights the fact that members of AFCC are attorneys, judges, and mental health professionals. Many of our most experienced members are committed to mentoring and passing on the wealth of knowledge they’ve acquired through years of work in the field of family law. Each month we will pose a custody-related question to three members of our panel of exceptionally experienced and widely respected […]
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Last October, subsequent to a presentation I gave to the San Mateo County Bar Association, Family Law Section, titled “COVID, Zoom, and the New Frontier: Preparing Your Clients for Remote-Child Custody Evaluations,” I wrote an article titled “Whither the State of CCEs?” published in the California Continuing Education of the Bar (November 2020).* The article, and the presentation, explained and discussed the use of videoconference methods in Remote-Child Custody Evaluations during the pandemic in 2020. […]
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There was finally a light at the end of the COVID tunnel, or so it seemed. California, among other states slowly opened back up, just to lock back down this summer due to the crisis with the Delta Variant, which may affect us for some months to come. And it is still not at all clear what the post-COVID world will look like. Many of the technology changes will stay, no doubt we will be […]
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The Assembly and Senate Judiciary Committees of the California State Legislature are hosting a Joint Informational Hearing on “Covid and the Courts: Assessing the Impact on Access to Justice, Identifying Best Practices, and Plotting the Path Forward”. The hearing, which is being hosted by Assemblymember Mark Stone, Chair of the Assembly Committee on Judiciary, and Senator Tom Umberg, Chair of the Senate Committee on Judiciary, will include remarks from the Hon. Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, Chief […]
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On November 10, 2020, one week after Election Day, and in the eye of the storm of allegations of election fraud, we (Dr. Matt Sullivan, past president of AFCC International, and retired Commissioner Marjorie Slabach) joined Susan Myers, AAML President, and Gabrielle Davis, attorney with the Battered Women’s Justice Project, to present the Opening Plenary for the International AFCC’s 14th Annual Symposium and Child Custody. On that day we told ourselves and the audience that […]
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We’re excited to issue this latest edition of our newsletter Insights. This edition includes the article “Stacking the Deck in Favor of Children” by our esteemed colleagues the Honorable Marjorie Slabach (Ret.) and Matthew Sullivan, Ph.D. This article explores the global trauma and chaos we’ve all been enduring and how this impacts families and access to justice. We also present the latest edition of our recurring column “Ask Three Mentors” in which three members of […]
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“Ask Three Mentors” is a question-and-answer column, produced exclusively for Insights, that highlights the fact that members of AFCC are attorneys, judges, and mental health professionals. Many of our most experienced members are committed to mentoring and passing on the wealth of knowledge they’ve acquired through years of work in the field of family law. Each month we will pose a custody-related question to three members of our panel of exceptionally experienced and widely respected […]
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