This is a guest post by Rebecca Carr-Hopkins and Tracy Rydin-Orwin (ICI trainers) and Andrea Landini (Director, Family ReIations Institute). They are responding to our post on the case of Re C [2018] EWFC B9, where a psychologist’s evidence was based on a clinical tool she was not qualified to use: When Expert Evidence Goes Wrong – the lessons to be learned
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We appreciate greatly The Transparency Project’s discussion of the appropriate use of assessments in forensic settings. Much harm can be done when assessments are not valid for the type of court application or have been written by a professional who is not authorised to use a particular type of assessment.
Many people attend training on the Dynamic-Maturational Model of Attachment and Adaptation (DMM) assessments of attachment, but only a few study this model sufficiently to become authorised to use the assessments in court. When insufficiently skilled professionals use these assessments, they risk misusing them and harming children and families.
Those professionals who are authorised to use the DMM methods for assessing attachment receive a certificate defining their competence, with limits on countries (e.g. UK only), age of the child, and a date through which the authorisation is valid. Lawyers and judges should always ask for a current valid certificate. Failure to do so can result in problems like those reported in this case – in which both the child and the professional were harmed by misuse of assessment.
Training in assessing attachment with the DMM model is delivered internationally by trainers who are accredited by the Family Relations Institute. The Infant CARE-Index (ICI) is the simplest of the DMM measures. It assesses mother-infant interaction from birth to 15 months based on a 3-minute video-recorded play interaction. Notably, the ICI is a screening tool, not a diagnostic tool. By itself it is not suitable for court use. Instead, low scores require further evidence of risk and should be interpreted in the context of that evidence. In all cases, the ICI requires a video-recording of the interaction. The video must be available as evidence that other professionals can request to view and evaluate.
Because Dr. Rees did not have a certificate authorising her use of the ICI, simply asking for the certificate would have clarified that she was beyond her competence. If Dr. Rees had provided a video, other experts could have evaluated it, including authorised experts who possess the required certificate. Providing the assessment, describing the process of deriving the interpretation of the assessment, and including published evidence of the applicability of the assessment reflects the transparency required by the IASA Family Attachment Court Protocol. Much of this information is freely down-loadable by anyone here.
Situations like this case are painful, but they create an opportunity to improve practice. FRI course attendees need to behave more responsibly, and court authorities (from social workers to lawyers and judges) need to evaluate witness competence more thoroughly, by asking for (1) evidence of competence on each assessment that a professional witness offers and (2) evidence of the child’s or parents’ response to the assessment. FRI will be using the lessons from this case to supplement its future training for course attendees.
Reference: Patricia McKinsey Crittenden, Steve Farnfield, Andrea Landini, Ben Grey, (2013) “Assessing attachment for family court decision making”, Journal of Forensic Practice, Vol. 15 Issue: 4, pp.237-248, https://doi.org/10.1108/JFP-08-2012-0002
(Image: Geralt at Pixabay)
-I cannot comprehend the arrogance of the psychologist In the case of Re C [2018] EWFC B9, where her ‘evidence’ ( it was’ent evidence – I think that was the point?) was based on a clinical tool she was not qualified to use. Her behaviour ( or its exposure?) is described as ‘painful’ – it is not. It is fraud yet clearly she expected not to be exposed as a fraud. What is that telling us about trustworthiness of the system overall? The social workers who appointed her without checking her qualifications for example? Would you trust them with your family? I think not.
I am mother of 6 beautiful children, fighting in court to not have 4 children forcibly adopted and 2 long term fostered.
How many other family’s have been subjected to this scenario by other psychologists, etc. Everyday.
How many professional’s have responsibility because they did not ask the questions that needed to be asked. And then they didn’t push for a suitable enough answer.
Child protection is everyone’s responsibility, but so is every other professionals conduct involved. It is a question of personal responsibility, and the lac of – (Nuremberg trials)
Put this in any other situation and clarity is crystal.
If a Drunk driver causes harm to child, people who watched and knowingly assisted driver get keys, drink etc. Also getting paid to assist driver and also paying driver to drive and taxi about , are they also responsible?
I want to ask who represented the parents in the case before this one that we are talking about, as they missed the fact of not being qualified enough.
In a situation like this justice can only be done to family’s, if all previous cases that relied on this persons validity are re looked at with the understanding of qualifications and mistakes being clarified.
Justice will be done if we look forward to take this as a learning experience and as something that needs to be rectified as well.
I’m not sure if anyone else has any thoughts on the links provided?
I’m not 100% surprised that no-one seemed clear on what training entailed and much else about this tool.
See (as a very short snippet )
”About IASA
The International Association for the Study of Attachment (IASA) is a multi-disciplinary association of mental health professionals established in 2007.
The primary purpose of the association is to seek and promote theoretically meaningful and testable integrations of treatment methods to generate a meta-model of treatment that is systemic, developmental, transactional, and evolutionary”
…So this organisation was formed by professionals ( self-certification and ownership of standards etc) just over ten years ago. In terms of validation what does this mean?
….What does ‘evolutionary’ mean in the context of child removal?
To be honest it is concerning that so little on the website is written as if concise communication with human ‘non-experts’ has a value.
As a general point, Attachment theory is predicated on ‘normality in relationships’ in the absence of ‘neglect’. That clearly dos’ent stand up to a scintilla of scrutiny. Humanity has needed/relied on ‘diversity’ to survive ‘adversity’. Diversity is built into our DNA for that reason. This is where neuro-diversity comes into its own and neuro-diverse people experience relationships differently…from birth.
This is highly complex stuff – I don’t believe it is safe for courts to remove children based on the say-so of any one person’s/groups self declared expertise in Attachment Theory, when understanding of these issues is in its infancy and highly disputed even among those that are generally held to be experts.