I  look at the brochures in the family courts, child support, and social service offices when I am in some of them.  Sometimes I make a special detour into the wonderful

“Family Court Services”

of my local courthouse, to find out whether the concept of domestic violence has disappeared from general use.  FYI, it has.  And where it shows up, it’s no longer called “violence” but “abuse” (that’s more PC).

However the word “Violence” attracts a lot of federal funding.  I know where a good deal of this goes — both now, and formerly (see this blog!).

A new “twist” on the Expert Conference-Talks is to “collaborate.”  While these groups (who are paid to run conferences, and set up websites — and institute after institute — after all, a guy (and a whole lot of white, conservative middle aged males are typically included) has to make a living, right? — want to hear the flavor of the month (which JUST HAPPENS to match federal grants programs with the same flavor names), the one voice they don’t want to hear is mine, or women like me.

For one, we don’t complete our sentences, and our websites (well, mine at least) aren’t as “tight” and colorful.  For another, some of us are just dang pissed off.

And some people put this flyer in the San Diego Family Courts.

Take a look!

San Diego Family Court Protests (Fall, 2009)

In late October 2009, one or more people distributed a large quantity of flyers inside the San Diego family law courts.

Reportedly they were stuffed in books, free magazines, and other literature in the courthouses.

The flyers protest the use of expensive professionals in child custody cases, in particular section 730 psychological evaluators.

Criticisms are also directed at minor’s counsel attorneys, exchange and visitation monitors, and consulting psychologists.

While this criticism is appropriate, it seems these people are unaware of federal policy recommending this, via Access Visitation funding…(search term on my blog, or search “required outcome”)

You can see a scanned PDF of the flyer.

The text of the protest flyer has also been posted on Courthouse Forum, one of the sites hosting discussions about the scandal. Some other web sites with related public discussions are:

• Custody Evaluator’s Credentials Questioned In Lawsuit (10 News main site)
• Custody Evaluator’s Credentials Questioned In Lawsuit (10 News blog site)
• Parents Say They Are Drained Of Money By Court Professionals

Some of the discussions mention the courts sealing the Tadros v. Doyne case after it started to be discussed publicly. Perhaps the courts want to “protect privacy” or maybe simply cover up allegations of their misconduct. Whatever the case may be, you can read the text from this quote in case the link or discussion thread becomes unavailable:

DOYNE case leads to the accreditation of a CAT, as I recall.  However, the whole issue is turning courts into psychological dispensaries to the public, under duress.   The HHS department is set up along the lines of a prominent psychologist, Wade Horn, and with help from such heavyweights as David Blankenhorn (who receives/d grants to write “The Future of Marriage”) and so forth.  It’s not just at the courts level, or at the individual practitioners level.

Here’s the flyer (and see original link for more information on this):

PARENTS BEWARE! PRIVATE CHILD CUSTODY EVALUATIONS

 ALSO CALLED “730 EVALUATIONS”

“AND THE CHILDREN GO TO………THE HIGHEST BIDDER”
 

Judges regularly order parents into Private Child Custody Evaluations and appoint a specific evaluator. Yet no one in the Court, including the Judge, verifies the education, credentials, training, or competence of the appointees. The Court deems itself “not responsible” for private sector practitioners, yet they make orders that force you to sign a contract and pay for what could only be called a “disservice” to your children. The evaluator then coerces you to sign a service agreement, medical releases, and other documents, when no legally binding contract existed prior to your signature being received. If the Court is allowed to make this kind of order, why is your signature required?

 But you will do this. You will do this because your lawyer (who probably told you it was a good idea and suggested an evaluator), the Judge, and the evaluator themselves will deem you “uncooperative” and imply that you will lose all custody of your children if you don’t.

 Parents, WE, AS CITIZENS OF THIS COUNTRY, have no right under the U.S. or California Constitutions to raise or even have contact with our own children.

FALSE, I say.  First of all, the Declaration of Independence talks about “inalienable rights” meaning — that the government is NOT our master, but our servant.

How this relationship was changed around through the tax system (which affects grants, which affect the courts and nearly every other aspect of life) is the topic of future posts.  I’m not a Constitutional expert.  But we know that family courts basically PER SE violate due process. 

Those in the business of the “Justice Factory” know this and will exploit your fear of losing your child to serve themselves and feed the mill.

Yes they do.  NOW, the question is, what can we do about this?  At this point (many years after our case entered, and still has stalled, in the family law system) is that we must boycott it entirely, one way or another.  It’s a large net, and trawling for fish. 

Either that, or continue to enter this slot-machine venue.  Keep pumping in quarters, but the house generally wins.

Regardless of these facts, the Judge will enter any report an appointee generates into your Court file under California Evidence Code §730, without verifying that the evaluator followed the legal procedures and/or complied with the orders they issued in your case. Once released to the court, you have no independent access the report you paid for.If you are ordered into a 730 Evaluation, your only chance at 50/50 custody is if:a) You are paying the “right” Family Law Attorney ($250+/hr.), and;b) You agree to pay for ½ the evaluation, in advance of the report….….which has no set limit as to how long it can take or how much the evaluator charges hourly. Evaluations can cost as much as $30,000 and you may be required to participate in more than one!!! As well, you may be “farmed out” to their partner marketed colleagues for “therapy”, “mediation”, “parenting coordination”, “supervised visitation”, “coaching” and a few other “services” these same people provide.THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A “COURT APPROVED” PRIVATE EVALUATOR – DESPITE WHAT YOU MAY HAVE BEEN TOLD* Please download PKT-036 at the link provided belowHOW THIS COULD HAVE HAPPENED?In 1992, the Federal Government enacted The Child Support Recovery Act. The States were at risk of having welfare funding cut. In response, California dismissed “Argos Minimum Child Support Standards Act of 1984”, in favor of “The California Child Support Guideline” (Family Code §§4050-4076). Child support was thereafter based on “time-share” rather than meeting the minimum needs of the child.

Non-custodial parents, previously disinterested in custody but ordered to pay child support or face criminal charges, flooded the Court seeking custody. Resources exhausted, the Court, in its infinite business sense, created measures allowing the “out-sourcing” of services at the parents’ expense.

Whoever this author is, the narration is PARTIALLY true.  The focus should not be only on those noncustodial parents (although there’s an element of truth in this).  The Child Support System is recruiting.  From there, grants administered BY OCSE are used to help tweak the system and the litigation, as described herein.  It’s NOT just a natural flooding from deadbeat Dads (or Moms) who don’t want to pay.

It’s recruiting.

For my witness, en route here today, I saw AGAIN, full-scale, HUGE posters at the main commuter train line (I have now seen them at at least 3 stations), you see them coming, going, while ON the platform waiting for an arriving train, and I saw another TWO today, HUGE, each of them at least (I’d say) 10 feet long by about 2 feet tall, and pasted at an angle behind a long bench where people could be waiting either for a taxi, a bus, or someone to get their car, inside the station.  They read, and I quote:

DO YOU PAY OR RECEIVE CHILD SUPPORT? 

DON’T WAIT TIL YOU NEED HELP!

OPEN A CHILD SUPPORT CASE!

TURBOCOURT.COM  (and an 866, plus a logo, for the county’s child support agency).

The photo (I didn’t get a close look from the one across the platform) has a variety of kids (multicultural) together, and below it, one of two (white) kids in front of a suburban home.  This billboard was pasted in a VERY wealthy neighborhood.  Another one had a picture of what looks like a man’s wallet. 

There was no picture of any women, or child, needing child support…

I have another question:  why does it say do you PAY or RECEIVE (in that order) versus RECEIVE or PAY?  Answer:  It’s aiming at noncustodial parents.

Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs (93.597)

Obligations

(Formula Grants) FY 08 $10,000,000; FY 09 est $10,000,000; FY 10 est $12,000,000

Program

93.597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs

Federal Agency

Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Office: Administration for Children and Families

Authorization

Social Security Act, Title IV, Part D, Section 469B, Public Law 104-193.

Program Number

93.597

Last Known Status

Active

Objectives

To enable States to create programs which support and facilitate access and visitation by non-custodial parents with their children.

{{NOTE:  this does not work for mothers after custody-switch, that I’m aware of .  And I know lots of mothers who lost their kids to that switch..}}

 Activities may include mediation, counseling, education, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement and development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements.

Types of Assistance

Project Grants

=========

Back to the SAN DIEGO FLYER text……

The Court enticed private practitioners by calling them “expert witnesses”, such that their “work product” was immune to lawsuit, under Evidence Code §730.

With HMO’s and PPO’s limiting payments to doctors for mental heath services that were not “medically necessary”, psychologists who formerly refused to be involved in the Court system, suddenly saw a “cash cow”. The public was now required to pay their full hourly rates for an indeterminate length of time, in hopes of continued, meaningful contact with their children.

 Such practitioners in the Golden State should be well-heeled, as the Terminator is now threatening to entirely Terminate CalWorks, and reduce mental health services (as paid for by federal grants) and in general, things that might help keep children and their families off the streets. 

To this day the Court takes no responsibility to ensure that the credentials, training and education of the 730 Evaluators they appoint meet the legal standards. Lorna Alksne, Supervising Judge of the Family Court, recently told Channel 10 News that it is the responsibility of the parents to verify credentials of an appointed evaluator.** In other words, they “scapegoat” their incompetence, corruption, and deliberate ignorance on you, at the cost of your home, your retirement, your children’s savings and college funds and most important, your child’s psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing… 

NAMES 

“730’s”: Stephen Doyne, John C. Parker IV, William Dess, David Green, Lori Love, Russell Gold, Steven Sparta, Robert Simon, Yanon Volcani, Breffni Barrett, Neil Ribner, Linda Altes;Marketed Partners: Hannah’s House, Family Connections, Monika Konia, Penny Angel-Levy, William Eddy, Terrence Chucas, Dave Schulman, Margot Lewis….and more too numerous to list here.LINKS

 That’s all the time I have to flesh out that post. 

My Recommendation:

If your noncustodial parent is willing to cough it up for child support without any agency involvement, live with it or do without (for more, see Randijames.com).  If he (or the occasional she) is NOT willing to, then still maybe do without, because sooner or later such a person is going to find some unethical sorts to get his way, and we know where they live & thrive.

If you still don’t “get” this, check out this 1981 organization: