LIVE: Conducting Scientifically Informed Child Custody Evaluations When Parental Alienation and Domestic Violence are Alleged
July 10, 2025
9:00 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific
2 Hours | 2 CEs
$125 Registration | $100 Early Registration (through July 3rd) | Live Training via Zoom
Shawn A. Wygant, MA presents a live virtual professional training program on Conducting Scientifically Informed Child Custody Evaluations When Parental Alienation and Domestic Violence are Alleged.
The literature does not well define the practice of conducting child custody evaluations, leading to a lack of standards for accurately evaluating parental alienation and domestic violence allegations. Child custody evaluators tend to rely on methodological approaches that exclude the application of scientific principles to data analysis, report writing, and expert testimony. They also frequently utilize psychometric instruments incapable of measuring the phenomena of interest.
This training will explore these problems and solutions. A series of de-identified vignettes will explicate parental alienation and domestic violence assessment in the context of conducting a scientifically informed child custody evaluation. Both scientifically reliable and unreliable evaluations will be examined to allow participants to see what it looks like when a child custody evaluation is scientifically informed and what it looks like when it’s not.
Since many high-conflict custody evaluations result in a trial where the evaluator is called to testify, a portion of this training will be devoted to examining how to write a scientifically informed report and provide expert testimony.
The target audience for this program is child custody evaluators at any stage of their career working in child abuse and violence assessment fields.
Key Topics Covered:
- Overview of how to Apply the Scientific Method in Child Custody Evaluation
- Operational Definitions & Working Models for Parental Alienation and Domestic Violence from the Scientific Literature
- Case Vignettes Analysis - Evaluating Allegations of Parental Alienation and Domestic Violence Using the Scientific Literature
- Generating and Testing Hypotheses
- Psychometric Instruments
- Conducting a "Best Interests of the Child Factorial Analysis"
- Report Writing
- Preparing for and Providing Expert Testimony
This training will be interactive, use polls, and have dedicated Q&A and discussion periods.