Learn Law For All

Guiding Families Through the Custody Evaluation Process

• Launi Sheldon and Guests

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Unlock the mysteries of custody evaluations with me, Launi Sheldon, as we join forces with Dr. Kolette Butler, a renowned expert in family law and psychology. This episode promises an enlightening journey through the intricacies of Arizona's family court system, where we dissect the different types of evaluations - from comprehensive family assessments to independent psychological evaluations. Peer behind the judicial curtain to understand how these crucial tools shape the fate of children embroiled in custody disputes, as Dr. Butler imparts her wisdom on their implementation and the pivotal role they play in legal outcomes.

Dive into the sensitive junction where therapy and law intersect, exploring the recent appellate case that's redefining confidentiality for therapy notes. Dr. Butler and I grapple with the challenges therapists and attorneys face when documenting sessions, the complexities of preserving client privacy while fulfilling legal obligations, and the profound impact these evaluations can have on survivors of domestic violence. We offer vital guidance for accurately presenting information in court, stressing the importance of detailed documentation and the careful navigation needed to balance risk against the necessity for transparency in these delicate situations.

Our conversation culminates with actionable insights on co-parenting in the face of domestic violence allegations and how evaluators like Dr. Butler interpret engagement in parenting classes. We emphasize the significance of providing factual evidence over vague claims in custody battles, and the positive implications of demonstrating a commitment to responsible co-parenting. Before concluding, we touch on the subtle yet powerful message conveyed by creating comfortable, authentic living spaces for children. Join us for this heartfelt discourse, where empathy meets expert advice, ensuring you leave better informed and empowered for any custody-related challenges that may arise.

You can reach Kolette Butler at:
https://verdanthope.com/

You can reach Launi Sheldon at:
Launi@LearnLawForAll.com

Launi:

Hi, I'm Launi, with All Things Divorced and Learn Law for All, and I'm here today with Dr Kolette Butler. Kolette is going to talk about custody evaluations and kind of some do's and don'ts, and we'll get into more of that when she starts answering some questions that I've got for her. So Kolette is the founder of Vernet Hope, she has her doctorate of psychology, she has her jurist doctor and she has her masters in clinical psychology. So she knows what she's talking about. She's really great and I really appreciate her being here. She is involved. She's a member of the Arizona Association of Family Conciliation Courts for Arizona, she's on the Arizona Psychological Association and she's admitted to the Arizona State Bar and the US District Court of Arizona.

Launi:

So disclaimer as always, watching this video or listening to the podcast does not create an attorney-client privilege or a doctor-patient relationship or attorney-client relationship. We are both only licensed in Arizona, but this information is really useful nationally, really internationally, for anyone who does custody evaluations. It's just some good information to help people understand what custody evaluations are and help them get through it. So welcome, Kolette, thank you. Thanks, Launi. So okay, so I know I have a lot of questions for you, Kolette, and I just did a CLE for Learn Law For All on this. But we wanted to kind of break down some of the things for this podcast, so talk to me about the differences between custody evaluations, limited scope assessments, IPEs , if you will.

Kolette:

Sure, yeah. So in Arizona we have three different types of evaluations that you might encounter in the family court setting. The most comprehensive is a comprehensive family evaluation. That's what we call them here. Your jurisdiction might call them a custody evaluation, but really that evaluation is the most in-depth, the most exhaustive evaluation that there is for a family. They tend to take quite a while, they have a very broad scope, they tend to be pretty expensive and at the end your evaluator can have an opinion about how much parenting time mom and dad should have, or mom and mom, just whatever makeup the family is, and who should have legal decision-making authority, or how much should it be joint. So, et cetera. So that's kind of that's your comprehensive or custody evaluation.

Kolette:

We also have something called a focused assessment and these two the comprehensive evaluation and the limited focused assessment or focused assessment these really are considering best interest factors for children. So in our jurisdiction the statute is 25-403. Arizona attorneys will be familiar with that, but in whatever jurisdiction you're in, it would be your best interest statute. Most states have those for best interests of kids and so we're really looking at what those factors are for the best interest of kids and a focused assessment, rather than being comprehensive, it's going to be really limited in its scope. It'll focus on one or two issues perhaps a mental health issue of someone in the family, substance abuse, abuse allegations, kids adjustment to a community, different things like that. And then the independent psychological evaluation is really just an individual assessment. So that might be for a parent, it might be for a teen or a child if the court has a question about the impact or the potential impact of family services on one of the kids in the family.

Launi:

So those are kind of I do want to add one thing to that. One thing and I maybe should have mentioned it in the CLE too but one thing that we also have in Arizona is a Court-Appointed Advisor, and this is something a little different. I know you don't do this, Kolette, because they couldn't afford you, but what we have is the court may appoint someone for people who can't afford something more thorough. It's a court-appointed advisor. It's an individual who's received some training and or has some experience in trying to help the court figure out what's going on right. So they're very different. I haven't seen much structure to them.

Launi:

I think you can get one person to say the sky is blue and the other one to say that it's pink. I mean, I think that they're very different. But if you just have one issue, then you might have that third party neutral, just sort of interview the kids or take something to the court, like looking to see whether the pool is safe or the house is safe or something pretty minor. But some of them do really thorough jobs, and I know some of them even do give recommendations, and so that's very interesting. I know the one that I know that does. I think she's probably pretty qualified. I mean she's, she's got some a good background to sort of investigate things and tell the court about them. But but yeah, so I just wanted to add that in that's a court appointed advisor or a CAA. And so when, when you get a minute entry, what does it, what do you do? Tell me what your process is right away, Sure.

Kolette:

So if the court appoints me to conduct an evaluation for a family, the first phone call well, my office will reach out to the parties, send them, you know, intake forms. If I'm doing a comprehensive evaluation, sometimes if I'm doing a limited, focused assessment, I'll send out an intake packet that is pretty comprehensive in what it's asking. It's asking all kinds of questions about who lives in the household, how many bedrooms are there in the house, you know where do the kids sleep? I mean, it's all kinds of things like that. It also goes into intimate partner violence. So there's a lot of questions screening for that and not just, you know, physical violence, but you know financial control or things like that. So paperwork goes out to the parties and while they're completing the paperwork and payment and those kinds of things, we're also setting up a call with attorneys For me.

Kolette:

I like to talk to the attorneys and if one of the parties is pro se, they are included in that attorney call and really that's just for me to learn what are the critical issues that are sitting in front of the court. How can I make this evaluation the most useful and the most valuable in helping the parties or helping the judge resolve this case and sometimes in that initial phone call, we realize that a focused assessment isn't going to be adequate, or we realize that, you know, an independent psychological evaluation of mom is not going to yield what you're wanting here. Let's do a focused assessment of both parents, or the mental health of the kids and the parents, but just an opportunity to talk to the attorneys about what the salient issues are in the case.

Launi:

What if one person is not represented, or both people aren't represented? You just does that person sort of fill in for the attorney, kind of Do you just call. Like if mom's not represented you would call dad's attorney and then mom.

Kolette:

Yes, that's right. So so if you're pro, say you're going to be included in that call. Sometimes I think pro say litigants feel in over their head a little bit and so I'm pretty directive in that call about what do I want to hear from you? I'm also very clear that I do not want you litigating your case to me. We are not, I am not the judge and we are not here to litigate issues. I really just want to know what from my report? Why did the judge ask me to do a report? What from my evaluation is the judge hoping to learn so that this case can move forward?

Launi:

Yeah, that's interesting because I think a lot of people do try and litigate their cases, I'm sure to you, because that's you should have everything so that you can know exactly what to tell the judge right. So Then, what can people do to prepare to make one, to make sure that they're not litigating their case to you, but also to make sure that they're providing you with what you need to. You know, make an informed, you know judgment.

Kolette:

Sure. So in advance of that phone call, I think perhaps looking over some minute entries, what, what is sitting in front of the judge? What's the next decision the judge needs to make in your case? Is it making a determination about parenting time? Is it making a determination about legal decision making? Is it making a determination about the safety of the kids or supervised parenting time? So, like what is sitting in front of the judge that prompted the judge to want additional information. So really preparing yourself with that and then coming into the phone call with here's what the judge is wanting to know in this case. If your report can cover this, that will be helpful to the parties.

Launi:

Yeah, and I I mean do you limit the amount of documents that they can give you? I know some of the other mental health professionals do limit. They say you know you get 10 emails on each subject or something. Yeah, do you do that?

Kolette:

also yes, there's no way not to.

Launi:

Yeah, and I especially when there's a pro say right, Because then you're going to have everything and the kitchen sink.

Kolette:

Yeah, yeah.

Launi:

Then if they, if, if you look through it, you're like, okay, yeah, you can give me more on that or more on that, do you kind of allow them to do that?

Kolette:

Yes, yeah, if there's an exchange that I think is really highlighting a dynamic that I've seen pop up in other areas, then, yeah, I might say something like hey, send me, send me more of this communication, just so that I can really nail down a pattern that might be happening in other areas, but it's illustrated well in that email exchange or that text exchange.

Launi:

So you know, I'm sure you get this question when you have a pro say on the other side, or at least this fear that you have this relationship with this other attorney, and I think the order, the minute entries, typically tell you that you can't have X party communication, right, yes, yeah, so so that's not something that they should worry about because it and you know, one of the things I always told my clients was look, you know, dr Butler or whoever is not going to throw away their career to because they're friends with an attorney you know outside of, outside of you know their profession, maybe they've had drinks a couple of times. They're not going to throw away their career because probably when you, because I think, when I do my stuff, I'm not even thinking about who the other parties are involved. I'm sort of thinking about what's right in front of me and the facts, and you don't even necessarily think about who that attorney is on the other side, right?

Kolette:

Yeah, yes, for sure. I mean, I think you captured it really well. We have professional and ethical duties. Most of us care deeply about those. We've devoted our lives to this profession.

Kolette:

In addition to that, I think when I am considering an attorney, sometimes the only thing I'm considering in that setting is how well do I know this attorney works with other people? So it's not even about who they are as a person. I know. At the end of the day, you know we'll see each other at a conference and we know that we were working a case and we were doing our job on a case, and so you know that just is what it is.

Kolette:

But one thing that I do think a lot about is how does this attorney conduct themselves him or herself in this phone call? How are they doing in terms of being collaborative? Are the attorneys high conflict right? Because that is a factor that we look at when we're looking at high conflict families, and so you know. And how are they doing with a pro se litigant on the other side? It's hard to be an attorney and to have a pro se person on the other side, because you're kind of advocating your case and also doing a little bit of education to make the case go more smoothly, right? So it's a little bit tricky.

Launi:

Yeah, I had that conversation with Dr DeCarlo a couple of weeks back on our podcast and it was interesting because you know, first of all, you know who are the difficult attorneys, I think, in a lot of cases. But also it's like, you know, we could screw it up. As attorneys we can make stuff worse because part of our job is to advocate for our client. And our client might be perfectly fine with every other weekend and one night a week, but you know you get an attorney who's like no, you have every right to have 50-50 and you should get 50-50. And the person might say, no, I'm totally fine with her or him having, you know, solely a decision making, or at least final say, because they've been making all the decisions anyway, blah, blah, blah. And then you're like well, no, you have the right, you know, and we as attorneys are, you know, walk this fine line where we want our clients to at least know what they can get or what is likely to happen. But on the other hand, you know there are some attorneys that just push it so hard and it's like just, you know you're, you're screwed, screwed up the kids. Now, you know you're just let these people resolve this issue by themselves. Yeah, so what else and you and I talked about this in the CLE. You know, what else can someone do to get ready for the evaluation? And I think you and I talked about people who are like victims of domestic violence or who have had some significant trauma and really need to kind of pull themselves together because it's going to be, it could be a very difficult process.

Kolette:

Yeah, it is a difficult process, whether you are being independently evaluated or your family is being evaluated, it's intrusive. You know, one of the things we were talking about in the CLE was the records that are reviewed and behavioral health records are reviewed. So that's your therapy notes, all of those kinds of things. You certainly can object to producing those. I don't think. In general it looks good for you to do that right, and so it's tricky to come to terms with all of that. And I think just recently and, lonnie, you may know this better than I do, but I think just recently there was, I think, an appellate case on the issue of therapy notes and that the privileged aspect of those was really being honored and only portions of notes that pertain to the substance use or something like that were ultimately produced, but all of the rest of the stuff stayed back.

Launi:

And I vaguely remember that. I think one of the things that happened was on that case, who was?

Kolette:

Helen Davis, I think.

Launi:

And I think that sounds like a Helen Davis thing. She's kind of not in a bad way.

Kolette:

Because as a therapist working in the forensic realm, I am well being an attorney also. I'm super mindful of what I put in my notes. But not every therapist is. And then all of that goes out into open court and wood and nightmare yeah.

Launi:

I mean the one thing that we do if that happens because sometimes they'll just refuse anyway and yeah, it doesn't look great, but they don't have to legally supply them but you can ask the court to make a negative inference about what was in them, and that's kind of where you go from that, because it's really hard, especially for someone who's wanting the evaluation for someone else and all their craps coming in and then you're holding all your stuff back. I mean I think you just at least ask the court to make a negative inference, but I mean they'll just never know.

Launi:

But, yeah, they don't have to. They don't have to, but they, you know.

Kolette:

Yeah, it is a risk, you know yeah.

Launi:

Right, very risky. I think you have to, you know, assess with the importance of that.

Kolette:

Yeah, yeah, so sorry, I got a little bit off the track there, but you know I have worked with I've worked with a few survivors of domestic violence and part of what came out in the evaluation was their therapy notes where they were talking about the violence and the trauma and the abuse.

Kolette:

I think one of them even her notes from EMDR, and those notes are not meant to be extensive Like, as a clinician, you're not meant to take lengthy notes on that but all of that kind of got into the court and man, it was like are we living it all over again?

Kolette:

So when you're going through this process, get some really robust support in place, whether it's friends or family or get a therapist. You know whatever you need to do to have support, because even just filling out the intake packet can be overwhelming and super emotionally charged and you really need your thinking cap on when you're going through that and you need to be able to attend to detail. But the way that our brains work when we're flooded out by emotion or when there's trauma is you know we just don't do our best work there. And you know Lonnie and I will have a CLE on trauma that you can check out to kind of learn how to work with that more. Get the support that you need to be able to go through this process, because it is going to be tough and it's going to be longer than you want it to be.

Launi:

Yeah, and you know I've helped people fill out paperwork and I've you know if I've helped them fill it out, like after they've already filled it out. You know there's times where I'll see just some big errors, especially victims of domestic violence making excuses for their abuser or not putting something in there. I actually had one case where the woman we didn't have an evaluation but we were doing a modification and she had been severely abused ended up in the hospital several times, never even listed that on her petition when it said there's been domestic violence, because one, she was from a country where that was permitted and two, she thought that since this was about the child and not so much about her, that she didn't write it down. So it's important to really write down the abuse.

Launi:

It's important not to make excuses like, well, he did this because I did that. No, he did this period. You don't have to say why he did this. You're making an excuse for him. So if your ex or, you know, husband or wife or whatever pushed you, your ex pushed you not because you took the remote control, but your ex pushed you on this date and I have them. Do that. They can get more out, you know, I think to you. But when you're limited on word and space, at least once you get all the abuse out. So is that like a fair?

Kolette:

I think it is. And I think you know another aspect of that. If someone says you know he hit me but I deserved it because I took the remote, I think that's a real window into what the dynamic is, what the power differential is. And so if I am, if I am offering any kind of recommendations to the judge about legal decision making, then I'm saying like, no, like there cannot be joint legal decision making in this case because she thinks she deserved to be hit for picking up the remote. And so you know there can be some value in that and part of that is for the evaluator to suss out. And also, if your client says that it can be, it can be a really beautiful window into, like, the dynamic.

Launi:

Yeah, that's a great point, but if you have, say, limited space, would you rather know of the five? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kolette:

Right. And that's kind of because then in the interview you follow up on that Right.

Launi:

And that's why I usually have them, do you know? And I always tell people to take notes in with them. Are you okay with that?

Kolette:

Sure, yeah, they're addressing everything, yes, and so people can bring notes in. Just kind of my policy is you can't leave anything with me, so any documents that are coming to me must must copy co-counsel or the other parent and there needs to be a record of that. So I don't accept any documents physically in my office.

Launi:

Yeah, that's okay. So that's that's great information for people to have. So let's go to the five dos and five don'ts. And I think we talked in the CLE and I said I always tell my clients be on time, be respectful of the other party or of the evaluator. The evaluator staff, you know, just take, take the whole thing seriously and so, like I have them, you know, map out the day before if they're going to be in person. If they're not going to be in person, I have them turn off and on their computer like an hour ahead of time, because it never fails that you know, all of a sudden your zoom needs to update or your computer is going to sit down and restart, so restarted at least an hour before your your meeting time, if you're meeting online and if you're not meeting online and you're, you know, I always say be at least 15 minutes early just to account for some traffic. So would it give me some dos?

Kolette:

Yeah, I think those are. Those are really great, I think. Also, being thorough, I'll go a little bit to your questionnaire, your intake thing. Be honest, the truth is likely to come out anyway. It's much better if you tell me the bad stuff then that you kind of sugar coated, and then I find it in documents or I find it in a collateral interview. Then it doesn't look great that you were sugar coated or hiding it or hiding it For sure. How you interact with my office staff can come into play in the evaluation. It can be suggestive or it can. It can even be evidence that illustrates certain pathology, if certain pathology popped in your psychological assessment. My data set is how you interacted with my office staff. Right, be accountable. If you made mistakes with your co parent, if you made mistakes with the kids, own that. Tell me what you learned from it, how you're doing it differently now. All of that is super helpful. No parent is perfect. Don't try to pretend that you are.

Launi:

And you know I'm a big fan on having people get help when needed. So and this is something we didn't talk about in the CLA and something you probably weren't planning on me asking you now but you know, if somebody's got some domestic violence charges or allegations, so as an attorney, if you've got a six month window between when you're hiring an evaluator and when you're not, and when they're going to sorry, when they're going to have it done, you know that's a lot of time that you can rebut some presumptions. And in Arizona, one of the presumptions, the way to rebut the presumption that so legal decision making or joint legal decision making wouldn't be in the best interest of the child, is to take some classes, some anger and some changements and domestic violence classes. So is that? Would you recommend that? If, if somebody you know, if there had been some domestic violence, whether it was situational or, you know, chronic or however, you guys, the big D or the little D of domestic violence, would you say go ahead and take the classes. Because now you've addressed that, yeah.

Kolette:

I, I would say, do that. There may be other evaluators who wouldn't, but I think sometimes a parent's concern is well, if I go take the classes, aren't I admitting that I did the thing? That's not how I would view it. I don't think that it's like evidence that you did X behavior. I think what it demonstrates is that you're taking seriously the concerns that your co parent has expressed and your your co parent is a critical part of your. Your parents with your co parent are a critical part of your parenting. Frankly, right, like the impact of the kids is. Is there conflict between you and your co parent, right?

Launi:

And I think for me it was. It was like look, there's a, there's a rebuttable presumption, start the rebuttal right now, because what would you tell them to do? And if you, if you said, okay, I, you know there's allegations against domestic violence. By the way, I don't know, you know an attorney may tell them to just take the fifth because they don't want to admit it in there. Maybe they have an upcoming court case, you know, for whatever reason, but if you do believe that somebody's committed domestic violence, do you have them? Then take the in your recommendation do you say mother or father should take this 26-week in-person course?

Kolette:

Yeah, if there's enough data that suggests more likely than not that they perpetrated some kind of violence, then, yes, part of my recommendations is going to be either therapy dealing specifically with domestic violence, or taking classes or something like that. So yeah why not get a jump?

Launi:

on it and that's kind of my, because, if it's done, if your recommendation was okay, mom or dad needs to take these 26 hours. I know in California they require 52 hours, but in Arizona I think it's typically 26, right?

Kolette:

Yeah, I think, depending on what services you're using.

Launi:

yeah, so if you take it, then it's done and now you're moving forward with your parenting time because now you've already fulfilled one of the evaluator's recommendations. I guess in my mind is kind of how I looked at it.

Kolette:

Yeah. And then I think I would add like an asterisk to that, and it would be if in the interview with me, they're saying, oh yeah, I did this class, and I say something like, oh well, tell me some of the things that you learned, and they're like well, you know, it didn't really apply to me. I'm going to recommend that the judge order additional something, because they came out of this like learning nothing right. So I think if you're an attorney advising your client about that, they really need to go in and like come out with something.

Launi:

That's a great point. Yeah, so if you do take the classes, make sure that you learn something and that you can, you know, teach it back. Yeah, yeah. So what are some don'ts? What are some don'ts Like? What should somebody just absolutely not do?

Kolette:

I think minimizing right, Minimizing the conflict they've had with the co-parent, or I have seen some really horrendous text messages between co-parents before and you know, if you're minimizing that, instead just own it and just say, yeah, I wouldn't talk that way to my worst enemy. That was really bad. I can understand why I did it. I don't do that anymore, you know, just like so. So again, be accountable. Don't minimize or pretend that stuff is okay. If you can, don't be rigid. Don't come in with one certain idea about why all this conflict is happening. Right, oh, like 100%. It's my co-parent and of course, the kids don't have a relationship with him because he's so harsh with them. And da, da, da da. Rigidity is not helpful and it doesn't reflect well on you. Don't be perfect.

Kolette:

I had one gal come in. I always ask what do you do well as a parent and what could you improve as a parent? And one gal came in and when I asked what could you improve as a parent, she paused for minutes and then said I don't think there's anything I can improve on, and I mean that's tragic, right, it shows poor insight on her part and you know how? Is that going to be beneficial to her parenting or to her kids. There's no such thing as a perfect parent. Don't try to pretend that you're perfect. Don't lie, Don't scapegoat your co-parent for everything. So I think those are probably some of the big things.

Launi:

Yeah, and I tell people for sure that don't just blame the other parent, except some responsibility. I think that's important. And don't just generalize, don't just say he's a terrible parent or she's a terrible parent or she's borderline, or he's narcissistic, or don't just say these things. Provide facts. I think providing facts are really important and I think help Dr Butler and any evaluator understand really what's happening. So if it was like, if your experience was that, say, dad came home and he expected you all to greet him at the door, and if you didn't greet him at the door and welcome him home with hugs and kisses, he would be super pissed off.

Launi:

That's a better fact than saying he's a narcissist and that's one of the factors that go in there. I always tell my people to go look at the factors and do you have any facts? That if one of the factors is lying, okay let's talk about the lying, you don't need to go through. But they need to understand what they need to provide you with what information is going to be relevant to you and if providing you with information that sort of shows what their issue is, I think is more helpful than them saying he's bipolar.

Kolette:

Yes, yeah, it's so helpful If somebody can give behavioral descriptions. It is worth so much more than coming into my office and saying you read a book about covert narcissists and that's what you know your spouse was. That is not super useful to me. I then have to spend a fair amount of our time asking all the questions, right. But if you come in with behavioral descriptions like the ones you pointed out, that is super helpful and it puts you in a better light, right? You're not out there pretending to be a clinician or a diagnostic and you were saying this is what it was like to live with that person, or this is what I observed my kids responding to in my co-parent. You know all of those kinds of things.

Launi:

Yeah, I agree. I think that I always liked my clients to provide facts to me. Anyway, you know, I'll always say they'll say, oh, he was just terribly abusive. Okay, what did that look like? Tell me what that looked like. Well, he would yell. Okay, talk to me about when he would yell and really have them break down the facts. Well, you know, and I love for them to tell you know some story to you, right? I mean, if they have room or time, right, you want the story behind it. I, you know, did this and he had told me not to. So he pushed me, or he walked very rigidly, quickly next to me, knowing that his shoulder would go into my back and I would fall forward or something like that, but then said, oops, sorry, that was a mistake. You know, those are some things that we try and get people to do so that they're really providing what that looked like, what the abuse looked like, what the substance use looked like.

Launi:

You know you're saying somebody's got substance abuse. Okay, well, are they falling down drunk? Are they drinking two glasses of wine? I mean, look, if I'm a person who is super religious and says no caffeine, no alcohol, no nothing, then one alcoholic drink, or one diet coke or one, you know, starbucks coffee might be excessive to me, but I may also come from a family of alcoholics, and so you know four glasses of wine a night is not a big deal. So what is your issue look like? Because it's gonna depend. I think you know you need to be more specific than he drinks a lot or she drinks a lot, right?

Kolette:

Yeah, yeah. And if you can capture some of the conversations and I don't mean record your kids, right, so some parents do that, I, you know. I think there's mixed advice about that out there. I think we should have a whole podcast on that. Yeah, we probably should. It can backfire and it can be really hard for kids when they find out that they've been recorded. It really destroys trust.

Kolette:

But if you can capture substantively, like you know, mom said this child said this. Mom said this child said this, right, Just to give like a flavor of this is how mom is responding when the child is saying these things, that can be really helpful, right, because I, you know, as an evaluator, I will go into the home for many evaluations and I try to spend a lengthy period of time there, like three or four hours, because anybody can hold it together for an hour or two and I do require the parents to do like tasks with the kids, or they're teaching them a new game or they're cooking with them. So I try to draw out frustrating experiences on purpose and most people can keep it together for a couple of hours, but by the time we're in the third or fourth hour and the kids are doing, whatever, sometimes those dynamics will emerge, but sometimes they won't right. So if you can capture some of those and share those with me, that's helpful.

Launi:

Yeah, I try. One of the things I recommend for the evaluations is if parents like one, don't make it the first time you're cooking with your kid. You know, practice, practice, practice. You don't wanna have your kid cracking an egg for the first time, you know, at six years old and making a mess all over. And then I love having them make pizzas together because I feel like that's something that's so fun that they can do that the kids like and also choosing a food that the kids like.

Launi:

Let's set them up for success. Right, let's set this whole evaluator visit up for success. Whatever you need to do to you know you set it for after they've taken their nap, you set it for. You know something that you've done with them before. If it's dinner or lunch or whatever that maybe you're gonna make a big sub sandwich, do that once before. Make sure they like it, make sure they're not disgusted by it and throwing a fit, you know. Yeah, it's just important to me. It's like let's set them up for success. Let's make some cookies afterwards. Let's do something that's super, even if it's just the chop up ones and you throw them in the oven. But I'm a big believer in setting up for success. Now, what are the biggest problems that you find in a home Like that you like when you're doing your check? Is there some specific thing that you look for that you're like? Oh, if I find it, I'm nervous like a gun that's not locked up or For sure.

Kolette:

So safety, safety stuff is probably like the biggest red flag thing. So most evaluators are going to go through your house, including, like, your cupboards and your refrigerator, and I always have the kids take me on a tour because they're gonna show me all the stuff right. And so if a kid is saying like, oh, and this is where you know the guns are and whatever, like okay, is it locked, you know, is it up high, where they can't access all of those kinds of things? Or you know other safety concerns, like under your kitchen sink, are there child locks on the kitchen, on the kitchen cupboard, and is there what age should they have locks on the kitchen cupboard?

Kolette:

Oh, I don't remember what the guidelines are, but I would say any kid under the age of probably five.

Launi:

You're gonna want my kids would have been taken away from me.

Kolette:

Well, I don't know, but you know. But the kid needs to be able to like, recognize and be like I'm not gonna go get into that Maybe under four, but for sure under that. And then you know other age-appropriate things in the house. So safety is always kind of the first thing that I'm looking for. And then I'm looking for, you know, functionality of, like, does the bathroom sink work and is there soap at it? Does the toilet flush Right? I mean, like, is there functional stuff in the house? Can the kids reach snacks or water if they need it? You know those kinds of things. What is their own space like? I had one kid show me their closet. They like opened it up. It was beautiful, it looked like a rack from Target and they're like oh yeah, these are all new. I've never worn these before. Yeah.

Launi:

I also tell my parents to you know, do their shopping or do their cleaning at least a month ahead. Yeah, Like at least, because you don't want the kid to go look in my room and look how clean it is. We just cleaned it last night, or you know-.

Kolette:

This is a brand new bedspread. I never had my own sheets before, right yeah.

Launi:

Yeah, you want those worn in for like a good month before those ones are there. All right, so well. Thank you so much. I think this is really helpful information and I'm sure you know lots of people are appreciating you kind of talking about this stuff and I hope that you'll come back and I do think that there's probably five more podcasts that came out of this conversation, so thank you so much for being here, Of course. Thank you.