The mental health and legal communities who work with families and children impacted by divorce and separation have rightly turned their attention to early interventions in cases of resist and refuse dynamics because of the entrenchment and treatment-resistance observed when appropriate mental health treatment services are not initiated until well into the refusal. This session will present two different, specific models that are presently being used by practitioners in family court matters to provide innovative, constructive, and, ultimately, practical treatment-focus assessment alternatives to the commonly available custody assessment tools. The East Coast model is the What Would Better Look Like (WWBLL, pronounced wubble), which is a quasi-forensic assessment that is more narrowly defined and streamlined than a Brief Focused Assessment. The West Coast model is the 20 In 20, which is a clinical treatment plan recommendation that provides an expedited early jump start for treatment under certain conditions.
Learning Objectives:
- Participants will be able to identify two different models of early intervention assessments and the different situations in which each may be of use.
- Participants will be able to compare and predict when an early assessment as opposed to early treatment may be more useful.
- Participants will be able to identify three important differences in early intervention assessments that should be enumerated to the parties, court, and counsel before the assessment begins.