Legal Professionals & Court Officials
Registration for court-ordered services can be initiated by an attorney, GAL, advocate, or community partner by submitting a completed Forensic Center Referral Form. An individual referral form must be completed for each court-ordered party. When submitting the referral form on behalf of a client, please request that the client contact us by phone if they have not yet done so.
Information regarding fees for court-ordered services can be found at the Fees & Payment drop-down menu.
Descriptions of Services
Mental Health Assessment:
- Assessment of readiness of all parties for court-ordered services
- No psychological testing is conducted, but a referral for testing can be made after the mental health assessment.
- Can be use for a starting point for treatment if referral source is not sure
Psychological Evaluation:
Assesses various dimensions of emotional wellness, mental health, and cognitive abilities. These evaluations include an assessment interview and an array of standardized tests. In most cases, it is best if the court orders and Mental Health Assessment first to determine if a psychological evaluation is recommended.
Individual Therapy
- Based upon treatment plan recommended during Mental Health Assessment
- May precede or overlap with other services (e.g. family therapy)
- Monitors mental health symptoms
- Processes past distressing/traumatic events
- Develops coping skills
- Improves interpersonal and communication skills
- Increases parenting skills
Family Therapy
- Includes two or more family members
- Supports healthy relationships
- Identifies and builds insight into family dynamics
- Processes previous distressing/traumatic family events
- Improves interpersonal communications skills and perspective taking
- Increase ability to resolve conflicts
Co-parenting Therapy
- Supports parents/caregivers as they work toward improving their co-parenting relationship in order to improve the overall well-being of the child.
- Focusses on the specific needs of the child
- Emphasizes accountability of co-parents to one another and to the child
- Improves interpersonal, collaborative skills
- Builds communication skills
- Identifies aspects of parenting that will most benefit the child and attunes parental interventions to be age appropriate
Therapeutic Supervised Visitation (TSV)
- Allows non-custodial parents to have parenting time in a structured environment under the supervision of a mental health provider
- Fosters health relationship between parent and child
- Custodial parent is included as an integral part of the process
- Includes an assessment process with all parties before any TSV meetings. It helpful to let your clients/potential referrals know this as many hopes hope they will begin seeing their child immediate when services begin.
Reunification Therapy
- Provides opportunity for estranged child and parent to reconnect and develop health interactions
- As done with TSV, an assessment process is conducted with all involved parties
- Involves a deeper level of therapeutic intervention than TSV
Wait Times for Court-Ordered Referrals
Please call us at 312-467-2535 to verify that our waitlist is open and to obtain an estimate of how long before services can begin.
For more information about our services and recommendations for formulating a referral question, identifying the most appropriate services, and what to include (and not include) in a court order, see our educational PowerPoint presentation. You may also contact us for a consultation.
How does therapy help?
Psychotherapy helps people understand that they can do something to improve their situation. That leads to changes that enhance healthy behavior, whether it’s improving relationships, expressing emotions better, doing better at work or school, or thinking more positively. – The American Psychology Association