Courts frequently rely on parenting capacity assessments to make decisions about visitation and case progress in child protection court. Although these evaluations can provide valuable information to courts, they often involve assessing areas of human behavior that are not clearly defined in the literature. For example, mental health professionals are often tasked with identifying risk and protective factors for child maltreatment while identifying factors that can impede progress towards reunification. Although some of these factors may be easy to identify and assess (e.g., symptoms of mental illness or substance abuse), others may be more challenging. For example, factors such as denial and minimization about risk factors and maltreatment, a parent(s)’ ability to protect their child(ren) from future incidents of maltreatment, the parent(s)’ potential for change, and the consideration of what is in the best interest of the child are hard to assess. This article will provide a summary of the research in these areas, provide tips for managing these areas, and highlight directions for future investigation that will help inform parenting capacity assessments in child protection court.

中文翻译：

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应对儿童保护法庭养育能力评估挑战的实践技巧

法院经常依靠养育能力评估来做出有关儿童保护法庭的探视和案件进展的决定。尽管这些评估可以为法院提供有价值的信息，但它们通常涉及评估文献中未明确定义的人类行为领域。例如，心理健康专业人员的任务通常是确定虐待儿童的风险和保护因素，同时确定可能阻碍儿童团聚进程的因素。尽管其中一些因素可能很容易识别和评估（例如，精神疾病或药物滥用的症状），但其他因素可能更具挑战性。例如，否认和最小化风险因素和虐待、父母保护孩子免受未来虐待事件影响的能力、父母改变的潜力以及对孩子最大利益的考虑是很难评估的。本文将总结这些领域的研究，提供管理这些领域的技巧，并强调未来调查的方向，这将有助于为儿童保护法庭的养育能力评估提供信息。