I have experience of conducting psychological assessments of adults, as an expert witness, in both Private and Public Family Law Cases.
Areas of Psychological Assessment
I am regularly instructed to prepare reports addressing a variety of issues in family cases, including:
- Care/contact proceedings.
- Child protection where there is a question of sexual, physical or emotional abuse or neglect.
- Failure to thrive.
- Non-accidental injury.
- Parenting capacity.
- Domestic violence.
- Personality disorder and how this relates to parenting.
- Child disabilities and parenting ability.
- Parental learning disabilities.
- The assessment of risk.
- Parental relationships.
I have a particular interest in non-accidental injury cases.
I have recently published two chapters on the assessment of parenting capacity as follows:
Birch, S. (2015) Factors that demonstrate change or potential change in parenting capacity. In Bryn Williams, Emma Peart & Roger Young (Eds.) Understanding and assessing a parent’s capacity to change within the timescales of the child. London: Jordan Publishing.
Carstairs, Kari & Birch, Sarah (2015) Assessing a parent’s capacity to change in psychotherapy: The use of the Rorschach and the MMPI-2. In Bryn Williams, Emma Peart & Roger Young (Eds.) Understanding and assessing a parent’s capacity to change within the timescales of the child. London: Jordan Publishing.
More details about this book can be found here:
http://www.jordanpublishing.co.uk/practice-areas/family/publications/capacity-to-change-understanding-and-assessing-a-parent-s-capacity-to-change-within-the-timescales-of-the-child