I get a lot of questions about how professionals can get the domestic violence/ child abuse training that’s required by ARS 25-406 for any person who makes reports to the court about child custody issues. This would include Court-Appointed Advisors, parenting coordinators, and anyone who interviews children or does a custody eval or similar work. Those with mental health degrees can count the training they received in getting their degrees. For non-mental health professionals like attorneys, finding appropriate training is a little trickier, but getting easier.
In 2022, Bill Eddy’s High Conflict Institute released a six-part video series of interviews with national and international domestic violence researchers, experts, and practitioners, including sections on:
- Understanding DV
- Screening and Assessing for DV
- Family Court and DV
- Mediation and DV
- Understanding Children’s Issues
- Offender Treatment and Training Program
Disclaimer: I was an interviewer for this series, and in my opinion, it’s excellent.
If you’re an AFCC member, you have access to review the monthly webinar archives for free, and the following are in those archives in the last few years:
- Screening for IPV (February 2023)
- Understanding Adults Who Sexually Abuse Children (November 2022)
- Interviewing Children About Sexual Abuse (July 2021)
- Children Killed in the Context of Family Violence (February 2021)
- Sociopaths: The Con Artists of Family Law (August 2020)
- Mediation and IPV: What the Research Tells Us (May 2020)
- A SAFeR Approach to Parenting Arrangements (2018)
The Battered Womens Justice Project, previously mentioned in this blog post, continues to be a good resource for education. https://bwjp.org/section/child-custody-and-support/
State Bar DV and child abuse offerings since 2017:
2022: For Better or For Worse January seminar: Domestic Violence in Family Court: What DV Experts Want Family Lawyers to Know (30 minutes)
Domestic Violence Law in Arizona (2021) https://azbar.ce21.com/item/domestic-violence-law-arizona-538856
Advanced Family Law Seminar (2021) Anger Management Assessments: What Do They Entail
Jennifer Becker, Next Steps Counseling
Even Udemy online learning has domestic violence classes available. https://www.udemy.com/course/domestic-violence-working-with-victims-and-perpetrators/
Then there’s the Podcast called Centering Children: a Four-Part Series on Domestic Violence and Children. https://njidv.org/course-offerings/centering-children-a-podcast-series.html presented by Dr. Peter Jaffe, an international expert on domestic violence and children issues.
The bottom line is that to obtain DV training, you generally have to search, and it generally isn’t available through the State Bar, but it’s not hard to find online with a little searching.