035: Choosing Your Child’s Therapist with Child Custody Expert & LPC Christy Bradshaw Schmidt

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
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• 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