MACF 720 - Forensic Mental Health Evaluation and Practice

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This course prepares students to be forensic mental health evaluators. It focuses on the role of forensic mental health counselors and evaluators in legal processes relating to family violence, child custody, sex offenders, juvenile justice, and other judiciary issues in both criminal and specialized courts. Students will be provided opportunities to apply skills in forensic interviewing, designing protocols to address common referrals from the court/legal system, conducting specialized assessment procedures/instruments including risk assessments. Students will learn about multidisciplinary collaboration in the areas of providing expert testimony, mitigation, mediation, treatment, and multidisciplinary collaboration. This course guides students through a series of applied assignments that include designing a protocol to address a forensic mental health referral from the court, conducting forensic interviews, administering assessment procedures, interpreting data, report writing, trial preparation, and providing testimony in a mock court.