Engagement of parents and youth is a key construct in hearing quality. The court observation instrument provides an opportunity to capture how the parents and youth are engaged throughout the hearing. If a party is not present, mark them N/A (not applicable; because they aren’t present it’s not applicable to code engagement for that person). The parties are M(mother) F(father) and Y(youth). In this section, a check mark means you observed an item. So for each of these items, consider did you observe the judge using this particular strategy? If yes, place a check next to each engagement strategy used by the judge for each person (mother, father or youth).