PSYCH 8350 Capella University Child Custody Forensic Evaluation Draft Assignment

PSYCH 8350 Capella University Child Custody Forensic Evaluation Draft Assignment

Question Description
The purpose of this assignment is to create a rough draft of the forensic evaluation that you selected in u05a1 from the following five options:

Competency to stand trial.
Child custody.
Parenting fitness.
Mitigation of penalty.
Recidivism potential (such as a violence risk assessment or a sexual risk assessment).
INSTRUCTIONS
For this assignment, you will begin work on an outline of key components of a forensic evaluation, which will be further developed in Unit 9. In this initial draft of your forensic evaluation, include the following components. A forensic evaluation generally has all of these elements, although some evaluators may provide more background information on the evaluee than others. Many examples of forensic evaluations are provided in Chapter 19 of your Melton textbook (linked in Resources). Include:

Introduction
Explain the legal question being asked.
Invent a fictional client to be evaluated and describe all relevant characteristics of this evaluee (name, gender, and age).
Informed Consent
Include a paragraph explaining what you would inform the evaluee about the nature and purpose of the evaluation, including any limitations in confidentiality and release of information.
Interview Questions
Based on the particular type of evaluation selected, include a section describing the questions related to the referral question that you plan to ask your evaluee.
Collateral Information
Include other third-party information relevant to the legal question that you would obtain for review.
Test Battery
Justify the appropriateness of two instruments that you would administer for the type of evaluation you are conducting.
A sample forensic evaluation is linked in Resources to assist in formatting your evaluation. Note that your forensic evaluation does not require the same level of detail in the background history.

OBJECTIVES
Your assignment should fulfill the following objectives:

Create a forensic evaluation appropriate to the age and gender of a fictional evaluee.
Explain the legal question being asked.
Explain all aspects of informed consent pertaining to this evaluation.
Justify the questions most appropriate to ask the fictional evaluee.
Describe the third-party information most relevant to the legal question being asked in this evaluation.
Justify appropriate instruments for the evaluation being conducted.
Communicate in a manner that is scholarly, professional, and consistent with expectations for members of the psychological professions.
ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS
In addition to the above objectives, your assignment should meet the following requirements:

Written communication is free of errors that detract from the overall message.
Formatting: current edition APA style and format.
Length of paper: 6–8 pages.
Font and font size: Times New Roman, 12 points.

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You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, include a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
One or two sentence responses, simple statements of agreement or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.
Weekly Participation

Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.
APA Format and Writing Quality

Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.
Use of Direct Quotes

I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’ level and deduct points accordingly.
As Masters’ level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.
LopesWrite Policy

For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.
Late Policy

The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.
Communication

Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me:
Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.