In the matters I blog on, the Nonprofit Sector reigns supreme — and is often corrupt, un-caught, and unnoticed.

If I had any illusions about any “social contract” with the local social service agencies, nonprofits, or my local government, that illusion is now gone.

Instead, there is a host of nonprofits doing the work (allegedly) that serves human beings (allegedly) that (allegedly) are drastically in need of certain services. For example — a great example — teaching adult fathers about abstinence, or women leaving abuse (or trying to) about how to better get along with their ex-batterer, or else. The or else comes as much from the courts as it did formerly (or still) from the ex.

Meanwhile, faith-based organizations, often nonprofits — go after grants (and the government goes after their getting them).

Not only is it the taxes these groups do NOT pay that has an effect, but sometimes, the work the are doing is drastically restructuring society without appropriate approval by the local communities — unless these communities happen to have time to stay REALLY up on the grants system in their areas.

For example, one major nonprofit, at least west coast (and there are corresponding groups for other regions) is called “CSDA” — the Child Support Directors Association (of California):

California — like all other states — had to go towards a Statewide Disbursement Unit (SDU) model — or forfeit the federal welfare funding.  So in most counties, there is an agency — and this is an administrative agency, not legislative or judicial — for which taxpayers pay the salaries and expenses, as well as there was a major transition project around the turn of the millennium, when this function was removed from district attorney’s offices (where it was sometimes abused) and centralized, computerized and incentivized.

This group — and others like it — deserve an entire post, or series of posts — but today I’m just showing it as an example.

The Child Support Directors are Public Employees to start with.  Their membership in this nonprofit organization,which (as I see the website) you and I cannot join — are also paid by the public, as it is a vendor taking payments from the City and County of San Francisco, as follows (from SF Comptrollers’ Site):

Report 1230a Data As Of : 08/07/2011	City and County of San Francisco Vendor Payment Summaries Website	Page 1 of 1
Search Results by Vendor, Department, Type of Goods and Services

	Payments     Vendor Names Non Profit Departments Types of Goods and Services FY 2009-10 FY 2010-11 FY 2011-12 In Process Remaining Balance CHILD SUPPORT DIRECTORS                     CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES                 TRAINING $10,012 $20,235 $0 $0 $0       MEMBERSHIP FEES $30,402 $15,399 $0 $0 $0         $40,414 $35,634 $0 $0 $0

Membership fees in this nonprofit appear to be just about $15.4K.  Multiply by 52? members, one per county/child support agency in California.

There is also a Regional and a National similar organization, nonprofit, of course.

I have some evidence that this group has (perhaps its the Federal OCSE that has) a goal of INCREASING — not DECREASING — the welfare roles, which is the exact opposite mandate that the child support department exists for to start with, not to mention all this fatherhood promotion rigamarole.   There are trainings and in some states, I’ve even seen legislation — to help transit non-Title IV-D (Welfare) Child Support cases back to Welfare ones.  I am figuring the reason for this is probably that there is a Federal incentive to the state (remember, 66%/34%, or approximately $2/$1 bonus payments for certain types of cases?).  Given that the federal disbursement itself also comes from the public (or capital investments, i.e., money was removed from the taxpayers by the IRS, accumulated centrally,and then disbursed by Congress (Appropriations Committee) as per budget — and the applicants/supplicants/those who have the knowhow, then go and get grants and contracts with this government.   Please forgive my overgeneralization, but basically, the government taketh away, and the government re-distributes at will, and loses count of some of what it took as well (Undistributed Child Support Collections, “UDC”) — and that’s a BIG question mark, how much went down that untunneled drain?

Other vendors (profit, or nonprofit) are paid by this department, or provide services to it as follows — these are vendor payments, not salaries, benefits, or any of that):

The membership fees (if you look) are 4 different groups, including the state bar, CSDA, and the NCSEA (national group).  CSDA and NCSEA are the largest, fees, and increased 2009 – 2010.  In fact CSDA, doubled (From $10K to $20K).    Maybe there are now two people functioning as a child support director in SF, I don’t know.  And the NCSEA stayed around $200/year.

Then — and this is odd – under training, the public employees, whose membership ($10 to $20K per year) was paid by the City & County of SF to this CSDA nonprofit then also pays a training fee to the same nonprofit!  AND (get this) to “Fathers and Families,” although I’m sure there are plenty of mothers paying child support nowadays, particularly since FAF began training child support around the country (see Indiana, elsewhere):

$10,000 — for ONE California City& County’s child support department training. I imagine the travel expenses must be to that training also? That must be quite a hefty training — but I guess as child support is such an important function in society, the directors had better be VERY well trained — or train each other very well with whatever the agenda is.  As we are not as the public able to become members (go to that site and try), I guess we’ll find out when we file to get child support enforced, or modified.  (Actually, we may or may not find out what arrangements any child support professional has made with our ex, which doesn’t seem quite equitable, but that’s how it goes…..).

FRED PRYOR SEMINARS, although listed as a nonprofit, I don’t think it is.  They are seminar-selling outfit, and for an amusing? Ripoff report dating to around the same time — from San Diego — here it is.  Peach New Media is a webinar-producing outfit, I gather.  Anyone could look up more information on either of the two groups, this NONProfit CSDA with some pretty pricy habits, and the NATIONAL CSDA.

And total what it costs taxpayers by state.

The NATIONAL CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT ASSOCIATION 2011 AGENDA (Note:  nonparent taxpayers are funding participation by local child support employee/directors, etc.).

THE EVOLVING MISSION OF CHILD SUPPORT:

(note:  the National website also has links to help lobbying Congress for more CSE funding, although it’s obvious (see previous posts) these organization have lost quite a bit of what they’ve already collected, and are sometimes holding collections to collect interest on a LOT of money, per state, and then not reporting that interest as program income either — but going to Congress and asking for more money next year.  Notice, that the membership fees are rather high for this group, and that it, too, is a nonprofit).  Further scanning of the agenda will show that Jessica Pearson and Jane Venohr, Ph.D.s, of Center for Policy Research in Denver, are still alive and kicking (and presenting).

2011 Policy Forum Conference

2011 NCSEA Policy Forum Conference
“The Evolving Mission of Child Support“
January 24-26, 2011
Washington, DC
Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill

DON’T MISS OUT ON HEARING CHILD SUPPORT EXPERTS SUCH AS:

David Hansell, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services. Hansell is one of the speakers at the opening plenary, “The Role of the IV D Program.”, joined by
OCSE Commissioner Vicki Turetsky.

Author Kathryn Edin professor of Public Policy and Management at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.  Her research focuses on urban poverty and family life, social welfare, public housing, child support, and nonmarital childbearing.  Edin will speak on “Fragile Fathers: Their Behavior and Engagement with their Children,” the subject of her most recent research and book.

Ron Haskins senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program and co-director of the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution and senior consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore. Haskins will participate in the panel, From Rags to “Riches”  – Turning Unemployed NCPs into Consistent Payors, and discuss the expanded approach to child support that includes a well designed and carefully measured employment program for low-income obligors as an allowable child support enforcement strategy.

You will also hear the latest on TANF reauthorization, successful interagency collaborations, and the effectiveness of current IV-D program performance measures.

BACK TO CALIFORNIA:

I don’t know the overall payroll for this department, but here’s a job advertisement for a child support attorney:

177 Attorney (Civil/Criminal) Recruitment #PEX-8177-057580

Specialty:	Child Support Attorney
Department:	Child Support Services
Analyst:	Maria Kam
Date Opened:	4/1/2011 5:00:00 PM
Filing Deadline:	5/26/2011 2:15:00 PM
Salary:	$47.36 – $82.98/hour; $8,210.00 – $14,382.00/month; $98,514.00 – $172,588.00/year
Job Type:	Permanent Exempt
Employment Type:	Full-Time

Whereas the mere Program Specialists, are along these lines (SOURCE:  Job Classifications, “Jobaps.com”)

8157 – Child Support Officer I

8158 – Child Support Officer II

8159 – Child Support Officer III

I = $49,140.00-$59,722.00 / year
III = $67,964.00-$82,628.00/year (plus benefits, no doubt)

Department Head I:  $105,950.00-$135,200.00;  $199,368.00-$254,462.00

(Keeping in mind that it’s one of the most expensive areas in the country to live, especially the City of San Francisco itself)

SINCE RENTS & LEASES are the highest expense (and drastically falling 2009, 2010, 2011, interesting), we can also look at those, too:

Per a CSDA fact sheet, 61% of its collections, out of $2.2 BILLION — are from wage garnishments.  Therefore, it’s only natural that the ideal scenario from the Wage Garnishment point of view (i.e., from the department’s point of view)  is that the noncustodial parents stay in EMPLOYEE jobs, which though cumbersome, are easier to track and administer than, say, self-employment income, or when a parent simply decides to hide income and go underground.  I have literally had CS directors tell me that if a (father) wants to avoid paying child support, he can!    (and that was from the child support agency!):

In California State Fiscal Year 2009-10, total collections were $2.2 billion. Wage withholding continues to be the most effective way of collecting support, accounting for 61% or $1.3 billion of the total collections received.

A Report of the 2003-2004 Civil Grand Jury  For the City and County of San Francisco:

SAN FRANCISCO DEPARTMENT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES:  PUTTING THE CHILDREN FIRST

{{README! }}

The involvement of a Civil Grand Jury indicates that there are some serious problems involved; the grand jury had to report back to the presiding Superior Court Judge.  

This FASCINATING document from 2004 is the summary from a Civil Grand Jury convened, in SF, on complaints from both custodial and noncustodial parents.  It explains that the San Francisco Director of Child SUpport Services, for example, answers (or did in 2004) to two people — SF Mayor and the Statewide Child Support Director.  It states that California (this means, the public!) had paid approximately a BILLION$$ in penalties for having signed on to create a certain system, and failed to do so.    It talks about automation, and is clear from this that yet another nonprofit (Child SUpport Directors) association is involved, a Western Regional one (WICSEC — Western Interstate Child Support Enforcement Council), and is abundantly clear that while the local mandate is moreso to — collect support; due to State funding (which is from federal), the State goal is much more expansive.  AND, how they are encouraging mediation to settle the conflict, and discouraging going to court.

HHS/OIS/Office of Inspector General

Letter/Report to Jan Sturla, Director of Child Support Services (statewide)

“Review of Undistributable Child Support Collections in Los Angeles {{not SF…}} County, California,

From October 1,1998, Through March 31, 2006″

(NOTE:  just 2 years after the above Civil Grand Jury Report in SF.  I don’t think an audit of the SF DCSS has been done, similar to this one)

SPeaking of that slogan, “Putting Children First” — here is a MARCH, 2011 Child Support Report (brochure) featuring an Outreach Van in D.C. — and a link to the HHS’s FY2012 Fatherhood and Child Support Initiative in the budget.  Again, I guess mothers and women just never get served with child support or wage garnishment orders, because this organization is still geared towards fathers, and pretty up front about it, too.  AGAIN, anything coming FROM the HHS is coming FROM a taxpayers’ wallets, or from what interest &/or investment income the pooled payments then produced for the government, which then can go sponsor programs called “Building Assets for Fathers and Families.”   HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS.  Notice that for an outfit based primarily on FORCE — it sure words things quite a bit in terms of “encouragement.”  It can FORCE the collections, but other things it can only “encourage” such as good family relationships, etc.   Yes, I know this is not the most current budget (probably), but I am illustrating the pattern.

Fatherhood Initiatives in the Administration’s FY 2012 Budget

March 06, 2011

The President has a deep and long history of supporting policies that can lift up fathers— expecting them to take responsibility for their children, but also helping them be the fathers they want to be by making policy changes and offering services that encourage, not discourage, healthy and active paternal involvement.

Yes, it’s more of an emotional/social thing he’s really doing.  Here’s what it costs, those services:     

There are many facets of this Administration-wide effort, as is made clear in the President’s FY 2012 budget request. The budget request includes new investments of $305 million in FY 2012 and $2.4 billion over ten years for the Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative.

With what’s left of the United States by then (and with what the dollar is worth, which will be far less than now, at this rate — smart investors know what’s very bad business sense, i.e. squandering more money on a theory, same theory as before as to fatherhood) — it’s quite likely (?) especially now that birth control is a covered health benefit (?), there will be fewer fatherless babies, and potentially ALL mothers that don’t marry up or stay shacked up, will have their children forcibly extracted from their lives and be working low-paying jobs to support the Daddies with or without their new wives/girlfiends.

This may ? force many former mothers (if one is a mother with zero contact, that would be a “former” mother, perhaps) to move in with divorced or single Dads with their own children, newly extracted from someone else female.   Then, they together can show up as a nice heterosexual couple — which the administration still assures us is what kids need, or secondarily, custodial single Dads, and thirdly — and this is contraindicated — single mothers (for example, like the one that raised President Obama).  As such, it will ensure the children will be either in custody litigation, in circulation between homes (including potentially foster care if the conflict gets too bad), and what would’ve been their child support will instead be paying for the next round of Healthy Marriage/Responsible Fatherhood grants.  Come to think of it, it’s a FANTASTIC plan for keeping an entire population fairly disrupted and easily manipulated.  (See yesterday’s post).  Potentially women will have lost major parts of their identiy and integrity as they are forced to deal, continuously, with an organization (OCSE) and layers of nonprofits (CSDA, WICSEC, NCSEA), and a bunch of religious institutions around too, perhaps — which value men more than women and talk in terms of fatherhood.  The mental health professionals (and potentially pharmaceutical corps.) will be making a killing in this climate… because when irrationality goes through the roof, some people rise to the challenge, others find ways to tune out.

This next part will just about guarantee the perpetuation of domestic violence from generation to generation, and might cause a recent escapee to wet (her) pants if she understood the implications.  Notice the lip service to domestic violence.  This is awful! For Dads, too!

• Fostering fathers’ engagement in their children’s lives. The Budget provides $570 million over ten years to support increased access and visitation services and integrates these services into the core child support program. A few states currently help parents establish access and visitation agreements with significant success and modest costs.

Successes?  Seems to me there have been multiple deaths surrounding this policy!  Notice how the $10 million/year since 1996 is seriously underplayed as well as the supplementary grants surrounding it (look up Michael Hayes, Texas Office of Attorney General, and my sarcastic posts on him, or randijames.com’s).  Look up KIDS’ TURN — which was a beneficiary (through promoting parent education classes), and it’s conflict-of-interest and “where’s the money” relationships built up with the local courts (SF in particular), and its blatant agenda of promoting parental alienation (or promising to reduce it)!  I’m not done reporting on them either, there’s been quite a bit of recent news on that single NONprofit organization with an amazing amount of donors, and global connections and plans.

Let’s go over this again — this is from the same basic site:  ACF/HHS/GOV Programs, CSE (that’s “OCSE”) ACCESS VISITATION:  It refers to the year 2006:

California  State Access Program Contact:

Shelly La Botte

Judicial Council of California

Administrative Office of the Courts

Center for Families, Children, and the Courts

455 Golden Gate Avenue

San Francisco, CA 94102-3688

shelly.labotte@jud.ca.gov

Annual Federal Grant Award: $988,710

Required State Match: $109,857

Ms. LaBotte coordinates these grants, and is also involved heartily in the profession they support:  Supervised Visitation Network.  Here’s some news from one of their HISTORY page:

2007 Shelly La Botte, Nadine Blaschak-Brown and Sonia Melara host Celebrate-Educate-Innovate, May 9-12 in Millbrae, California. This annual conference is held in conjunction with the Judicial Council, Administrative Office of the Courts, Center for Families, Children & the Courts, Access to Visitation Grant Program, which celebrated its 10-year anniversary. This conference marks the first time that three federal funding sources attend the conference together: Ministry of the Attorney General Office in Ontario, Canada; federal Office on Violence Against Women (U.S. Department of Justice); and federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services). Valya Roberts continues her presidency.

SUPERVISED VISITATION NETWORK IS ALSO A NONPROFIT, and IT WAS NOT A GRASS-ROOTS, LOW-INCOME DEMAND THAT STARTED IT, EITHER.  IT WASN”T EVEN EXCLUSIVELY FROM THE U.S.:  Read carefully:

A Chronology of the Supervised Visitation Network

1992 Judith Wallach of the New York Society for Ethical Culture hosts a one day meeting, attended by 40 providers and interested professionals from across the United States. Anne Reiniger, Executive Director of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is the keynote speaker and Rachel Dabraio of the Ministry of the Attorney General, Ontario, Canada presents first-time government-funded supervised access project. Attendees name the newly formed organization the Supervised Visitation Network (SVN) and Judith Wallach serves as the President. The first edition of Sitting In, the SVN’s newsletter is published in September 1992.

Want to bet these 40 providers included quite a few from, or were solicited by, the Children’s Rights Council?  Just a hunch

Was it a nice Canadian import concept?  (doubt it just wanted to point out that the conference is going to take advantage of US nonprofit status}}

INSET — DISCUSSION OF World View and Goals of Founder of this SVN:

JUDITH D. WALLACH (from the NYSEC group above), with another Honorary Board member, graduate of the Humanist Institute, etc.:

Judith D. Wallach is an honorary trustee of the Society, having served as the first woman president for seven years, from 1994 to 2001. Prior to that, she was chair of the Social Service Board, of which she was a founder of the Shelter for the Homeless and the Supervised Visitation Project. She has also served on the board of the American Ethical Union and chaired its Fund Development Committee. During her 26 years of membership in the Society, Judy has served as chair and member of numerous committees, been a Sunday speaker and served as a wedding and memorial officiant. She has also served on the Ethical Culture Fieldston School’s Board of Trustees and its Executive Committee. A graduate of the Humanist Institute and, for 12 years, on its Board of Governors, she chairs the Institute’s Education Committee.

Her passion for the past six years has been the effort, with a group of educators and others, to start public charter schools based on the educational philosophy of Felix Adler and incorporating the essential elements of an Ethical Culture Fieldston education. Making a free, public education with ethics as its base and using a child-centered approach and a thematically integrated curriculum has been, and continues to be, her dominating interest. Judy has also been a board member and secretary of the Partnership for the Homeless, and a member of Citizens Committee for Children of New York. For the past 10 years she has chaired Palladia, Inc., a multi-site human services agency that provides residential and outpatient treatment for substance abusers, many of whom have serious mental and physical illness. She’s been on its board since 1991.

In her otherwise unoccupied time, she pursues her private practice in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Judy is a psychology affiliate of Lenox Hill Hospital and supervises doctoral candidates in their group work. She and her husband, Sylvan Wallach, have a large, blended family spread across the U.S. and in Australia.

The  Humanist Institute and this particular set of values and philosophy, plus a passion for educating others into it, should be looked at:

We explore humanist values and train future leaders

it says “What is Humanism?” and answers:  Life in this world is the central and defining focus of humanism. We envision a world in which every individual’s worth is respected, and human freedom and behaving responsibly are natural aspirations.

I don’t think humanism is a per se a bad value.  However, nearly every religion of the world has as well as some sort of ethics, a vision or perspective of the eternal truths and principles, and quite a few of them believe in life after death, a resurrection, and not a few more, life before life in this world as well.   I am among the belief-in-resurrection crowd, and it has definitely affected my strength in standing for certain principles, and ability to persevere when things are not “naturally” going so well.  Religions often will talk of TRUTHS, not so much as values.  A good deal of the western world that we have now has been formed through literacy and a good deal of that literacy by men who stood up to some severe Religious & Political oppression by doing one very radical thing:  Translating the Bible into the common language (whether English, German, Spanish, whichever….) AND getting it into the hands of the common people; an act for which several of them were burned at the stake and hunted down like animals (I’m thinking Wycliffe, Tyndale in particular); they had monarchs pissed at them.   This affected literacy, it changed politics, and it challenged the status quo.

To create a utopian humanist society which specifically does NOT believe in eternal life, but wishes to forma  utopian world — will have to employ either force or persuasion.  It is not particularly along the themes of the (Deists, such as Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc.) who helped get this country and its constitution –based on rights of the individual, not constantly transforming the BEHAVIORS of an individual — to me speaks of a desire to train and rule the world, if piece by piece.   Moreover, it is an OUT_COME based vision, it does not seem to be a process-based vision.

Here’s how the Humanist Society sees itself:  In 1982, 45 Humanist Leaders congregated (sic!) at the University of Chicago to take a stand against Humanism’s enemies:

n August 1982, forty-five humanist leaders gathered at the University of Chicago to form the North American Committee for Humanism.  This new alliance was a response to the urgent need to defend humanism against the assaults of its adversaries and to find an effective way to bring the message of humanism to a wider public.  At this meeting the committee voted to establish the The Humanist Institute.  Since that time, fourteen classes have graduated from the program, providing over a 100 skilled leaders to the humanist community and the larger worl

Now, we are talking doctrine, dogma, and belief — I would assume, in antagonism to religious belief.  A listing of constituent groups shows that this is indeed the situation.  It is promoting secularism, atheism, and is anti-religion.  What’s going to prove interesting here is that it’s going to be QUITE comfortable with segments of the ultra-conservative, fundamentalist Christian, Jewish and probably Muslim? communities which absolutely detest the breakup of the family and for which supervised visitation is a way to maintain contact and some control with the departed spouse, and children!

The American Ethical Union, a religious organization, is a federation of Ethical Societies, which promotes the growth of the Ethical Culture movement by supporting existing Ethical Societies and fostering new ones. We recognize the unique worth of each individual, we act to elicit the best in others and in ourselves; our faith is in the human capacity to create a better world. The American Ethical Union is a religious, educational, cultural and social justice organization.

(it’s a religious organization, but where does it stand on matters of good, and evil.  I ask because I consider child-rape, child-molestation, and child-kidnapping evil, as well as assault and battery on other human beings, and particularly upon one human being because of gender, or because one can simply get away with it — or to get the most profit off their back.  I consider those spiritual matters, at a certain level, and not subject to ongoing “reason.”  The Phil Garridos and Nancy Garridos of this world are horrible, and have had long-term problems, as the Martin Luther Kings and Mahatma Gandhi’s (not that there really IS more than one of suchpeople), the Mother Teresa’s — they had something in the inner life going on that sustained them.  These are questions that are not going to be firmly answered by government, or by institutions which SEEK to govern others’ beliefs — which schooling and training systems are.   Better to have a variety of schools and educational institutions than a monolithic one.  I think that is the message of this country (which it’s, incidentally, left long ago, but the words and ideas behind that hang, for a point of reference and conscious — in the world).  No, I am not an atheist, but neither is it my purpose in life to make the world uncomfortable for atheists!  We need variety!)

Interesting, as many of the Seven Wonders of the World were religious monuments, or monuments to the afterlife; man attempting to become immortal or preparing for it.  Think about it.  (on the other hand, how much slave labor went into building them?).

AMERiCAN ETHiCAL SOCIETY is not too much into creeds, or pinning down its beliefs, apparently.  Its motto is “DEED BEFORE CREED” Its circular logo reminds one of the DaVinci’s “Vitruvian man,” and naturally the circle (well, at least to me) reminds me of the globe — containing reality within the earth’s sphere.

(vitruvian.jpg)

My definition of “religion” is a system of imposing MY beliefs or “OUR” beliefs on someone else.  For an example of this, see Inquisition — or Warren Jeffs.  Or the AFCC’s incessant insistence on training everyone else to their standards (which are rarely, if ever, feminist, and which undermine the entire concept of individual rights (EQUAL under the law) because the family is spoken of as a unit, and the truly independent “individuals” in that relationship are the individual court-appointed professionals who get to make decisions on what to do with the family unit! They demand to “define” its reality.  I”m against that — and as such, you might say that I’m a woman “of faith” not joined to a religious group who might believe as the Freedom from Religion Foundation does.  With one exception:  It’s a nonprofit, and I’m not!

UNDERLYING this “New York Ethical Institute” and its organ of training others ,the “Humanist Institut” is a single individual, Felix Adler….  I don’t know group — that’s simply what the materials say.  AGAIN, in context, we are talking about the FOUNDING of the Supervised Visitation Network, and that, in context of what President Obama and Congress believe they (not “we”) should be doing with monies collected from the people through the IRS (and child support wage garnishment — and IRS refund intercepts. . . . . . ), as pertains to promoting fatherhood, and making access and visitation UNIVERSAL.  No more individual choice in how to separate when child support is needed.  If no child support is needed, wanted, or asked for, then more freedom may exist.  Otherwise, if a child support order shows up — a parenting plan order with a spinoff incentive to the A/V grants system and the SVN INDUSTRY (and its associated nonprofits) WILL occur.

Got it?  This is the New York Society for Ethical Culture’s cool silhouette of NY Skyline.  (and the site will also show the Vitruvian man theme, a human figure in a circle.

HEre is that Social Service Board and its intent to provide free Supervised Visitation.  Notice that this is right above a homeless shelter for women.  So women, who can be driven homeless by a violent relationship they fled, can have a free place to take their kids to visit the ex-batterer, as a court is going to order them to do.  Nice.

SSB Programs

SSB members have created, financed, staffed and sustained many rewarding and meaningful “core projects” with their dedicated efforts.  Among these are:

Supervised Visitation Project  [Temporarily Closed] providing non-custodial parents the opportunity to visit with their children in a safe and supportive environment, free of charge, eliminating their financial burden and helping bring families back together.

Homeless Women’s Shelter giving comfort and support to women in transition as they take the necessary steps to self-sufficiency, finding a new home and job.

My last (belabored, I know) point here about the beginning of the SVNetwork — is that this NYSEC, being humanist, atheist adamantly opposed to particular religions, although labeling itself as religious in a certain way — was part of an “Ethical Culture Movement” which was, it says, spearheaded by one individual who left an endowment — ironically, to “immortalize” his contribution to a better world.

Welcome

The New York Society for Ethical Culture is a welcoming home for humanists. We’ve provided non-theistic services in a congregational setting since 1876. We embrace the diversity of our city and invite all to join us in celebrating life’s joys, supporting one another through life’s crises, and working together to make the world a better place.

Ethical Culture is a religion centered on ethics, not theology, whose mission is to encourage respect for humanity and nature and to create a better world. Members are committed to personal ethical development in their relationships with others and in activities involving social justice and environmental stewardship.As an Ethical Community we are all part of something that transcends the individual experience and are enriched through our relationships with others.  As such, we have responsibilities to each other, to the Society, and to the community.

No man is an island….  Does a person even exist without a community, in this worldview?

FELIX ADLER lived 1851 – 1933, and the background rather worth posting here, as to influence:

Our Founder

Dr. Felix Adler(1851-1933) was the Founder of the Ethical Culture movement. He was born in Alzey, Germany, the son of a rabbi, Samuel Adler. When Felix was six, his father was appointed head rabbi at Temple Emanu-El in New York City and his family immigrated to the United States. Adler earned his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1870, and already being regarded as his father’s successor, he was sent to Heidelberg University to prepare for the rabbinate.

Upon his return to America his father’s congregation asked him to deliver a sermon from the pulpit.  That address, The Judaism of the Future, created a lot of talk because he had not mentioned God.  When asked directly if he believed in God, young Felix responded, “Yes, but not in your god.”  Thus ended his future at Temple Emanu-El.  But in that address were the seeds of Ethical Culture.

During the two years following, Adler taught Hebrew and Oriental languages at Cornell University. His outspoken attitude and his convictions drew the criticism that he was”dangerous” to his students, andhe relinquished the professorship in 1876.

That same year, at the age of 24, Adler founded the New York Society for Ethical Culture. His lectures before the Society on Sundays were well known and attended, and were routinely reported on in the New York Times. Adler’s belief in deed above creed led the Society to foster projects that focused on the poor and underserved in the community. 

In 1902 Adler was given the chair of political and social ethics at Columbia University which he held until his death in 1933.  Well known as a lecturer and writer, Adler served as rector for the Ethical Culture School until his death in 1933. Throughout his life he always looked beyond the immediate concerns of family, labor, and race to the long-term challenge of reconstructing institutions like schools and government to promote greater justice in human relations. Within Adler’s ethical philosophy, cooperation rather than competition remained the higher social value.

Feedback:   Sounds like an amazing, and well-positioned, well-educated individual, who had a chair at a major NY University, and rectored his own school in later life.   Notice “reconstruction institutions like schools and government.”  Interesting .. . .. .  Now you know where at least some of the founders of the “Supervised Visitation Network” came from.  If you visit the websites, very well-constructed, you’ll also pick up how well-endowed some of these world-reformers indeed are.  Felix had a well-developed philosophy, and practices; part of the bio indicates that he started something which later became the ACLU.  I notice the ACLU often clashes with fundamentalist Christian groups as well, interesting.

Speaking of which, here’s Pacific Justice Institute now, as humanists did long ago, positioning itself to defend Nativity Scenes and The Marriage Initiative from attacks by the likes of — the ACLU and the FFRF (Freedom From Religion Foundation — see above).  This is comic relief, incidentally.  Christmas is essentially a pagan religion (are there people who don’t know this yet?) and at best a compromise; Jesus wasn’t born in December, and moreover, emphasized remembrance of his death (i.e., communion) more than his birth, even though the gospel of Luke says the Angels had a celestial (?) party at the time, especially for shepherds.

• ACLU v. PJI over CHRISTMAS in an Oregon TOWN

MAY 2011 The Grinches Come Early: ACLU, FFRF Threaten Oregon Nativity Scene

The conflict was sparked last December when the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation complained about a nativity scene the town has displayed in various locations for decades. In response to the complaint, city leaders have agreed to ensure that the display is accompanied by secular symbols of the season. However, the Oregon branch of the ACLU has now gotten involved and is claiming that, even if the display follows First Amendment guidelines set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court, it still violates the Oregon Constitution because it is city-owned.

Not so, say lawyers from the Pacific Justice Institute. PJI Staff Attorney Matthew McReynolds is sending a letter to Prineville city leaders today, offering to defend the city free of charge if the ACLU files suit. The letter quotes Article I, Section 5 of the Oregon Constitution, which merely forbids giving public money to religious or “theological institutions.” There is no indication, McReynolds noted, that this provision somehow forbids a traditional acknowledgement of Christmas, and it seems more likely the provision would be interpreted consistently with the First Amendment, under which the U.S. Supreme Court has specifically approved city-owned nativity scenes.

Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, commented, “Every year, the ACLU and Freedom From Religion Foundation seem to attack Christmas more fiercely,

Christmas has a very strong economic base and is probably not going anywhere soon. . . . ..  AND, round two, ACLU & Pacific Justice Inc.:

• ACLU v. PJI over Public School Parental Rights* with a Visa, California School District.

MARCH, 2009:   School Board Upholds Parental Rights Over Objections of the ACLU

*(to most likely know about any oby/gyn services their teenaged daughters received, including abortion, birth control, etc.)

Vista, CA – The board of trustees of the Vista Unified School District voted unanimously to require that pupils obtain parental permission before leaving campus for “confidential medical services.” It is well understood that the term “confidential medical services” is a euphemism for abortion. The American Civil Liberties Union vehemently opposed the decision of the board. The legal director of the ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties, David Blair-Loy, stated, “With this action, the Vista School Board has not only defied the laws of the state of California, but they have needlessly put vulnerable teenagers in serious danger.”

Not so, says Brad Dacus who is an attorney and president of the Pacific Justice Institute. “The Education Code says that school authorities may excuse pupils for the purpose of obtaining confidential medical services without obtaining the consent of parents,” said Dacus who attended the meeting and addressed the board. “The legislature knows the difference between ‘may’ and ‘shall’ even if the ACLU does not,” he continued.

The ACLU is threatening to bring a lawsuit against the school district if it keeps the policy. Pacific Justice Institute vows to fight back in court if necessary should the ACLU instigate litigation. “If asked, PJI will defend the district without charge in the courts,” Dacus commented further.

And I would be COMPLETELY remiss if I didn’t mention this duel:

• ACLU v. PJI in San Francisco, predictably, over Same-Sex Marriage (ACLU trying to get the “protect marriage” initiative off a Nov. Ballot)

JUNE 2008, ACLU and Others File Lawsuit to Stop Marriage Initiative

The ACLU, Equality California, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed suit late last week asking the California Supreme Court to yank the Protect Marriage Initiative off the November ballot.

According to a statement released by the four groups, the lawsuit argues that returning to the traditional definition of marriage would enact such sweeping changes as to revise, rather than amend, the state Constitution. Unlike amendments, revisions require that a state constitutional convention be held. Calling a constitutional convention in California is so difficult that it has not happened since 1879; a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature, plus a majority vote of the people, would be required.

Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, responded, “This lawsuit is beyond the pale. Radical gay marriage activists are showing their true colors by filing suit to prevent voters from having a say on this crucial, highly controversial issue. There are apparently no lengths to which they will not go to force their agenda on Californians. Already, they have shown no respect for county clerks and others who do not want to be involved in gay ceremonies. Now, they want to deprive all Californians of the opportunity to be meaningfully involved in this debate

In fact, this group specifically targeted the SF Bay Area as a cesspool of nonfundamentalist, anti-Christian boundary violations, and of course homosexuality and the occult.  One gets the sense they were jumping into the fray for the publicity (and fundraising); common sense says if you want schools with a particular set of values that are nonoffensive to Christians — go start some and put your kids in them.   But, no deal, I think these guys (word choice intentional), like the glamour and publicity.  Surely this will elevate them in the eyes of more conservative supporters from less spiritually dangerous neighborhoods….

August 2009, Group Opens San Francisco Office, Calling Area Hostile To Religious Liberty

 The Pacific Justice Institute has opened a new office in Oakland, California to serve the San Francisco Bay area. Yesterday’s San Franciso Business Times interviewed Kevin Snider who will head the office. Snider said: “The San Francisco region is without a doubt one of the most hostile places in the country toward religious liberties and values.”PJI’s website says it focuses on religious freedom issues such as “curtailments to evangelism by the government, … students and teachers rights to share their faith at public schools [, and] … the rights of parents … to homeschool, review and have notice of public school curriculum and presentations, and opt out their children from objectionable material….”

They held a fundraiser at what this article says is the Gayest Place in Orange County – Disney World:

The Pacific Justice Institute, which has opposed protection for members of the LGBT community under hate crimes legislation and worked against same-sex marriage, is holding a fund-raising dinner at the gayest place in Orange County.No, not OC GOP headquarters, silly. The Disney Resort district!Talk about walking out of the fire and into the bigger fire . . . with flaming feather boa intact.

Here’s a Waldorf site describing  Pacific Justice applying to ADF for (more funds for a related nonprofit, “PLANS”) to stop public funding of Waldorf type schools,  because they are WICCA; which brings up the question about dueling nonprofits — how many can dance on the head of a pin?  Or, more specifically, how many of their legal battles, whether or not jousting against a windmill (Don Quixote-style), should we Californians be expected to fund?  After all, we have Los Angeles County in our state, and that alone is a major liability!

PLANS was incorporated on July 1, 1997 and received its tax exempt status on October 10, 2000.

. . .Comment by Waldorf Answers:

According to PLANS, the $15,000 grant was all spent in 1999, and as of April, 2000, PLANS’ legal fees had come to about $46,000.On Sun, 15 Jul 2001, Mr. Dan Dugan, Secretary of PLANS, stated on a mailing list he owns that PLANS Inc. owed their lawyer $28,566.36 for services up through the end of 2000, that he had not gotten the bill for 2001 yet, and that PLANS’ lawyers estimated that the total costs for the case could amount to $180,000.

For a full overview of the case, see a documentation page on the lawsuit.

PJI, formed as a nonprofit in 1997 (along with, evidently “PLANS”) is on a RIGHTWINGWATCH list; an EastBayExpress article here describes its activities in the SF Bay area;  apparently James Dobson is one of its supporters. It’s conservative, so that’s hardly surprising.

The one thing one will NOT find Pacific Justice Institute doing is:

• Anything remotely feminist, such as speaking up against domestic violence, or doing anything about church’s abominable track record on wife-battering within the religious community.
• Anything very social-justice or community REALLY service-oriented, such as literally helping poor or homeless people in the form of food banks, shelters, or taking ’em in.  And this area has plenty of homeless.   I guess someone else will handle that.  Glide Church in SF & others put a dent in the situation, many others do — not this group.  They’re concerned more about kids’ souls and spirits than their bodies, apparently — and not at all about adult female bodies in abusive religious marriages.

ACLU DOES address many of these issues, along with LGBT rights, it actually has women’s rights.  (“What would Jesus have Done?”)

The ACLU is our nation’s guardian of liberty, working daily in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

HISTORY page (from the site) sets it in a historic context:

In the years following World War I, America was gripped by the fear that the Communist Revolution that had taken place in Russia would spread to the United States. As is often the case when fear outweighs rational debate, civil liberties paid the price. In November 1919 and January 1920, in what notoriously became known as the “Palmer Raids,” Attorney General Mitchell Palmer began rounding up and deporting so-called radicals. Thousands of people were arrested without warrants and without regard to constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. Those arrested were brutally treated and held in horrible conditions.

In the face of these egregious civil liberties abuses, a small group of people decided to take a stand, and thus was born the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU has evolved in the years since from this small group of idealists into the nation’s premier defender of the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Again, an article connects Felix Adler — predecessor of Judith D. Wallach’s and others’ establishment of this “Supervised Visitation Network” in the 1990s — clearly to the ACLU.  1933, the year he died, had Federal Reserve Board signficance (see bottom of yesterday’s post) . . . . .

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Felix_Adler_(Society_for_Ethical_Culture)

Felix Adler (August 13, 1851 – April 24, 1933) was a Jewish religious humanist thinker, educator, and social reformer who founded theEthical Culture movement.

Adler developed his thoughts based upon Kantian ethics and American transcendentalism developed by Ralph Waldo Emerson andHenry David Thoreau. Adler found ethics as the common ground for and at the root of diverse religions, spiritual doctrines, and humanist thoughts. While Adler understood the values of religious teachings, he found adherence to dogmas and sectarianism non-essential to the teachings of founders and leaders of religions such as Jesus, Jewish prophets, Buddha, and others. Adler, thus, developed a non-theisticreligious humanism, and initiated a number of social reforms. He was particularly concerned with education and social conditions of the poor and underrepresented classes of people. He established the Ethical Culture Society which initiated the Visiting Nurse Service, the first free kindergarten for workers, and a number of other projects and programs. Adler also served on the Civil Liberties Bureau, which later became the American Civil Liberties Bureau and then the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

California (Silicon Valley) has a nice “Ethical Culture Society” also, established in 2006.  Here they are celebrating in a non-theistic manner:

(Singing at the Summer Festival)

Now, if we lined up all these anti-thetical nonprofits side by side, including the lawsuits they file against each other, or various arms of government, it’d be quite the assembly.  For example, if these are ALSO (in addition to our lovely child support departments, and nonprofit associations associated with them) taking public funding from one or another arm of the Executive Branch, i.e., a DOJ or HHS grant — then what do we have?

…

In effect what we have is a TON of business operations (see details on the DCSS of SF, above) — employees or possibly executive director pays, some accounting, some website maintenance, probably a brick and mortar (real physical address) somewhere entailing a lease, or real estate — office equipment business stationery, website DESIGN, telephone services (? generally), fundraising efforts, and solicitation or filling out of grants.   This can be miniscule or enormous — but either way, they are not taxed because allegedly they are providing true and valuable SERVICES to the general public, or a segment of it.

. . .

We poor slobs who are merely working — anywhere that pays rent/mortgage & kids’ educations, etc. — or even at something we love doing — and then living life so as to be solvent and not too destructive on our immediate or distant neighbors — are WE providing any altruistic services like this other class of corporations?

…

Are WE helping reduce the welfare roles by staying off them, even if a single parent?   (if you have an open child support order, this won’t be for long…..).

. . .

Are WE active in our local communities in beneficial ways also, for example, by volunteering somewhere as a tutor, or serving at a food bank, or actually taking time to get to know our local legislators and see what the local county supervisors, or mayors (etc.) are doing?  I’d have to say, generally speaking, YES.  And we do another very noble “patriotic” thing — we BUY GOODS AND SERVICES AS A BY-PRODUCT OF STAYING ALIVE.    And sometimes, even for leisure activity.  This means, we pay taxes on them IF we are not ourselves a nonprofit — or even for-profit, business owner.

. . . .

But we non-non-profits are by this system automatically served a business disadvantage.   Having the higher tax rate, for paying more of our life’s substance which is TIME / work energy= (earnings), we then get re-allocated to sit on the sidelines and fund — without discretion as to which side — and watch, for example Pacific Justice Institute (and the like)  take on the ACLU, the public schools, the charter schools, and whatever else hits its fancy.  But these nonprofits are not required to take on criminal activity that results in death, maimings, or wage /housing discrepancies that lead to homelessness (or constant income destruction brought on by the family law wars, or by living with an abuser who controls the resources, etc.) —

NONPROFITS — ARTS, SPORTS, etc. OK.

I’ve worked for plenty of nonprofits in my day — but they were arts organizations, I have zero question that this was bettering people across several categories, and as to young people, it’s documented to have helped literacy and expanded horizons for the future.  The arts are fantastic for individuals and for civilization, they change people and help communication, and also have been proven to literally help people mentally as well, i.e., their brains. ….

BUT, my having contributed in this manner during my prime working years means nothing when it comes to receiving services, protection, shelter, anything, including decent healthcare, or transportation — in later times.  Most specifically, even though taxes go to fund courts to get restraining orders — no one really has to enforce them!   So their real merit is only in the initial shock value, perhaps, of a fairly decent person who realized, OK, I just took it too far!

I do believe that these days are now gone with, because the antidote to that restraining order has been on the market for so many years — and it’s a RARE religious organization ever going to help a female get one anyhow (I’m speaking for conservative or evangelical groups in particular ,who have other things on the corporate brain than JUSTICE).    They didn’t help Jessica Gonzalez’s three children in Colorado.  They didn’t particularly help my children more than briefly, and later payback was more than compensatory (i.e., the payback has officially, at this point, now lasted longer than the original abuse which prompted that order).

NONPROFITS — FIX THE WORLD THROUGH TRAINING TO SPECIFIC BELIEFS, “ours”? — NOT OK!  That’s basically establishing a religion.

and NONPROFITS — to help PUBLIC EMPLOYEES EXPAND AND INCREASE PUBLIC FUNDING TO THEIR OWN PROGRAMS  – OUTRAGEOUS.

And this is precisely what is springing up around the courts and around the grants that come to the states, counties, and courthouses, plus the family resource centers, supervised visitation centers, parent education programming, professional affiliations supporting all of the above, that help THEM expand and control the fields, and you name it.   NOT OK!

(I DIDN’T EVEN MENTION “NONPROFIT FRONT GROUP YET” BUT I HAVE SOME GOOD EXAMPLES; COMING UP SOON . . . . . .

Or, on the contrary, to fund gay history in a public school system which is already so political — and inferior in quality — that it might make more sense to stop the testing, and perhaps ELIMINATE all the values- setting activities, and herd-style teaching to the test, replacing it with nothing but what the last decades of budget cuts have taken OUT of the curriculum.

• PRO-gay or virulently ANTI-gay theme, throughout almost every public institution — a nonprofit is fighting that battle.
• Pro-Religion or Anti-Religion, and most of the churches themselves — they are nonprofit status, mostly.
• Nonprofit organizations to compensate for whatever the schools and incredible variety of tax-exempt churches (including the biggest one around) DIDN’t do in the first place.
• Public employees to extort money from wage earners and then pay membership dues to congregate and learn how to do it better, and with gender bias, too!
• Violence Against Women prevention groups and “she was just saying that to get an advantage in the divorce” groups & Fatherhood Groups — all NONPROFIT.
• think Tanks and policy institutes, one way or the other — THEY are nonprofit.

BASICALLY, if some group’s idea is to change the world, or a little corner of it — it just about qualifies for nonprofit status.

If it’s just a boring, plain old wage-earning family trying to hold it together, in this context — they are for tax purposes “FOR-PROFIT” meaning, NO tax advantage, basically.  Wages, taxes, expenses (including child care, clothes, transportation to & from a regular job?) out of what’s left.   The model is WTE or should I say, “WTF” ? ? ?   These taxes help support those who have a tax advantage over you:

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If it’s got a ridiculous idea, including defending the world from ridiculous ideas by some other nonprofit, then it can have a tax advantage:  ITS cash flow goes:

INCOME (called “revenues” as in Internal REVENUE Service) – Expenses, overhead AND fundraising (etc.)  then NO Taxes.  That’s   “IT.”  So, while this will exacerbate and hasten the day of reckoning — these groups get to spend more and fund less on the way down, resulting particularly in sometimes executive directors with actual retirement income or even wealth.

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As I see it (and this IS a personal view) — what the whole setup does is primarily to tweak the balance away from INDIVIDUALS and towards GROUPS.

And this United States was supposedly all about individuals!    Go see the Declaration of Independence!

Far, far above, I was looking at the Chronology page of the Supervised Visitation Network.  I did a sample “investigation” on it.  Any of the other groups and participants could be investigated (looked at, as to where they are coming from . . . ..) — and would be VERY enlightening.  But at the end of the day, I am going to come out against supervised visitation for one reason:  If a person can’t be trusted with a child, for real — then they don’t see the child.  Because supervising and adult individual puts that adult — in front of watching children — into a virtual “Parent/Child” relationship with another adult, while this same adult — who is now being treated like a chid — is then supposed to maintain a PARENT/CHILD relationships with his or her own offspring.  How confusing to the kids!

Moreover, this artificial situation then has to be set up, paid for, somehow.  Who’s paying?  Moreover, it’s not made available on a gender-equal basis — because the INCENTIVES behind it (from the HHS side) are clearly targeted for FATHERS. When it comes to the VAWA side, those funds (I’ve shown us plenty) are often labeled “discretionary” and going to huge DV groups that believe people can be trained out of violence, which I am beginning to tend to doubt anyhow.   

The NONPROFIT on this:

1993 Joanne Karolzak hosts Focus on the Future in Tucson, Arizona. {{NB:  AFCC has a nice active nonprofit org. in AZ, too. }} Over the year, a convening group writes the first draft of the SVN bylaws and members nominate a 15-member Board of Directors, representing five regions across the state, including international representation. Under the newly formed Board of Directors, Rob Straus is elected as the SVN’s President.

Currently she shows up as (at least) Executive Staff on Tucson-based “Casa de los Ninos,” a nonprofit created originally by a nun to help abandoned and abused children.   Ms. Karolzak’s degree is M.Ed., meaning, her specialty is education.  This annual report of course shows it works in the family court referral A/V based fields also (in addition to foster care, behavioral health services, etc.):

Judicial Supervision. Another of our prevention-oriented efforts is our Judicial Supervision Program. Referrals come from Family Court judges. Most commonly, we work with recently divorced couples to make sure both parties are able to maintain or rebuild healthy relationships with their children. In 2009-10, our JSP team worked with 294 families and 735 children.

For how much funding and/or fees?  WHat’s that per family and who is tracking results?  Did Daddy pay more child support if he saw his kids more, or did Mommy get put on supervised visitation for allowing a child abuse report to actually surface, instead of covering it up?  Sorry for the sarcasm, but this happens!

Let’s hope there is no kickback, double-billing, or other racketeering going in that relationship.  Pima County, sounds like . . . . .

Parenting Education. Casa de los Niños offers weekly Parenting Education classes that are free and open to the public. Sessions focus on a variety of topics, and we make it a point to help parents trying to deal with specific issues in their own families. If you would like to attend a class or know someone who would, call us at (520) 624-5600 or visit our website: http://www.casadelosninos.org. In 2009-10, we offered 48 classes and hosted 895 parents. Those adults had 1,365 children living at home.

Page 11 of this annual report has a pie chart, and a ‘nose count’ (how many served, by program).  I can see immediately that IF “parent education” is by court referral, this group is prospering and moving into the, we service the courts mode (if it wasn’t there all along).     1,365 people, Parent Education; 735 “Judicial Supervision,” and 171 “Family Visitation Centers.”   PROGRAM REVENUE — 78% Government Awards ,and 16% “Donations, Grants” (non-government, presumably).

I wonder under which other corporation’s auspices it existed, in which state, or was it just pulling an AFCC, and collecting funds, but not paying taxes on them for the next four years, despite starting out pretty interntionally.

1994 Glynne Gervais hosts Supervised Visitation — A New Thread in the Social Service Fabric, from April 14-16 near the west campus of the University of Illinois in Chicago, Illinois. Participants were given tours of a few supervised visitation/child access agencies. The membership begins discussions to support the development of national standards and guidelines for the organization. In addition, Joanne Karolzak is elected as the SVN’s President.

1995 Jane Grafton hosts the first international conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The president convenes the first Annual General Meeting. This conference brings representatives from outside North America, as well as representatives from the Australian & New Zealand Association of Children’s Access Services (ANZACAS) present to the membership.

1996 Mike Wilkinson hosts the annual SVN conference in Austin, Texas. Over the year, more than 40 members and multi-disciplinary subject matter experts provide feedback to the draft Standards and Guidelines, which were adopted by the membership at the Annual General Meeting. Jane Grafton is elected as the SVN’s President. . . .

1997 Barbara Pope and Sheri Kass of Family Connections host the annual SVN conference (May 17-20) in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. A sociologist from Rouen, France attends the conference. With special thanks to international faerie godmother, Gillian Mason-Johnson, SVN holds its first annual auction. Nadine Blaschak-Brown is elected as the SVN’s President.

(IT WAS APPARENTLY FIRST INCORPORATED IN FLORIDA.  AND SEvERAL YEARS AFTER IT STARTED?)

Most Recent Tax Period	EIN	Name	State	Rule Date	IRS Sub- section	Total Revenue	Total Assets	990 Image
2010	521831498	Supervised Visitation Network	FL	1997	3	218,620	31,703	990

A Chronology of the Judith Wallach President’s Award

In 1997-1998 the SVN adopts the tradition of honoring a person or persons for outstanding service and contribution to the Supervised Visitation Network. This award is named in honor of the SVN’s first host, Judith Wallach.  (HOW APPROPRIATE — now that welfare reform had passed, assuring access visitation funding for this purpose, plus any Safe Havens type funding from the DOJ as well….

Nonprofit listings of the Network (this is the “dba” for the state of New York):

SAFE HORIZON INC.
2 LAFAYETTE ST., 23RD FL.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, 10007  (A search of this street address shows many government functions occurring in the building; I wouldn’t be surprised to find the registered agent also a public servant)
“Safe Horizon moves victims of violence from crisis to confidence”

Safe Horizon’s Court Programs

Safe Horizon operates over 30 court-based programs throughout the five boroughs. These programs include victim/witness reception centers, supervised visitation programs, mediation services, advocacy, crisis intervention, help with court-ordered restitution, and other legal issues.

Where are we located?

We are located in all five boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island.

Louise Voccoli (registered agent) is in the Nonprofit Management Business, and this particular group has quite a bit of business going:

ouise Voccoli

AVP at Safe Horizon

Greater New York City Area 

Nonprofit Organization Management

Current

• AVP at Safe Horizon

Connections

16 connections

Louise Voccoli’s Experience

AVP

Safe Horizon

Nonprofit; 501-1000 employees; Nonprofit Organization Management industry

This pdf is a 2006 report, thanks In part “Safe Horizons Staff, including the Administrative Director of the Family Court Program, Louise Voccoli“

It is evaluating some Safe Havens project — i.e., these supervised visitation centers.  It shows the pattern:

 

The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final report:   

Supervised and Unsupervised Parental Access in Domestic Violence Cases: Court Orders and Consequences

Doc’t received April 2006 [DOJ AWARD# 2002-WG-BX-0012]

See also:  “Where can I learn more about family courts and their function?
The Courts: Family Courts section of the NCJRS Web site provides resources that help to explain the function of family courts. For additional information, you may wish to visit the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges Web sites.

SO, this DOJ-funded study of access and visitation (supervised, unsupervised) was presented by a bunch of people, and (listed separately) an “Emily Horowitz, Ph.D.” from St. Francis College. You know i’m going to look that one up, and here it is:

ANYHOW .   .  . . .. 

Synopsis
Dr. Emily Horowitz received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University in 2002.  Her dissertation focused on the extent to which feminist ideology persists in the institutionalized context of a specialized domestic violence court.  She has published articles and essays on the subjects of domestic violence, civil commitment policies for sex offenders, wrongful convictions, and teaching race.  She has edited a book on teaching race to undergraduates across disciplines. Her current research interests include:

Wrongful Convictions
Dr. Horowitz teaches a course on wrongful convictions and serves on the board of the National Center for Reason and Justice, an organization that raises money for those falsely accused and/or wrongfully convicted of crimes against children and adolescents.  In June 2007, she co-authored an op-ed in The New York Times about how recording police interrogations can prevent wrongful convictions. She received the 2007 Alfred R. Lindesmith Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems for her paper, “Civil Confinement and Lifetime Registration for Sex Offenders: Why No Debate?”   Her research paper, “Growing Media and Legislative Attention to Sex Offenders:  More Safety or More Injustice?” appears in The Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies 7 (2007). Currently, she is focusing her advocacy work on the increasing criminalization of mothers and the hysteria that so often surrounds cases involving alleged crimes against children. Professor Horowitz also continues to assist noted civil rights and criminal defense lawyer Ron Kuby on a number of high-profile criminal cases involving wrongful convictions of individuals charged with crimes against children.

Does it seem odd that a DOJ study on Supervised Visitation / Safe Havens Access Centers might be spearheaded by a (fairly young?) Yale Ph.D. Psychologist with a clear focus on FALSE allegations of sexual abuse?   This is where curiosity does pay off in understanding, for example, a bit of a dilemma here.  This person is a sociologist, primarily, not an attorney and not from what I can tell, a private investigator.  She teaches (whatever her personal beliefs or background) at a small CATHOLIC university, where she focuses on false allegations of sexual abuse, and there’s a video on the site (presently) soliciting doctrinal dissertations for some of her students, I think, on this topic!   Simultaneously she sits on the board of this nonprofit, About which I am going to inflict on you the “About Us” page:

http://ncrj.org/about/

ABOUT US

The National Center for Reason and Justice was incorporated in April, 2002.

President: Michael Snedeker, Esq., is a criminal-defense lawyer who has successfully handled the appeals of several ritual-abuse cases in California. He is the author of the California State Prisoners Handbook and is co-author, with Debbie Nathan, of Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt.

Treasurer: Francis X. Kane is a retired accountant who spent over 30 years doing financial management and internal auditing for GTE Sylvania. He became involved in false accusation issues in 1991, when an adult daughter was pressured by a therapist into “recovering” memories of being sexually abused as a baby. The daughter left therapy and got better, retracting her accusation, and making media appearances with her father. Mr. Kane did volunteer work for the False Memory Syndrome Foundation , and is currently their Massachusetts contact person. For years he has provided personal support for the falsely accused and their families — both in Massachusetts (the Amiraults, the Souzas, Bernard Baran, Robert Halsey, Bruce Clairmont) and elsewhere (Rocco Ellis, Bruce Perkins, the Kellers, Frank Fuster, Paul Ingram, the Wenatchee defendants, etc.).

Clerk: Hugo S. Cunningham, formerly a military intelligence analyst and software developer, currently maintains web sites on Soviet history http://www.cyberussr.com/rus/ and false accusations athttp://www.cyberussr.com/hcunn/witch/. Mr. Cunningham is a long time supporter of the Amirault family and of Bernard Baran.

Directors

Dr. Emily Horowitz received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Yale University in 2002. She has published articles and presented academic papers on the subjects of domestic violence, sex offender hysteria, false confessions and wrongful convictions. She teaches a course on wrongful convictions at St. Francis College (Brooklyn, NY, USA), where she is a faculty member in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. She received the 2007 Alfred R. Lindesmith Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems for her paper, “Civil Confinement and Lifetime Registration for Sex Offenders: Why No Debate?”, and her research paper, “Growing Media and Legislative Attention to Sex Offenders: More Safety or More Injustice?” appears in The Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies 7 (2007).

Judith Levine is a journalist, essayist, and author who has written about sex, gender, and families for over two decades. Her work has appeared in Ms., nerve.com, and My Generation. She is a founder of the National Writers Union and the feminist group, No More Nice Girls. She is the author of My Enemy, My Love: Women, Men, and the Dilemmas of Gender and Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex. Harmful to Minors won the 2003 Los Angeles Times book prize in the current-interest category.

Debbie Nathan is a journalist who received the Free Press Association’s H.L. Mencken award for her reporting of the daycare hysteria in The Village Voice and elsewhere. Nathan was the first journalist of national stature to write critically about the daycare cases. She is the author of Women and Other Aliens: Essays from the U.S.-Mexico Border and co-author, with Mike Snedeker, of Satan’s Silence: Ritual Abuse and the Making of a Modern American Witch Hunt.

Mark Pendergrast is an independent scholar and writer. He is the author of Victims of Memory: Sex Abuse Accusations and Shattered Lives; 
(as well as a variety of topics. . …) Victims of Memory is an in-depth account of the devastation caused by false memories of sexual abuse and recovered-memory therapy. It also covers the day care hysteria cases. Scientific American called Victims of Memory “an impressive display of scholarship [which] demonstrates a laudable ability to lay out all sides of the argument.”

And the ADVISORS — this is a power-packed nonprofit board, highly credentialed.  I’m wondering if survivors of long-term childhood sexual abuse– the real kind — would ever achieve (collectively) such professional status as is on this nonprofit board here:

Advisors

Donald S. Connery is a Harvard-educated author and independent journalist who worked around the world for such leading news organizations as Armed Forces Radio Service, United Press and, principally, Time & Life magazines. After years of foreign correspondence from New Delhi, Tokyo, Moscow and London, he returned with his family to the U.S. in 1968. Connecticut’s landmark Peter Reilly wrong-man case in 1973-77 shifted his focus from international affairs to miscarriages of justice. He has since investigated and reported a series of false-confession cases from Alabama and Virginia to Connecticut and and Illinois, where he serves on the advisory board of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern Law School. 

. . . 

Dr. Elizabeth Loftus is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California – Irvine. She holds appointments in the Departments of Criminology, Law & Society and in the Department of Psychology and Social Behavior. Dr. Loftus is an internationally acknowledged expert in memory and eyewitness testimony. She is the author or co-author of several books — including Eyewitness Testimony, Memory, Cognitive Processes, Witness for the Defense, and The Myth of Repressed Memory 

Susan P. Robbins, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work. She holds licenses as a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) and licensed chemical dependency counselor (LCDC) in Texas and a Diplomate in Forensic Social Work from the American Board of Forensic Social Workers. Working on a contract basis with the Texas Protective Services Training Institute, she provides training for protective service workers, supervisors, lawyers and judges on False Allegations of Sexual Abuse and also serves as a consultant and expert witness in this area

Dr. James Wood teaches in the psychology department at the University of Texas at El Paso. He has done groundbreaking work on children’s suggestibility, including experiments based on the content of the McMartin children interviews.*** His work for the past few years has focused on exposing the Rorschach test as pseudoscience. He is on the editorial board of APSAC’s journal on child maltreatment. He has done research on the way children in incestuous family situations typically disclose their abuse to child protective services investigators (he has found that these children tend to be quite forthcoming, compared to, say, how Roland Summit used to describe them as trying to keep it a secret and needing prolonged prompting). He has also studied the behavior of child protection bureaucracies in citywide systems.

The founder of this organization was a retired public school teacher who got a law degree and worked often pro bono as an appellate attorney.  It’s clear he was gripped by a certain case and passionate about it, and that this organization sprang from specific events centered around FALSE accusations of sexual abuse.  (you have the link): 

Dan Finneran: Our First President

Dan Finneran got involved in legal work for people falsely convicted of child sex abuse after reading a 1988 Village Voice expose of the Margaret Kelly Michaels “Wee Care” case in northern New Jersey. Michaels had recently been convicted of bizarre acts of ritualized abuse against several preschoolers, and her case had scandalized the metropolitan New York City area, where Dan lived

***Famous case in the 1980s, preschool situation, retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Aviva Bobb presided over at least part of it. Oddly, I was looking at a foundation (nothing to do with child abuse stuff) and ran across the McMartin situation. Someone also has a post  called “Judge Murders Blind Senior for Valuable Estate.”  This is not a joke; this sounds like (yet another) abuse of the probate:  The woman was kicked out of her home of 50 years and denied medical care for a diagnosed condition; removed her name from the title of the home, etc.  There’s plenty of reporting on that topic in the L.A. area.  Becoming old without VERY competent and ethical protectors these days can be dangerous to one’s health, whether one is broke, or well to do.   (Ask me how I know….)

Now, let’s consider this:  This nonprofit appears to have been formed in MASSACHUSETTS in 2002, same year Elizabeth Horowitz, Ph.D. here, got that Ph.D. form Yale, and clearly shares the passion (and is on its board).  Per NCCSDATAWEB.org:

Most Recent Tax Period	EIN	Name	State	Rule Date	IRS Sub- section	Total Revenue	Total Assets	990 Image
2010	020575475	National Center for Reason and Justice Inc	MA	2002	03	52,984	43,182	990

Amirault case described, 1997  There is a handwritten 2002 filing, saying it’s the first for the organization, and additional directors hand-written in, including one in the UK.     Articles of Incorporation (note:  Massachusetts Business Corp Search site very helpful, easy to use);

 

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/213712.pdf

http://www.fmsfonline.org/

TO BE CONTINUED:  I’m just curious why a professor with passionate connection — and organizational affiliation to a nonprofit with the False Memory Foundation as somewhat central in philosophy — would be doing on a report about mothers engaged in the supervised visitation Safe Havens programs of New York, which are often domestic violence related (child abuse, potentially also). . .. 

Would this professor bring her personal passions into restraint as a professor, and not have a bias affect her teaching?  (I’m doubting it, Yale, or no Yale).

However, it clearly does not appear at least to be a nonprofit front group, that I can see.

MORE FROM YOURS TRULY, the HHS!

FROM THE FY2012 Fatherhood Budget link, above:

• These services not only improve parent-child relationships and outcomes for children, but can also lead to greater, more regular payment of child support. Research shows that when fathers spend time with their children, they are more likely to meet their financial obligations. This creates a “double win” for children – an engaged parent and more financial security. The Budget includes proposals to:

• Update the statutory purposes of the CSE program to recognize the program’s evolving mission and activities that help parents cooperate and support their children;
• Require states to establish access and visitation responsibilities in all initial child support orders; and
• Encourage states to undertake activities that support access and visitation, implementing domestic violence safeguards as a critical component of this new state responsibility.

The budget also proposes continued funding of $150 million to support the Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood grant program. Both initiatives are part of HHS’s efforts to ensure that children have the support and involvement of both parents.

CHILD SUPPORT and FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE

The FY 2012 budget includes several legislative proposals to continue a commitment of vigorous child support enforcement, a continuous emphasis on program outcomes and efficiency, and provisions to help further encourage fathers to take responsibility for their children and to promote strong family relationships. The Child Support Enforcement program is administered by HHS’s Office of Child Support Enforcement within the Administration for Children and Families. These proposals include: