Advance Orientation (AO) Improves Efficacy, Efficiency, and Participant Satisfaction: Preparing Parents for Parenting Plan Evaluations

When divorcing parents litigate their children’s custody, many courts order the family to participate in a Parenting Plan Evaluation (PPE; formerly known as “child custody evaluation”). PPE is a rigorous, intrusive, time- and dollar-expensive process intended to characterize the family’s dynamics and assist the Court in understanding the children’s best interests. It stands to reason, however, that the anxiety associated with family turmoil compounded by the anxiety associated with the PPE process together undermines the ecological validity of the data thus obtained and thereby risks confounding these goals and doing harm.