This is the second wave of this Observatory, after the one published last year on the time taken to resolve divorces in Spanish courts.
According to the report, the specialized legal profession’s assessment of the functioning of the psychosocial teams is very negative.
Forty-five percent of those surveyed rate their activity as deficient or very deficient, 40% as average and only 15% say they are satisfied with their work. Specifically, the AEAFA report points out several shortcomings in this forensic practice:
- Lack of specialization of professionals
- Absence of unified technical protocols
- Shortage of means
These three shortcomings coincide with those pointed out by the Spanish Ombudsman and his regional counterparts in their various recommendations.
Delays of up to a year and a half by psychosocial teams
But perhaps one of the most striking points of AEAFA’s report is the one concerning the time limits for the issuance of reports by the psychosocial teams: the survey conducted through the Observatory of Family Law reveals that in 60 % of the cases are delayed for more than six months, with three out of every ten appraisals taking a year or more.
Only 34% of the assessments would be carried out within a manageable six months.
“This delay is unbearable and causes extraordinary and very serious practical consequences. Given the need and usefulness of the evaluations of the psychosocial teams, our system cannot afford the consequent slowing down of the procedures, while a family is kept in indeterminacy for such a long period of time.
Such delays deepen the “suffering of families in conflict,” said the president of AEAFA, María Dolores Lozano, in her last appearance before the Senate Commission on the Rights of the Family, Children and Adolescents.
In this regard, the Andalusian Ombudsman, in his 2018 report, already warned that “many judicial processes” in family matters, in addition to their own endemic delays, “have to overcome a new challenge due to delays in the issuance of reports by the Psychosocial Teams, with an added aggravating factor since. The judicial processes of a couple’s breakup have emotional, psychological and social components that are not usually present in other disputes.
The delay in resolving how to relate to the children after the breakup of the couple has a negative impact on the already complicated family relationships. The President of AEAFA, María Dolores Lozano, in her speech before the Senate also stressed this serious dysfunction of our system and the damage caused to citizens.
In addition, AEAFA’s survey among the specialized legal profession also shows that the work of these teams is carried out without specific protocols and psychometric evaluation instruments appropriate for examining family members.
This is the opinion of 51% of those surveyed.
Precisely, the recommendations made by the Spanish Ombudsman stress this aspect: “The protocols should include the minimum number of people that should form each psychosocial team, what their theoretical training should be and their contribution to the report, as well as the criteria and methodology of the expert psychosocial evaluation and the elaboration of the final report. It should detail the number and duration of the interviews, the deadlines in which the expertise must be elaborated, the obligatory nature of the signature of the professionals involved, the structure of the report and the description of the tests carried out, documents used and the grounds on which the report is based, among other issues”.
As of today, as the president of AEAFA stated in the Senate, these protocols are being ignored despite the fact that the report of the psychosocial teams are decisive in the decisions taken by judges on the custody and guardianship of minor children and the visiting arrangements after a divorce.
The Second Wave of the Observatory also emphasizes the enormous weight and value that the judiciary gives to psychosocial reports when issuing their decisions. There is an overwhelming majority that considers that such reports influence “a lot” or are “decisive” in the outcome of the procedure.
This is the opinion of 91% of the professionals surveyed.
Family mediation as an alternative to Family Courts
The importance of the reports issued by the Psychosocial Teams is growing every day, due to multiple factors such as the increase in litigation; the singular judicial conflict in which Family matters are transformed; the enormous technical complexity of these conflicts; and the wide range of social disciplines that influence Family processes.
One of the most striking issues in our country is the absence of a specific and common regulation of the professionals of the Psychosocial Teams.
The survey of the ‘Observatory of Family Law’ of the AEAFA reveals that only 27% of those surveyed consider that the people who are incorporated in the psychosocial teams have adequate training and specialization, compared to 73% who consider that it is regular, deficient or very deficient.
For this reason, as opposed to the judicial route and the problems that currently arise from opting for it, it seems more appropriate to opt for family mediation as a faster and safer alternative.
This consists of the use of this alternative method of conflict resolution in the field of Family Law, with the aim of to reach an integral solution to a conflict between parties (two or more persons) avoiding the need to go to court. There are multiple ways to implement this type of process, and different countries around the world apply it in different ways, always pursuing the same goal: to reach a lasting and fair agreement, the result of compromise and understanding between the parties. Good family mediation should therefore be based on certain principles that help the parties, such as orality, full communication between the parties, the mediator’s impartiality and neutrality towards the specific case….
You can read more about this process in this article. If you need help from a lawyer specialized in Family Law to help you identify the best solution for your case, contact us without obligation.
