SERVICES

CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Individual Therapy
Individual Therapy
Children
Adolescents
Adults

Divorce Counseling
Emotional supports to an individual who is contemplating or experiencing a separation or divorce.
Develop meaningful perspective and enhanced coping strategies to manage emotional distress and make objective long term decisions throughout the divorce process
Build focus on long term goals and values in relation to decision making
Build improved communication skills to empower clients in facilitating a positive future.
Process relational discord in current and future relationships from a solution focused, humanistic perspective
Empower the shift from focusing on the past to building a positive future

Family Therapy

Family therapy is a type of psychological counseling that can help family members improve communication and resolve conflicts. Services are typically short term in nature, and may include individual and group sessions. Your specific treatment plan will be tailored to your specific referral needs, however family therapy can teach skills that deepen or repair familial connections, building healthy family relationships. Areas of focus may include marital or financial problems, family conflict, behavioral issues, the impact of substance abuse, mental illness or special needs on the entire family system.

Co-Parenting Counseling:

Co-parenting counseling helps parents develop effective and cohesive parenting strategies to assist in child raising targets. An assessment of your family history and parenting beliefs will be completed to aide in treatment planning. In line with your children's developmental ages, appropriate parenting skills will be learned to assist in targeting improved cohesion as your children develop to reduce familial stress and build future harmony.

COURT ORDERED THERAPY

Co-Parenting Therapy

Co-parenting counseling is a psychoeducational, therapeutic modality that assists parents in working together to parent effectively in post-divorce transitions. Services may include understanding the developmental needs of a child at various ages, effective behavioral management strategies, cohesive decision making, insulating children from continued parental conflict, and viewing children’s needs over competing adult needs as a family transitions from a marriage to co-parenting.

Reunification Therapy

Reunification therapy is often accompanied by a court order, and involves improving or re-establishing a relationship between a parent and child. Services are provided within a family systems context, and involve multiple family members to support goals between a child and parent(s). The focus of therapy is to identify reasons for estrangement, reframe cognitive beliefs, and rebuild safe and adaptive familial connections, as appropriate. The “best interests of the child” is always the primary focus, and Dr. Donahue will work with the child to manage his or her perceptions of the familial dynamic. Simultaneously, Dr. Donahue works with each parent, the preferred parent as well as the estranged parent, to differentiate healthy behaviors from unhealthy patterns that impact communication, parent-child relationships, co-parenting congruency, and positive gains within family relationships.

Parent Coordination

Parenting coordination is an alternative dispute resolution process combining assessment, education, case management, conflict resolution and, sometimes, decision-making functions. A Parenting coordinator (PC) is typically appointed by a court order or private consent agreement to help parents implement, modify and comply with the parenting plan. PCs assist parents by providing:

Education about co-parenting and parental communication;
The psychological and developmental needs of the children;
Strategies to manage conflict and reduce the negative effects on children;
Effective post-separation parenting.
To further assist parents and children, PCs facilitate referrals to community providers when necessary and collaborate with other professionals who may already be involved with the family.

FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY

Child Custody and Best Interests Evaluations

Dr. Donahue accepts referrals for custody and parenting time evaluations by court appointment, consent agreement, and as a retained expert. Dr. Donahue acts as a neutral evaluator in all cases, despite the form of retention, keeping the best interests of the child as her overriding priority. All custody and parenting time evaluations are approached from a best interest’s perspective, which encourages the involved parties to focus on the child’s needs over individual or competing parent interests.

The protocol for engaging in a best interest's evaluation begins with a formalized retainer agreement, referred to as Letters of Engagement. The initial session is most often a conjoint meeting with both parents to review scope and protocol. This overview includes a review of informed consent, forensic practice standards, professional philosophies, and an overview of what to expect during the evaluative process. While each case is unique to the family involved, steps of the protocol typically include a review of legal discovery materials, as provided by litigant and their respective counsel, multiple office interviews of the individual parties, the children of the family, other caretakers of relevance, contact with collateral informants, friends, and family, parent-child observations, home visits, psychometric testing with findings synthesized in a comprehensive forensic report.

Brief Focused Assessments

Dr. Donahue accepts referrals from the Court to conduct Brief Focused Assessments. These assessments assist the Court, as well as families, in finding opinions that serve the best interest’s of the child with narrowly defined referral questions. Brief Focused Assessments typically address specific types of issues and phases of a family dispute, utilizing a more descriptive approach versus the analytic mode used in conducting a Child Custody Evaluation. A Brief Focused Assessment is most appropriate when discrete issues in dispute are narrowly defined and more limited in scope, and do not require a comprehensive family evaluation.

During a Brief Focused Assessment, Dr. Donahue conducts interviews with parents and their children, observes parent-child interaction, reviews relevant records and consults relevant collateral contacts. The evaluation process is guided by the focused referral question(s) provided by the court or respective counsel.

Relocation Evaluations

Dr. Donahue accepts referrals for relocation evaluations both with and without applications for change in custody. Dr. Donahue’s approach to these evaluations is from a best interests of the child perspective and she considers multiple factors including, but not limited to, the age of the child, existing and historical custody and parenting time arrangements, any special needs of the child, familial relationships and support systems, circumstances and reasons for the proposed relocation, and reasons for the alternate parent’s opposition. The protocol for engaging in a relocation evaluation begins with a formalized retainer agreement, outlined within Letters of Engagement. The initial session with litigants provides a conjoint meeting with both parents to review informed consent, forensic practice standards, professional philosophies, and an overview of what to expect during the evaluative process. While each case is unique to the family involved, steps of the protocol typically include a review of legal discovery materials as provided by litigant and their respective counsel, multiple office interviews of the individual parties, the children of the family, other caretakers of relevance, contact with collateral informants, friends, and family, parent-child observations, home visits, visits to the geographic area of proposed relocation, psychometric testing, and a final comprehensive report.

Custody Neutral Assessments

Dr. Donahue is paneled in Monmouth, Ocean, and Middlesex counties to provide Custody Neutral Assessments (CNAs). The CNA program was adopted to assist litigants, as well as the Court, in resolving custody and parenting time disputes in a cost-effective manner with input from a clinically trained, forensic professional. The assessment involves interviews with the litigants and children, but is not the same comprehensive instrument as a custody/best interest's evaluation. The assessment provides a “snapshot” of factors to be considered, for example the functioning, adjustment, and needs of the children; the parent-child relationships; attitudes, strengths and weaknesses of each parent; and potential areas for further investigation or consideration by the Court in settling parenting and custody disagreements. Typically, a CNA does not make specific parenting time recommendations, but rather highlights potential considerations and options given a specific family’s needs.

Forensic Psychological Evaluations

Dr. Donahue completes Psychological Evaluations pertaining to family-based matters, with referrals for evaluations often coming from courts, attorneys, and private clients. Psychological evaluations typically involve a stated reason for the referral, a review of discovery materials, previous psychological evaluations if applicable, mental health records, office based litigant interviews, collateral interviews, and psychological testing. A comprehensive report of findings is completed once all data is collected and synthesized.

Bonding Evaluations

Dr. Donahue accepts referrals for bonding evaluations to help the court make decisions regarding the attachment patterns of a care giver and their child. A bonding evaluation is a specialized type of assessment whose goal is to determine the nature and quality of young child’s attachment to parents and primary care givers. Evaluations of this type address questions pertaining to critical emotional and psychological bonds within a child’s life. The data collected examines the formation of a reciprocal bond, i.e. the mutual love, affection and emotional ties that exist between child and primary caregiver.

Risk Evaluations

Dr. Donahue performs risk evaluations pertaining to questions of parenting capacity and potential risk. Referrals may be related to allegations of physical abuse, emotional abuse, neglect, and other forms of interpersonal violence. The process includes a review of legal documentation, criminal records, previous psychological or risk evaluations, psychological testing, litigant interview, collateral consultation, and structured professional judgment measures culminating in a forensic report.

MEDIATION SERVICES

Parenting Plan/Child Custody Mediation

Dr. Donahue is a qualified family mediator, with extensive training in alternate dispute resolution. Dr. Donahue serves as a mediator in family law matters, including pre-divorce settlement and post judgment issues. Dr. Donahue often works with parents to create practical, fair parenting plans that can be incorporated into a Marital Settlement Agreement. Currently Dr. Donahue accepts referrals for mediation of child custody and parenting time issues from the court, attorneys, and clients seeking guidance in settling parenting and custody related disputes.

Co-Mediation

Dr. Donahue may be retained to assist in mediation cases, serving alongside an attorney to assist in high conflict, emotionally charged family disputes, to generate creative options for resolution. Given her background in mental health and her expertise in children and family dynamics, Dr. Donahue is often able to help bridge the gap to overcome impasse and achieve a settlement tailored to a family's unique needs.