Intervention Between Two Homes

Good Intentions Aren’t Enough: Protecting Your Clinical Role When Families Enter the Family Court System.

Mental health professionals routinely work with children and families experiencing separation, divorce, and significant family conflict. When these families become involved with the Family Court system, however, the clinical landscape can change dramatically. What begins as a therapeutic relationship can quickly become intertwined with litigation, competing parental narratives, subpoenas, requests for records, allegations, and expectations that the clinician take on a forensic role.

Well-intentioned professionals can find themselves navigating situations for which traditional clinical training does not fully prepare them. A clinician's therapeutic observations, communications, documentation, or opinions may later be scrutinized or introduced in court. Misunderstanding the distinction between therapeutic and forensic roles, failing to recognize ethical boundaries, or inadvertently becoming aligned with one parent's perspective can create significant risks—not only for the family, but also for the professional's ethical obligations, credibility, licensure, and professional reputation.

These risks are particularly important when working with children living between two homes. Families involved in separation and divorce are sometimes characterized as “shattered,” “broken,” or “divorced.” Current research provides a more nuanced understanding: some children demonstrate improved adjustment following parental separation, while others experience continuing difficulties, particularly when exposed to persistent parental conflict. Understanding these differences is essential for professionals who want to avoid inadvertently reinforcing family conflict or becoming part of the problem they are attempting to treat.

This 5-hour seminar, presented by Bradley S. Craig, LMSW-IPR, CFLE, author of Between Two Homes: A Coparenting Handbook and Between Two Homes: A Coparenting Workbook, examines the specialized clinical, ethical, and forensic challenges professionals encounter when working with families involved in the Family Court system.

Participants will learn how seemingly routine clinical decisions can carry different implications when litigation is present, how professional expertise can be misapplied in a forensic context, and how to recognize situations that may place the clinician's role or professional credibility at risk. The seminar provides practical strategies for maintaining appropriate boundaries, making informed decisions, documenting appropriately, and working effectively with families while remaining within the professional's defined role.

The training also addresses resources and intervention strategies that may help families reduce chronic conflict and patterns of re-litigation.

Protecting your professional role requires more than good clinical intentions. It requires knowing where therapy ends, where forensic issues begin, and how to navigate the intersection without compromising your ethics, credibility, or the families you serve.

Upon completion of this seminar, participants will be able to:

• Differentiate the professional and legal standards of practice applicable to therapeutic and forensic services.
• Identify ethical and professional risks that arise when clients become involved with the Family Court system.
• Recognize circumstances in which a clinician's experience, observations, or expertise may be misapplied in a forensic context.
• Identify common boundary and role-confusion issues that can expose professionals to ethical complaints, challenges to professional credibility, or unintended involvement in litigation.
• Apply strategies for maintaining appropriate therapeutic boundaries and professional roles when working with families involved in legal disputes.
• Recognize how documentation, communication, and clinical decision-making may be viewed differently when a family is involved in litigation.
• Apply strategies for working with children and families between two homes while minimizing the risk of inadvertently reinforcing parental conflict.
• Identify resources and intervention options that may help families reduce chronic conflict and patterns of re-litigation.

5 Hrs. CEU and CLE, 2 hrs. ethics for Social Workers, LPCs, and LMFTs

Handouts and sample practice forms included

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