

Email: deckp@bc.edu
High-conflict families, separation and divorce, family law, child custody, and interprofessional collaboration
Premela Deck, JD, MSW, LCSW, is a part-time faculty member at the Boston College School of Social Work. She is forensic social worker, family law attorney, and doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill. Premela’s research focuses on high conflict families, resist and refuse dynamics, parent competencies, and forensic social work during separation and divorce.
Her current research projects include the development and psychometric testing of a high conflict measurement tool for divorcing parents of minor children; evaluation of the empirical evidence for conducting remote child custody evaluations; and interprofessional collaboration between legal and social work professionals.
Premela’s research is supported by her experience as a family law attorney and former clerk to the Supreme Court of North Carolina, as well as her forensic social work direct practice. She employs a number of interventions for high-conflict families including parent coordination, custody evaluations, and psychoeducation.
She has taught courses on program evaluation, social welfare policy, macro practice, and research methods at the graduate schools of social work at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill; Boston College; and Bridgewater University.
Deck, P.G. (2016). "Law and social work: Reconciling conflicting ethical obligations between two seemingly opposing disciplines to create a collaborative law practice." 38 Western New England Law Review.
Klein, L. B., Graham, L. M., Treves-Kagan, S., Deck, P. G., DeLong, S. M., & Martin, S. L. (2018) "Leveraging data to strengthen campus sexual assault policies." Journal of Interpersonal Violence. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260518798351
Strom-Gottfried, K.J., Deck, P.G., Souders, T. (October 2016). Thiemann Advisory: FAQ on criminal behavior.