Table_1_International perspective on guidelines and policies for child custody and child maltreatment risk evaluations: A preliminary comparative analysis across selected countries in Europe and North America.DOCX

Little knowledge exists on how evaluators in child custody and child maltreatment cases are informed by guidelines, the kinds of qualifications required and the types of training provided in different countries. The purpose of this paper is to provide an international preliminary comparison on how child custody and child maltreatment risk assessments are conducted in selected Western countries, and how the assessments are informed by best practice guidelines. Another aim is to increase knowledge on how the guidelines and best-practice standards could be developed further to reflect recent research findings. A total number of 18 guidelines were included in the analyses: four from Canada, five from the United States, three from the United Kingdom, three from the Netherlands, two from Finland, and one from Germany. We conducted a content analysis of the included guidelines in the database, focusing on how the guidelines address the best interest of the child criteria, guidelines for conducting the assessments, considerations for evaluative criteria, and specific guidance for conducting specific assessment procedures (e.g., interviews and observations). Findings show that the qualifications of and training provided to evaluators in child custody and child maltreatment risk evaluations are largely heterogeneous across the countries represented. Guidelines differ in whether and how they highlight the importance of evidence-based practices and scientifically validated assessment measures. Implications are drawn from the review and contextualized by international expert authors in the fields of forensic psychology, and family law. After the content analysis, discussion sessions within the expert group were held. The authors provide both commentaries and suggestions to improve the development of standard methods for conducting both child custody and child maltreatment risk evaluations and to consider a more transparent and judicious use of social science research to guide methods and the recommendations offered within these assessments.</p

Santa Barbara County Conservation Blueprint: Creating a Landscape of Opportunity

<div>In an era of population growth, global markets, and climate change, Santa Barbara County’s citizens must together address the question of how to conserve the landscapes and biodiversity that make Santa Barbara County special, while also making it an economically viable and livable place for local residents. Ensuring the ongoing viability of these landscapes and the benefits they provide requires shared tools, language, and dialogue. This is why the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County, the Santa Barbara Foundation LEAF (Landscapes, Ecosystems, Agriculture, and Food Systems) Initiative, and the Cachuma Resource Conservation District came together to develop the Santa Barbara County Conservation Blueprint (Blueprint).</div><div><br></div><div>The purpose of the Blueprint is to provide a common language and platform for publicly available data to support in-depth conversations and informed decisions about the Santa Barbara County landscape.</div><div><br></div><div>Nearly two years of design, research, data collection, interviews, focus groups, and public input meetings went into the creation of this report and its companion online interactive Atlas and web resources. The Blueprint report focuses exclusively on the land base and terrestrial natural resources, and is broken into four main chapters, summarized below. Each chapter also addresses climate impacts, interconnections across theme areas, common values and elements of resilience within each theme, and stories of multi-benefit solutions to shared resource challenges. The report contains dozens of maps on each theme, and points readers to explore more of the nearly 300 publicly available, science-based datasets in the online Atlas.</div><div><br></div><div>Together, the Blueprint report and online Atlas offer a first step toward a common understanding of Santa Barbara County’s current environmental conditions, the impacts of human interaction with the land, and the conscious tradeoffs required to create a landscape of opportunity for generations to come.</div