Child Maltreatment

Sponsored by The Center of Excellence for Children, Families and the Law at William James College

Robin M. Deutsch, Ph.D. and Amy Tishelman, Ph.D., instructors

Child Maltreatment is designed for professionals engaged in providing services to youth, families, and the courts who seek to provide or understand best practices of investigation, evaluation, and testimony in matters of child abuse or neglect including sexual abuse in the context of divorce. Participants will distinguish between forensic and clinical evaluations, enhance reliability of interviews of children, apply a systematic approach to providing a sound evidence-based report and opinion, and identify ethical issues inherent in evaluations and testimony. This training provides 28 Continuing Education Credits. The course is a blended learning format and spans 4 weeks of online coursework for 13 hours and 15 hours of on-site instruction over a weekend-in-residence.

• General: law, policy, systems overview, consultation and testimony
• Evaluations: parenting, family
• Specialty evaluations: domestic violence, sexual abuse, physical maltreatment
• Empirically-based treatments and best practices

Applicants will demonstrate an interest in family forensics and may include mental health professionals, lawyers, judges, probation officers, juvenile justice professionals, child welfare professionals, and court service workers. Prerequisites include an advanced degree in law, mental health, human services or criminal justice and certification or licensure in law, mental health or mediation. A formal transcript and a writing sample will be required for all applicants taking these courses for academic credit. 

Please contact Robin M. Deutsch, PhD at robin_deutsch@williamjames.edu.

Program Code: CM16-1
28 CE Credits  MFT
$1,100 for CE Credits - Be sure to register early. Space is limited to 20 people.

Certificate in Child and Family Forensics - 4 Courses

The Certificate in Child and Family Forensics provides students with a solid foundation in the concepts, theories and practices in child and family forensic mental health work and will help professionals hone their skills and increase their knowledge to prepare them for work in child welfare, juvenile delinquency, sexual offending, divorce child custody and post-divorce parenting contexts. Courses include: parenting coordination, child custody evaluation, child maltreatment, intimate partner violence, and mental health and juvenile justice. These courses will review the law and systems, describe and practice protocols for evaluations, and review empirically-based best practices and interventions through in-depth didactic instruction and opportunities for practice and consultation.

All courses are offered for 28 continuing education credits in a blended learning format, consisting of a 4-week online course and a required "weekend in residence" at the William James College campus in Newton, MA.

Robin M. Deutsch, PhD, is the Director of the Center of Excellence for Children, Families and the Law at William James College, and an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School. She practices as a custody evaluator, mediator, parent coordinator, therapist and consultant. Dr. Deutsch lectures widely throughout North America and Europe on Parenting Coordination, parenting and child development and complex issues related to family conflict, including parent alienation, attachment, abuse and neglect and trauma. She has published extensively on issues related to attachment, alienation, co-parenting after divorce, high conflict divorce, parenting plans and parenting coordination. Dr. Deutsch has performed a wide variety of forensic evaluations and testified in juvenile, family, district and federal courts involving divorce and visitation disputes, relocation, domestic violence, adoption, alienation, abuse and neglect. She provides consultation and expert witness services on boundary violations, ethical issues, child and adolescent development, complex custody issues and custody and parenting evaluations. Dr. Deutsch was a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) task force that developed Guidelines for Parenting Coordinators (2011), the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) Task Force that developed Guidelines for Parenting Coordinators (2006), and the AFCC Task force that developed Guidelines for Court Involved Therapists (2010). She was the former President of the AFCC (2008-2009) and the former Chair of the APA Ethics Committee (2007).

Amy C. Tishelman, PhD, is a clinical psychologist with an abiding interest in clinical work with vulnerable children and families, as well as in scholarship designed to enhance clinical care. She has worked extensively in the areas of trauma and child maltreatment, gender and sexual development of youth, and pediatric psychology, and speaks frequently on issues related to her areas of expertise.  She is currently research staff in the Child Protection Program at Massachusetts General Hospital conducting research  related to cultural issues in child sexual abuse forensic interviewing.  She also serves as the Director of Clinical Research and a senior staff psychologist for the Disorders of Sex Development-Gender Management Service (DSD-GeMS) at Boston Children's Hospital (BCH) and the Psychology Director for the Urology Department at BCH. The DSD-GeMS program was the first multidisciplinary mental health and medical program housed in a pediatric academic center in North America to serve youth with gender variance, and has forged a path for the development of other clinics in the United States. In her role, Dr. Tishelman has been invited to lead the effort to build a research program related to the health and well-being of transgender and gender non-conforming youth, as well as youth with DSD, and she works clinically with those populations as well. She has extensive experience as an expert witness in the areas of child sexual abuse, child maltreatment and/or trauma, and was a mental health consultant for the Suffolk County Child Advocacy Center for 10 years. Prior to her current appointments, she was the BCH Director of Training and Research for the Child Protection Program and, earlier, BCH Director of Child Protection Clinical Services (CPCS). She teaches annual course in the Psychology Department at Boston College on Interpersonal Violence and Developmental Psychopathology. Dr. Tishelman is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School.