Difference between revisions of "How Do I Get a Needs of the Child Assessment?"

The professional appointed to prepare the report will usually: interview the child's parents or guardians; interview the children, depending on their age and maturity; watch each parent or guardian interacting with and parenting the children; administer personality and parenting tests to the parents; read any reports that are available about the children's medical and mental health; and, interview a few people who know the family and the children. What the professional actually does will depend on the circumstances of the family and the sort of report they have been asked to write.  

The report the professional will prepare is called a ''needs of the child assessment'', and will provide a summary of what the professional has learned about the family, as well as the professional's opinion about what is in the best interests of the children. (You might also hear these reports called ''section 211 reports''. Under the old ''[http://canlii.ca/t/ldg3 Family Relations Act]'', these reports were called ''section 15 reports'' or ''custody and access reports''.) These reports are intended to be neutral and prepared without bias. They are ''evaluative'' because the professional is providing their expert opinion about the parents or guardians, the children, and the arrangements that are best for the children.

Family justice counsellors are public employees. Their reports are free as part of the Family Justice Report Service, but they are in very high demand and there is usually a long delay. The only way to be referred to the service is by court order. Once the Family Justice Report Service receives both a copy of the court order and the referral form from the court registry, the report will be placed on a list for assignment to a family justice counsellor.

Not all family justice counsellors are trained to prepare needs of the child asssessments, and the delay between requesting a report to getting it done might be up to a year. You can call the Family Justice Report Service at 604-851-7059 or find a [http://www.clicklaw.bc.ca/helpmap/service/1019 Family Justice Centre] near you to learn more about the service.

As an alternative, you can pay for a report to be prepared by a social worker, clinical counsellor, or psychologist. These can generally be done much faster, but they come at a higher cost. The fees for reports prepared by psychologists typically range between $5,000 and $20,000, depending on the number of children involved, where the children and the parents or guardians live, and the amount of work that needs to be done.

* contact the [http://www.findapsychologist.ca Canadian Register of Health Service Psychologists] for a referral.

You can find more information about needs of the child assessments in the chapter [[Children in Family Law Matters]].  

{{REVIEWED | reviewer = [[Megan Ellis | Megan Ellis, QC]], June 11, 2019}}

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