Choosing a therapist for your child often feels daunting because it’s an important decision in the divorce process. Today’s guest offers invaluable advice on what to look for in a therapy professional.
On this episode of Children First Family Law, Krista welcomes child custody expert and Texas-licensed professional counselor Christy Bradshaw Schmidt. Christy has served as a private child custody evaluator since 2003, having completed more than 600 evaluations for families. She also serves as a private consultant and expert witness in family law matters like constructing parenting plans for kids less than three years old, relocation, reunification, and parent-child contact problems, among other topics. Christy is also a leading voice in helping therapists understand boundaries in high-conflict cases, the appropriate roles of mental health professionals in family law matters, and why selecting appropriate therapists for court-involved families is critical. Christy is the author of hundreds of articles and presentations surrounding issues related to children and family courts.
Krista and Christy begin their discussion by delving into Christy’s journey working with court-involved families. Christy explains the problem with therapists’ training, why nearly all cases requiring child custody evaluations also require therapeutic resources, and her experience with 600+ custody evaluations, with 90% of those including recommendations for therapy. You’ll hear specific ways parents can find the best and most appropriate mental health professionals and why more therapists need to enter this line of work. Krista and Christy cover the necessity of transparency between therapists and both parents, Christy’s process for dealing with parent-child contact cases, and why family law is an incredible career focus area for mental health professionals who can find many satisfying rewards in helping families flourish.
Divorce is incredibly distressing for children and families. Involving a qualified therapist can help guide parents to help children and parents cope with divorce realities and meet individual and coparenting needs moving forward.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Christy Bradshaw Schmidt’s journey into working with court-involved families
- The problem with therapists’ training, fostering fear in working with court-involved families
- Why nearly all child custody evaluations recommend therapeutic resources to help fix the problems
- The incredible dearth of trained professionals willing to do this critically important work, for example about 25 in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, area, demonstrating the serious issues of supply and demand mismatch for families going through divorce and needing help
- Specific ways parents can find the best, most appropriate mental health professionals by using the right keywords and asking the right questions
- The problems and likely damage parents face when they choose the wrong mental health professionals
- Why more therapists need to go into this line of work
- Therapists’ basic training that makes them ill-equipped to do this work
- How therapists can obtain the necessary skills to help court-involved families
- The importance of therapists for the family to work with one another and communicate regularly
- The need for transparency between therapists and both parents
- Rebuilding and fostering trust between parents
- Ethics considerations for therapists involved with court-involved families
- Why mental health professionals should testify regarding their work when parents go to court in family law cases
- The process Christy would use in a family with parent-child contact problems
- What other states can learn from Texas, which created rule changes around grieving therapists in these cases, giving them more protection and allowing more therapists to be willing to do this important work
- Why Christy believes family law is an incredible area in which mental health professionals can focus one’s career, giving therapists so many opportunities to help families flourish despite the breakdown caused by divorce
Resources from this Episode
www.childrenfirstfamilylaw.com
txfamilylawforensics.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/CV-combined-version-with-CE-5425feb.pdf
All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation.
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Choosing Your Child’s Therapist with Child Custody Expert & LPC Christy Bradshaw Schmidt Podcast Transcript
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 00:00
There’s potential for harm to your family and to your child. That sounds pretty extreme, but that’s just what it is. Because if you’re going in and you’re taking your child to a therapist, if they think it’s okay just to talk to you and not include the other parent, that’s a red flag. Because when that individual gets on the witness stand and they’ve heard one side of the story and they’ve believed one side of the story 100% that is ripe for cross examination because they’re not considering that. They’re, you know, a child’s life, it’s a puzzle, right? And that child is half mom, half dad, half Mom, mom, half Dad, Dad. However, their family structure is set up, and if you leave one part of that out, that’s a big gaping hole in your assessment of that child or that family. And so part of it is, you’ve got to have somebody who’s not going to believe this. Sounds horrible, not going to believe every believe everything their client tells you, and you know, so if you’re the parent, they’re not going to believe everything they tell you. It doesn’t mean you know that you’re not a trustworthy person who’s talking to them. But they really need to go, Okay, so that’s your because there’s always two sides to every story. So that’s your side of the story. They’ve just got to wonder, what’s the other side of the story? And what’s this child telling me, if they’re treating the child, you know, and is what the child telling me true, or they experience of the world kind of tainting what they’re seeing, because their life experience is so limited at that point. You want people who are really able to think and consider outside of just what they’re hearing in their office, what else might be going on. And you really want therapists who aren’t focusing on telling you that your ex is a narcissist, or your ex is a borderline. If you’re in individual therapy as a parent, you want somebody who’s going, Okay, so let’s say that’s what’s going on. How do I help you deal with that? Because at the end of the day, we can’t control what our CO parent is doing. We can’t control what our CO parent is doing with our child. We can control what we do in response to that, and you need therapists who are helping you or your child learn the coping skills to manage their life and their circumstances. That’s both parenting in a single parent home after a separation or divorce, co parenting a child after a separation or divorce, or just helping a child learn to manage that transition between two homes and having two houses. It’s all about coping skill development. It’s not about light.
Intro/Outro 02:02
Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast. Our host, Krista Nash, is an attorney, mediator, a parenting coordinator, and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level, Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice. As always, please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.
Krista Nash 02:52
Today, on the podcast, we welcome Texas Licensed Professional Counselor and nationally engaged child custody expert Christy Bradshaw Schmidt, since 2003 Christy has served as a private child custody evaluator, having completed more than 600 evaluations for families. She also serves as a private consultant and expert witness in family law matters related to issues such as how to construct parenting plans for kids under three years old, relocation, reunification, parent child, contact problems and many other topics. Christie is a leading voice in helping therapists understand boundaries in high conflict cases, the appropriate roles of mental health professionals in family law matters and why the selection of therapists for court involved families is so critically important. Additionally, Christie has authored and provided hundreds of articles and presentations about issues relating to children and family courts. Parents will gain from this episode’s focus on how to pick the right therapist for children in divorce situations and mental health professionals will gain from understanding their vitally important role and necessary approach to help court involved parents, including why they need to expect and embrace testifying in these cases. We hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Children First Family Law Podcast. I’m really glad you’re all with us today, I’m excited to welcome Christy Bradshaw Schmidt, who is coming to us from the Dallas Fort Worth, Texas area and has a lot to share. As she has been on the front lines for many, many years as a licensed professional counselor. She does custody evaluations and expert work, and for a long time did therapeutic work, though she’s not doing therapy now, but has a lot to help share both with parents and professionals about things to think about in the family law context. So Christy, welcome. Thanks for doing this with me today. Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be here. Yeah. So we, as we were prepping for this, talked about first, I want to hear a little bit about how you got into this work and. I think we will potentially first talk about an audience of parents, right? And parents, what should you be thinking about as you’re looking at how to help your children and how to find the right resources of therapists, because there’s certain rights and wrongs in terms of being in a high conflict or any kind of divorce situation, right? So we’ll talk about that, and then we’re going to pivot a little bit and talk later about what therapists in particular should be thinking about. There’s a lot of fear a lot of therapists have about getting involved in these court involved families and whether they should testify, and what their notes look like, and things like that. So if you’re a therapist, maybe listen to the beginning and then fast forward toward the middle to end of this so you can hear the specific thoughts that Christy can share about what you need to think about in your own practice. So with that, help us understand kind of how you got into this work, as opposed to just doing typical therapy. I
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 05:52
fell into this work when I went to grad school 30 years ago. We weren’t taught this. This is not a field of study that I even knew existed if I told you what my grad professor told me to do with my notes, if I would subpoena it, it would curl your toes, because it’s not what you’re supposed to do. But when I got out of grad school, I actually worked, initially, working in residential treatment, working with adolescents and young adults who struggled with substance abuse and mental health issues. I worked with pregnant and postpartum women who struggled with those similar issues, and then I ended up in inpatient care and day hospital care and working IOP and doing some individual therapy on the side, until I got fed up with managed care, right? Like do more with less. And so I started looking for a job. And this was back in the day where you looked for a job in the newspaper. That’s helpful job. Yeah, there was a job yeah, there’s a job at Family Court Services. We have those offices here in Texas in five different major counties that do custody evaluations, or what we call them, social studies, back 25 years ago. And so I started working there, worked there for six years, and then went out on my own. So I and I had no idea this existed before that. Yeah,
Krista Nash 06:58
I think it’s interesting, because I think it’s still pretty true that there’s in most therapy training. This is not something that you could talk about marriage counseling and you can talk about family work. But is that your experience, that it’s still true that sort of this forensic, kind of high conflict court families that are involved in this is not something that is really taught very solidly. There’s a
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 07:21
few programs throughout the country. I know Alabama has a psychology and law program at the University of Alabama, so there are some of those. But most of what I’m seeing now is, if they talk about it at all, it’s talk about from the fear mentality, avoid at all cost. And they’re not really trained how to lean into that, how to do that, well, how to not be fearful of that, because as much as you may want to avoid working with court involved families, if you work with children, if you work with couples, if you work with families, and even if you work with adults, there’s a chance there at some point you’re going to get pulled into a Family Law matter. It’s just the luck of the draw, right?
Krista Nash 07:55
I mean, when you look at the incidents of divorce and all of that, you’re going to have kids that are that are definitely going through that, right? Okay, so talking then to parents, let me get a little more background on your therapeutic work for a while. Did you do therapy with kids, with families like what was the extent of your own therapeutic practice? Most
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 08:15
of my therapy practice was in residential, inpatient and Day Hospital. I ran an individual therapy practice outside of that, working with kids and families, primarily, I did a couple of play therapy cases until I realized that was not my jam. Landed my rear end in court twice on that and realized that my supervisor gave me that information. Okay, so I worked family systems, work within the addiction and mental health and dual diagnosis world. That was my five years before I got into this. And then, thankfully, when you work for the county system, you are doing 52 custody evaluations a year, give or take. Wow, it’s baptism by fire, so to speak, and so. But my therapy work came out of really working with families struggling with addiction and mental health issues, and primarily with kids. So I was dealing with parents who were married, parents who were separated, parents who were in the middle of a divorce. Got called. Divorce, got called in the corner on a couple of those because it just comes with the
Krista Nash 09:06
territory. Yeah. Okay, so then if you’re now, you’ve got an interesting seat in the role of custody evaluator. I will just say that the custody evaluation is called different things across the country and the world. In Colorado, where I mostly practice, we have Child and Family investigators, which are the lower level that don’t involve psychological evaluations. Our parental responsibility evaluators handle a broader, more in depth approach, including psychological evaluations. Do the ones you do involve psych evals with
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 09:36
parents, they do not. We are called Child Custody evaluations nationally. Obviously, we’re all making a shift to parenting plan evaluations, but evaluations, but you’re absolutely right. All over the country, all over the world, they’re called different things in different states, in our what, how our law is written, they are custody evaluations across the board. If you are a PhD psychologist or a master’s level trained in doing testing, you can we are all to look for whether or not testing is needed and. And if I, as one who does not do psychological testing, gets into an evaluation and say, you know, I really think I need some psychological testing here. I need some more hypotheses about what’s going on psychologically with these individuals and their psychological functioning, I have the ability, and my law actually dictates that I asked for the court to appoint someone to do psychological evaluation, psychological testing. That’s true
Krista Nash 10:19
in Colorado as well, if you’re appointed as a CFI, but you think it needs more like if you think it needs a substance use evaluation, or you think it needs a mental health testing, then you are required to go and bring that to the court and parties and say that you need that. So that sounds really similar. Okay, so you start these child custody evaluations. How many think you’ve done? And let me say one other thing people say all the time, and I’ve said this on the show before, but I just want to double down on this. The reason we don’t like calling this custody is because it’s like it’s chattel, like it’s things that you own, like I have custody of a chair, right? And so we don’t like to treat kids that way, even though the law used to treat kids that way. It’s a mind shift for everybody who works in the field to call it parenting plan evaluations or parenting time evaluations, but we often say custody, because, as my marketing people will tell me, that’s what everybody still Googles. So just know that’s why you hear this tension if you’re listening to the podcast, about this difference between calling it custody and calling it something else. But it also is true that parents still use that far more than they call it parenting time. So if I use custody it’s not because I don’t get the difference. It’s just because I’m recognizing the lingo. Is what it is. Okay. So how many child custody evaluations do you think you’ve done on or around 600 or a little more? What percentage do you think involve a therapeutic recommendation, meaning, I think you need to get some therapy
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 11:40
over 90% okay, for either a child, a parent, both parents, or the entire system, it just depends. But there’s gotta be what I term referral recommendations. There are always referral recommendations. If I had to guess it’s 90% have some form of therapeutic component or a parenting coordination component,
Krista Nash 11:58
yeah, and I think that’s really interesting, because I agree I sound like a broken record. I did these evaluations, and still am able to do them in Colorado, but I now have shifted my practice to the best practice attorney role, because I find it so much more fulfilling and probative and helpful, because I can do all that investigative work, but I can also sit at the table and push and push and pull and prod and try to get everybody, you know, get this solved. So when I was a CFI, and now it’s in probably 90% of the cases that I recommended therapy. And I recommend therapy, and so I ask you that just to double down on the issue that you can see where now that problem comes because what percentage of therapists do you think are willing to do these cases? I mean, you have anything like of all the therapists in the world. Is it 1% of them? Is it 10% of them? It’s something far, far lower than we need who are asking to do this. It’s absolutely
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 12:55
far, far lower of a percentage. And I didn’t major in math for a reason. She says math is hard. Judge Willis, and I support that math is hard. I mean, if I look at my community, which Dallas Fort Worth is as large as it is, yeah, if there’s 25 that I would trust that’s a really high number. And obviously that varies from, do they treat adults? Do they treat children? Do they treat families? Do they do parent child? Do they work with families experiencing parent child contact problems? But, I mean, it’s a low number, yeah, and we have more in Dallas Fort Worth than, say, Austin has or Houston has very, very few. And it’s an issue. We’ve talked about this. I’ve presented even at AFCC conferences. On a national level. It’s an issue everywhere. From what I’m hearing,
Krista Nash 13:36
I am a broken record in saying in the Denver Metro area two families. No, I only have five who I’ll use, right, or whatever. Maybe there’s a few around the edges. It might be 10, but there aren’t really more than that. It’s kind of like finding a good CLR. Like, it’s like that CLR meaning a best interest attorney. Like, there’s just not very many that do it really well. And so this is part of why I think people get maybe, hopefully, people aren’t tired of it, but they might be already tired. Already tired on my baby podcast of all these mental health people I keep bringing on, but I need parents and professionals to understand how important psychologists and licensed professional counselors and mental health professionals who do this work are, and how we need so many more, and how parents have to be really careful. Because, how would they know that? How would they know that the therapist that they could get off of their corner, you know, ad or their insurance list? How would they possibly think that with 50% of the people getting divorced, that there’s only 25 in Dallas Fort Worth, and maybe 10 in Denver to choose from that would be the ones that could actually help them and the going to somebody else might do harm. So let’s talk about that from parents. I just want everybody to understand, almost all of our cases need this, and almost none of them get the right resources. It’s a massive, massive supply and demand problem, right? So part of. This is of having Christy on is that I want parents to understand, whoa, I better be careful, and I better go get this as soon as possible. Because the other problem is that by the time you get to child custody evaluators and divorce land and hearings, now you guys are dug in even more in the case is even worse, and the situation is even worse, and so we might have done more harm. So I wish I could beg everyone to grab these resources, figure out who the resources are in their communities, make sure they’re asking the right questions, to make sure that they’re getting the right people for their children, and then do it soon, soon, soon, soon, right? As soon as possible, like we want you doing this pre decree, if possible, meaning, before you get divorced, and it’s final, not just when you’ve been fighting for 10 years, right? Separation?
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 15:42
There’s a concept somebody to help you tell the kid Exactly.
Krista Nash 15:45
So, alright, so given that bad supply and demand situation, when you’re a parent and you’re just coming to this issue that your family, you’re realizing that your family is not going to be how you wanted it to be initially. And maybe you’re at separation, or maybe you’re just filed or whatever, what would you advise parents look for in terms of who are the right resources for their for their situation, especially for their children, but maybe for themselves as
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 16:11
well. Well, let’s start with the kiddos. If you have an attorney, my first recommendation would be ask your attorney. If anybody’s if you have a family law attorney or one who primarily practices in field of family law, ask them who they use, who’s on your list, and not only who’s on your list, but if you’ve already filed with the court, who does your judge like? Who does your judge trust? So that’s always a great place to start, because you’re dealing with professionals who are number one in those courtrooms. Every day they see these individuals testify, every day. They know who these judges trust and don’t trust. They’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to professionals. So that is your best place to start if you are representing yourself. I’m going to say, do a Google search, but I will say, only start there. As much as I would love that there are all these wonderful professionals on insurance panels who work with court involved families. That’s not my experience. And I will tell you, most who are on insurance panels, at least in my experience, will say they’re happy to work with court involved families. And it’s not that their hearts in the not in the right place. It’s not that they’re not trying to be helpful to families. They just don’t know what. They don’t know.
Krista Nash 17:17
Did you say they’re they’ll usually say they are happy to work with court involved families, but they don’t know what they don’t know. So those
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 17:23
who are willing to do it don’t know what they don’t know. Some will say, Absolutely not. I’m not touching it with a 10 foot pole. But those who lean into it and are quickly like, Yeah, I’ll take your there. We have Facebook pages of you know, I’m looking for a therapist to work in this arena, and it’s made up of therapists. And all the time there’s court involved questions, and the list of 30 that are willing to work with them, I’m like, I’ve never heard of you, and I’ve done this for 25 years in my community. And when I go looking on their website or trying to see they’re not members of AFCC, the Association of family and conciliation courts, their last five continuing educations were related to, you know, school education or issues that may peripherally have to do with what we deal with, with the families we serve, but it’s not court involved cases. These are not the ones attending the trainings and getting the education training experience that they need. A lot of them where I practice are associates. They’re coming in, still working to get a full license. A lot of these cases, you don’t need somebody who has an associate degree. Yeah,
Krista Nash 18:23
we have that in Colorado too. I think it’s called, oh, it’s like, like, LPCC or something like that. Like, it’s like, you’re in training under somebody
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 18:33
else, right? And they’ve got to get their training somewhere. And if you have a case, and if they’re under supervision with a court involved therapist, that’s a consideration, especially if money is tight, because we know this can be expensive. Litigation is expensive period, but I want to be supervised somebody
Krista Nash 18:49
who knows what they’re doing. All the people that I would recommend are part I happen to be involved myself with AFCC, and a lot of my guests have been associated with AFCC, but that’s because there is so much thought leading going on about this at AFCC. So again, I’ll put in my show notes a link to the AFCC national site and the local Colorado, one in Texas one. But I think all the people of the 10 or whatever, they’re all on that list. It doesn’t mean I would go with anybody on the list, but all 10 of them are on there, and so that’s maybe a good practice tip for parents, at least, to say, Hey, I went to the AFCC list, and I found these people. What do you think about them? Ask your attorney, ask around, and then what else should they be asking? What else should parents do to vet this? You mentioned
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 19:36
cles. I’m gonna back up just a second. If you go to the AFCC, it’s AFCC net.org, website, even if you’re not a member, you can get to their practice guidelines. There are guidelines for therapists who work with court involved families, so you can go on and read what they’re supposed to do if they’re treating your child, what they’re supposed to do if they’re treating you. So you kind of know the lingo, and you kind of understand what’s best practice, so you know what you’re looking for. But. Gonna go Google them? Yeah, you’re looking Are you having training in trauma? Have you had training in course of control and intimate partner violence? Have you had training in working with court involved families? Have you had training in mental health issues in court involved families? That’s kind of the stuff you’re looking for. And if you look at their website, do they have a list of 30 things that they’re experts in? Nobody can be an expert in 30 things. But if there’s nothing on their webpage that says court involved, that’s a red flag for me, because I see a lot of therapists will raise their hand and say, I work with these families, and when I go to their website, there’s not a word about it. So if this is something you’re doing and doing regularly, I don’t say you’re marketing to that. I hate to say that, but you’re at least educating people that this is an arena that you’re trained in and that you’re qualified to work within.
Krista Nash 20:43
What’s the risk of picking somebody? I get this a lot like, Oh, I found somebody that I’ll take, especially with wait lists and the few number of people doing this. I mean, it’s really hard to hit them at the right time to take these cases, and there’s so many more than they can actually take. And so people will just get desperate and they’re like, Well, I found this other person, or my friend told me this, or I saw this on a Facebook page, or whatever, is this person? Okay? If we don’t see this, you know, every once in a while, it’s like finding a diamond in a pile, right? It’s like, oh, this person’s actually pretty good, you know, I take it back. This person really does have the right, you know, she might need some mentoring, or I might need some mentoring, but she’s got kind of the right approach to this. What’s the risk of going to somebody who says they are court involved, or doesn’t even say they’re court involved? You know, what’s the opportunity cost there of going to somebody who isn’t going to actually have that correct background? There’s
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 21:33
potential for harm to your family and to your child? That sounds pretty extreme, but that’s just what it is. Because if you’re going in and you’re taking your child to a therapist if they think it’s okay just to talk to you and not include the other parent. That’s a red flag, because when that individual gets on the witness stand and they’ve heard one side of the story and they’ve believed one side of the story 100% that is ripe for cross examination, because they’re not considering that, they’re, you know, a child’s life, it’s a puzzle, right? And that child is half mom, half dad, half Mom, mom, half Dad, Dad. However, their family structure is set up, and if you leave one part of that out, that’s a big gaping hole in your assessment of that child or that family. And so part of it is you’ve got to have somebody who’s not going to believe this. Sounds horrible, not going to believe everything their client tells you. And you know, so if you’re the parent, they’re not going to believe everything they tell you. It doesn’t mean that you’re not a trustworthy person. Trustworthy person who’s talking to them, but they really need to go, Okay, so that’s your because there’s always two sides to every story. So that’s your side of the story. They’ve just gotta wonder, what’s the other side of the story? And what’s this child telling me, if they’re treating the child, you know, and is what the child telling me true? Or they experience of the world kind of taining what they’re seeing, because their life experience is so limited at that point, you want people who are really able to think and consider outside of just what they’re hearing in their office, what else might be going on. And you really want therapists who aren’t focusing on telling you that your ex is a narcissist or your ex is a borderline, if you’re an individual therapy as a parent, you want somebody who’s going, Okay, so let’s say that’s what’s going on. How do I help you deal with that? Because at the end of the day, we can’t control what our CO parent is doing. We can’t control what our CO parent is doing with our child. We can control what we do in response to that, and you need therapists who are helping you or your child learn the coping skills to manage their life and their circumstances. That’s both parenting in a single parent home after a separation or divorce, co parenting a child after a separation or divorce, or just helping a child learn to manage that transition between two homes and having two houses. It’s all about coping skill development. It’s not about blame. And if you’ve got a therapist who wants to take up their torch for you and go to court and advocate for you. That’s a red flag, because that’s not their job. Their job is to help you cope with what’s going on, and if they have to go to court, it’s educate the court
Krista Nash 23:48
on what’s going on. So we get therapists that have been around a while, too, with a kid, right? And the kid’s been seeing this therapist for quite sometimes, sometimes they’re seeing more than just the kid, they might be seeing mom and the kid, right? That’s a whole nother issue. But how do therapists think through the issue of this is my client. My job is to, I hear this a lot. My job is to believe my client and to meet my client, where that client is, and that’s my only job. And
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 24:15
I don’t think that’s what therapy is. That’s not how I was trained as a therapist. Certainly, there are different types of therapy, and we all have different, you know, fields of or theories of study that we utilize. I’m eclectic. I, like a whole bunch of them, working with families, but if it’s just I go in and believe what they say, and work, I don’t disagree. You have to meet them where they are, because you do. You’ve got to meet them where they are. You got to establish rapport. But therapy is not about coming in and get to be the you know, I get to go in and gripe every week for an hour, and then I feel better. I have a therapist I work with here, doctor Victoria Harvey, who’s like, you got five minutes to complain, and then we’re getting busy, because the goal is not to let’s get into therapy. Let’s resolve whatever’s going on. Let’s learn some coping skills. Come back and see me when you need me. It’s not this ongoing. You’re going to come see me for the. Rest of your life, especially with children, because if you get children into a situation that goes badly or in a situation that they have a bad experience, they may never reach out and do therapy again as an adult. Yeah, that’s a huge risk for children, especially those who really struggle with significant mental health issues or substance abuse issues that they no longer trust the therapeutic system. So we really want their especially if it’s their first involvement in therapy, to be really positive and something where they learn something and they’re not there forever. No child wants to get pulled out of school for the next 18 years, or however many years until they turn 18 and go to therapy if they’re feeling better and they’re doing well, some kids need that, but not all of them do. So let’s say
Krista Nash 25:38
we’ve got a parent. This is a very common now, you know, you get this with child custody evaluations too, but I frequently am put on cases where we have parent child contact problems. Is what we’re calling it. Now, resist, refuse dynamics. There’s a lot of different labels in that. Kind of keep morphing, right? I think right now it’s parent child contact problems and you’ve got a parent, I think, let’s just say hypothetically, because this is a very, very common you’ve got a parent who genuinely believes, for either valid or not valid or a mixture of reasons, that the child is better off without the other parent. You’ve got a child choosing the one parent. Sometimes we have domestic violence. I don’t know if that even needs to be part of this, because that’s a different it’s really different analysis. But let’s just say there isn’t okay for this hypothetical and the preferred parent is not genuinely does not want this to succeed, right? Genuinely does not believe that the child should be making this better with the other parent. How do you explain, either in your custody evaluations or in your work with parents that first of all, what’s your perception that the child you know, does the child need both, and what’s the risk if the child doesn’t have both? And how do you help that preferred parent understand that the child’s adopting that parent’s view isn’t healthy. That’s a constant problem I have is trying to get parents to understand I’m not actually helping my child by rubber stamping these choices. Right? Now, right? How do you navigate that? It’s a big question. Well, certainly,
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 27:08
where I practice from a legal perspective, children have a right to have relationship with both their parents unless there’s an absolute reason not to. So that’s first and foremost. So it’s part of it is a little reality testing, right? The courts going to order likely that your child’s going to see both their parents, and so we’ve got to help your child have the skill to do that. If there’s been estrangement for valid reasons, because there’s been substance abuse or mental health issues that have been scary or whatever, then we want the offending parent to get effective treatment. We want the child to get treatment, family therapy. Ideally, if the whole family can get treatment, and that sometimes can help the preferred parent who’s fearful kind of put their guard down and find some trust in that. But if we’ve got somebody who just has that belief that may not be based in, you know, realistic circumstances in their family system, especially when I’m doing consulting behind the scenes and parent coaching behind the scenes, it’s real, honest conversations, you’ve got to get into therapy, because I don’t know where this perception is coming from, but this is going to harm your child, and it’s going to harm you if you get if your child gets to adulthood and has no relationship with their other parent, or doesn’t know how to navigate even a potentially less than healthy relationship with the other parent, they’re going out into the world seeking a mate, potentially without the skills To know how to do that right? And children will pick somebody similar to that, or pick somebody the opposite of that. And the goal in parenting children, obviously, is to get them to adulthood successfully, where they have the skills to be independent and self sufficient and know how to navigate relationships. That’s friendships, that’s intimate relationships, that’s, you know, relationships with bosses and teachers and whoever they come in contact with in a way that’s healthy, where they can communicate assertively, where they have healthy boundaries, where they know how to stand up for themselves, where they know how to be kind in circumstances, while doing all of those things that are hard. And it’s your job as a parent to help them get those skills before they’re 18, and if their other parent is, let’s say, for hypothetical purposes, they are a problem not allowing your child to get the coping skills to learn how to navigate that relationship sends them to adulthood with no skills, versus when they’re in your home and you’re parenting, you have the ability to teach them those skills, or get them into therapy where they learn those skills, so when they get to adulthood, I think every parent wants their child to be a healthy, happy, functioning adult, and if that’s not the case, that’s a whole nother set of concerns to look at, right? So that is your question. Yeah,
Krista Nash 29:29
it does. It’s just hard. I just think I hear a lot from therapists and other mental health professionals that the linchpin role of these relationships is usually the preferred parent, absolutely. And so people like, Why do I have to go to therapy? I don’t want to go to therapy. I don’t want to do family systems therapy. It’s not my fault that the dad’s a jerk and the kid doesn’t like the dad, or the mom’s a jerk, or a kid doesn’t like the mom, or whatever the situation is. It’s not my thing. Why should I have to do for it? Why should I have to pay for it? Why should I have to be involved at all? And it takes a while, I think. We start getting some ground when we get that preferred parent to understand the critical role that he or she is in. They’re
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 30:07
part of the system. If we leave them out, change is significantly harder to achieve, and at the end of the day, they’re a big piece of that puzzle. And nobody’s perfect, yeah, I don’t care if you live in a little sweet, intact family with your white picket fence. No, parent’s perfect. And so we offer things we can do differently, especially in these situations. If you were giving
Krista Nash 30:27
people guidance on how to look for therapists in this situation, would you be suggesting generally that we need what I would call family systems work. And what does that mean? Does that mean? If so, what does that mean? Is it just as good to have a child have a therapist who both parents are able to talk to and work with, or is it better to have, you know, a multi therapist group practice where each person has their own or one therapist working with everyone? How does that generally work? I know a lot of this involves ethics rules, because therapists are usually state by state, and unless they’re on unless there’s a few exceptions, they have to work within their state. But what are the ethics of that? And what should parents be looking for? Ideally? I mean ideal
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 31:07
world, if the money’s there and that’s always the problem, right? Or do these families have the money to pay for it? Ideally, especially if you have parent child contact problems and there’s resistance or refusal in a parent child relationship, ideally, you have a family therapist, and each member of that family has a therapist. Sometimes you even have a parenting coordinator, and the goal is they’re all talking regularly, not all doing what we call siloed work. In their own little world. There needs to be communication. You need to sometimes the head of that team is your family therapist. Sometimes the head of that team is your parenting coordinator. Just depends. But that’s perfect world. And I don’t think any of us really live in a perfect world. I think from there, it really depends on the facts of your case. If you have a child who’s really struggling and has significant either mental health issues or coping skills issues, or they’re just really struggling to function, that’s that’s your go to, that’s your first therapist is to get somebody to help that child who is going to include both parents equally, and if they’re not going to include them. Equally, there’s transparency as to why. Everybody knows, hey, I’m bringing mom in because that there was an issue at mom’s house about some discipline thing this weekend. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes, or vice versa issue at the other parent’s home. So the Transparency is key, and that doesn’t mean we’re outing everything the kids telling us. It just means, if I’m meeting with one parent more than the other, they know why. It’s not a secret. I’m not doing it behind somebody’s back to cause people to wonder if somebody’s gotten in cahoots with somebody else. There’s a lot of distrust when people separate and are getting divorced, and that adds to that. And then if you’ve got a parent who’s got a mental health issue or substance abuse issue or bad behavior, then that’s the person who needs the therapist, and maybe it’s one parent has a therapist and one kiddo, and then that one parent’s involved in the child’s that other parents involved in that child’s therapy. It really is case by case, you just kind of got to triage your case and meet the needs that where’s the most bleeding. I hate to say it that way, but that’s what you’re looking for. And where do I start there, and then work my way out to who else needs help, but ideal? Yes, there are ethical goals. A therapist cannot treat two people because who’s your client, right? A family therapist, the family’s the client, right? Texas is big. Colorado is too. You get in some of those smaller rural communities, there’s nobody out there, and they’re doing the best they can. And the key for those therapists is, I’m like number one, thank you for doing the work you’re doing, right? But at the end of the day, be transparent. Don’t let any you know. Your overarching process does not need to be a secret when you’re meeting with, whom you’re meeting, and why you’re doing it, and your treatment plan needs to be something that everybody knows. That’s not saying. We’re just saying every word that’s coming out of everybody’s mouth in a session. That’s not what therapy is. But people don’t need to wonder what you’re doing. And if you’ve got people who are willing to be transparent and going to meet with both people. Those are the kind of therapists you’re really looking for for your children when you’re out there, kind of on your own, doing the research. You don’t want somebody who’s like, No, I’m happy to start without the other person. No, they don’t have to sign my informed consent. Even if you have all the rights to take them to therapy, they should still be getting the paperwork from the other parent. Because, again, that child is a part of both of those parents, potentially living in both of those homes.
Krista Nash 34:04
So even if that feels good to a parent like, Yay, I have all the power, all the control. I’m the favorite parent. This is great. I’m going to go control all this. I’m going to pick the therapist. I’m going to take the kid that I love, that the therapist couldn’t care less, to talk to the other parent. That should be a pretty massive red flag.
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 34:21
That is a red flag. Yeah, that is a red flag because, I mean, at the end of the day, if I’m going to treat a child or anybody in the family system, but especially a child who has two parents and goes between two homes, I need to know what’s going on in both houses. I need to know who both these people are. It’s going to help me better, help your child and do so more efficiently as well.
Krista Nash 34:38
I’m looking to a document you provided to me that I’m going to just kind of run through with you as well. Through with you as well, because you have a lot of good tips on there, of things that parents can do to find. So another one that we’ve can add is that to check that the person is licensed and that their license is in good standing, I can provide the link on that on my show notes, but it’s basically there’s a online search to verify. Buy a license, really, in any state, like through Colorado, so Dora, there’s a Texas one through the Texas behavioral health Executive Council, every state is going to have ability for you to check a license. By the way, you can do that with doctors and attorneys too. So that’s something you might want to look when you’re hiring, really, or choosing kind of any professional. But that would be the first step, right? And then you said, Ask the professional you’re considering to provide you a copy of their CV, which is the Latin term for your their resume, basically. And then that way they can determine the employment history to be able to see it. Should say something about court involved families, right? Your third one is ensuring that the mental health professional is willing to testify and be involved with a family in active litigation, and so let’s pause on that one a little bit. Certainly make any comments you want to about the CV or the licensing, I think we should pause about this thing, about testifying, because so many therapists won’t testify. Okay, not just don’t want to. They say they won’t. Now, lawyers can always issue subpoenas, but if you drag somebody kicking and screaming into court, they’re not very helpful anyway. So even if with a subpoena, they’ll do it if they really are against it and don’t think that it, if they’re too scared of it or they haven’t navigated how they’re going to do this, I think they’re the wrong fit, right. Also, if you invest interest attorney or child custody evaluator on board, absolutely they need to be able to talk to these people, and if they won’t, they’re not a good fit. Like you can just tell right off the bat, they’re not a good fit. So let’s talk about that a little bit. Let’s talk about it from the parent perspective, and then we can talk about it kind of at the end of our time together from the actual professional standpoint. So why is it important that the person testify be able to testify?
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 36:43
Well, number one, from a custody evaluator perspective, that’s a large portion of my data, because they should be neutral, right? And they should not have a dog in this hunt, so to speak. And my job, where I practice, is to verify statements of fact to the extent possible. They’re a massive data point in my custody evaluation, and if they won’t talk to me or be honest with me about what’s going on in their office, that’s a huge chunk of my puzzle that I’m trying to put together that’s missing because they know that child. They see that child every week, every other week, once a month. Way more than a custody evaluator is going to see them. Same goes for the court. If they’re they know this child more than that judge. That judge likely has never met that child unless there’s a child interview, and even then, that’s a short amount of time, they really can be that without advocating, be that mouthpiece for that this child to come in and tell the court, this is who this child is. This is their personality. These are the things they do well. These are their strengths. These are their areas of growth that we’re working on. This is the treatment plan that we’re working on. Here’s where they’re struggling in their relationship with parent a, here’s where they’re struggling in their relationship with parent B, you know? And this is what I need to be able to continue to help my client. And so often they’re so scared that they’re going to run their relationship with their child client, or even their adult client by going to court. And while, yes, if you don’t have education, training, experience on being in a courtroom and kind of understanding that art and science of how to do that effectively, yes, you can say things that would damage the therapeutic relationship, but some of that is teeing it up before you go. If you have an adult client, it’s like, so I’m going to go to court, and here’s what I’m going to say about you. About you, and they already know. So anything that comes out your mouth is not a surprise. Same for the child. You can say, I’m gonna talk about your treatment plan. I’m gonna talk about this is what you’re doing. Well, I’m gonna talk about, this is what we’re still working on. And guess what? If they’ve been transparent with their client, their client already knows that, right? Someone secret. So a lot of the stuff you do on the front end of working with these families makes testimony a lot easier. Versus if you set it up where they think this is their safe space and nothing’s ever going to leave this room, they can tell you anything and everything they want to do, versus saying, Look, Mom and Dad could get your records at any time, or parent a and parent B could get your records at any time. And it doesn’t mean don’t talk to me. It’s just about how you tee that up with the kiddo, so that they kind of understand the expectations, and then they kind of know what to expect. Yeah,
Krista Nash 39:05
and what I would say to add to that is, as a child advocate who is an attorney representing the best interests of children, oftentimes I’ll be given the privilege of the kid. There’s a lot we probably aren’t going to get into about who holds the privilege and the age of privilege, because it’s different in different states. It’s not that. It’s not important. It’s just kind of a bunny trail that I want to go down to right this moment. But what I will say is I am able working with kids of any age, like even kids that have their own privilege. In Colorado that it really is over 12, but in other states, it’s, I think you said Texas is 17, so it’s different in different states, but I am always able to get kids to understand why I need their therapist to testify, and they are always fine with it. They are completely fine signing releases, and their parents almost always are too. It’s the lawyers that cause the problems, and the therapists themselves who cause the problems. It’s not that the kids think it’s going to ruin their relationship or allow them to know. Have to, you know, have a good working relationship in the future. They’re usually completely fine with it. So I would challenge parents to expect that from them. Also, what you need to understand is, if you ultimately are going to court, well, there’s a couple things. One is that we can do limited releases so that it’s about things that are impacting the parenting or that what the court needs to decide. So kids all the time are like, well, I don’t want them to know I tried pot, or I don’t want them to know I’m having sex or stuff like that, right? And I’m like, I don’t care about that stuff. I mean, one could argue all of that is relevant to the parents and relevant to the court, but I’m usually willing to protect all that and say, limited release, so you still have your safe space, but let’s at least get this information out on the record that’ll help with why you feel the way you do about your dad or your mom or whatever. Practically, even a best interest attorney cannot get this stuff into court without the therapist, because I have to abide by hearsay rules that I think are totally ridiculous, given that you have a best interest attorney, and we should change that, but that also is for another conversation. So right now, one of the hearsay, you know, people think, Well, my kid has an attorney for their best interest. Why can’t you just come in and run out run your mouth about everything the kid told you, well, I can’t. It doesn’t work that way. It probably should, but it doesn’t work that way. And so I’ve got to either drag the kid to court somehow, or get the kid interviewed, or I have to get it in through therapeutic treatment, which is the very easiest way for me to get it in. So therapists need to understand, and parents need to understand that this stuff will not come flowing in unless we have the therapist. Most likely that’s the easiest way for it all to come in, right?
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 41:35
Absolutely, there’s a huge hole in your case. If somebody doesn’t is not able to hear from this neutral person who’s helping this child. And one of the things that I’ll argue all day long is, if I’ve got a concern of a parent, that the other parent is going to take what that therapist says and beat the child over the head with it, is that, let’s get a confidentiality order, yes, where that therapist can talk to the kid’s attorney, to the other attorneys, and the attorney obviously gets to talk to their client about it, but they’re not going to sit down with a video camera or go home with it and sit down with the child. Down with the child and read it line by line. You know, there’s ways to protect those concerns, but those aren’t really usually the normal cases we see. They happen, but they’re not every case, but there’s options, yeah, yeah, and I agree with you. I think it’s teed up with children and parents rights. Therapists can understand it,
Krista Nash 42:20
and also, we almost never need their notes. Okay, like, I’m almost always willing to protect the therapist notes if they are willing to testify, because I don’t need the notes. I just want to hear them say what they think. Also, we can get limiting orders regarding the notes. So again, like a lot of times, you can ask for a guardian ad litem in some states, a CLR or just an in camera, meaning in chambers. Review by the court, I’ve been ordered a bunch of times to redact those statements so that only there was a case, for example, where one parent wasn’t seeing a kid. Mom saying that the kid is telling the therapist that he doesn’t want to see the kid. They don’t agree that this is happening. Everything the kids said in the notes is not what’s important. The pieces that are about that are what’s important. So I was able to be ordered to take those notes, redact them, and produce them back to the court in a way that protected the kid, but also gave us information that we needed from the notes from the kids. You know, it’s kids therapist. And on
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 43:16
the flip side of that, though, as a custody evaluator, I want your notes, and it’s not that I don’t trust what you’re telling me. You don’t always understand that something in your notes may verify something that that child’s told me that I didn’t realize was relevant till I saw it, or something a parent told you that I didn’t realize was relevant till I saw it. So that’s why, if a custody evaluators asked or a parenting plan evaluator is asking for your notes, it’s not because we don’t trust you as a therapist. It’s because you have data that’s important to me, that you may not understand its relevance, because I see the bigger picture.
Krista Nash 43:45
Also, I would say, is this true in Texas, that when you testify as a child custody evaluator, you can get all that hearsay in through your report? Is that true for
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 43:54
the most part, our reports are subject to the rules of evidence, so they are not automatically filed with the court. Oftentimes, they were admitted by agreement, if we have a jury trial, different ball game, most of that’s going to be redacted.
Krista Nash 44:05
Okay, so in Colorado, again, this is why you got to go check your as we get more of a national audience, you got to check your local rules and talk to local attorney or like, research it within your state. It’s you can you Google within your state, you’ll get all sorts of law firms that are giving you all kinds of data and AI and all that will answer your questions for you pretty easily. But like in Colorado, those reports do come in, they’re not subject to the same rules. So what I would say in Colorado is, as a therapist, if you really don’t want to testify, the best thing you could do is talk to child custody evaluator, because then they’re not going to need you to testify. Most likely, you won’t have to get up, because your stuff will come flowing in from the CFI So, or the PR So, that can be a very, very helpful piece of it. And then we also don’t have jury trials in these cases at all. In Colorado, Texas is a very different beast in that area. So testing
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 44:53
evaluator, I can talk about what that school counselor, therapist told me, and that’s often what I do. Say they usually will let me talk about that, because they’re like, Well, you talk to them, it’s fine, even if it’s like, it’s hearsay, we’re still gonna let it in, because you considered
Krista Nash 45:08
it so, so I’m just gonna recap, and then I think we should pivot to talk to professionals a little bit more directly, but a few things. So one therapist just to recap what we’ve talked about. Make sure parents should be looking for therapists. They should talk to each other about it, about what do we need most? Can we get family systems therapy? I’ve had many people on the podcast now who talk about different options for doing that, both in Colorado, and people who do it out of state and cross state lines. So there’s all sorts of options of getting some initial help for your kid or for you as a family. And that’s something that is really, really important. It’s too, very important to get the right person, or people make sure that you are looking for affiliations like AFCC or other demonstration on the resume and on the website about what training they’ve done. Have they been to conferences? You know, some other buzzwords are cadence, law, K, a, y, d, e, n, that’s pretty new and cutting edge in terms of you see that they’re probably involved in these conversations. There’s fights about reunification therapy. So anything that’s involving reunification or reintegration that is more likely to be kind of court involved discussion. I think it’s something somebody you could consider you want to see that somebody is up to date on trainings, and that they go to a lot of these conferences, and they should be, if you ask anything about court, they should be able to say, yeah, yeah, I done gone to all these seminars and all these trainings. Then I do like too that you, you know, asking if they’re willing to testify, if they won’t, I would not hire them honestly, given that you are likely going to need this person. I love your idea too, Christy, of getting trying to get this person on the phone, preferably with your co parent, and talk about or with attorneys to talk about kind of what they can do and what the scope would be. I think that’s really good if you’re already court involved. And then I really also like the idea of describing how they handle these cases. So why don’t we do a crossover topic here, because it matters to parents and therapists. What is the right process? What would you be as a parent listening for when you say, how do you handle I’m getting divorced, my kid is conflicted. We’ve got all these problems with parent contact or whatever. Tell me your process. What would a parent be listening to? And this will help us move into the therapy conversation of how this is so different. Maybe if therapist want to consider this kind of role, what they need with parent child contact
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 47:26
problems, I’m going to argue you need a court order, because at least where I practice, there’s a level of quasi judicial immunity if you have that order. So I just think it’s a safety net if you’re going to work with these families. And you mentioned cadence law, and then there’s PKS law, and we’ve got some of those bills in our own legislature right now. You know those are out there, but if you’re gonna pick somebody, you want somebody who’s using terminology like parent child contact problems, and not automatically calling it alienation therapy or labeling it right off the bat, because these cases are so much more complex and so much more multi determinative than just one thing. And I’m positive, I don’t think say
Krista Nash 48:00
we’ve got a lot of episodes of the podcast of people talking about this, but I will tell you that any My tip would be anybody who uses binary language of it’s either alienation or it’s not alienation is probably somebody you shouldn’t be considering, because all of the professionals are like that is such a small way of looking at it is always more complicated than that, so you’re probably setting yourself up for a problem if you just go with somebody who’s all about that, agree. So you want
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 48:26
somebody who’s going to say, Hey, get me a court order. Next step is going to be, once I have my order, is I’m going to send my paperwork to both parents and have both parents complete the paperwork. They’re usually going to have a joint meeting with both parents. And if that’s not a safe situation. Then you have one with one and one with the other, with a recap to both afterward would be ideal, and that may be one meeting or multiple meetings, and then you’re going to meet the child, and then from there, it really is a decision about, what does this family need? Are there more problems with one parent than the other? So do I need? You know, one thing Susan Fletcher does, which I think is great, she’ll do two hour sessions in the middle of the day. Doesn’t really do them after school, because she finds kids are kind of pootered after school and less focused, but she’ll bring, she’ll bring the child in, she’ll talk to the kiddo. Or, Yeah, she’ll bring the child in, she’ll talk to the kiddo. And because we’ve already debriefed with the other parent from the last session, and they’ll kind of tee up what the game plan is, she’ll bring that, you know, rejected parent or the less favored parent, in, and they’ll work for about an hour to an hour and 15 minutes, and then she sends the kids home with a preferred parent and then debriefs with the rejected parent. It’s a great setup, and you can work it any way, but the key is both parents are involved. If the preferred parent needs to be brought in to know what’s going on, or, Hey, I really need you to try this at home. You know that this is language we’re using. These are skills I’m trying to teach your kiddo. Could you help reinforce those it’s really meant to be a transparent process. It’s also meant to be a short, if it is true, reunification therapy or therapy related to parent child contact problems. It really needs to be brief, which is why that. The importance of that team we talked about, where the child’s got a therapist and the parents have a therapist, because the goal is to get in, get out and send them on their merry way and let them work on, you know, get back on schedule. Well, whatever the court or the parents agreed to, and move this family along. But everybody’s talking. All the therapists are talking. They’re open to being part of that team. They’re open to considering other perspectives of what’s going on, and they’re not going in, going it’s my job to figure out what’s happening. They’re going in. It’s my job to how do we move you as a family forward? So what,
Krista Nash 50:29
what is, I know this is relative, but what is short? Like, it should be relatively short. It’s not
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 50:33
somebody I’m gonna live with till the child is 18. Is the preference. You know, the goal? How long it takes, really is case by case. But goodness, if you could do it in three to six months. Woo hoo, a year and a half. It may take a year and a half, depending upon the family, but this is not something that needs to be ongoing forever for the stamp, but three
Krista Nash 50:49
less many months. I mean, I think that come back later, I think you seem to be saying, like, possibly it is three to six months like that. That would potentially be short. I think it’s short in the eye of a parent who’s resisted or who’s having is like, Great Krista and Christy. That’s wonderful. It’s going to be one week, and we’re going to be back to 5050, right? That’s why. I just want to point out that I’m always like, Patience. Patience. Have patience. You know, like it’s short is not going to feel short to that parent. No, it’s
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 51:21
always too fast for the preferred parent and too slow for the rejected parent, always. But the goal is that the family is making progress and moving forward. You don’t want to live in a parent child contact, family therapy situation for years with no progress. That’s ineffective and unhelpful. But certainly if we’re making steps, even if they’re baby steps, that’s the goal. Sometimes it’s three steps forwards, two step backs. That’s still progress.
Krista Nash 51:43
So when a parent asks the question of a therapist, this is, tell me your process, it should be something involving transparency, talking to both parents, making sure that there’s food feedback loops, making sure that they’re not trying to just be in one seat, but they’re trying to be nuanced around it. And hopefully their CV mentions things about being engaged in these communities. These communities that understand and understand the nuances. Make sure it’s not just like all I want to do is talk to the kid I don’t want to talk to mom. You know, being too siloed, right? Not being willing to talk to anyone else. I think beyond that, there’s a lot of discretion about how one does this work? I’ve seen a lot of different perspective as I’ve had Dr McNamara on the show, I’ve had Dr Spiegel on the show that various people talking about how they do this work. And so there can be varieties. But what would you say to therapists who might be catching this, who haven’t done this work and think that they can do it without changing to this model? Or how do they get into this if they want to really learn to do this well.
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 52:41
First and foremost, join AFCC. Join your local chapter. That’s number one. If you join that, it gives you access to past webinars that have been done on this topic that you can watch for free. You’re not continuing it unless you watch them live. But hey, free trainings, free training and you also, you know, it gives you access to family court review, which are all the articles that have been written so you can go pull they’ve had parent, child contact issues that Kate McNamara, you know, contributed to go read those articles. Lynn Greenberg’s got a book called evidence, informed interventions for court involved families. Great book talks about treatment planning, talks about developing coping skills. Am
Krista Nash 53:18
I looking around? Because I’m like, I think I have that one, right? Yeah, they’re talking about it. Talks
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 53:22
about coping skills and treatment planning, and the literature that supports this learning, what that literature is, is really, really important, and then getting involved with other people who do this. Go to lunch with people. What’s, what’s your process? Because you do, you get to choose how you do it. You don’t have to do it. You know, the way I just described, like Dr Fletcher does. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care how you do it. Care how you do it, as long as nobody’s wondering what you’re doing, you don’t look like you’ve aligned with one side over the other. You don’t look like you’re picking favorites. But, yeah, it’s your personality. You’ve got to defend it. As long as you are good with what you’re doing, and everybody kind of understands what you’re doing, do it, you’ve got to use your personality and lean into what works for you. It needs to be based in the literature. It needs to be based in the science as we understand it today. You need to stay abreast of the science, because it’s constantly changing, which is why we called it 1800 different things since 2000 when divorce poison came out. So but just lean into the literature. Get to join the groups. Get to know the people. I mean, if you’re sitting in a courtroom and see somebody testify and they do a great job, and you feel like they’ve got a handle on things. Follow them out and get their card and take them to lunch. That’s how I met Susan puncher. You know, pay attention to what’s ask attorneys. You know who you trust in your community. If you’ve seen people on your podcast who talk to you, call them up and say, can I take you to lunch? Getting to know people who do this. Most people know we are a dying breed, and we are trying to revitalize this breed. So we are more than willing to go to lunch and help people. I will pick up the phone. I have phone calls all the time with people who want to get into this world. And we’re all willing to be encouragers. I
Krista Nash 54:52
have been amazed at how generous people have been with their time, even the highest level people who I would like, oh, I can’t believe I’m going. To ask you to be involved in this. And they’re like, yeah, no problem, right? I mean, they’re passionate about helping families, and they see how few people there are to do the work they’re doing. And so they’re usually very, very generous. And their time, I see it too for therapist. I mean, I keep saying, to therapy, you know, people going to therapy, I’m like, Do you know how much work I could give you? Do you know how big this sector is? Like, instead of competing against however many 1000s of therapists there are in the Denver Metro or the Dallas Fort Worth like you get in with the right professionals who funnel you cases, there’s an unlimited amount of room for a practice growth, right? I mean, wouldn’t you say that’s true? Absolutely.
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 55:37
And if you’re a new therapist listening to this, don’t be scared to call the person who’s writing the articles. I mean, right? Michael Saini has sent me emails before, and I’m like, I’m so excited, but you know, and if I call and said, Michael, I need to talk to you, I’m confident he would have a conversation with me. Yeah? And, I mean, he’s done on my show twice. Nobody knows me. Yeah, go call some of these people, because you’re right. Everybody’s passionate about this work. We want these families to get the help they deserve and we want, we need more people. So we need more I
Krista Nash 56:05
share that. I mean, Michael saying he has been on the show twice, and said he’ll be on it whenever I want, because he wants to get this information to people. He is so generous with this time, and so are literally everybody I’ve asked is like, no problem, happy to help, happy to get this information out to people. So I feel like there needs to be more. I don’t know. I mean, there’s AFCC trainings that happen, like there’s a conference happening in New Orleans at the end of the month. Actually, Dr McNamara and I are presenting at that about how we do this work together, and how important it is to be handle this in a very specific way. So certainly, a therapist who’s interested could start going to that kind of programming. They’re fun, really nice people. You could meet your mentors. There’s all sorts of ways to engage in that,
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 56:47
I think, if you have, if you have time to number one, New Orleans is amazing. Number two, we’re doing a mock trial with parent child contact problems where a therapist has had a work product review. So we’re gonna have one therapist that’s gonna be remediated. We’re gonna have another therapist who’s going to be, you know, love it basically removed and put a new one in place because of bad behavior and multiple roles and blurring of the boundaries. But that’s a great place to go learn and ask questions and get to see it without it being your end on the witness stand getting challenged
Krista Nash 57:16
when you say it’s a dying breed. I know the answer to this, but how would you describe to people why it’s a dying breed and sort of, what are the fears of why people are hands off in this area? And they’re like, I don’t want to, I don’t want to touch this with a 10 foot pole. I have a couple of
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 57:29
answers to that. One is, I don’t think we’re trained in graduate school. I wasn’t trained in graduate school, like I said. And I think it’s even worse now. I think there’s almost education now. Of it’s scary for people, and it’s taught to be scary. I don’t want grad schools teaching people this is scary. Yes, it’s challenging. And yes, there are days you’re if you’re I’m still nervous. Want to get on a witness stand, absolutely. But it’s also very, very rewarding, and is it is challenging in a good way. I feel like I learned something new all the time. I feel like I’m constantly learning. I’m never bored with my job. It’s a great field that that you really do get to feel like you help families and make a difference. The other thing is, and not speaking to attorneys who may be watching attorneys are eating their own for lack of a better term, in large areas that do not have enough mental health professionals, or because of how mental health professionals have been treated, and it’s unacceptable just to be blunt. Yes, you can go in court and beat us up. That’s your job. We get it. You don’t have you don’t have to be disrespectful, you don’t have to be rude, you don’t have to be ugly, you don’t have to be threatening. And I try and teach mental health professionals, if you’re new to this field, go get to know the attorneys in your community. You take them to lunch, you go to their conferences, because it’s a lot harder for them to beat you up when I walk out and go Good to see you last week. Was that really necessary? And we just have a little banter. But attorneys, you know this, will go in a courtroom and duke it out and go to lunch, yeah, and it’s like nothing ever happened. They don’t personalize it. We are mental health professionals trained to help people. We tend to take it more personally. We’ve got to do a better job of that, of not taking it personally. But we’ve also got to have attorneys who are willing to encourage us. Work with us. If we mess up, help us. Yeah, don’t take us down and threaten us and board complain us. You know, reach out the olive branch. Help you know, we all started somewhere. We’ve all screwed up on a witness stand. Well, in
Krista Nash 59:15
Colorado, we have, for example, the Family Law Institute, which is where all the, almost all the family law attorneys go every year in August, up to Vail, where we have a big conference. It’s a great way we talk about these issues. We talk a lot. There’s a lot of therapists that Dr McNamara is, actually Dr McNamara are presenting up there as well this year. She’s usually there. There’s a lot of mental health focus. That’s a great place for people who are interested in this to kind of meet some of those people who do this work and to meet some of the attorneys. There’s also, I think it just takes some initiative if you want to be involved in this area. You know, I would have no problem with a therapist reaching out and saying, hey, I want you to come talk to our staff about what you’re doing as a CLR, what we need, and how we could maybe meet your needs a little bit better. So we could be one of those 10. And you know, let’s talk about what this looks like. Everyone is always saying they’re afraid they’re going to get too grieved, though, like they’re just so afraid of being grieved. Is that just part of what you have to expose yourself to? Or how would you address that complaint? Because no one you know, especially for therapists, I know Dora, for example, in Colorado, it’s a lot bigger deal for a therapist to get grieved by into Dora than for me to get grieved to Attorney regulation Council. I think attorney regulation Council is better at protecting me than Dora is at protecting therapists, or at least that’s my perception, like they’re willing to give me more benefit of the doubt than the therapeutic board is.
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:00:36
I will tell you that was a massive problem here, and when Dr Susan Bucha was on the behavioral health executive council here. She worked very diligently, and they had passed a law or a rule that says that if you board complaint a mental health professional and they have a court order, you can’t board complaint that they won’t take it until after your case is over. You have to produce your decree. You have to produce, if there’s an evaluation, the evaluation, you have to produce the order appointing that professional and likely anything that says that person got removed or called out by the court
Krista Nash 1:01:08
or they won’t pick it up. But that’s not just for the custody evaluators, right? That’s custody about that’s any court ordered therapy, any court ordered family therapy or anything. Because we do in Colorado have a little bit better protection now for the custody evaluators like the court has to rule that it just can’t be grieved quite as easily
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:01:26
lean into your licensing board that they need to open that for individual therapists, reunification therapists or family therapists who are doing that parent child contact work for parenting coordinators across the board,
Krista Nash 1:01:38
if You were involved that quasi judicial immunity, that it is, right? It
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:01:43
is ours started with custody evaluators, and then they grew it. So that’s a grassroots effort, just to be real honest.
Krista Nash 1:01:50
Okay, warn your buddy, Dr Susan Fletcher, who’s going to be a guest soon on the podcast, who also I just found out, is boarded in Colorado as well Texas. So maybe she can start this process with us, because that would be a huge way to help, right? Because I understand people, especially I’m an attorney. I don’t want to get grieved, but I handle grievances better than non attorneys do, because they don’t scare me as much as it would scare a therapist, right? And and
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:02:15
part of it is, have a good attorney if you are a therapist listening to this, check your insurance, hpso, not the best option. I use American professional, okay? And I can use my own lawyer. I can choose the attorney, and they will, and my attorney just builds them. So if I have a deposition, or I have some reason that I need my attorney to go to court with me, I can file with them. They just Bill Michael or Kenda, my two attorneys here. They bill them directly, and I’m out, if you have insurance companies who aren’t used to working with these types of cases, you may get somebody who doesn’t understand family
Krista Nash 1:02:49
law. Are that other even more scary? Are there also different insurance providers that won’t let you testify, but others that will
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:02:56
not to my knowledge, because I get
Krista Nash 1:02:59
this a lot, they’re like, I need to call my insurance and then, no, I don’t think that
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:03:03
day. Now they may not give you a attorney to go represent you. That may be the issue, but I don’t mean on a grievance even. I don’t even mean on a grievance. I even mean, no, I mean even go testify. I don’t think they may go I’m not gonna go with you for testimony. I will the two I’ve been a part of. Absolutely, would send somebody with me for a deposition. Absolutely, APA sent somebody with me for I had to go to court on a couple of issues, but having good insurance is helpless. We have mental health professional or attorneys here who are once a PhD psychologist as well as once just a lawyer, who only does board complaints but will also go to court with you, and they understand family law. And so if you will get to know those people in your community, that’s my thing. You want to subpoena me when I’m not available, I’m like, call them. Like, call him. Yeah, I’m not coming. I love
Krista Nash 1:03:45
that. I think it’s really encouraging, and I think maybe that we can all learn that we’ve got to help these therapists like have, you know, fewer barriers to do the work. But I know we’re almost out of time, but maybe you mentioned this, but I think maybe you could end with this too, with maybe a little more about about how rewarding the work is as a therapist to do this kind of work, because I feel the same way. I mean, every single person I always start on my podcast, like, How’d you get into this work? 100% of us are like, Man, I just fell into it. I didn’t plan on this. But almost 100% especially of people that are trying to help, right? Not every family law attorney likes their jobs. They’re like, I hate this. I wish I could go do something else. But those of us that are in the seat of helping children and helping families do better, I think universally, people are incredibly passionate and committed to what they’re doing, and find it to be such a fulfilling area of like I would never want to be in a different area of law. I absolutely love it, and I know we’re helping society and individual and generations in so many important ways. So maybe end with an encouragement therapist about how it is such a great area to work in. It is,
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:04:46
and I love this. Like I said, it’s challenging every day, but it may take time. It may not move as quickly as it might be when you’ve got cute little kiddos just having some adjustment issues in school. You know, see that a level of progress, but if you will get in and. Stick with families, or stick with clients and hang with them. The level of progress you can see over time is so rewarding to see. I work with a lot of parents who I’m four years in working with them, and it’s like
Krista Nash 1:05:11
you’re not mad anymore. He doesn’t pump the bear anymore. Your children are doing better. That’s so rewarding to walk with people through some of what is, for most people, one of the most, if the most difficult, times in their life, and watch them come out on the other side and do well, and watch their children do well because they’ve done well. There’s nothing like it, because, you know, other than walking somebody through grief and the loss of a loved one, that is what divorce is. Yeah, when I went through my own situation, I had a therapist told me he goes, This is worse than death, because that person’s going on without you, right? And so being able to walk through that very difficult time with people who think they will not get through it, children and adults alike, and see them come out on the other side and be successful and not go repeat those patterns in their own families. What a difference. Not only that, it helps in that family, but the difference it makes in society that we’re sending healthy adults out into the world who know how to function. I agree, and it’s not repeat the bad cycles. It really should give hope. I think, I hope it gives hopes to parents that it is super important. There are solutions out there, but you can derail your family more by getting the wrong solutions. And unfortunately, the right solutions are a little bit needle in the haystack, so you have to be really, really careful. I’m of course, I was happy to help people in Colorado, and a lot of those people have already been on my podcast, so they can go find them themselves, who I think are really, really solid choices. The AFCC rosters are other great places to look. And hopefully this gives a lot of real tips, and I really hope parents will be able to find the right resources, but also that therapists will really consider doing this work. Because if I could just gather everybody else and put them on a plane and make them go to these conferences and start to commit to do this work, I could load them up with work that I think would be really, really fulfilling. So thanks. Some of it is as a
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:06:56
final note for therapists, these are expensive, and I know it. When I started my career, I went every other year to the AFCC National Child Custody symposium. I saved my penny so I could make that one, or make your local chapters AFCC something that’s cheaper and more reasonable to you, grow your practice enough that you can afford to go to all the ones you want to, because it’ll make a difference. You’ll make some friends. You’ll get some encouragement. It’ll reboost you until the next one. But find the ones that are cheaper, that you can afford and go do it. They’re expensive. They just are, especially for those of us.
Krista Nash 1:07:25
I mean, mental health world, we had a local Colorado AFCC meeting just recently where I spoke a great judge spoke, Dr McNamara spoke. We shared all these great tips and tricks and things like this. And, you know, maybe there were 100 people there, maybe, right? I mean, and most of them already frequent flyers in what right, we see it’s also an opportunity for therapists to make a great business, because these are private paying people who are paying upfront with retainers and things like that. And it’s a great way to make a business. It’s a great way to hire other therapists and continue to make a bigger practice. There’s people that absolutely yes. So it’s a little bit of investment. That’s why I say it takes a little initiative. And certainly these older professionals I use, because a great number of the number 10 that I would maybe look at are aging out of this work, they are more than willing to work with you and go to coffee with you and hang out with you and let you, you know, go to their cases where they’re testifying and show you how to do this, right? So I just want to encourage people to join this kind of work, because it’s so so needed. And I mean, I when I don’t have these solutions, I don’t know what to tell people I don’t have a magic wand. 90% plus, need therapeutic work. Absolutely.
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:08:37
I’ve even taken therapist around to meet judges. I’ve told them, get a package together with your name, little sheet of what you do with your picture on it, because an attorney did it for me 20 years ago. Yeah, yeah. And I’m like, I’ll take you around and introduce and they get work from that. You just gotta continue.
Krista Nash 1:08:52
So if you’re in Colorado and you need more tips, or people you want to get with and you’re hearing this, please reach out to me. I’d be happy to do that, networking with you. And Christy, thanks for doing this with me today. I’m so grateful. Of course,
Christy Bradshaw Schmidt 1:09:03
no, I so appreciate it. I love talking about this. And if there’s people anywhere outside of this podcast, outside of Colorado, if I don’t know them, I’ll help find somebody that does. So don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’m happy to try and get you connected with
Krista Nash 1:09:15
somebody Wonderful. Okay, well, I’m sure we’ll connect again. And thank you again, so much, and thanks for all your wisdom and just your generosity of time. So thank you for having me All right. Take care.
Intro/Outro 1:09:28
Krista is licensed in Colorado and Wyoming. So if you are in those states and seek legal services, please feel free to reach out via ChildrenFirstFamilylaw.com that is our website where everyone can find additional resources to help navigate family law as always, be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.