Vincent Papaleo & Associates
Services
Services
Family Reports
A Family Report
is an independent assessment prepared by one of our specialist report writers who collectively have extensive experience assisting families following separation. The aim of the assessment is to forensically examine the issues pertinent to your child/ren and their care over the longer-term. This includes factors that impact on your child/ren’s development and wellbeing, such as their relationship with each parent and the capacity of each adult to attend to the child/ren’s future needs. The assessment also considers potential risk factors, including matters where there are concerns in relation to family violence, mental health, substance use and/or sexual abuse. Our reports are outcome-focussed, providing a summary of the key issues and relevant information as it relates to the best interests of your child/ren. Specific recommendations grounded in behavioural science are provided to assist in making decisions about the future care arrangements and needs of your child/ren, often assisting in parents reaching agreement and avoiding further litigation.
Link for Children: HERE
Link for Parents: HERE
Therapeutic Interventions
Vincent Papaleo & Associates provides a variety of reportable
and confidential
counselling and therapeutic services for children, adolescents, couples
and families. Therapeutic interventions are tailored to individual and family needs in the context of a family law setting. The clinical experience of the staff ranges across a wide variety of models and modalities including cognitive-behavioural therapy with children and adolescents, goal directed couples therapy, individual and narrative therapies, systemic interventions with families, child inclusive mediation, and parenting advice. We also specialise in matters where children come to reject one of their parents, whether for legitimate reasons or those cases where there are concerns regarding parental alienation.
Child Inclusive Conferences
Child Inclusive Conferences are an early intervention designed to provide expert, child focussed advice to parents, practitioners and the Judiciary on safe and developmentally appropriate post separation parenting arrangements. Unlike a full family assessment and report, Child Inclusive Conferences are brief, responsive
and less resource intensive. They tend to include some initial assessment of competing proposals, parenting capacity, immediate risk concerns, children’s views and their developmental needs. They are particularly useful in cases where a parent may not be seeing their child/children, where there may be safety concerns, or in instances where parents or the court may need initial advice on how to progress a situation that has become intractable. Unlike full Family Reports, which are a more immersive and investigative examination of the family (with reports generally 8000-10,000 words), a Child Inclusive Conference tends to focus on immediate obstacles that have emerged for separated families, in a report that is under 1500 words.
Risk Assessments
In the family law system (civil), risk assessment primarily seeks to identify individuals who are at risk of perpetrating future harm to others (namely partners/former partners and/or children), to enable appropriate responses and structures to be put in place, including necessary interventions. In addition to considering physical, sexual and other family violence related risk, at Vincent Papaleo & Associates, risk assessment can also provide opinions on the likelihood of future child maltreatment, the protective capacity of parents, and other matters such as how mental illness or substance abuse may impact parenting capacity.
In matters where safety to any of the parties is of primary concern, a risk assessment report can resolve a family law dispute without the need for additional assessments and processes that often delay proceedings. Risk assessments in the family law system are becoming the cornerstone of practice.
Professional Development Services
Co-founded in 2018 by Vincent Papaleo, Dr Timothy Di Stefano, and Dr Ben Jones, The Practice of Family Law: The Masterclass Series
is a science-based professional development initiative designed to enhance the strategic skills of lawyers and barristers in family law. These special-topic masterclasses present the latest knowledge from forensic behavioural science and clinical psychology, incorporating video illustration, case activities, and interactive group and panel forums for an immersive learning experience.
“This seminar should be compulsory for everyone working in Family Law.”
- SENIOR MEMBER OF THE VICTORIAN BAR
The Reviews: HERE
The Practice of Family Law: The Masterclass Series is presented in auditorium (conference) and boardroom (in-house) formats and meets professional practice requirements (CPD points). Masterclass topics include:
- Parent-Child Attachment and Developmental Outcomes
- Parental Alienation: Clinical and Forensic Features and Intervention
- Personality Disorders in Family Law
- The Forensic Assessment of Family Violence
- Social Science Research in Family Law Proceedings
- Untested Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse
- Relocation
- Advanced Cross-Examination of Expert Witnesses
- Overnight Stays for Young Children
- Family Law by Request (tailored special-topic masterclass)
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