Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

2016 BLOGGER UPDATE on this December 5, 2009 post:

In an April 3, 2016 post, I searched for documentation on the history of the Access and Visitation grants back in the 1980s, as part of a time-line of the domestic violence industry. These grants are STILL discussed so infrequently, in general, that my own 12/5/2009 “While you were sleeping” post here (as quoted by “Fearless Fathers” 3 days later) was one of the search results.

That post title and the two short links on it posted as far back as December 2009 (within one year of when I began blogging) and found when I didn’t even have access to a normal laptop, almost “says it all.”

I briefly cleaned up formatting in this older (now over five years old) post, added borders and some background color plus lines around quotes (which I didn’t know how to do at the time), and below that will copy, in different background-color, the text on the same subject matter from 2016 post, “Can You Tell the “Tells” of the DV (so-called) Cartel? It’s Show-and-Tell Time.” That was my 15th post of 2016 — see the Table of Contents here.

It took me longer than a few months (a few years) to put together, from the timeline of major domestic violence prevention groups, that most of them probably knew all along about the influence of the HHS-sponsored (at the time, HEW-sponsored, as HHS only came into being 1990, but some key DV groups were formed in 1980 (“Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs” in Duluth, MN), 1989 (“Futures without Violence”), or earlier) strategically positioned ACCESS and VISITATION GRANTS  of first $4M (1988 dollars) then $10M (1996 dollars)/year and MARRIAGE/FATHERHOOD, about 15 times larger annual appropriations than the A/V.

These domestic violence nonprofits at the leadership level did not inform their “clients,” typically battered and abused women with or without children, about the Access and Visitation grants those clients who were MOTHERS would be up against, by virtue of their not being fathers, and by virtue, as it applied, of their having custody of the children and there even being a (male) “Noncustodial” parent. It was social public welfare policy!

This old post stands as a simple testimony that IF certain information is available, other parts of major systems start to make sense, and if it is not, they simply do not. Therefore, in my opinion, one of the larger “crimes” in responding to domestic violence, and evidence itself of an abusive approach to the target population being helped, is to withhold timely information which, if NOT withheld, might lead to a different strategic decision on the part of that individual parent. For example, SOME individual parents may decide whether or not to go up against the largest grant-making federal agency around in seeking to protect their children and do it by way of the family courts.

I found this on-line yesterday [12/4/2009], it appears to date to JUNE 2000.

Congressional Research Service

Report 97-590

CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AND VISITATION: SHOULD THERE BE A FEDERAL CONNECTION?

Carmen D. Solomon-Fears, Education and Public Welfare Division

Updated June 20, 2000

Found at this link: http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/wikileaks-crs/wikileaks-crs-reports/97-590.pdf

Abstract.

From time to time, the issue arises of whether the federal Child Support Enforcement (CSE)program should be actively involved in enforcing visitation rights. Both federal and state policymakers agree that denial of visitation rights should not be considered a reason for stopping child support payments.

AVAILABLE HERE — and I’m going to add it to my bloglinks.  It’s ONLY 7 pages long, and provides a summary background of HOW the Federal Government got to be “in the family way.”  The rationale was TANF/Welfare.  That was the chink in the door.

The question arises, in my mind at least — what major institutions and practices in this nation are creating the welfare population to start with?  The 2 largest areas of expenditure in the government are two agencies:  1.  Health and Human Service, and 2.  Education.  The others, are smaller.  Go to at least usaspending.gov and look at the pie chart, and take a look.  Why are the courts and the child support agencies in the business of education, at which the educational system is already failing, clearly?

http://stuff.mit.edu/afs/sipb/contrib/wikileaks-crs/wikileaks-crs-reports/97-590.pdf

Recommended reading for the uninitiated, for example:

Is the Federal Government Becoming Too Intrusive in Family Law Policy?

[[Ya-THINK?  Just perhaps MAYBE?  This shows the rationale…]]

Congress does not have general authority to pass laws dealing with family law issues, unless there is a connection or “nexus” between such legislation and one of the areas in which it is authorized to act. In the case of the CSE program, the federal nexus is the …

H.R. 3073, the Fathers Count Act of 1999, would provide $140 million in grants over four years to public and private entities to achieve three purposes: (1) promote marriage, (2) promote successful parenting, and (3) help noncustodial parent improve their economic status. H.R. 3073 was passed by the House on November 10, 1999, but has not been acted on by the Senate.

H.R. 4469, the Child Support Distribution Act of 2000, introduced on May 16, 2000 also includes many of the provisions related to fatherhood that are contained in H.R. 3073. One of the goals of the proposed fatherhood grant program is to increase the parental involvement (social, emotional, psychological, and financial) of noncustodial parents in the lives of their children.

Here’s a little more earlier history, from the same woman who did this report:

http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.asp?file=legacy/humres/105cong/3-20-97/3-20fear.htm

(viewed April 2016)

(light-blue background = UPDATE, 4-4-2016 comment re: the above now-broken link.  From the URL I gather it was probably 3-20-1997 testimony, probably by this author and probably in reference to her CRS position (or, being quoted by someone else) on the House Ways and Means Committee, Human Resources SubCommittee.  I’m looking for the information.

Current listing of House Subcommittees include both Health and Human Resources, with their ‘Health” one referring to TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families):

SUBCOMMITTEES

• Full Committee
• Health
• Human Resources
• Oversight
• Social Security
• Tax Policy
• Trade

JURISDICTION of that HUMAN RESOURCES SUBCOMMITTEE, according to the Rules (and from their site):

The jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Human Resources shall include bills and matters referred to the Committee on Ways and Means that relate to the public assistance provisions of the Social Security Act, including temporary assistance for needy families, child care, child and family services, child support, foster care, adoption, supplemental security income, social services, eligibility of welfare recipients for food stamps, and low-income energy assistance.  More specifically, the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Human Resources shall include bills and matters relating to titles I, IV, VI, X, XIV, XVI, XVII, XX and related provisions of titles VII and XI of the Social Security Act.

The jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Human Resources shall also include bills and matters referred to the Committee on Ways and Means that relate to the Federal-State system of unemployment compensation, and the financing thereof, including the programs for extended and emergency benefits.  More specifically, the jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Human Resources shall also include all bills and matters pertaining to the programs of unemployment compensation under titles III, IX and XII of the Social Security Act, Chapters 23 and 23A of the Internal Revenue Code, and the Federal-State Extended Unemployment Compensation Act of 1970, and provisions relating thereto.

Source: “Rules of the Committee on Ways and Means for the One Hundred and Twelfth Congress” 

Always watch the footnotes.  Here are the footnotes from this featured report of June 2000.  I am sorry, I do not have the time to reformat them to eliminate extra spaces.  I am compromised in internet access these days, and working on a foreign (to me) system.

If you are good at browsing/skimming — you’ll see some of the “players” in this system, the logic behind it, and the linguistic slippage (frequent) between the words “noncustodial parents” and “fathers,” which is what is really meant by that.  Noncustodial mothers are basically up ___ creek many times, when it comes to enforcing visitation, with help from these funds.

MY LAPTOP WAS STOLEN!  In other words.. . . . . . . .

CRS Report 84-796 EPW, The Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984, Margaret Malone. p. 10.

2 University of Wisconsin-Madison. Institute for Research on Poverty. Focus, Volume 21,
Number 1, Spring 2000. Child support and child access: Experiences of divorced and nonmarital
families by Judith Seltzer. p. 54-57. See also: Urban Institute. To What Extent Do Childrenby Elaine Sorensen and Chava Zibman. Discussion Papers, 99-11.

Benefit From Child Support? January 2000.

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3 Children benefit from fathers’ involvement–New studies examine men’s role in the family. June 16, 2000. [http://www.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH/children/06/16/father.studies/index.html] See also: What Do Fathers Contribute to Children’s Well-Being? Meaning of Father Involvement for Children by Tamara Hale

4 H.R. 3073, the Fathers Count Act of 1999, would provide $140 million in grants over four years to public and private entities to achieve three purposes: (1) promote marriage, (2) promote successful parenting, and (3) help noncustodial parent improve their economic status. H.R. 3073 was passed by the House on November 10, 1999, but has not been acted on by the Senate. H.R. 4469, the Child Support Distribution Act of 2000, introduced on May 16, 2000 also includes many of the provisions related to fatherhood that are contained in H.R. 3073. One of the goals of the proposed fatherhood grant program is to increase the parental involvement (social, emotional, psychological, and financial) of noncustodial parents in the lives of their children.

by Suzanne Le Menestrel and The Child Trends Research Brief.

Which IS it?  Fathers?  or “Parents”?  I’ll give you a basic translation guide.  When the word “parents” is used in documentation like this, it translates in practice to FATHERS.  Go find the word “mothers” in this document, if you can, or as applied to a noncustodial “parent.”  But mothers are increasingly becoming “noncustodial” themselves, in part because of these acts.

5 U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Office of Child Support Enforcement. SummariesWashington, May 1986. p. xiiixiv. of Reports by State Commissions on Child Support Enforcement.

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6 Horowitz, Robert, and G. Diane Dodson. Child Support, Custody, and Visitation: A Report toAmerican Bar Association, July 1985. p. 3-8. State Child Support Commissions.

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7 Evaluation of the Child Access Demonstration Projects–Report to Congress. Prepared by Pearson, Jessica, Nancy Thoennes, David Price, and Robert Williams for the Office of Child
Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. July 1996. p. 2.

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8 The FPLS can access data from the Social Security Administration, Internal Revenue Service and other federal agencies, and the state Employment Security Agencies. The FPLS provides social
security numbers, addresses, employer information, wage and income information, and information
on assets and debts to state and local CSE agencies to establish and enforce child support orders.

The FPLS conducts weekly or biweekly matches with most of the agencies. Each agency runs the
cases against its data base and the names and social security numbers that match are returned to
the FPLS and via the FPLS to the requesting state or local CSE office. Upon request, the
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary must provide to an “authorized
person” (i.e., an employee or attorney of a CSE agency, a court with jurisdiction over the parties
involved, the custodial parent, etc.) the most recent address and place of employment of any absent
parent if the information is contained in the records of HHS, or can be obtained from any other
department or agency of the United States or of any state. The FPLS also can be used in connection with the enforcement or determination of child custody and in cases of parental kidnaping.[misspelled..]]

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9 P.L. 105-33, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, which was signed into law on August 5, 1997
includes safeguards that prohibit the FPLS from providing information on the whereabouts of the
custodial parent (and child or children) in cases where there is reasonable evidence of violence or
abuse and a possibility that disclosure of information could be harmful to the custodial parent or
child.

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10 In September 1997, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin
Islands were awarded access and visitation grants. In 1998 and 1999, all states and jurisdictions,
except for Guam (which didn’t apply for one), received an access/visitation grant.

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11 State Child Access and Visitation Programs: A Preliminary Report Fiscal Year 1997 Funding. American Institutes for Research. Prepared for Office of Child Support Enforcement, Department of Health and Human Services. 1999.

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12 Some analysts argue that like the courts, the federal government would be ineffective in enforcing
visitation and custody rights unless it adopted measures that would adversely affect children and
be inconsistent with former federal policy (e.g., reduce child support payments if it is proved that
the custodial parent is preventing the noncustodial parent from visiting the child.

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13 Evaluation of the Child Access Demonstration Projects–Report to Congress. Prepared by Pearson, Jessica, Nancy Thoennes, David Price, and Robert Williams for the Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. July 1996. p. ix.

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14 Monthly Labor Review, June 1992. Interrelation of child support, visitation, and hours of work,
Veum, Jonathan R. p. 45-47.

Here’s another tidbit:

(from Report 97-590 as posted at Stuff.MIT.edu/Wikileaks….)

 

Should the Federal Government Promote Access/Visitation Rights? fathers’ rights groups argue that by being solely concerned about increasing child support collections, the federal government is limiting its approaches to access/visitation issues.

According to the child access project evaluations, relatively few noncustodial parents (18%) attributed their access problems to disputes about child support, while this was mentioned by about half of custodial parents (48%). Generally, noncustodial parents cited economic factors such as low wages, unemployment, or job instability as reasons for nonpayment as opposed to access or visitation disputes.

Many13There is some evidence that indicates that among fathers who visit their children, fathers who do not pay their child support are more likely to have frequent contact with their children (many on a daily basis) than fathers who pay their child support. fathers’ rights groups would argue that spending time with one’s children (especially on a daily basis) should be counted in terms of reducing that father’s financial obligation.

14 Monthly Labor Review, Veum, Jonathan R. p. 45-47. June 1992. Interrelation of child support, visitation, and hours of work

AGAIN, I am posting FYI.  Do your own reading….

THE REPORT on the AOC, with its section on the CFCC Division IS RECOMMENDED READING for understanding many things which may relate to complaints about the family courts nationwide. Information on the AOC’s/CFCC begins on page 81:

(from a 2012 “SEC” CALIFORNIA-SPECIFIC REVIEW Of the Administrative Office of the Courts)

Division Description

The Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC) was established in February 2000 through the merger of the Statewide Office of Family Court Services and the Center for Children and the Courts.

An Statewide Office on Families was merged with a Center on Children and the Courts.  Consolidation, Year 2000

The Statewide Office of Family Court Services was created by a 1984 legislative mandate to provide leadership, development, assistance, research, grants, education, and technical support to the state’s family court services programs through direct services and community partnerships.

• READER ALERT:  I’m interrupting the quote from the report to emphasize events of 1984, 1988 and 1997, quoting other sources.  I will continue in the next yellow-highlit box below those quotes.  This is relevant and “deep” information that shows the timing of the A/V increasing activities, which should be laid alongside whether OR NOT the domestic violence agencies saw fit to inform mothers about them.  There’s no question that, overall, the leadership of the key organizations were reasonably aware of the same…BEFORE passage of the 1994 VAWA (!!!)
• Larger context, about a key AFCC,NCJFCJ (two private 501©3/nonprofit judicial (and for AFCC, other court-connected professionals) membership associations), and AOC/CFCC–connected & (Santa Clara) county judge pushing certain kinds of programming, including but not limited to Domestic (“Family”) Violence Coordinating Councils…  FYI, In California at least now, judges are state, not county, employees…

Also (federal level) in 1984, the “Access and Visitation” program was enacted. As I went looking for a Congressional Research Service report on this, I found it posted at “Fearless Fathers” who’d picked it up on one of my posts — dated 12/5/2009 (!!).  This has a few other links on the topic.  Note — I’d only discovered what happened in 1984, as posted (summarized) in 2000, in the year 2009….

Congress and Fathers Rights: the Ice Age of Awareness December 8, 2009 by fearlessfathers

 You want to know why family courts are harassing you to pay child support (whether or not your job situation has changed) – or unreimbursed medical expenses (that your ex-wife asks family court to recover for her while she is not using your health insurance that covers your kids) and does not give the first dam of your visitation rights? Search not any more. That’s all in Carmen D. Solomon-Fears’s report 97-590 this report titled “Child Support Enforcement and Visitation: Should There Be a Federal Connection?” posted in Let’sGetHonestBlog. And this is to cry.

As I recall the link to that YEAR 2000 Report 97-590 was found at Wiki-Leaks, posted at MIT.edu (!!).  Read it to see the progressive public laws of 1984, 1988, and 1996 and how it relates to access visitation and “family court-connected programming.”  As the various laws show — and Fearless fathers is pointing out, the original and primary motivation (by Congress in passing this law) seems to have been around better child support payments.  However, the footnotes to the report are quoting fatherhood studies by The Urban Institute and others, as well as an evaluation of pilot programs by “our friends” in Denver, Jessica Pearson, Nancy Thoennes and (at the time) Robert Williams, i.e., versions of the organization “Center for Policy Research” I have posted on before.  Here is from page 3 (bottom of page Footnote 7 references the CPR people above).  Notice in 1984, a public law — meaning by US Congress, Federal Level, ORDERS all Governors to appoint a State Commission on Child Support. Federal (Cross-state-borders) incremental, increasing control of what happens at the state levels, under which level the family courts SUPPOSEDLY are run.

Carmen D. Solomon-Fears’s report 97-590 this report titled “Child Support Enforcement and Visitation: Should There Be a Federal Connection?”

1984 Law – State Commissions to Examine Visitation Issues. P.L. 98-378, the Child Support Enforcement Amendments of 1984, required the Governor of each state to appoint a State Commission on Child Support, which was to report its findings and recommendations by October 1, 1985. One of the duties of the Commission was to examine the problems associated with visitation rights.

The Commissions’ discussions of visitation issues generally covered two areas: the relationship between visitation and support, and methods of enforcing visitation rights.

Some commission reports cite research that shows a correlation between regular, high-quality visitation and payment of child support, but no causal relationship has been established. Certainly, however, statements in public hearings offer anecdotal evidence of such a link. Noncustodial parents often testified at public hearings that “She won’t let me see my children, so why should I pay support,” while custodial parents argued, “He doesn’t pay a dime, why should I let him see the children.”5

The Commissions generally favored the following methods of enforcing visitation rights: (1) contempt of court/jail, (2) allowing parents to take the missed visitation at a later time, (3) supervised visitation, (4) criminal penalties, (5) mediation, (6) fines, and (7) change of custody.6 The 1984 law also set forth as the sense of the Congress that “state and local governments must focus on the vital issues of child support, child custody, visitation rights, and other related domestic issues that are properly within the jurisdiction of such governments.”

1988 Law – Child Access Demonstrations. P.L. 100-485, the Family Support Act of 1988, authorized $4 million for each of FY1990 and FY1991 to permit states to conduct one or more demonstrations to develop, improve, or expand activities designed to increase** compliance with child access provisions of court orders. In October 1990, the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) funded four demonstration projects in the states of Florida, Idaho, and Indiana. These projects were designed to test whether mediation services for couples with child access problems would alleviate parental conflict, reduce interference with visitation rights, and encourage full, voluntary compliance with child support obligations. In October 1991, OCSE funded four additional demonstration projects in Arizona, Idaho, Iowa, and Massachusetts. The goal of this second round of demonstration projects was to test the effectiveness of a broader range of interventions in resolving and/or preventing disputes between parents regarding access to their children.7

**designed to increase: It’s not actually necessary for such activities to actually increase compliance with child access and result in better child support collections — although that was the justification for the law, better child support collections — but just INTEND (“be designed to”) to increase access which, anecdotally, was said to better increase collections.   Same deal, probably, with the marriage/fatherhood programming. In my opinion, the real purpose was to set up those programs, whether or not they achieved the intended results….  !!!

In 1984 also, the FVPSA (Family Violence Prevention and Services Act was passed. (<=Congressional Research Service 2014 report posted, for some reason, at the US Navy’s HSDL.org = Homeland Security Digital Library)

So, now being aware of the 1984 acts, and (if you read more at the Carmen Solomon-Fears link), an awareness of the relevance of 1996 PRWORA (“Welfare reform”) Act, i.e., Public Law 104-193

P.L. 104-193, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, took two significant steps in the area of visitation/child access. One step involved authorizing grants to states to implement access/visitation programs, and the other step provided that noncustodial parents in certain circumstances could obtain access to information on the whereabouts of a custodial parent that was denying him or her visitation or custody rights. Noncustodial parents successfully argued that if custodial parents refuse to make children available for court-ordered visitation, they should have access to information in the Federal Parent Locator Service (FPLS) to locate the custodial parents and children.8

Mandate to Provide Locator Information on Certain Custodial Parents. P.L. 104-193, expands the scope of the FPLS, which is under the purview of the OCSE, to provide for the provision of location information on custodial parents …

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Funds for Access and Visitation Programs. P.L. 104-193 also authorizes grants to states (via CSE funding) to establish and operate access and visitation programs.

These programs are to facilitate noncustodial parents access/visitation to their children. An annual entitlement of $10 million from the federal CSE budget account is available to states for these grants. Eligible activities include but are not limited to mediation, counseling, education, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement, and development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements. The amount of a grant to a state will be equal to the lesser of 90% of state expenditures during the fiscal year for eligible activities or the allotment for the state for the fiscal year. The allotment formula is based on the ratio of the number of children in the state living with only one biological parent in relation to the total number of such children in all states. The amount of the allotment available to a state will be this same ratio to $10 million. The allotments will be adjusted to ensure that there is a minimum allotment amount of $100,000 for any year after FY1998. The access and visitation programs are required to supplement rather than supplant state funds.

States may use the grants to create their own programs or to fund programs operated by courts, local public agencies, or nonprofit organizations. The programs do not need to be statewide. States must monitor, evaluate, and report on their programs in accord with regulations issued by the HHS Secretary.10 In 1997, states reported serving about 20,000 persons in their access/visitation programs.11

Concerns

A lingering question about the CSE program is whether the CSE program should be actively involved in enforcing visitation rights. Historically, Congress has held that visitation and child support should be legally separate issues; and that only child support should be under the scope of the CSE program. Since the 1980s, however, Congress has taken several significant steps in the area of visitation/child access.

Is the Federal Government Becoming Too Intrusive in Family Law Policy?

Congress does not have general authority to pass laws dealing with family law issues, unless there is a connection or “nexus” between such legislation and one of the areas in which it is authorized to act. In the case of the CSE program, the federal nexus is the billions of federal dollars used to fund the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. Before enactment of the CSE program in 1975, Congress had perceived a connection between the failure to pay child support and a growth in the number of families receiving cash welfare benefits.

Should the Federal Government Promote Access/Visitation Rights?

Many fathers’ rights groups argue that by being solely concerned about increasing child support collections, the federal government is limiting its approaches to access/ visitation issues.

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(Report on the California AOC/CFCC Division, p. 81ff, cont’d.  Link above…)

The Center for Children and the Courts was created by the AOC in 1997 in response to the results of a state-wide needs assessment of California juvenile dependency proceedings conducted by the National Center for State Courts.

Notice input from the NCSC in 1997, a “needs assessment” and that it was first aimed at JUVENILE DEPENDENCY — not the entire family law system.  Notice the title in 1997 didn’t yet include the words “Family.”  Anyone that is running (sponsoring, calling for) a “needs assessment” may very well already have an intended “solution/fix” in mind.  These are rarely 100% neutral.

Did you know that in apparently about Year 1983 (but not continuing, I think), the NCSC also served as the “Secretariat” for the organization AFCC?  I believe it’s on my sidebar in one of the AFCC newsletters of that year.

The formation of a specialized center within AOC’s administrative structure institutionalized judicial branch commitment to improving outcomes for children and families. The CFCC is the only division of the AOC that is dedicated to a substantive area of the law. The multidisciplinary model has since been recommended to other states.

If you’ve gotten this far in this dense post –and are even reading my blog — do I need to spell this out further?  Institutionalizing policy-pushing of the COURTS into its ADMINISTRATIVE BRANCH, by “Substantive area” (meaning, I believe, subject-matter jurisdiction focus).  And as I said near the top, “MULTI-DISCIPLINARY” is a key phrase and jargon.  This “Multidisciplinary” encompasses blend of executive branch agencies (i.e., social services) with judicial branch.  It is also part of the motto of the AFCC, which claims a founding date of 1963….

From its inception, the CFCC’s mission has been to improve the quality of justice and services to meet the diverse needs of children, youth, parents, families, and other users of the California courts. The division provides a wide range of services to family, juvenile, and collaborative justice courts.

Collaborative Justice has been an ongoing theme promoted by AFCC members.  This can be seen in some of the nonprofits formed, by looking at who formed them.  Not the topic of this post….

SUMMARY:  The Courts in the State of California have increasingly centralized control and operations over time, other parts of the report also show.  The timing of some of the special divisions seems to correlate to increased federal funding for programming that these divisions seem to control — from the administrative sector. … Good to keep in mind…
[END quote from my 4-3-2016 post Can You Tell the “Tells” of the DV (so-called) Cartel? It’s Show-and-Tell Time].