Expert Witness Assessments
Finding the right expert can be difficult.
We are HCPC registered Clinical Psychologists with years of experience assessing and providing therapy for children and families within CAMHS, private practice and within the family courts.
Particular areas of expertise at Family Law Psychology are developmental trauma, abuse and neglect, family relationships/attachment and autism in girls.
(Dr Quicke also completes assessments for the criminal courts who require her specific expertise. If you require an expert for your client within criminal proceedings, please contact us directly to discuss)
There are many plates to spin as a busy family lawyer so we aim to make our instruction process as easy as possible.
Instruction
- Submit your enquiry HERE and tell us about the issues needing a psychological opinion.
- We’ll send you a filing date, estimated costs and an up to date CV so you have everything for the court.
- Once instructed, we will complete our assessment and send our report to you.
Timescales
We usually file within 8-12 weeks from instruction.
Costs
We charge legal aid rates for public family law cases where legal aid funding has been granted. For more information on costs, please see HERE.
What to Expect – Assessment
Parents
We usually assess parents within their solicitors’ offices. We may also have telephone or zoom calls as part of the assessment. Our assessments are thorough and this takes time, often 4-6 hours in total. We ask parents lots of questions about themselves and their child (if assessing their child too) as well as asking them to do some questionnaires.
Children
We usually assess children within school. It’s normal for parents/carers to be anxious about their child being assessed but we are skilled at helping children feel at ease, whilst gathering the information that’s needed from the assessment. We will play with toys, play games and ask questions, all of which depend on the age of the child. We may complete some questionnaires with them too.
Families
We often spend time with parent(s)/carer(s) and the child(ren) together. We sometimes ask them to do specific tasks. This can feel strange for children and their parents/carers but again, we try to help everyone feel as comfortable as possible. We sometimes see siblings together with and without their parents to understand how they get along.
Other information
To get a full picture of the child(ren) and parent(s), we often ask others, such as teachers and other professionals, for their observations. We also read a lot of documents about the child and parent including their medical records and any documents already submitted to the court.