Ethics, Diversity, and Risk Management (3 hours)

Mental health and family law practitioners make recommendations and decisions that impact parents and children daily but may not have an empirically-informed process for doing so.  Recognizing that families in conflict are complex and present challenging dynamics, this workshop highlights the importance of using decision-trees and examining our own mental shortcuts (heuristics) as we are all subject to biases, value judgments, and “blind spots.” The interplay between ethical practice and diversity from a culture and systems perspective will be highlighted along with a strategy to develop new frameworks to mitigate risks for the practitioner and the families they serve.