Safe Child Act section Mandating Practices Supported by Current Scientific Research

by Barry Goldstein

Last month my article was about legislation needed to stop custody courts from routinely sending children into the custody of dangerous abusers. My meeting with a state legislator led to her request that I prepare a proposal that would be the basis of legislation to reform the broken system. I would like to thank Toby Kleinman for her assistance in drafting this proposal. Immediately below will be my proposal for a Safe Child Act and I will then discuss why I think this would make a difference. You are most welcome to post or otherwise use this proposal and this article in support of efforts to reform the system. In fact I hope many people will take the proposal for a Safe Child Act and ask their legislators to sponsor it. 

Safe Child Act 

Purpose: Improve the Safety of Children involved in Child Custody Cases 



Mandating Practices Supported by Current Scientific Research 

The biggest obstacle to courts protecting children in domestic violence cases is their reliance on unqualified professionals together with unjustified confidence in their ability to understand abuse. In many cases the judge is only looking for a mental health degree, but even when domestic violence expertise is requested, the mental health professionals claim such expertise because there is no strict standard about what that means. The Safe Child Act would require very specific knowledge as a condition of participating in domestic violence cases and this expertise would be difficult for the usual suspects relied on by the courts to fake. Their reports would be expected to discuss these topics and the failure to do so would be a basis to discredit the report or for an appeals court to reverse a decision. 

The mandatory expertise would include behaviors associated with higher risks of lethality or other dangers, domestic violence dynamics, recognizing domestic violence, effects of domestic violence on children and familiarity with batterer narratives. Genuine experts with this expertise can be relied on to recognize domestic violence and make recommendations that protect the safety of children. 

The proposed legislation also requires the use of current scientific research to inform court decisions. This is important because unqualified evaluators often use their personal beliefs and biases and invalid theories instead of current research. The law specifically discusses the kinds of studies the legislature wants the courts to use in order to avoid bogus theories that are not based upon valid research. It specifically refers to research that unqualified professionals often rely on the myth that women frequently make false allegations. 

Parental Alienation Syndrome is not mentioned by name, but the law would bar theories like PAS that have no scientific basis. Furthermore professionals who seek to use such bogus theories would be barred from participating in domestic violence cases. The recent rejection of the campaign to include PAS in the DSM IV because it has no scientific basis should make it easy for PAS to be rejected including when it is used by other names such as parental alienation or just alienation.