1. Parenting Capacity Assessments
Jeff Chang, Ph.D. , R. Psych
Athabasca University and
Calgary Family Therapy Centre
April 11, 2019

2. Overview About me General thoughts about assessment
psychological constructs and inferences
formal assessment vs. general assessment: context
History-taking vs. history making
Static risk factors vs. dynamic risk factors

3. Overview Parenting capacity assessment
What constructs are we talking about here?
A high-stakes formal assessment process
Legislatively driven
Expert evidence
Elements of a parenting capacity assessment

4. About Me Finished my MA in Counselling Psychology in 1985 at SFU
Came to Calgary in 1986
Worked in children’s mental health agencies for 6 years – had some opportunity to do assessments of adolescent sex offenders for court
Went into private practice in 1992 full-time

5. About Me
Had contacts in southern Alberta from my adolescent sex offender work – they wanted someone to do parenting capacity assessments
ramped up quickly
Read lots, got some training, and paid for supervision
Did my first bilateral custody evaluation in 1995
Had an opportunity to learn psychoeducational assessment when office was awarded a contract (1998)

6. About Me Divide my career into thirds
Almost exclusively therapy
About half therapy and half assessment
Predominantly assessment
Did a PhD in counselling psych from to 2008.
Associate Professor/Program Director Master of Counselling Program at Athabasca University
Wrote the assessment course

7. About Me Registered Psychologist since 1987
Clinical Fellow and Approved Supervisor in the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy
Did a PhD in counselling psych from to 2008.
Associate Professor/Program Director Master of Counselling Program at Athabasca University
Wrote the assessment course

8. About Me Current private practice
“Parenting time/parenting responsibility assessments”, i.e. bilateral custody-access assessments
“voice of the child” assessments
Litigation support
Supervision (provisional psychologists and consulting with agencies)

9. General thoughts about assessment
Psychological constructs and inferences
We are supposedly measuring psychological constructs using psychological tests
“Test” is a differend – a word or phrase that means different things when used by different people – without having discussed it

10. General thoughts about assessment
Parents whose child is having learning problems and judges who listen to testimony about parenting issues do not think of the word “test” like we do
What’s the difference between measuring the level of a chemical in the blood and measuring the level of depression, intelligence, career interest, or introversion using a psychological test?
Lyotard, J.-F. (1983). The differend: Phrases in dispute. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

11. General thoughts about assessment
When we use psychological tests to measure psychological traits, we first have to invent the construct we are measuring before we can measure it.
When we are measuring a chemical in the blood, what we are measuring already exists. We might have to discover it, but we are not inventing it.

12. General thoughts about assessment
When we use psychological tests to measure psychological traits, we first have to invent the construct we are measuring before we can measure it.
When we are measuring a chemical in the blood, what we are measuring already exists. We might have to discover it, but we are not inventing it.

13. General thoughts about assessment
Formal assessment vs. general assessment
Basic distinction: College of Alberta Psychologists defines formal assessment as a report written for a third party decision-maker:
Court
Disability insurer or workers’ comp
Child protection authority
School division
General assessment: collecting assessment data and making inferences to formulate treatment

14. General thoughts about assessment
History-taking vs. History-making
Why do we take history?
Is history static?
Does the interviewer’s epistemology matter?

15. Continuum of interviewer’s questions
Orienting
intent
Influencing
intent

16. General thoughts about assessment
Static Risk Factors vs Dynamic Risk Factor
Are static risk factors all that static?

17. Parenting Capacity…. Back to Constructs
Let’s deconstruct the construct of
Parenting Capacity….
What are some of the factors that comprise parenting capacity