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ABSTRACT
The parental gatekeeping, forensic evaluation model for child custody evaluators and other family court practitioners is presented. Gatekeeping refers to the ability of each parent to support the other parent–child relationships. The gatekeeping concept represents a common best interest statutory factor. Patterns or subtypes of gatekeeping are defined: facilitative, restrictive, and protective. A justification analysis is required when a parent is not supportive and/or restrictive on the other parent’s access to the child. The restrictive parent needs to identify the reasons for being restrictive/protective and show the nature of the harm. Relevant research is reviewed on joint parental involvement and gatekeeping. The gatekeeping model is applied to the context of relocation disputes. Relocation is framed as restrictive gatekeeping and the child custody relocation analysis is presented as a justification analysis in terms of the facts, context, reasons for moving, advantages/disadvantages, and legal factors that need to be assessed and considered.
Notes
The authors are sensitive to gender issues concerning the gatekeeping analysis. Most of the research on gatekeeping has concerned maternal gatekeeping in intact families. Previous publications by the authors and others have emphasized that in the context of separation and divorce that the gatekeeping analysis needs to be applied to both parties with a behavioral specific analysis.
The reader again is reminded that in the context of separation and divorce that the gatekeeping analysis needs to be applied to both parents.
The term Protective Gatekeeping was originally proposed by Leslie Drozd in considering gatekeeping in the context of allegations of intimate partner violence in child custody disputes (Austin & Drozd, Citation2006).
There exists both a conservative (Parkinson & Cashmore, Citation2015) and a liberal view (Austin, Citation2016) of benefits of a factorial analysis in a relocation analysis by the court and possibly a custody evaluator.
Some state high courts have explicitly addressed this issue and ruled that trial courts should consider indirect (e.g., benefits to the parent that translate to the child such improved standard of living) as well as direct benefits to the child (In re Marriage of Collingbourne, Citation2003; In re Marriage of Ciesluk, Citation2005).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
William G. Austin
William G. Austin, Ph.D., Austin Child Custody Services and Sol R. Rappaport, Ph.D., Counseling Connections.
Sol Rappaport
William G. Austin, Ph.D., Austin Child Custody Services and Sol R. Rappaport, Ph.D., Counseling Connections.