Continuum of Services in Court-Based Family Dispute Resolution


This Request for Proposals ("RFP") is issued April 30, 2003 to identify a qualified consultant to provide survey research and data collection services to the Administrative Office of the Courts ("AOC") in a case flow and workload study of the Family Court.

The AOC seeks the services of a consultant with expertise in survey research and workload studies, preferably in court settings, for the following purposes: (1) create data collection instruments for a two week study in five Family Court Services Programs; (2) create data entry tools for the study, including web-based data entry tools; and (3) provide training and technical assistance to the data collection effort in the field.

The work of family court services programs in the family courts has expanded beyond providing mandatory custody mediation for parents with custody and visitation disputes. These services include assessment of domestic violence in families, emergency investigations, orientation, and education programs for parents, criminal and court records checks, case management conferences, judicial settlement conferences, and investigation or evaluation in child custody cases. However, the number of child custody mediations is still the basic unit of service in statistical reporting, budgeting, and evaluation of family court services. Collecting information on child custody mediation alone gives a distorted picture of the work being done in family court services. This study will quantify all services, case flow, and workload in a limited sample of family court services programs. The measures and descriptive information derived from the study will inform the AOC's process for defining workload standards in family court services, and the process for establishing new service reporting guidelines.

Consultants are asked to submit proposals by 5 p.m. on Thursday, May 8, 2003. Services are expected to be performed by the consultants beginning on or about May 26, 2003 through August 11, 2003.

For further information regarding this RFP, please contact Donald Will, Supervising Research Analyst, Administrative Office of the Courts/Center for Families, Children & the Courts, 455 Golden Gate Avenue, San Francisco, California, 94102. Telephone: 415-865-7557; E-mail: don.will@jud.ca.gov.


RFP for Continuum of Services in Court-Based Family Dispute Resolution: Case Flow and Workload Study - CFCC 04-25-03-D