Supplemental parenting inventories used in custody evaluations

Abstract

Comprehensive child custody evaluations may include parent self-report inventories to supplement findings from standardized objective tests, subjective measures, clinical interviews, and observations. The self-report inventory format brings with it concerns regarding the validity and reliability of these instruments and the admissibility of evidence from these tools into court. Several parent self-report inventories are reviewed in this chapter that include information on the reliability, validity, and constructs measured in order to demonstrate how this supplemental information can complement and correlate with the comprehensive child custody evaluation results. Parent self-report inventories can help identify extraneous variables that might be impacting the case.