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→Reports and assessments about parenting after separation
The sort of input people look for changes depending on the circumstances and the issues. Sometimes all that's needed is a short consultation with a mental health professional. However, if what's needed is advice, a report, an opinion or recommendations that will be used in mediation, collaborative negotiation, arbitration or a court proceeding, something more substantial may be required.
Under section 211(1) of the provincial ''Family Law Act'', people can agree or the court can order that a mental health professional will assess conduct an assessment and prepare a report on one or more of:
#the needs of a child,
#the ability and willingness of the parties to meet the child's needs.
Most of the time, reports under section 211 are intended to cover all of these subjects. Reports like this talk about the family, the children, and the arrangements for parenting after separation that are in the best interests of the children, and are usually described as "section 211 reports," "parenting assessments" or something similar. Under the old ''[http://canlii.ca/t/ldg3 Family Relations Act]'', these were called "section 15 reports" or "custody and access reports."
Since section 37(2)(b) of the ''Family Law Act'' requires parties and the court to consider the views of the child when deciding what is in the child's best interests, people can agree or the court can order that a mental health professional or anyone else with the right kind of training, including lawyers, will prepare a report on the child's views. These reports don't involve an assessment, they just a report about what on the things the child has told said to the person interviewing who interviewed them.
Reports that focus on the views of a child without an assessment are usually described as "views of the child reports," "hear the child reports" or "voice of the child reports." However they're described, the key difference between these reports and a report under section 211 is that they don't involve the interviewer's analysis or opinion of what the child has told them. These reports are ''non-evaluative''; section 211 reports are ''evaluative''.
===Section 211 reports===
Regardless of which sort of mental health professional assesses the family, if the report is a full assessment, covering all of the subjects listed at section 211(1), the assessor will meet each of the parents separately and see each of them again with the children. If the children are old enough and mature enough, the assessor may speak to the children separately. The assessor may also speak to other people who know the parents and their children, such as friends, family and neighbours, the children's teachers, and any counsellors or therapists who might be involved with the family.
Once the assessment is finished, the assessor sends their assessment to the parties, as well as and to the court if the assessment was court-ordered. These assessments can be used in two ways: to help the parties reach an agreement resolving their dispute; and, in court, to help persuade the court judge that one party's proposal about parenting after separation is more likely to be in the best interests of the children than the proposal of the other party. When section 211 reports are used at trial, the person who prepared the report can be asked to come to court to give evidence about their assessment and their recommendations at the trial and will can be subject to cross-examination as to examined about how they conducted the their assessment and how they reached their conclusions and recommendations.
It is important to remember that the function of assessors in court is to present their conclusions and recommendations and the evidence that they relied on, such as test scores like the results of psychological tests and interview the observationsthey made during their interviews, in coming to those conclusions and recommendations. At the end of the day, it is 's always up to the judge to decide the parenting arrangements for the children. A needs The Supreme Court discussed the purposes of the child assessment is merely the assessorcustody and access reports in a 2001 case called ''[http://canlii.ca/t/4xfd Gupta v. Gupta]'', 2001 BCSC 649. The court's recommendation comments in that case refer to the court based on their particular expertise old term for these reports (which were known as an experienced psychologist"section 15 reports" at the time), psychiatrist, or family justice counsellor. The assessment is not a final determination but thesee comments are just as applicable to assessments under section 211 of the issue.''Family Law Act'':
A more recent case called ''[http://canlii.ca/t/g2nxw Smith v. Smith]'', 2014 BCSC 61 discusses why needs of the child assessments should be ordered.