A Child Custody Evaluation (CCE) is a comprehensive report intended to provide the Court and the family with an in-depth understanding of family dynamics and offers parenting recommendations. The process involves extensive interviews with family members and others, reviews of legal and psychological records, and, when indicated, psychological assessment.
I specialize in CCEs involving allegations of domestic violence, sexual abuse and/or parental mental illness. I work with children of all ages and have expertise with young children, birth to five, who are especially vulnerable to adverse impact from high parental conflict.
With cases in which the Court has a narrower question, a Brief Focused Assessment (BFA) may be appropriate. BFAs address specific issues, such as school choice, parental mental illness or allegations of physical abuse. These evaluations usually take less time than CCEs, and spare families some cost.
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Interdisciplinary Mediation A cost-effective and efficient method of resolving legal conflicts, Interdisciplinary Mediation can help families steer clear of the legal system and spare children the devastation of further family ruptures. This model provides the benefit of both a psychologist and an experienced attorney, with whom I partner, to help with unresolved parenting and financial issues. Interdisciplinary Mediation includes a psycho-educational component, which supports sound parenting decisions.
I mediate the custody and timeshare-related issues addressed in a parenting plan, usually in a set number of meetings (approximately 3 3-hour sessions). I then write up the results of the mediation and provide the written agreement in detailed form to the parents for review and signature. The attorney with whom I partner addresses financial issues that are part of a relationship separation. Mediation from that process is also memorialized as a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU").
Once both processes have occurred, the documents (MOU's) can be combined into a Marital Settlement Agreement ("MSA") and filed with the court. Each parent may choose to have his or her own attorney review the MSA separately prior to filing, as he or she chooses.
Parenting Coordinator Services I provide parenting coordinator services from a developmental and psychoeducational perspective. My emphasis is on empowering parents to resolve their own issues to the greatest extent possible and to make choices on behalf of their children. I don't insist on anything, but I do encourage parents to work toward coparenting, even when preferences to "parallel parent" are quite strong, because I believe that ultimately it is best for children if their parents work together in their interests.
The "authority" bestowed upon a parenting coordinator, from my point of view, allows for the removal of impasses. I see the role as one of a facilitator, primarily providing support, and maintaining boundaries so that both parents can safely show up for the child(ren).
A clear and detailed parenting plan can go a long way toward resolving many of the conflicts parents experience. Ensuring that the families with whom I work have a current, nuanced, reasonable understanding of what is expected is a routine part of what we do together initially and on an ongoing basis.
Family Therapy, Coparenting Counseling & Child Custody Mediation
I provide family, couples and coparenting counseling. I also meet with parents for confidential child custody mediation and recommending child custody mediation. I specialize in working with high-conflict couples, helping them to focus on the impact of conflict on child-development. I work with children of all ages, but I have expertise in working with young children (birth to five) in particular.
In my experience, young children are often overlooked in these painful transitions, because they cannot verbalize loss and do not show signs of grief in the same way that older children do. Much of what occurs with young children around timeshares is assumed to be "just fine," because there is no solid evidence of protest, or no clear way to interpret the signals the child offers. And, you can just override it anyway. (You can't pick up an adolescent and stick her in a carseat, but you can do that to a toddler.) And parents are all too quick to accept that everything is fine with a baby, because they are often preoccupied with their own grief and anger, so it's one less detail to have to worry about. Eventually an infant just stops crying and you can get on with your day.
In fact, babies and toddlers do provide clear messages indicating what they prefer, and there is a lot of information available regarding what is advisable for children beginning from birth. I believe the mediation or coparenting process is an opportunity to think about who your infant or toddler is and what he or she may be experiencing. Coming together around a shared understanding of your child is, I believe, the definition of coparenting for kids of any age.
Psychotherapy
I work with children, adolescents and adults in individual short- and long-term treatments. Many of the adults with whom I work have relational issues, struggle with anxiety, depression, and/or severe mental illness. I work with adolescents and young children who have emotional challenges, including those with histories of witnessing or being subjected to physical and/or sexual abuse.
Robin Silverman is a clinical psychologist in Marin County specializing in psychotherapy for children, adolescents and adults, as well as co-parenting counseling and child custody dispute resolutions.