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

Sometimes, the Obvious cannot be rephrased, only exposed.

There’s nothing at all “innovative” about these programs except for the reasoning that keeps them going, going, gone, while so many other social services are gone, gone gone (and so are some human beings subjected to them).

On June 10th, a hearing was announced. I was alerted and put out the word to noncustodial mothers I knew, whose input, naturally, wasn’t sought and without a SINGLE “technical assistance grant” from the U.S. Dept of Anything, we blogged this, and got a few words in edgewise in the brief window, less than a week, this hearing was announced.

June 17th, the hearing was held. The same day, the wife of a city worker in North Carolina called 911, again, “On June 17 at 4:30 p.m., Devinee House called 911 and told a dispatcher that her husband had changed the locks on the doors of the home.”

This was a nuclear family, homeowners, the father working for the City and a good guy, hey said. There was no known alcohol or violence in the home. They were married and homeowners. They had four children together, 2, 7, 8 and 15. Dad was employed:

William House worked for the city of Raleigh in the inspections department, where he made sure heating and air conditioning units installed throughout the city met local and state codes. He was known as “Billy” by colleagues, said Larry Strickland, the city’s inspections director, who called House a “good employee.”

I’m going to hazard a guess, by the photos, this was a Caucasian, middle class family. Not exactly the profile that would justify the fatherhood programming and funding, which began being aimed at welfare mothers, particularly African-American ones. So here we go, another week “in the life.”

Johnston County Sheriff’s Officers gather outside a house at 640 Castleberry Road near Clayton. A father, mother and their 15-year-old son are all dead this morning in an apparent double murder-suicide.

She was trying to separate. Result? Dad, Mom, and a 15 year old boy GONE. This happened YESTERDAY!

Meanwhile, business as usual in Washington, D.C., announcing on-line an upcoming hearing about why millions more should be allocated to keep the government in the business of relationship improvement:

[phrase copied from “house.gov” link titled: McDermott Announces Hearing to Review Responsible Fatherhood Programs June 10, 2010.]

“In view of the limited time available to hear witnesses, oral testimony at this hearing will be from invited witnesses only. However, any individual or organization not scheduled to appear may submit a written statement for consideration by the Subcommittee and for inclusion in the record of the hearing.”

As we can see (from the Hearings Witness list) no female’s statements were taken.

Not exactly surprising . . . The ostensible goal, after all, is to get Dads back with their children, Moms back in the workforce, and Early Childhood Development Scholars back into Head Start to report on the little ones.

Many females I know are busy attending a different sort of hearings, hearings where what they are saying is typically NOT heard, and these take place in the family law venue. These hearing sare multiplying even faster than SOME of us can have more babies to replace the throwaway ones. They are helping in this manner reduce both JOBLESSNESS (for those in government or working in professions which get clientele from traumatized families and court referrals), and also the POPULATION CRISIS, as sometimes they result in family wipeouts.

And “throwaway kids” is not always a figure of speech. A recent incident in Oakland, California, had a young man doing exactly that to his 18 month old daughter:

Oakland man arrested after throwing baby into traffic
By Harry Harris and Sean Maher
Staff writers
Posted: 07/11/2010 10:31:55 AM PDT
Updated: 07/12/2010 08:43:33 AM PDT

http://www.insidebayarea.com/ci_15491654?source%253Dmost_emailed.26978592730A3B8C7F471EACE0DA4EF2.html

OAKLAND — A 21-year-old man was arrested Saturday after he threw his daughter into oncoming traffic and then attacked witnesses and police who were trying to subdue him, authorities said.

The 18-month-old girl was not badly injured.

The wheels of an oncoming Volkswagen Jetta did not touch her, but she was burned and scraped by the car’s undercarriage, police said.

The suspect, John Taylor, was stunned with a Taser and suffered minor injuries. Police did not release the girl’s name but said she lives with her mother in an East Bay city.

She was visiting her father Saturday, and they had been at a friend’s house. Police were still unsure Sunday afternoon why Taylor acted as he did.

{{I can’t locate it, but a TV camera caught his brother saying, they’d been in foster homes, growing up; many times kids in these situations are also “inappropriately medicated.” Makes you think…}}

That little girl couldn’t have predicted that she would go airborne, but here’s a case where a six-year-old boy accurately predicted that his Daddy was going to kill his Mommy. A protective order was involved (and violated). Naturally, it was “assumed” that the Daddy, having been confronted, would respect a piece of paper more than he respected his wife, or child.

This one produced a young, fatherless boy in the end, too. (Murder/suicide. To me, it sounds like an honor killing as well…) Should he be invited to stand before the House Ways and Means Committee, as a young adult, to give oral testimony, in a few years? (I imagine these programs WILL continue, as they are ideologically-based, and not “evidence-based”)

This in effect gives those who are paying attention about a week to get together a submission in the proper format, as the hearing took place June 17, 2010, only one week later.

The “background” statement (on this page announcing the Hearing) reads:

BACKGROUND:

Up to $50 million in Federal funds per year is now available in competitive grants to States, territories, Indian tribes, and public and non-profit community organizations to operate Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives. The program is designed to promote responsible fatherhood through: parenting activities, fostering the economic stability of fathers, marriage promotion, and collaborating with non-profit fatherhood promotion organizations to develop and advance media campaigns to encourage parental involvement. Funding for the program expires on September 30, 2010.

President Obama included a proposal in his FY2011 budget to redirect funds from the current Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Programs into a new Fatherhood, Marriage, and Families Innovation Fund. The new program would provide competitive grants to States to develop, implement, and evaluate comprehensive responsible fatherhood programs and comprehensive family demonstrations that improve child well-being by improving the outcomes for families experiencing severe barriers to self-sufficiency. The proposal would provide $500 million in FY2011 and $150 million per year for FY2012 through FY2015.

In announcing the hearing, Chairman McDermott stated, “I look forward to hearing how Responsible Fatherhood Initiatives have helped men play a bigger role in the lives of their children, and how the program might be built upon to improve the overall well-being of vulnerable children and their families.”

FOCUS OF THE HEARING:

The hearing will focus on the effectiveness of Responsible Fatherhood Programs in improving the relationship between non-custodial parents and their children, as well as their ability to provide financial support.

Far better to “focus on the effectiveness” than to “report the abysmal failures” of these programs. They are resulting in a population so traumatized, and ADHD, lest we FOCUS ON THE ADHD GOVERNMENT THAT “forgot” what Governments are for.

IMPROVING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN INDIVIDUALS? Or SECURING THEIR RIGHTS?

JUNE 17 — OPENING STATEMENTS, WITNESS STATEMENTS 1 , and 2, and STATEMENTS FOR THE RECORD.

This gives the impression of some sort of due process or legal procedure: Hearings, witness statements, testimony, etc. Can we talk, “conflict of interest?”

A glance at the list of people / organizations able to get their submissions in on time, and in the proper format, includes several individual names (some of who can be seen on my blogroll — as soon as I heard about this hearing, I publicized it) and are probably Moms who lost their kids to abusers, or at least through these programs’ effect. Some of them are overtly fatherhood groups (and as such, are receiving funding from the programs, or have been given a “leg up” by the existence of the HHS, NFI, etc. coalition which dates back at least a decade.

This is a typed out list of Statements for the Record:

American Humane Association
Illinois Council on Responsible Fatherhood
PAIRS Foundation
American Mothers Political Party
AngelFury.org
Anita Barnes
Dr. Alan Hawkins, Brigham Young University
California Healthy Marriages Coalition 1
California Healthy Marriages Coalition 2
Center for Family Policy & Practice
Center for Urban Families
Child Find of America Inc.
Community Endeavors Foundation
COPES, Inc.
Families in Crisis, Inc.
Fatherhood and Marriage Leadership Institute
Gail Lakritz
Goodwill – Easter Seals Minnesota
Greg Eckenrode
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Health Policy Institute
Linder Battershall
Male Empowerment Network Inc.
Mariz Zwiefka
Mothers of Lost Children – Indianapolis
National Fatherhood Initiative
National African American Drug Policy Coalition I
National Alliance for Family Court Justice
National Center for Fathering
Nurturing Father’s Program
Nurturing Father’s Program, Study 1
Ohio Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families
Dr. Philip Cowan, Supporting Father Involvement Project
Randi James
Relationship Research Foundation, Inc.
Renovando Familias
Rights for Mothers Group
Ruth Whipple
Sacramento Healthy Marriages Project
Technical College System of Georgia-Fatherhood Program
Teen-Aid, Inc.
Texas Coalition for Healthy Families
Dr. Jennifer Baker, The School of Professional Psychology at Forest Institute
VA EQUAL Parents
VOW Family Champions
Warren County Center for the Family
YouandMe.We
ICF International
Northwest Family Services
The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy
Patty Howell, California Healthy Marriages Coalition

You see that last organization, California Healthy Marriage Coalition? I see (offhand) 3 entries above from this group, and well they might — they received one of the largest grants around in 2006, to reproduce themselves. Target population?

(Don’t laugh, I mean, these grants recipients take their business seriously; after all, it’s serious $$) — it’s practically the entire population of the State of California, those that made it to age 15 (which — see top of post — the son of one family didn’t make it PAST, though he lived in a nuclear, white (I’m guessing), homeowner, suburban family with a working father. So, theoretically, his resident father could’ve taught him about fatherhood and not becoming prematurely sexually active outside of marriage (i.e., “abstinence”), using drugs, beating on women, or such high-risk behaviors. Only problem, it appears that his Dad killed this young man, and his mother, and the father himself.

THIS POST (mine, August 2009) has charts, and interactive links to some of the organizations submitting statements, above. I see on there is the School of Professional Psychology at the Forest Institute, too. Click on links, and see what their projects were, and how much they received. This is a for-profit business, and these grants are part of the profit.
Maybe some of the economic pressures on these families who are killing each other off might be relieved if an alternate use could be put to federal funding besides “studying” them. The role of Big Brother as Family Counselor is simply a transfer of wealth scheme.

I know women MADE homeless through these programs. I went chasing around for a damn TELEPHONE (after unemployment failed to come, though it was promised). I found instead a sea of red tape. Foundations fund nonprofits (and are inbred with government) and individuals without the right connections (in my case, I was hoping for a simple INTERNET connection. . . . in a timely fashion.) had best get in line. They will be screened, fingerprinted, photographed, monitored, and threatened with serious fraud if they fail to report properly and on time what they did with what’s left of any government benefits that somehow trickled down to you and were actually consumed. They will NOT be invited to testify at hearings unless their profile fits the purpose of the hearings. When it comes to fatherhood, were mothers invited to testify?

Another group (I see submitted a statement above) actually changed its original name, which held the word “FATHERS” to be less overtly “Fatherhood” friendly and replaced it with the word “families.” I may have blogged them already, or it may still be lingering here as a draft:

Center for Family Policy & Practice

Ever wonder why the little word “for” gets a big letter “F” in the logo?

“Center For Family Policy & Practice – – CFFPP, naturally.

They’re about FAMILIES. Families including MOTHERS? Well, here’s the current home page, part of it:

Listen to Co-Director Jacquelyn Boggess discuss the Fatherhood, Marriage, and Family Innovation Fund on WORT Radio. (Skip forward 30 minutes [about halfway] in the program to hear her interview.) Play or Download President Obama’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships: Report of Recommendations: In the radio interview, Ms. Boggess references the sections on Fatherhood and Healthy Families (p. 27) and Reform of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (p. 117).
	Fatherhood Programs and Healthy Marriage Funding (2009)

Here’s the prior incarnation, same site, same letters in the name

Search Results

CFFPP: Center for Family Policy and Practice

President Releases 2011 Budget; Increases HHS Funding While Freezing Spending for Most Domestic Programs,

Mass Incarceration and Its Effect of Racial Control Explored in New Book.