[The handling of custodial criteria by expert evaluators and the expectations for solution-oriented evaluations from the perspective of Austrian family court judges].
There has been increasing discussion of a paradigm shift in expert evaluations of family psychology during custodial proceedings for a long time, suggesting that status-diagnostic evaluation should give way to working together with the parents with a "solution-oriented" process approach. An Austrian-wide evaluation of the quality of current evaluation practice indicated that a majority of the experts, and especially the judges in family courts, endorsed this "solution-oriented" approach for expert evaluators; the judges primarily in the expectation that this will lead both to a greater acceptance and sustainability of their decisions on custodial and visiting rights and that it could also, over the long-term, serve to increase the efficiency of the legal process. However, if the evaluation modalities are altered accordingly, proven custodial criteria should still remain in the foreground. In addition to the child's attachment, family judges and experts, working in unison, assign continuity and the parents' own parenting abilities the next greatest importance within the framework of individual custodial criteria. Psychometric diagnostic procedures should still be used when establishing a solution-oriented expert evaluation procedure in order to comprehensively map out the needs of the child as well as individual aspects of the parents' own personality in particular, where a joint solution cannot be achieved.
Bein
Nicolas
N
Institut für Klinische, Biologische und Differentielle Psychologie, Fakultät für Psychologie, Universität Wien.
Völkl-Kernstock
Sabine
S
Klicpera
Christian
C
Friedrich
Max H
MH
D000293:Adolescent; D001317:Austria; D002648:Child; D002655:Child Custody / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003625:Data Collection; D004243:Divorce / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005104:Expert Testimony / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D033222:Judicial Role; D008297:Male; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care