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

Identify the Entities, Find the Funding, Talk Sense!

Archive for December 2011

A Straightforward Explanation of the Federal/State Child Protection Industry

leave a comment »

 

I think that at some level, this country (USA) has to be collectively held responsible for just “going with the flow” in this field, including tolerating Presidents that rule by Executive Order, giving tax perks (tax-exempt status) to religious institutions which historically (along with plenty of others) abuse boys and girls — with impunity for too long — and continue to fund departments such as the Health and Human Services, which  — while it dispenses valuable medical research, Medicaid, etc. — is entirely out of control.

Feedback from the post recommended the bottom section be moved to the top.  This 12/8/2011 revision does so.  Often the idea that inspires a post gets gradually removed to the bottom, as the front matter (including further explorations of the matter) grows, pushing the punch line further and further down the page.

 

Let’s look at a Massachusetts report detailing “The Money Behind the Madness” which is not so emotionally disturbing one misses it’s common sense, and that is where I’d like to end this post on a fine December day.

Thanks (anonymously) the friend who forwarded this.  I’m marking this section RED, which in the context of Traffic Lights (cf. “trafficking”) stands for, STOP!

See, there are the conservatives (Eagle Forum), and family preservationists — and they report on CPS stripping married couples of their kids, but are hard of hearing when it comes to an individual mother needing to flee an abusive husband or father — because they are father-oriented by virtue of religious inclinations.  (Not to mention the existence of plentiful fatherhood incentives as well).

Then there are people like me, who thought they were normal citizens with some sort of rights, only found differently when their case went from protection against abuse to fight for custody.  Into the family law system.  In this phase of life, being a “conservative” will not help one much — because conservatives aren’t much into, say, divorce.  You’re on your own there, baby…

Adoption Bonuses — Why Not Support the Biological Parents Instead?

After this article (including my comments during it) material below checks out some of the groups and funding.  Please note that funding continues even if audits show noncompliance; and who knows, really, where the difference between a monthly simple support of a family, to the (more than double the size) payments to the foster care contractor to find foster care parents to house the same kids.

Moreover, we KNOW — it’s not speculation, it’s pretty obvious by now — that SOME (and what %, only good accountability — which we don’t have — would tell) — that there is massive trafficking of children in compromised situations (foster care, or institutions like Boys’ Town, Nebraska) into sex slavery, to high-ranking officials, who can then be blackmailed with the photographs.  This also relates naturally to money, drugs, murder, banking (The Franklin Credit Union in this case) and politics.  Documentation by a U.S. Senator (John DeCamp) and subsequent court transcripts (cited) and a million-dollar award to one of the victims of trafficking from age 3 through 17 (Paul Bonacci) show that this extended to the White House parties after parties.  Other testimony of a young woman who reported, mentions George H.W. Bush.

This is not “sex, drugs and rock and roll” — it’s access to vulnerable kids, incentives to get them away from their parents, sex– with minors, including torture of some of them, drugs, money, blackmail – – – and politics.  Who can handle even thinking about this, or emotionally deal with the logical conclusion — that when these hearings came up, the Congress decided NOT to clean its own house; the legislators involved were not removed from office or named, and no attempt was sought by the judge involved to name them either?

Because knowing, from ethical persons, will result in seeking activism — or guilt, or numbing of the conscience to continue life AS IF it were normal, and business if all is well.  In an attempt to restructure one’s life somehow to make more time for civic activism.

 

So, that’s apparently legislative, and judicial leadership in this country.  Merry Christmas.  That, plus the other financial corruptions in the family court (systemic).

 

The Per-Capita Bounty on Breaking Up Families**

 

**Not to be confused with alternate bonuses for attempting to reconcile families which either did not exist, or have already voluntarily broken up, sometimes around abuse or desertion issues.  THOSE profits are for the family law practitioners and the various corporations involved, and also have separate federal financing streams.  Let me repeat:  If you are married but on the radar somehow as abusive, or if you are in particularly a single black woman raising children — it’s fair game.  Someone may find an excuse to call CPS and violate all due process rights.  After this article, I posted (again) on the black couple with children from Pennsylvania who ran afoul of a new “Child Safety Team” with an agenda to promote awareness of Shaken Baby Syndrome.  I found the grants on TAGGS as well.  A father was incarcerated wrongfully for a year (shortly after the program was up and running), they medical authorities apparently didn’t know about Rickets among African-Americans, and positive (defense) testimony by a doctor on the same team was suppressed; “experts” used this case to BECOME experts, and when the Dad went in jail — the other children were grabbed by foster care.

SOMEHOW, they managed to sue back, and get some help in doing so.  But those stories are further down in the post.  I also identified how HHS is helping some coordinated (multistate) adoption centers AND a resource center to create awareness of what a great field this is, to be in.

If growing children cannot bond with their own parents, they WILL find someone else to bond with, another peer group, or another powerful individual — if they are not literally kidnapped by powerful individuals and use in unspeakable ways.    Those peer groups are not likely to respect the biological bond between parent and child, and its defensive nurturing qualities.  This population is likely to be raised by a government willing to warehouse and label them, drug them (and some recent evidence, testing drugs on foster care kids), and other behavioral science “demonstration” projects funded by the public, and force them to become an ever-consuming (of services, trainings, products, etc.) population.

 

And for what purpose, what REAL purpose ?  to satisfy the IMF somehow? or global billionaires with time on their hands and worlds to revise?The more authoritarian and repressive a society becomes, the more it is simply asking for anarchy — and it will get this.  It is about greed, and sale of human beings for greed’s and merchandising’s sake.

 

In the Bible, “Babylon” is railed and prophesied against in Jeremiah (Ch. 51) Isaiah (21) and Revelations (14, 18).  Babylon being the nation that carried Israel away captive and the prophets declared that it had deceived the world (made it drunk, made the nations mad) and vengeance will come:

Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the LORD’S vengeance; he will render unto her a recompence.

7Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

 

Rev. 18 in particular details the greed, merchandising, profits from transporting goods, and in vivid terms pictures their responses when they realize from afar that Babylon is burning.  Then it squarely lames the blood of “all that were slain” upon this.

Apart from characterizing the city as a woman (very thinly disguised cultural hatred of women and their sexuality), it seems to me the analogy of drunkenness applies.  One of the quotes on this post literally says, “has the nation gone mad?”  Long ago, pre-internet, pre-all this — the same sentiment comes out.  Notice the contrast between the Merchants — but habitation of “foul spirits” (birds also signifies spirits).  I cannot think of anything much more foul than and industry which sells children, with funds collected from the community at large, while promising to help them. And which, when these children then report how they were handled, jails them (happened in the Franklin Coverup), or when it’s well-known that children are both disappearing and/or dying in foster care, the system simply seeks for more clients.  The system also currently (custody matters) jails mothers for protesting abuse, or for intervening by fleeing — rather than by the officially sanctioned method, which is having someone ordered into a program, like batterers intervention, treatment for sexual addictions, or other reportedly effective programs which get state adn federal funding.

(*I found another one yesterday, a continuation of one already found allegedly cheating, demanding payments in cash, in 1999, their charitable report is of doing over $6 million of business in Sacramento — California’s capital; the CEO earns $172,000 to oversee this, and psychiatric services of over $200K to one of the Board Directors.  It is the largest single contractor for these things.  I will report on it, too.).

MERCHANDISING, described . .. .

<< Revelation 18 >>
King James Version

1And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. 2And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.

The merchants are waxed rich. . . .. not all the inhabitants.  I’m posting a chunk of this (short chapter) for effect — and notice, it’s those that have investments, that own ships, that tule nations, that have goods to sell — that are benefitting; not those who made the ships, or the goods  This is the Corporate & Government sectors.  The final verse notes that in her (sic) are all the slain of the earth.

There’s a truth to this — for what other reasons to nations go to war, or do people kill each other, besides individually, men may kill for jealousy or feeling betrayed.  But usually, it’s for greed.  The language is yes, pre-occupied with “fornication” and rejoicing in the destruction of a city (built by men, not women) characterized as female.

And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, 10Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

11And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more: 12The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, 13And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

14And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all. 15The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing,

16And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! 17For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, 18And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! 19And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. 20Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.

21And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. 22And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee; and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, shall be found any more in thee; and the sound of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee;

{Industries, including the entertainment industry, that supported the merchants and kings…}}

23And the light of a candle shall shine no more at all in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee: for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived24And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

There’s some truth to this.   In 2011, we are watching a globally-designed (by the great men of the earth) monetary system based on strong-arm collection from wage-earners (income tax, child support enforcement also) and with jails and police force to back up the intimidation, shuddering and crumbling — it has expanded beyond the weight it can bear, and never was to hot on accountability either — which helped increase the wealth of some of the “great men of the earth.”

And yes, this is getting people of all ages killed, including people that spoke out against the injustice and what would happen if it didnt’ stop (cf. prophets) and those who simply lived ethcial lives within their means, without devising ways to get rich illegally (tax evasion) or massively rich (multiple income streams), believing in stead in the merits and honesty of working — a job, or a profession — to produce a product or honest service.  And they are losing their houses, and sometimes, offspring, while helping bail out banks.  The people who helped create the larger and larger income gap do not LIVE in the neighborhoods they helped design, with each other, for others.  In far off places (institutions, Institutes, at conferences, in on-line webinars, and on Congressional and other committees) — they design and plan yet more ways to control the population, either social science, behavioral change programs, or basically the threat of prison for noncompliance, and (let me just say it, OK?), abstinence programs – and no indication the leaders of our country pushing this are even faithful to their own wives ,whichever wife it may be at the time.  Marriage promotion programs, fatherhood promotion, and one-stop-justice centers — all a public expense with corporate injections.

And I have seen so many out of compliance corporations in the past year, I cannot count.  California Healthy Marriage Coalition, I admit, really got under my skin when I saw the two or three corporate suspensions, a Unification church staff member, that Bill Coffin & Dennis Stoica (and others) worked together to get more grants after what proof of any benefit from the first rounds?

 

So yes, at a certain level, I can see the truth in the angry prophecies of a future day of accountability from The Lord.  Some of this is simply about ethics.

I mean no offence to the many good foster care families that I’ll assume (?) are out there, and not making news headlines.  Still, the system you are part of, and taking payment from, has its priorities backwards.   It’s simply true of institutions — unlike families, which seem to have a certain natural limit (barring polygamy) — they seek to perpetuate and expand, infinitely, and when the society allows this, they do.

 

From “Massachusetts New” Political — May 5, 2000 (per url)

Adoption Bonuses: The Money Behind the Madness 

DSS and affiliates rewarded for breaking up families

By Nev Moore
Massachusetts News

Child “protection” is one of the biggest businesses in the country. We spend $12 billion a year on it. 

The money goes to tens of thousands of a) state employees, b) collateral professionals, such as lawyers, court personnel, court investigators, evaluators and guardians, judges, and c) DSS contracted vendors such as counselors, therapists, more “evaluators”, junk psychologists, residential facilities, foster parents, adoptive parents, MSPCC, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, YMCA, etc. This newspaper is not big enough to list all of the people in this state who have a job, draw a paycheck, or make their profits off the kids in DSS custody.

In this article I explain the financial infrastructure that provides the motivation for DSS to take people’s children – and not give them back.

In 1974 Walter Mondale promoted the Child Abuse and Prevention Act which began feeding massive amounts of federal funding to states to set up programs to combat child abuse and neglect. From that came Child “Protective” Services, as we know it today. After the bill passed, Mondale himself expressed concerns that it could be misused. He worried that it could lead states to create a “business” in dealing with children.

Then in 1997 President Clinton passed the “Adoption and Safe Families Act.” The public relations campaign promoted it as a way to help abused and neglected children who languished in foster care for years, often being shuffled among dozens of foster homes, never having a real home and family. In a press release from the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services dated November 24, 1999, it refers to “President Clinton’s initiative to double by 2002 the number of children in foster care who are adopted or otherwise permanently placed.”

Fiscal Appropriations for “Promoting Safe and Stable Families” for FY2011 was $565,000,000, Appropriations, $468,000,000.

It all sounded so heartwarming. We, the American public, are so easily led. We love to buy stereotypes; we just eat them up, no questions asked. But, my mother, bless her heart, taught me from the time I was young to “consider the source.” In the stereotype that we’ve been sold about kids in foster care, we picture a forlorn, hollow-eyed child, thin and pale, looking up at us beseechingly through a dirt streaked face. Unconsciously, we pull up old pictures from Life magazine of children in Appalachia in the 1930s. We think of orphans and children abandoned by parents who look like Manson family members. We play a nostalgic movie in our heads of the little fellow shyly walking across an emerald green, manicured lawn to meet Ward and June Cleaver, his new adoptive parents, who lead him into their lovely suburban home. We imagine the little tyke’s eyes growing as big as saucers as the Cleavers show him his very own room, full of toys and sports gear. And we just feel so gosh darn good about ourselves.

In other words, what sells it to the public is a good, warm, fuzzy feeling about helping strangers.  Open the pocketbooks…..

Now it’s time to wake up to the reality of the adoption business. 

Very few children who are being used to supply the adoption market are hollow-eyed tykes from Appalachia. Very few are crack babies from the projects. [Oh… you thought those were the children they were saving? Think again]. When you are marketing a product you have to provide a desirable product that sells. In the adoption business that would be nice kids with reasonably good genetics who clean up good.

. . . .

With the implementation of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, President Clinton tried to make himself look like a humanitarian who is responsible for saving the abused and neglected children. The drive of this initiative is to offer cash “bonuses” to states for every child they have adopted out of foster care, with the goal of doubling their adoptions by 2002, and sustaining that for each subsequent year. They actually call them “adoption incentive bonuses,” to promote the adoption of children.

“A Whole New Industry — A Sweet Marketing Scheme”:

Where to Find the Children

A whole new industry was put into motion. A sweet marketing scheme that even Bill Gates could envy. Now, if you have a basket of apples, and people start giving you $100 per apple, what are you going to do? Make sure that you have an unlimited supply of apples, right?

The United States Department of Health & Human Services administers Child Protective Services. To accompany the ASF Act, the President requested, by executive memorandum, an initiative entitled Adoption 2002, to be implemented and managed by Health & Human Services. The initiative not only gives the cash adoption bonuses to the states, it also provides cash adoption subsidies to adoptive parents until the children turn eighteen.

If Clinton had run this through the normal legislative processes, and gotten a public vote — would it have passed?  I bet lots of parents who lost children properly to the system ALREADY — would’ve voted NO!

Everybody makes money. If anyone really believes that these people are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, then I’ve got some bad news for you. The fact that this program is run by HHS, ordered from the very top, explains why the citizens who are victims of DSS get no response from their legislators. It explains why no one in the Administration cares about the abuse and fatalities of children in the “care” of DSS, and no one wants to hear about the broken arms, verbal abuse, or rapes. They are just business casualties. It explains why the legislators I’ve talked to for the past three years look at me with pity. Because I’m preaching to the already damned. 

The legislators have forgotten who funds their paychecks and who they need to account to, as has the Governor. Because it isn’t the President. It’s us.

The author, Nev Moore, then contrasts the help, support (to “preserve families”) and perks foster parents get, as opposed to a welfare mother, who gets less, and is subjected to far more invasion in the process:

What an interesting government policy when compared to the welfare program that the same child’s mother may have been on before losing her children, and in which she may not own anything, must prove that she has no money in the bank; no boats, real estate, stocks or bonds; and cannot even own a car that is safe to drive worth over $1000. This is all so she can collect $539 per month for herself and two children. The foster parent who gets her children gets $820 plusWe spit on the mother on welfare as a parasite who is bleeding the taxpayers, yet we hold the foster and adoptive parents [who are bleeding ten times as much from the taxpayers] up as saints. The adoptive and foster parents aren’t subjected to psychological evaluations, ink blot tests, MMPI’s, drug & alcohol evaluations, or urine screens as the parents are. 

Adoption subsidies may be negotiated on a case by case basis. [Anyone ever tried to “negotiate” with the Welfare Department?] There are many e-mail lists and books published to teach adoptive parents how to negotiate to maximize their subsidies. As one pro writes on an e-mail list: “We receive a subsidy for our kids of $1,900 per month plus another $500 from the State of Florida. We are trying to adopt three more teens and we will get subsidies for them, too. It sure helps out with the bills.”

I can’t help but wonder why we don’t give this same level of support to the children’s parents in the first place?

The writer points out, correctly:

So, if the natural parents were given the incredible incentives and services listed above that are provided to the adoptive parents, wouldn’t it stand to reason that the causes for removing children in the first place would be eliminated? How many less children would enter foster care in the first place? The child protective budget would be reduced from $12 billion to around $4 billion. Granted, tens of thousands of social workers, administrators, lawyers, juvenile court personnel, therapists, and foster parents would be out of business, but we would have safe, healthy, intact families, which are the foundation of any society.

Thank God for writers like this, who in the article recommends boycotting a US stamp which sports a National Adoption Month, and concludes:

“I know that I’m feeling pretty smug and superior about being part of such a socially advanced and compassionate society. How about you?”

“Remember that children in foster care serve many public purposes — not good ones — but they do.  They are being USED, and it’s hardly surprising.  Children are big bucks — they can be trafficked to serve legislator’s (and others’) perverse passions, and in the process enabling very profitable blackmail of the same.  They can be apparently disposed of easier after use than children with involved biological parents and relatives.  They can be used to bill the public for unnecessary pharmaceuticals more easily than kids in the home can be, although from what I read, there’s too much of that going on.  How many unknown deaths or adverse reactions result from over-dosing kids in foster care?   When inappropriately photographed as minors (sometimes without their knowledge), this pornography has a market, too.

Are there good foster, and really bad parents?  Obviously.  But just as obviously, the system is ripe for abuse.  And it’s SYSTEMS we have to watch out for as citizens — or lose it all.    Is this country about material prosperity — absent due process? — or about liberty, which will allow individuals to band together freely and seek their mutual prosperity and safety?

When daily survival keeps the average and poor too busy to monitor those with multiple streams of income and time to lobby and devise favorable legislation for favorite projects (or simply by pass the legal process, as too many Presidents have done) — then we are going to compartmentalize the best of humanity away.   I see this as an institutional matter — and as such, more people need to stop letting others direct the institutions that direct their lives, and manipulate different segments of society to fight each other.

Justice doesn’t happen without some accountability, whether one believes in a just highest power (God) — or justice underlying the principles by which the universe operates — it seems to me that mass abuse of the young (and using adults as breeding stock) would be its own prophecy of a system and society that cannot survive, that is going to implode, explode, be taken over — or all three.

This article is 11 years old, and I don’t think I could’ve said it much better.

+ + + + +  + + +

Trouble with TAGGS.hhs.gov — the free HHS Database for the Public:

 

The only database available to the public (for free) to really track its grants system  — is obviously inaccurate, hard to manipulate even by people familiar with database use (let alone others).

HHS/ACF recently (Oct 2011) announced over $119 million of grant awards — without providing the grant# in the announcement, and (when this was later looked up, by me) it turns out the last names of all principal investigators of said grants — were omitted from the database, having been replaced by first names only!   I.e., a grant overseen by a John Smith would read in the printout “John John,” as I showed earlier.

Moreover, TAGGS.HHS.GOV allows search by grantee identifiers such as EIN# and DUNS# — but many grants lack DUNS.  The most obvious searchable numeric identifier of any grantee — is not available to search on in the Taggs database under “Advanced Search.”

CFDA# Selections

The website drop-down-type menu showing which of the multitude of program identifiers (CFDA#s) available to track — for those curious about what’s being done within a state, or inter-state — is narrow, long, one can key in a CFDA#, but not search by CFDA title.  For example — in this post, I’m talking about Adoption and Foster Care.

To look up which grant programs (CFDA#s) are involved I would have to either already know them, or scroll down the entire list looking for clues.

The list has two columns — it could have been made searchable by either column, or key-sensitive by either column (i.e., if I typed in “healthy marriage” or “Adoption” — the cursor forwards to the first occurrence of it).

The “Award Search Menu” has a list of all these, and one can select them all — but not copy them all, which seems offensive to common sense!  Try it yourself (see link).  They are not all visible at once, even.  The menu which allows one to search by CFDA numbers (select by year and state) requires one to somehow know which numbers first — and no visual reference for them on the page.  Why not?

Here’s a recent grant announcment from “Grants.gov”:

04/27/2011 Infant Adoption Awareness Training Grants Administration for Children and Families

If I go about 4 different places, the CFDA# it falls under will show up:

Funding Opportunity Title: Infant Adoption Awareness Training Grants
Funding Opportunity Number (FON): HHS-2011-ACF-ACYF-CG-0170
Program Office: Administration on Children, Youth and Families
Funding Type: Discretionary
Funding Category: Cooperative Agreement
Announcement Type: Modification
CFDA#: 93.254
Post Date: 06/02/2011
Application Due Date: 06/27/2011

Then, I could search CFDA 93254 by state, region, or locality — but would not get a numeric identifier of the grantee in the results!

In searching AWARD/CFDA# (and not selecting state or year), I come up with a chart showing this total:

Page Award Actions Count: 50 Award Actions Amount for this Page: $ 62,965,046
Total of 95 Award Actions for 28 Awards Total Amount for all Award Actions: $ 140,269,924

The results are displayed by individual award#s and zip codes — but not States! — are shown.  So, if one has a photographic awareness of all 50 states by zip code, one might recognize where the awards went.  Awards to a few key groups show up in different zip codes; here are some of them:

(1) Adoption Exchange Assoc. (MD)

Total Actions (under grantee) $ 39,674,027

Recipient: ADOPTION EXCHANGE ASSOCIATION
Address: 8015 CORPORATE DRIVE SUITE C
BALTIMORE, MD 21236-5917
Country Name: United States of America
County Name: BALTIMORE
HHS Region: 3
Type: Other Social Services Organization
Class: Non-Profit Private Non-Government Organizations

Showing: 1 – 18 of 18 Award Actions (1995 – 2011)

Total:
Total of all award actions: $ 39,674,027

Includes programtitles such as:

2005 90XW0010  HURRICANE KATRINA RELIEF 1 0 ACF 09-29-2005 DUNS# 140230892 $ 600,000 
 but also:
2002 90CQ0001  THE COLLABORATION TO ADOPTUSKIDS 1 0 ACF 09-04-2002 140230892 $ 4,438,959 
FY Award Number Award Title Budget Year of Support Award Code Agency Action Issue Date DUNS Number Amount This Action
2008 90CQ0002  ADOPTUSKIDS 2 0 ACF 09-16-2008 140230892 $ 3,669,500 

(2) Harmony Adoptions of Tennessee, Inc.

Total awards (this grantee) 2007-2011:  $ 5,434,761

(From the TN Corporations Search Site):

Control # Entity Type Name Name Type Name Status Entity Filing Date Entity Status
000365453 NCORP HARMONY ADOPTIONS OF TENNESSEE, INC. Entity Active 02/05/1999 Active

Website claims they were founded in 1996

Founded in 1996, Harmony Adoptions is a licensed, non-profit adoption agency offering programs nationally recognized for their clinical design, implementation and exceptional outcomes. We are highly trained and passionate about our work and we make a difference in the lives of children and families. Our greatest joy is when a child comes home to their forever family. Our work continues as we support them all along the journey.

 They also receive “Healthy Marriage Healthy Family” grants — that doesn’t refer to the biological family (see last article on this post), but adoptive:

The Healthy Marriage, Healthy Family (HMHF) program is a federally-funded program through the Children’s Bureau and was launched in 2006. HMHF was developed in hopes that, by stabilizing the relationship between caregivers, the entire household will stabilize which would result in fewer disrupted placements. By utilizing the existing statewide ASAP (Adoption Support and Preservation) program, HMHF is able to reach, train, and support resource (foster) families and adoptive families across the entire state of Tennessee.

In the TAGG grant (incidentally) the title of this program is mis-spelled for this grantee

NCCSdataweb shows they do have an EIN#  Purpose indicates a focus on orphans:

“TO ARRANGE FOR THE PLACEMENT OF ORPHAN CHILDREN LIVING IN THE US AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES WITH ADOPTIVE PARENTS AND TO PROVIDE COUNSELING AND SUPPORT”  but the Infant Adoption Awareness Training is focused on pregnant women — not orphans.

621772291 Harmony Adoptions of Tennessee Inc 5,546,738 700,199 2010
Recipient: Harmony Adoptions of Tennessee, Inc.
Address: 131 Cherokee Heights Drive
MARYVILLE, TN 37801-5413
Country Name: United States of America
County Name: BLOUNT
HHS Region: 4
Type: Other Social Services Organization
Class: Non-Profit Public Non-Government Organizations
FY Award Number Award Title Budget Year of Support Award Code Agency Action Issue Date DUNS Number Amount This Action
2007 90CG2659  INFANT ADOPTION AWARES TRAINING PROGRAM 2 0 ACF 07-27-2007 104115238 $ 1,013,434 
2007 90CO1032  THE HEATLHY MARRAIGE, HEALTHY FAMILY PROJECT 2 0 ACF 06-18-2007 104115238 $ 247,451 

The words “Awareness (one series), “Healthy” and “Marriage” were misspelled.  I wonder if there were similar errors or switching of #s in the amount$ columns…. The misspelling was not corrected for years of grants recordings….four years, to be exact…..

The Exec Director of “Harmony” (earns about $88K) also shows up (former?)University of Tennessee Legal Clinic Director:

Pamela L. Wolf – LCSW, MSW Founder and Executive Director of Harmony
Pam’s focus is the provision of quality services to children and families. As an instructor at the University of Tennessee Legal Clinic, Pam worked to identify comprehensive solutions for homeless families. Pam developed ‘The Parent Refuge’, a program designed to support single mothers. Following the adoption of her daughter, Pam founded Harmony Adoptions. Harmony provides comprehensive adoption services to adoptive families, birth families, adoptees and the community at large. Pam provides leadership for the Infant Adoption. Training Initiative (IATI) and is active with Harmony’s Adoption Support and Preservation (ASAP) program. Both programs tap into Pam’s passion for promoting comprehensive adoption services with her enthusiasm for education

Another director of Harmony in TN notes her background:

Pam Frye – Adoption Services Director for Harmony
She Received her MS in Educational Psychology, Community Counseling from the University of Tennessee. Pam comes to Harmony from the Helen Ross McNabb Center, where she spent 15 years counseling children and their families. Pam has a special interest in the needs of both rural and urban children. She and husband Kevin adopted their daughter from China. Pam’s work at Harmony combines her passions – meeting the needs of children, counseling, and parental education.

Among other things, the Helen Ross McNabb Center partners with TN Dept. of DCFS to help place children in Foster Care…

Foster Care Services

Helen Ross McNabb Center Foster Care and Adoption Program is a therapeutic foster care program operated in conjunction with the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services.

These children have been removed from their homes (and if they do not have appropriate relatives in their own family) are placed in protective custody of the state due to abuse, neglect, unruliness or delinquency. The program recruits and trains caring, structured foster homes to help these children who enter custody with a multitude of problems and needs. . . .A Helen Ross McNabb foster care specialist is a trained case manager with a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in the children and families field. The specialist will help the foster family with behavioral interventions if the children exhibit any behavioral issues

The site — which is named Infant Adoption Training Initiative (pretty clearly after the grant series) features three of the recipients from TAGGS, and is copyrighted by them:

Copyright © 2005-2007  Spaulding for ChildrenHarmony & Arizona’s Children Association.
All rights reserved. Privacy & Terms of Use
 / ADA Statement

In fact, the initiative is pretty well described as simply a grant program from HHS, and 5 recipients are listed:

What is the Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program?
The Infant Adoption Training Initiative is funded by a grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services. Our Understanding Infant Adoption training program is designed to help health care professionals serving pregnant women and teens discuss adoption as an option with patients and clients who are not sure that they want to parent the child.


(3) Latino Family Institute (CA, Los Angeles area)

Total awards (grantee) since 2000 = $9,947,145

Recipient: LATINO FAMILY INSTITUTE
Address: 1501 W. CAMERON AVENUE STE 240
WEST COVINA, CA 91790-2724
Country Name: United States of America
County Name: LOS ANGELES
HHS Region: 9
Type: Other Social Services Organization
Class: Non-Profit Private Non-Government Organization

The first two awards show recruitment:

FY Award Number Award Title Budget Year of Support Award Code Agency Action Issue Date DUNS Number Amount This Action
2000 90CO0905  LATINO RECRUITMENT AND ADOPTION INNOVATIONS 1 0 ACF 09-14-2000 042325063 $ 250,000 
Fiscal Year 2000 Total: $ 250,000
Total of all award actions: $ 9,997,145

They incorporated in California 1996 (same year as welfare reform, before Harmony — above):

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C1967025 04/18/1996 ACTIVE LATINO FAMILY INSTITUTE, INC. MARIA L. QUINTANILLA

Their charitable status is also current, although there are no returns (state or federal) showing past the year 2007 in California for this amount: EIN#

EIN#
954587747
Fiscal Begin: 01-JAN-09
Fiscal End: 31-DEC-09
Total Assets: $1,344,706.00
Gross Annual Revenue: $2,388,114.00
RRF Received: 18-NOV-10
Returned Date:
990 Attached: Y
Status: Accepted

Their programs include Adoption, Foster Care, Kinship Care, Infant Adoption Awareness Training (above), Abandoned Infants Assistance, etc.:

Latino Family Institute is an Adoption, Foster Care, and Family Support agency dedicated to improving social welfare conditions leading to increased family functioning. We enrich society’s foundation by advocating for and implementing culturally effective interventions that elevate the collective well-being of our families.


Vision Statement:

The Latino Family Institute seeks to advance social welfare conditions facing Spanish dominant families. Our vision for every child to have love and permanency in their family of origin. We aspire to preserve the integrity of Latin American cultures among adoptive families and to promote kinship adoptions as a preferred alternative to family integration. We envision a social environment that is sensitive to the complex needs of children in Foster Care and one that is active in reducing the vulnerabilities of such delicate families.

Want more specifics?  Read this 2009 Los Angeles County audit of the institute’s compliance with its contract with the county, which also shows some $$ figures, for reference.  The Institute Contracts with the Department of Family and Children’s Services to recruit, train and supervise foster care parents.  Based on age, the institute received between $1,589 & $1,865 per month, per child of which parents were then paid between  $624 & $790 per month (2007-2008), approximately $352K that year. 
There’s the profit margin, now who is supporting the Institute, and what are its financials (multiply nationwide – this is the practice, do we know how often?)  $1,589 – $624 = the profit (overhead) is $965.   “Latino Family Social Workers did not make 3 out of the 5 required visits within the timeframe.”
The ACF report — Children’s Bureau Express — was glowing:
Children's Bureau Logo

Innovative Recruitment Strategies: The Latino Family Institute

A number of programs have received Adoption Opportunities grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau to carry out demonstration projects designed to improve outcomes for children adopted from foster care. One highly successful program highlighted here illustrates how these grants can be used to find permanent families for specific groups of children, in this case—Latino children in Los Angeles.

In 2000, the Latino Family Institute (LFI) received a 3-year grant from the Children’s Bureau to place 40 Latino children with families. By the end of the project period, the results spoke for themselves: 69 Latino children had been placed in adoptive homes, and 198 prospective Latino families had been recruited. In addition, the awareness of the need for adoptive homes had been heightened in the Latino community, and more than 200 child welfare professionals had received training on using culturally responsive approaches to recruitment and placement.

Since the end of funding, LFI has continued to provide adoption services and was able to expand programs after receiving additional Federal grants. In 2005, LFI opened a new office following the award of the Abandoned Infants Assistance grant targeting families impacted by substance abuse and HIV/AIDS. In 2007, LFI finalized 76 adoptions. Currently, LFI conducts the Infant Adoption Awareness Training Program {{also an HHS-supported project}} in California and Puerto Rico.

 This sounds wonderful.  I am wondering how much HHS funding this particular (different) institute gets also from the HHS:
Site logo
http://www.nlffi.org/
(the group is new to me, but it appears to draw on a number of existing grant programs already):

NLFFI LOCALLY
At the community level, the Institute provides culturally competent curriculum, social and educational services with programs designed to:

  • Influence men to become strong Fathers and responsible men
  • Assist men is healing and preventing the issue of Domestic Violence
  • Strengthen and preserve families
  • Address the Issue of Community and Gang Violence
  • Promote Rites of passage and Youth Mentoring
  • Address the issue of Teen Pregnancy prevention
  • Provide culturally competent health and mental health services
In this context, what chance would a Latina mother, if compromised in any other way already, ever have in a custody situation?
This group (NFFLI) announced that in January 2011 it is launching a California Fatherhood Initiative, and first-up in organizations it wants to partner with includes the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives:

About President Obama’s Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative

The White House Initiative on Fatherhood & Mentoring Initiative recognizes that engaged and involved fathers have an incredibly positive effect on the lives of their children. The Initiative is a national call to action to address fatherlessness in America and includes the following steps:

• The White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships and the Office of Public Engagement will host community forums on fatherhood and personal responsibility around the country, in concert with local groups.

• Organizations and Individuals who sign up for the Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative will receive e-newsletters featuring articles, tips and resources from prominent leaders in the fatherhood and family fields and information about model programs.

• Organizations supporting the Initiative will work to have an impact on responsible fatherhood, from local forums with the National Parent Teachers Association to community trainings by the National Fatherhood Leaders Group (NFLG). Partners from the National PTA to the head of the Council of Christian Colleges and Universities have signed up to advance the President’s Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative in communities around the country.

Will post separately on this one, I am rather disturbed, and want to find out of MY government is funding it also. . . . ..  

In addition there is another nonprofit in Maryland serving the region to coordinate information and efforts to adopt:

http://www.adoptionsupport.org/about/index.php

(In MD a page full of corporations (incl. Forfeited, Suspended & Dissolved names) shows how popular the “Adoptions” field indeed is ….) (EIN# 52-2100734, it does exist; year 2009 reporting $766K contributions & grants plus $716K program services — not bad (the previous year, the program services far exceeded the grants).  This, too, is incorporated as of 1998:

(Dept. ID) Entity Name Entity Detail Status
(D04974622) CENTER FOR ADOPTION SUPPORT AND EDUCATION, INC. General Info. Amendments Personal Property INCORPORATED

This too (per my EIN TAGGS search) got HHS support, starting in the year 2000.  As of 2001, faith-based groups (see my last post!) could apply, too, in fact no doubt encouraged to….

Recipient: THE CENTER FOR ADOPTION SUPPORT & EDUCATION, INC.
Address: 11120 NEW HAMPSHIRE AVE-STE205
SILVER SPRING, MD 20904
  (very busy address appears to be right opposite huge hospital? and many other businesses at same street address)
Country Name: United States of America
County Name: MONTGOMERY
HHS Region: 3
Type: Other Social Services Organization
Class: Non-Profit Private Non-Government Organizations
Recipient Name City State ZIP Code County DUNS Number Sum of Awards
THE CENTER FOR ADOPTION SUPPORT & EDUCATION, INC.  SILVER SPRING MD 20904 MONTGOMERY $ 900,000

WHAT A SHAME THERE ARE NOT MORE HHS GRANTS  OR PRO BONO GROUPS TO SUPPORT PROTECTION OF SINGLE MOTHERS FROM INAPPROPRIATELY LOSING THEIR CHILDREN TO ABUSIVE PARTNERS, OR TO THE FOSTER CARE SYSTEM.  THE CHILD SUPPORT SYSTEM HAS VIRTUALLY FUNDED AN ATTACK ON THE STATUS OF SINGLE MOTHERS LEAVING ABUSE, AND IT IS MANAGED BY THE SAME ENTITY, HHS.. . ..

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

GRANTS INCENTIVIZE — SO THEY AND THE NONPROFITS GETTING THEM SHOULD BE MONITORED BY THE PUBLIC — BECAUSE THERE IS A PERVERSE INCENTIVE NOT TO MONITOR TOO OFTEN.

This 8,400 word grant began with the following section.  What’s above here is (per my style) lengthy intro, combining my lookups with a statement of position.  What’s BELOW is what inspired the post.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Grants and Programs Incentivize Action & Attract Traffic.  It’s a symbiotic relationship.  Their original purposes can be great — but once set up, the infrastructure is going to want customers.  Consider the father that apparenty spent a year in jail apart from his family, innocently, and the WHY wouldn’t have been unearthed unless they’d filed a lawsuit — as I blogged last October, in Courthouse Forum News:  Franklin County (PA) OCYF gets sued in Federal Court by Pennsylvania Couple.

By ERIN MCAULEY

HARRISBURG, Pa. (CN) – Parents say they lost custody of their children, were identified as child abusers and the father was jailed for more than a year because doctors and state officials falsely attributed their 4-month-old daughter’s childhood stroke and congenital rickets to child abuse.
Jamel Billups and Jacqueline Rosario, who are black, sued the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Franklin County and its Office of Children, Youth and Families and a long list of individuals, in Federal Court.
The parents say that when their daughter, L.B., suffered a stroke and showed signs of rickets on Oct. 19, 2009, the Child Safety team at Penn State Hershey Medical Centerfalsely blamed her condition on child abuse, and the state then seized her and her 2-year-old brother, T.R., and sent them to foster homes.

About the context:

The parents say the Franklin County Office of Children, Youth and Families “has a policy of relying upon doctors affiliated with the American Academy Pediatrics, whose opinions are tainted by a burden shifting medical presumption that the cause of any intracranial injury in a child under the age of one year is caused by abuse unless the parents provide an accidental explanation, to perform the medical investigation into whether injuries suspected to have been caused by child abuse were, in fact, caused by child abuse.”
They claim that agents of the Office of Children, Youth and Families, defendants Tammie Lay and Dawn M. Watson, “failed to conduct their own independent non-presumption tainted investigation” and “relied exclusively upon the conclusion of defendant Penn State’s Child Safety Team and defendants [Drs. Mark S.] Dias, [Kathryn R.] Crowell and [Arabinda K.] Choudhary that L.B.’s intracranial hemorrhages were caused by abuse on the afternoon of October 19, 2009 and rib fractures were caused by abuse 4 to 8 weeks prior to her hospitalization without conducting any independent medical review or confirmation of their own.”

It is horrible that this child suffered injuries.  However, there’s another kind of parent education program which might have been appropriate also:

They say that despite medical knowledge that Vitamin D deficiency can lead to rickets and weak bones in African Americans, Penn State’s Child Safety Team failed to require that L.B.’s blood be tested for abnormal clotting factors or that the child’s or mother’s blood be tested for vitamin D deficiency.

Another Doctor, Charles Pragnell — from outside the US — writes consistently on the problem with medical malpractice in presuming abuse, when it may or may not have been:

How children are suffering harm by those with a duty to protect them.

By Charles Pragnell

The abuse of children is a horrendous and unacceptable crime in any society and it is correct that when such acts occur, immediate protection is available for the children and appropriate action is taken in regard to the offenders.

However, what is also unacceptable is the high level of false accusation of child abuse which also has abusive effects on children and the families who are falsely accused.

According to statistical evidence in 1992 and 1997, over two-thirds of reports of child abuse in the U.K. have NO substantive basis i.e. False and wrongful accusations. [Dept of Health Statistics]. Similar proportions of false accusations were evident during the same time period in the United States of America and in Australia. There is evidence that false accusations of child abuse are occurring for mistaken, mischievous, and malicious reasons.

The current unproven medical theory which is resulting in many hundreds of families being wrongly accused of child abuse is Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy [MSBP], which is causing immense disruption, distress, and harm to children throughout the U.K. In these cases, physicians and social workers allege that parents (usually mothers) have fabricated or induced an illness in their child, yet on examination of such cases it can be found that the children have and are suffering serious illnesses. Groups which seem to have been particularly targeted for such accusations are families with children with Autism, Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder [ADHD] or Cystic Fibrosis. In other cases children have suffered adverse reactions to vaccines, or from medically prescribed drugs which have not been clinically tested on children by manufacturers prior to widespread distribution, or from birth injuries.

[[In other words, parents — esp. mothers — properly seeking medical care for their children, sometimes single, sometimes married — are told “it’s all in your head — you are the sick party, you have “Munchhausen’s by proxy” (search my blog)]].

Pragnell’s article seems to cover some factors relevant in the Franklin County Case…

Prosser’s research indicated that the major faults in child protection investigations are :-

  • The social workers perceived that abuse had occurred and the accused as guilty from the beginning of the investigation;
  • Thereafter the investigators only sought confirmatory evidence of their assumptions and disregarded evidence which would have cast doubt on the allegations;
  • Poor recording of evidence;
  • Inappropriate interpretations by investigators of statements or actions;
  • Idiosyncratic behaviour and interpretation of policies by investigators;
  • Investigators focusing on a single piece of evidence and ignoring contrasting sets of evidence;
  • Confusion over what constitutes a medical indicator of abuse and a “natural” condition [apparent in MSBP cases];
  • High status doctors (consultant) having substantial influence over other investigators. [apparent in MSBP cases];
  • Experts deviating from their areas of expertise [apparent in MSBP cases

Prosser identified three major areas of significant concern –

  1. “The imbalance of power within the investigating agencies;
  2. The abandonment of professional codes of conduct and practice by some investigators; and
  3. The failure of the system to adequately acknowledge or compensate the wrongly accused family for the trauma and losses suffered. This latter point is reflected in the statements of some child protection professionals who openly proclaim, “Who cares if nine innocents suffer, as long as we get the guilty one!”.

Finally, Prosser declares, “It is clear that the problem of false accusations remains endemic in both countries”. (U.K. and the U.S.A.).

When it comes to the case in Pennsylvania — I’ll bet the authorities had not expected to be questioned or challenged by a lawsuit!  But we can see the suit mentions the over-reliance on the “American Academy of Pediatrics” (AAP).  Well – the AAP just happened to be part of the cooperative agreement with Mark S. Dias’ (P.I.) project here!  (See below):  This is a financial and professional relationship.

(These quotes are from the Courthouse News Article, cont’d)

. . . About the Child Safety Team member’s expert testimony:

The parents add that Dr. Crowell, a member of the Penn State Child Safety Team, “qualified as an expert in child abuse for the first time in her life at the dependency hearing for L.B. and T.R on December 18, 2009. Defendant Crowell was qualified as an expert in child abuse for the second time in her life at Jamel’s preliminary criminal hearing on December 28, 2009. Dr. Crowell acknowledged under oath at Jamel’s criminal trial that she misrepresented medical evidence critical to L.B.’s case when she testified at Jamel’s preliminary hearing.”

She was a doctor, obviously — but was she an expert in identifying child abuse?

Thirty paragraphs later, the parents say that Dr. Crowell “testified falsely that L.B. had ‘an extensive screening’ for ‘coagulation problems’ and ‘an extensive screening for bleeding disorders’ that were ‘normal’ and that L.B.’s ‘metabolic workup was normal.’”

(LGH) Reminder:  The Child Safety Team had only been started a few months earlier.  Within one month of them being assembled, they had a black father in jail and two kids in foster care, erroneously.   The bail was set too high for this man to get out of jail.  How many times do we hear of people being quickly sprung from jail after domestic violence?    (or sent to diversionary programs instead of jail).  See my Toms River article for an example of this, when the woman victim was an employee of the DYFS herself….  But in this case, they kept the father.

This next part, if true, is disgraceful.  A medical doctor testifying FOR the family suffered restrictions that ones from the prosecution did not.  First, they point out that some doctors (for the prosecution) had liability insurance; while one wishing to testify FOR the family, did not:

The parents say that Crowell was also “paid by, and enjoyed the liability insurance, of Penn State” and was never their daughter’s treating physician.

(I looked up the HHS award for this, principal investigator Mark S. Dias.  This nonprofit hospital is a major grants recipient; most of the awards seem for technical clinical research…)

Showing: 1 – 9 of 9 Award Actions

Recipient: MILTON S HERSHEY MEDICAL CENTER
Recipient ZIP Code: 17033-2360

FY Award Number Award Title Budget Year of Support CFDA Number Agency Action Issue Date Amount This Action
2011 U49CE001274 PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM 5 93.136 CDC 07-20-2011   $ 492,537 
2010 U49CE001274 PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM 3 93.136 CDC 01-26-2010   $ 0 
2010 U49CE001274 PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM 4 93.136 CDC 07-14-2010   $ 608,903 
2010 U49CE001274 PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM 4 93.136 CDC 07-19-2010   $ 0 
2009 U49CE001274 PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM 2 93.136 CDC 10-08-2008   $ 0 
2009 U49CE001274 PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM 2 93.136 CDC 05-04-2009   $ 0 
2009 U49CE001274 PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM 3 93.136 CDC 08-03-2009   $ 554,142 
2008 U49CE001274 PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM 2 93.136 CDC 09-09-2008   $ 554,920 
2007 U49CE001274 PENNSYLVANIA ABUSIVE HEAD TRAUMA PREVENTION PROGRAM 1 93.136 CDC 09-10-2007   $ 561,414 
Award Actions Count: 9 Award Actions Subtotal: $ 2,771,91

The anticipated program enrollment was 300,000; it is an intervention program and as described, participants were voluntary:

This study is enrolling participants by invitation only.
First Received on July 30, 2008.   Last Updated on July 31, 2008   History of Changes
Sponsor: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Collaborators: Pennsylvania Department of Health
American Academy of Pediatrics
Information provided by: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00727116
  Purpose

This project is designed to evaluate a statewide, hospital-based parent education program to prevent abusive head trauma (AHT) in Pennsylvania, and investigate the additional effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of “booster” sessions of parent education delivered to parents at primary care provider offices in central Pennsylvania.

Specific Aims:

  1. Assess the effectiveness of an established statewide program of hospital-based postnatal parent education about violent infant shaking, provided at a single consistent point in time between the infant’s birth and hospital discharge, in reducing the incidence of AHT.
  2. Identify while [[I believe they mean “which“]] component(s) are the most important mediators of the intervention’s effectiveness; determine whether the intervention effect is more directly related to changes in perpetrator or caregiver behavior; and determine the effectiveness of the intervention among various socioeconomic groups.
  3. Determine the cost effectiveness of the hospital-based program.
  4. Establish the feasibility, additional costs, and effectiveness of a combined program of repeated exposure delivered both post-natally in the hospital and during follow up 2-, 4- and 6-month outpatient health maintenance visits with the pediatric care provider.
Condition Intervention
Injury
Traumatic Brain Injury
Child Abuse
Behavioral: PA Abusive Head Trauma Prevention Program: State-wide
Behavioral: PA Abusive Head Trauma Prevention Program Booster: Central PA
Study Type: Interventional
Study Design: Allocation: Non-Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Open Label
Primary Purpose: Prevention
Official Title: Pennsylvania Abusive Head Trauma Prevention Program
Primary Outcome Measures:
  • Incidence of abusive head trauma in infants [ Time Frame: 3 years ] [ Designated as safety issue: No ]
Estimated Enrollment: 300000
Study Start Date: January 2008

This sounds like an excellent program, and obviously knowledge about the danger of  shaking babies in anger is vital.  But in application — something happened, which resulted in an innocently jailed father, and children wrongfully in foster care, for a year!

Detailed Description:

Upon the birth of the child, all parents (mothers, and whenever possible, fathers or father figures) will be asked to read written materials and view an 8-minute video on the dangers of violent infant shaking. Parents will be asked to voluntarily sign a commitment statement affirming their receipt and understanding of the materials; these commitment statements will be sent to the Principal Investigator. A random subset of parent participants will be asked to voluntarily answer a short questionnaire about their impressions of the materials. In addition, 31 counties in central Pennsylvania will be randomly divided into two groups. In 15 counties, the hospital-based intervention will remain as described above. In the other 16 counties, all primary care providers having offices in those counties will be asked to provide all parents of newborns at the 2-, 4-, and 6-month immunization visits.

Investigators
Principal Investigator: Mark Dias, MD, FAAP Penn State University Hershey Medical Center

+ + + + +    + + + + +   + + + + +   + + + + +   + + + + +  + + + + +   + + + + +

Did the additional state incentives for foster care parents play a role above as well?  Jail Dad, Mother separated from children, kids in foster care.

I focus more on the family court system (which is abusive to families, and the public through violations of due process, and more), moreso than “child abuse,” foster care, or adoption per se.  However, this system sometimes ends up with kids in foster care because one parent kills the other (one in jail, the other deceased) for a variety of reasons.  Then headlines also show cases of children escaping from brutalization in foster care, or dying in there.  Both happen.

And there seems there is no longer any question that children have been trafficked for sex abuse and used as entertainment by high-profile politicians, in numbers unknown — as the Franklin Coverup (Nebraska, Larry King, John DeCamp reporting, victim Paul Bonacci testifying, an investigator’s plane shot down in mid air (killing him and his son) as he returned with photos from an interview, involvement of Nebraska Boys’ Town, etc.).   No one normal can continue life “as normal” and retain an awareness of these activities, in our country; for sheer emotional survival, we back-burner it, and then believe that somehow CPS and other agencies will take care of the dirty business.  Yet in the subsequent investigation, the now grown Paul Bonacci was awarded $1 million for damages, yet not asked to identify the Congressional leaders involved!

This article is too disturbing, and not “casual conversation.”  As the point of THIS post is to expose the incentives for putting children needlessly into foster care and up for adoption — and to show an article neatly summarizing it from the year 2000 — let me just post the opening paragraph of the 2005  Article, detailing what is a curious lack of investigation by the highest investigatory powers in the US, or among them (not including Homeland Security, post 2001).   This is the summary of the matter — and please keep it in mind when one becomes aware of the immense foster care industry:  As this is talking about destinations of vulnerable kids and how they really cannot get out on their own, safely, once in this ring.  As posted on TomFlocco.com (this was shared with me, I didn’t look it up):

The Justice Department, acting through the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Omaha, emerges from the record of the Franklin investigations not so much as a party to the cover-up, but as its coordinator. Rigging grand juries, harassment of witnesses, incitement to perjury and tampering with evidence -federal personnel were seen to apply all of those techniques in the Franklin case. (John W. DeCamp, Esq., The Franklin Cover-up, Second Edition, January 2005)

Bless the Beasts and the Children

Photographer for White House child sex ring arrested after Thompson suicide

by Tom Flocco

WASHINGTON—March 13, 2005—TomFlocco.com—Photographer Russell E. “Rusty” Nelson was recently arrested two days after journalist Hunter Thompson reportedly committed suicide four weeks ago on February 10, according to two phone interviews with attorney John DeCamp last week.

Nelson was allegedly employed by a former Republican Party activist to take pictures of current or retired U.S. House-Senate members and other prominent government officials engaging in sexual criminality by receiving or committing sodomy and other sex acts on children during the Reagan-Bush 41 administrations.

In other words, most likely for blackmail purposes….  Now this photographer was arrested after the journalist committed suicide:

Hunter Thompson’s death and the news blackout of Rusty Nelson’s simultaneous arrest raise questions that someone may be attempting to limit Nelson’s freedom or threaten him, since according to testimony, both men had allegedly witnessed homosexual prostitution and pedophile criminal acts in a suppressed but far-reaching child sex-ring probe closely linked to Senate and House members–but also former President George H. W. Bush. [In U.S. District Court testimony, Rusty Nelson told Judge Warren Urbom he took 20,000 to 30,000 pictures, 2-5-1999, p.52]

Pedophile victim Paul Bonacci–kidnapped and forced into sex slavery between the ages of 6 and 17–told U.S. District Court Judge Warren Urbom in sworn testimony [pp.105, 124-126] on February 5, 1999: “Where were the parties?…down in Washington, DC…and that was for sex…There was sex between adult men and other adult men but most of it had to do with young boys and young girls with the older folks…specifically for sex with minors…Also in Washington, DC, there were parties after a party…there were a lot of parties where there would be senators and congressmen who had nothing to do with the sexual stuff. But there were some senators and congressmen who stayed for the [pedophile sex] parties afterwards…on a lot of the trips he took us on he had us, I mean, I met some people that I don’t feel comfortable telling their name because I don’t want to — …Q: Are you scared?…Yes…”

DeCamp, a former Nebraska state senator and decorated Vietnam War vet, told TomFlocco.com “there are tons of pictures still left; law enforcement is currently looking for them,” adding, “you can also assume there are senators and congressmen implicated; otherwise this would not be such a big issue.”  But no federal official has stepped forward to protect Rusty Nelson’s life, as Congress would be reluctant to hold hearings or force a federal prosecutor to probe its own members for sex acts with children–still punishable by law.

I’m saying this because society keeps thinking someone else is going to protect both children and adults (women specifically) from abuse.  While my case has no foster care, adoption efforts, or child abuse allegations in it — the principles remain.  How many times do people have to reach out for help, only to find out most entities (including individual families & relatives!) — have their own priorities, and when one gets down to it, will sacrifice up to a point, but are not willing to literally sacrifice their comfort, and — most important — their myth that this country, where they live (sometimes quite nicely) is fundamentally just and good.  And that their TAXES are paid in order to delegate life’s tough problems to others, who are handling it pretty well.

Nope.

This is why I came to the conclusion (after years of this) that the best defence is a good offence; that although independence, self-sufficiency, and the ability to physically defend onesself are resented by systems that profit and exist on constant streams of the needy, SEEKING THIS STATE is always better  – for all! — than seeking protection.   

The Tom Flocco article (2005) states clearly testimony from the abused children, trafficked in one case through foster parents in Nebraska, connections to George Bush Senior and intentional use of these photos to get favorable legislation passed in Congress.  If there was opposition, Larry King could blackmail the opposing side.  The situation is entirely sick:

..If they wanted to get something passed through the legislature, he would put some people that were against it in a compromising position. By using us boys and girls…Judge Urbom: Was this by your being the sexual partner of that person?…Yes…Judge Urbom: …Any estimates of how often you participated as the sexual partner of one of these persons that he wanted to get some kind of control over?…There were times when it would be four or five in a night…on probably a couple thousand times…sometimes dozens of times with the same person…” [U.S. District Court testimony, 2-5-1999, pp. 146-151]

Curiously, Paul Bonacci told investigators that the sex ring was based out of Offutt U.S. Air Force Base near Omaha, having been taken there to be abused since he was three years old in 1970. At Offutt, Paul said he was “trained” by tortures, heavy drugging and sexual degradation. [Offutt AFB played a major role immediately following the 9/11 attacks as George W. Bush made the base his post-attack headquarters for a short period.]

(There is testimony from young women also on the article).

Perhaps keep this in mind when you are writing a Congressperson asking for help regarding child abuse.  WHY such a huge industry?  When a child wefare worker “Walters” reported, credibly — the report was ignored, as below:

Presidential indiscretions–or criminal acts?

According to a Nebraska state police report, Nebraska Foster Care Review Board letter to the Attorney General, Nebraska Senate’s Franklin committee investigative report, and a 50-page report by Omaha’s Boys Town welfare case officer Mrs. Julie Walters,

by my count, that’s 4 sources!

pedophile victims Nelly and Kimberly Webb detailed a massive child sex, homosexual and pornography operation run out of Nebraska by Larry King–but with close ties directly to the Congress and the White House. . . .

(paragraphs later, not easy reading):

In spite of four polygraph tests administered by a Nebraska state trooper who said he was convinced Nelly was telling the truth, in December, 1990, a Washington country, Nebraska judge [David Quist, I believe] ignored Julie Walter’s 50-page report, numerous debriefings of the girls by foster care officials and youth workers stating the sisters told the truth–specifically about George Bush Sr., and dismissed all charges against their foster parents Jarrett and Barbara Webb, who Nelly and Kimberly said had allowed them to be abused.

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

Did you ever wonder where all these abusive parents came from?  Who raised them?  Since Child Abuse is obviously a heinous crime, why are there so many participants?  What is it about human nature that we collectively don’t understand about ourselves, such that there’s still a booming industry in Child Protection?

Why would a state Senator and her husband have to die while exposing this industry in Georgia?  This is the conclusion several people have come to who were close to the Schaefers, although the Georgia Bureau of Investigation quickly labeled it a murder/suicide. (see HERE, among other places).

I am simply coloring this section GREEN, regarding the Schaefer’s CPS expository work (with its links underlined) in green, to distinguish from what follows, after which we can end this difficult post – for a holiday season.  Perhaps state by state individuals can do their own work —  but it must be shared, as obviously children are being flown OUT of state for trafficking purposes too.  In the long run, this also becomes a FINANCIAL issue, as also the Franklin Coverup was — as in Franklin Credit Union.  Larry King did time for embezzlement, not child abuse.  It seems the two go together, and if major child traffickers are caught for money crimes, not child trafficking crimes — but it stops them — perhaps that’s a message on which direction to investigate.  Quite honestly, I don’t think most of us can handle the vicarious trauma even of consciousness of how far down is the ugliness (within America, ruling circles).  But, what is the cost of living unconscious lives?  Or our delayed bill when what we can’t face now, comes back stronger, later, and right next door?

PERMISSION TO REPRINT GRANTED

Garland Favorito
404 664-4044

REFERENCES

Regardless of how the couple may have died, former Senator Nancy Schaefer lived the last couple of years of her life dedicated to helping children and families who were victimized by the very government agencies that were supposed to be helping them.

Mrs. Schaefer had found during the last few years that:

– Georgia housed children in a foster home with a known pedophile who molested the children.

Habersham County failed to remove six children from a home where they were being abused and tortured.

– Georgia turned two girls over to a California father who had a pornographic video business.

A report that she produced on these remarkable cases can be found at the fight CPS web site:

http://fightcps.com/pdf/TheCorruptBusinessOfChildProtectiveServices.pdf

Nancy Schaefer was interviewed extensively by talk show host Alex Jones about corruption in Child Protection Services nationally. A multi-part series of her interview and an Eagle Forum presentation can be found on You Tube here:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nancy+schaefer&search_type=&aq=f

More details on the video she was working on can be found on the Alex Jones Channel of You Tube at:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=WILLIAM+FAIN&aq=f

In addition, former Senator Schaefer led opposition to HB582 and SB304. These two bills, introduced by her fellow Republicans, would have likely increased child sex trafficking if passed during the 2009 or 2010 sessions. These bills would have made it legal for teenagers to participate in certain illicit acts. The bills would have effectively removed the legal authority that police have to pick up teenagers and get them into protective custody so that they can no longer be pimped for those acts.

PV Pop-Quiz: Who were the idiotic State Reps sponsoring HB 582 (analysis of HB 582 here by Sue Ella Deadwyler) in the 2009-2010 Legislative Session, and who were the idiotic State Senators sponsoring SB 304 (op-ed here on SB 304)? Inquiring minds should find out for themselves

The age of consent in Georgia is 16.


Outrageous Outreach Activities in Haiti: Project Pierre Toussaint, Adopted kids “In the Father’s Hands” (alas, literally), and Post-shutdown Fundraising.

leave a comment »

This post comes from my habit of browsing the Courthousenews periodically (article below) and a recent lawsuit against an orphanage in Haiti operated by “Lashbrook Family Ministry.”

That doesn’t mean you won’t get a still get dose of  HHS Healthy Marriage Responsible Fatherhood Faith-Based Grantees, and my commentary on them.  After all, it looks like one thing in common with Project Pierre Toussaint Fiasco is fundraising (from afar) continues after corporate status, or institution, suspended.

Talk about the “Missionary Position”and compromised relationships of funders:  Did they know?  Did they not know?  ….How many unreported similar stories abound? Can we trust ANY advertisement from ANY source with poignant photos of happy (or, if that’s the sales angle) forlorn skinny children?

In short — no.  Do the homework, and don’t support what you can’t validate.

 

OK, Here goes nothing and a rather different post.

 

Remember Haiti — and some debates about well-meaning Baptists going and getting themselves some nice Haitian kids?

Read and understand what the concept “faith-based” really entails:

The Evangelical Adoption Crusade

Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

In late March Craig Juntunen told a group of Christian adoption advocates assembled at a Chandler, Arizona, home about his plans to increase international adoptions fivefold. Just over a year before, the world had been riveted by the saga of Laura Silsby, the American missionary arrested while trying to transport Haitian children across the Dominican border. But the lessons of that scandal seemed far from Juntunen’s mind as he described his “crusade to create a culture of adoption” by simplifying adoption’s labyrinthine ethical complexities to their emotional core. Juntunen, a former pro football quarterback and the adoptive father of three Haitian children, has emerged as a somewhat rogue figure in the adoption world since he recently founded an unorthodox nonprofit, Both Ends Burning. He has commissioned a documentary about desperate orphans in teeming institutions, Wrongfully Detained, and proposed a “clearinghouse model” that will raise the number of children adopted into US families to more than 50,000 per year.

Juntunen acknowledges that many adoption experts find his proposals naïve, particularly in a year that witnessed scandals in Haiti, Nepal and most recently Ethiopia, where widespread irregularities and trafficking allegations may slow the once-booming program to a crawl. He met a chilly reception recently at the Adoption Policy Conference at New York Law School when he spoke alongside State Department officials. But Juntunen insists that his ideas for increasing adoption constitute a social movement, akin to the civil rights movement, and that the force of a growing “adoption culture” will help them prevail. …

In Arizona, Juntunen was speaking with Dan Cruver, head of Together for Adoption, a key coalition in growing evangelical adoption movement. The event was the first of the organization’s new “house conferences”: small-scale meet-ups bolstering an active national movement that promotes Christians’ adopting as a way to address a worldwide “orphan crisis” they say encompasses hundreds of millions of children. It’s a message Cruver also emphasizes in his book Reclaiming Adoption—one in a growing list of titles about “orphan theology,” which teaches that adoption mirrors Christian salvation, plays an essential role in antiabortion politics and is a means of fulfilling the Great Commission, the biblical mandate that Christians spread the gospel.

If one can’t convince the locals by one’s ethical example and the goodness of God, go forth and adopt, how could a dependent orphan possibly resist the faith?

Yet while Cruver and his colleagues have inspired thousands of Christians to enter the arduous and expensive process of international adoption, the adoption industry is on a steep decline after years of ethical problems and tightening regulations around the world.

In 2009 Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary** and author of the 2009 book Adopted for Life, shepherded through a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) resolution calling on all 16 million members of the denomination to become involved in adoption or “orphan care.”** Last year at least five evangelical adoption conferences were held, and between 1,000 and 2,000 churches participated in an “Orphan Sunday” event in November. And in February, the mammoth evangelical adoption agency Bethany Christian Services announced that its adoption placements had increased 13 percent since 2009, in large part because of the mobilization of churches.

WOW.  I just learned today that the California Judicial Council (again) nominated November as “Adoption Month” and we know that some courts are holding “Adoptions Weekends too.”  I also know that in some states, Adoption incentives are simply huge.  There are just so many parents losing, abandoning, and abusing their kids, I guess — either that or (as the late Nancy Schaefer, of Georgia was pointing out — shortly before she and her husband were shot to death — there are indeed huge financial incentives to for state governments (not just evangelists) to traffic in children.

**Southern Baptist Convention being the one Jimmy Carter and his wife quit, stating they could no longer support the group’s oppressive views towards and treatment of women.  Other literature one can read indicates they fight, cheat, and gang up on each other too . . . . ”

(WIKIPEDIA)

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a United States-based Christian denomination. It is the world’s largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States, with over 16 million members.[3] It is also the second largest Christian body in the United States, after the Catholic Church.[4]

The word Southern in Southern Baptist Convention stems from its having been founded and rooted in theSouthern United States. The SBC became a separate denomination in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, following a regional split with northern Baptists over the issues of slavery.

Hence one wonders why the urge to go adopt children of color . . . . .

After the American Civil War, another split occurred: most black Baptists in the South separated from white churches and set up their own congregations.” . . . .

Russell H. Dilday, president of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1978 to 1994, described the resurgence as having fragmented Southern Baptist fellowship and as being “far more serious than a controversy”.[28] Dilday described it as being “a self-destructive, contentious, one-sided feud that at times took on combative characteristics”

(Since this is about 16 million Americans I’m talking about, felt it deserved at least a little reference there….)

DO YOU REMEMBER?  “After Haiti Quake, the Chaos of U.S. Adoptions”  NYTimes  By GINGER THOMPSON Published: August 3, 2010

HAITIAN EARTHQUAKE —- A BABY LIFT UNLIKE ANYTHING SINCE THE VIET NAM WAR — SCANDAL INVOLVING 10 BAPTIST MISSIONARIES WHO IMPROPERLY TOOK CUSTODY OF 33 HAITIAN CHILDREN :

Then on Jan. 12, a devastating earthquake toppled Haiti’s capital and set off an international adoption bonanza in which some safeguards meant to protect children were ignored.

Leading the way was the Obama administration, which responded to the crisis, and to the pleas of prospective adoptive parents and the lawmakers assisting them, by lifting visa requirements for children in the process of being adopted by Americans.

Although initially planned as a short-term, small-scale evacuation, the rescue effort quickly evolved into a baby lift unlike anything since the Vietnam War. It went on for months; fell briefly under the cloud of scandal involving 10 Baptist missionaries who improperly took custody of 33 children; ignited tensions between the United States and child protection organizations; and swept up about 1,150 Haitian children, more than were adopted by American families in the previous three years, according to interviews with government officials, adoption agencies and child advocacy groups.

. . . But child protection advocates like Marlène Hofstetter at Terre des Hommes, an international child advocacy organization, contend that those ends do not justify the means. Rushing children out of familiar environments in a crisis can worsen their trauma, she said. Expediting adoptions in countries like Haiti — where it is not uncommon for people to turn children over to orphanages for money — violates children’s rights and leaves them at risk of trafficking, she added. . . .

In the United States, adoptive parents contacted anyone they knew who might have money, private planes and political connections to help them get children out of Haiti. Evangelical Christian churches, which have increasingly taken up orphan care as a tenet of their faith, were also mobilized.

SO, THIS IS ABOUT A FAITH-BASED GROUP THAT OPERATES AN ORPHANAGE (NOT ADOPTIONS) IN HAITI.  

LET’S TALK:

Let me tell this story (not about the largest organizations around, just a fragment of the field) to make the point that organizations which identify as religious — or faith-based (= ????) — are not necessarily more ethical more altruistic, or doing more good than other groups, as alleged.

In fact the opposite might be true — only they have the religious angle to sell from and people who for milennia have been used to hearing that voice and following that shepherd.    Here’s the Bible on that:

    1Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, 2shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; 3nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. 4And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. 5You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.  ((I Peter 5))

Here’s another type of “example to the flock” which it seems we will never get the message, is fairly typical for the practice,

(1)

“HAITI:  ADOPT AN ORPHANAGE”  BLOG:

Welcome to our Adopt-an-Orphanage Project.

On this site you can track our progress in fundraising,

locating 501c3 non-profit partners, and selecting a Haitian orphanage.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 2010

Latest from Lashbrook Family Ministries

Dear Family,
Change is good, or so we hear. Change is also difficult. The mission is changing daily with new children being added, new interns and volunteers coming to work and new buildings going up. In the five and half months since the earthquake we have seen so many changes it makes our heads spin. . . .
Cindy & I will be in Haiti June 5 – 14 and then coming back out to speak and raise funds until this fall. We are still looking for churches and groups that would allow us to share our vision and story. For part of this time we hope to have Pastor Andy traveling with us to share his heart about all that is happening in Haiti…
One thing that hasn’t changed is our love and appreciation for all of you who faithfully pray for and support our family as we seek to serve in Haiti and deal with the daily pressures and decisions we must make for our huge family and our ministry. Thank you!Keith & CindyKeith & Cindy Lashbrook, Directors
Lashbrook Family Ministries, Haiti
In the Father’s Hand Children’s Home
Grace Children Adoption Home
Grace Christian School
Grace ChapelFinancial contributions should be made payable to:
Lashbrook Family Ministries
and mailed to:
Globe International
PO Box 3040
Pensacola, FL 32516-3040

Correspondence & in-kind donations contact:
Mission Services Office
2457 W 950 N
Thorntown, IN 46071

(2)

A. “HIS PASSION REACHING THE WORLD”

Another individual highly impressed with the above Lashbrook Ministries and their concern to reach out and touch / impact  abandoned, vulnerable children.  Possibly innocent of the literal meaning of “reach out and touch…”

Welcome to Hispassion.org. I am Ashley Pell and His Passion is simply me and the ministry that I do. The Lord’s passion is His people and I share that same passion in my life. As a full-time missionary in the Philippines, I am partnered with David Mayyam pioneering a ministry called North Gate, based in Baguio City. I am sent by Helping Hands Inc, a ministry based in Charlotte NC and my church, the Refuge from Concord NC.

http://hispassion.org/Haiti/LashbrookFamilyMinistry/tabid/77/Default.aspx

During my time with the Lashbrook Family Ministry in Haiti, I was blown away by the magnitude of what God was doing there. I came home with a strong desire to convey that to the people who would not be able to take the trip I did. In January I returned to Port-de-Paix, Haiti, to film this documentary. In just 10 short years, Lashbrook Family Ministry, has founded a Children’s Home, an Adoption Home, a School, a Feeding Program, and a Church. Their desire is to impact the city and eventually the nation with love of God, through reaching these abandoned children

(2)B.

our ministry (the Lashbrooks….)

My Photo

Port-de-Paix, Haiti

In 1997, God broke Keith and Cindy’s heart for the children of Haiti. They moved their family of 4 from Martinsville, Indiana, to Port-de-Paix, Haiti. Lashbrook Family Ministry was born and now they are a family of 110. God has put it in their hearts to love each of the children like their own. In the past 12 years, with the help of many Haitians, they founded a Boy’s Home, a Girl’s Home, an Adoption Home, a feeding program, a free school with 300 students, and a church impacting the community.

BACK TO INDIANA’s CORPORATIONS SEARCH PAGE:
Entity Name Type Entity Type City / State
LASHBROOK FAMILY MINISTRY, INC. Legal Non-Profit Domestic Corporation THORNTOWN, IN

Current Information

Entity Legal Name: LASHBROOK FAMILY MINISTRY, INC.

Entity Address:  2457 W 950 N, THORNTOWN, IN 46071
General Entity Information:
Control Number1998060496 
StatusVoluntarily Dissolved 
Entity TypeNon-Profit Domestic Corporation 

Entity Creation Date6/1/1998 
Entity Date to Expire
Entity Inactive Date1/22/2008 

There are no other names on file for this Entity.

Additional Services Available:  This Business Entity is not eligible to receive a Certificate of Existence/Authorization. 

Let’s run this by again (I haven’t found an EIN#)  they existed for 10 years.  Were any tax returns filed? In 2010, they are still collecting money — but for Globe International, out of Florida (not IN and not Haiti)

 Transactions:

Date Filed Effective Date Type
06/01/1998 06/01/1998 Articles of Incorporation
01/22/2008 01/22/2008 Articles of Dissolution

(I’d like to see this one).

Florida, I can deal with — they have a great corporations search site — and “GLOBE INTERNATIONAL” is a real common name.  Notice the “Status” column has a lot of “INACT” entries.

GLOBE INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES:

Learn How to Become a Globe Missionary.

Are you praying about a career in missions? Great! I am sure, if you are praying about serving God in a missionary career, you have been thinking about missions for a long time. Perhaps you have already made a few short term trips, and you probably have also been studying missions courses and missions books. Perhaps too, you have been serving in your local church missions department. Maybe you have a college degree in missions. All of the above is great preparation for a career in missions.

Globe has many opportunities where you can serve alongside our existing ministries and missionaries. Or, if you are ready, Globe can help send you to pioneer a new work in a new country.

You are probably asking, “What must I do first?” Let me make a few suggestions.

  1. First, get active in your local church
  2. Second, if you haven’t made a short term missions trip, let me encourage you to do that soon
  3. Third, if you have not done any formal study, take some bible and missions courses. Globe can recommend several quality study programs that you can do at home in your spare time. They are affordable and will minimally intrude upon your schedule, but will be a great help in the preparation process.
  4. Finally, when you are ready, give us a call

(i.e., if you want to go evangelize as a Christian, start acting like one (translated into:  do something with your church, for a change), and heck, why not even study the bible some?)

For some reason, Globe International Ministries gets to cash checks made out to Lashbrook Family Ministries (IN) which is not an entity in IN since 2008.  CEO,  J. Douglas Gehman per the site. … Found reviewing “Jesus Drank, Judas Repented, and God DIvorced his Bride

Steve Brown’s book will surprise you. It is, and it is not, what the title conveys. With a well researched approach, Brown develops the “Big Three” premises in the title; his conclusions will inspire and challenge you. It is obvious from the beginning that Steve Brown is an ardent follower of Jesus, and is seeking to live a genuinely Christ-centered life before God and people. I highly recommend this thought-provoking book. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, you will be stirred.”
Dr. J. Douglas Gehman**
President, Globe International
Pensacola, Florida

Also associated with (per corporationwiki) the

**Africa Institute for Biblical Christianity, Inc.  (Affiliated with ACTEA which has to do with theological education in Africa)

Company Name: AFRICA INSTITUTE FOR BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY, INC.
Status: Active Filing Date: 02/26/2003
Entity Type: Non Profit Corporation File Number: N03000001736
Company Age: 9 Years, 10 Months
Principal Address: 3015 St Charles Drive
Tampa, FL 33618
Mailing Address: P O Box 261565
Tampa, FL 33685-1565

Because Globe International Ministries self-identifies as religious, it doesn’t have to file tax returns (at least not ones the public can view):

Most Recent Tax Period

EIN Name State Rule Date IRS Sub- section Total Revenue Total Assets 990 Image
2010  592678438 Globe Serv International Inc FL 1987 03 0 0
 237453583 Globe International Ministries Inc FL 1975 03 0 0

ANYHOW, Like Responsible Fatherhood Organizations,** EVANGELICALS LOVE NEW GROUNDS. especially in Africa.…[[

Funding: The National Center for Fathering operates on a $2.5 million annual budget with support from individuals, foundation and corporate grants, and earned income from contracts and resource sales.  Training – The National Center for Fathering offers training through seminars, small groups, and train-the-trainer programs. We have reached over 80,000 fathers through our seminars and have equipped more than 1,000 trainers to provide our research-based father training in their local communities . . .(HOW IT GOT STARTED:   Dr. Ken Canfield founded the National Center as a nonprofit, scientific and education organization. Today, the Center provides practical, research-based training and resources that equip men in virtually every fathering situation to be the involved fathers their children need.) (The Catholic Version of this has a “Father” in every parish and the big one in Rome. This one sells instead training, resources, and books, etc.  Evangelism / / Sales . . . .always needs new territory.  Kind of like Pyramid Schemes…..

]]

Train the Trainers, plant a church, adopt an orphanage, touch the world…..IT’s WHAT THEY DO — and opening orphanages, establishing schools, clinics, etc. of course is part of the terrain 

BUT THIS SHOULDN’T BE:

From COURTHOUSENEWS — another point of view

By IULIA FILIP      PENSACOLA, Fla. (CN) –
Parents who adopted 11 Haitian orphans claim a Christian orphanage allowed its staff to sexually molest and assault the children, and subjected them to “a culture of sexual abuse.”

The two sets of parents sued Globe International Ministries, on their own behalf and for the 11 children.

Globe, a Florida-based “missionary sending agency,” claims it “is fulfilling the ‘Great Commission’ by training, sending, supporting, and overseeing missionaries on the foreign field,” according to the complaint in Escambia County Court.

Globe founded and operated the children’s home through its missionaries, (nonparties) Keith Lashbrook and Lashbrook Family Ministry, and profited from donations received by the orphanage, according to the complaint.

The families say Lashbrook and other orphanage staff repeatedly molested the Haitian orphans, with Globe’s knowledge.

 “On or about Aug. 24, 2010, Globe admitted and acknowledged to potential adoptive families of the Haitian children, including plaintiffs, and other donors to Globe and Lashbrook Family Ministry that sexual assaults occurred and a culture of sexual abuse existed at In the Father’s Hands Children’s Home.”

The parents say Globe was negligent in hiring, training and supervising its missionaries and staff.  (see above, steps 1,2,3,4 on Globe’s site)

They seek damages for negligence.

They are represented by Bobby Bradford with Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz.

WHY DO YOU THINK GROUPS LIKE “SNAP” or, Arizona’s “Voices from the Desert” exist to start with?  Why is there an ongoing need?

Supporting survivors of clergy sexual abuse and examining the cover up, causes, and effects of that abuse in the Roman Catholic Church

Why do women like me have to sound alarms about “Faith-Based Initiatives” and keep talking about how the religious factor IS the abuse factor?  Since when — except for maybe a brief period in the US — has any religion NOT been really aligned with any government — or fighting it to gain control?

I found a similar case to this Lashbrook one in Connecticut recently, and one of the faithful Catholic at least spoke up about it, he says.  

NOVEMBER 11, 2009 1:59PM

Letter from concerned parishioner on Perlitz and Fr. Carrier*

*”Fr.” meaning “Father”

Michael Nowacki Letter distributed to St. Thomas More parishioners in Darien, CT (from the parking lot)

La Sosyete, HLLN and Michael Nowacki,

By circulating this mail, HLLN extends its sympathies, support and solidarity to Mr. Michael Nowacki of the St. Thomas More parish in Connecticut USA, who, with great courage ignored alienation {{??}} to inform the St. Thomas More parishioners who contributed funds to the Douglas Perlitz endeavor in Haiti about his case. (See below – Letter to Parishioners, November 7, 2009).

Mr. Nowacki was actually detained by police, called to his Church by the highest Catholic official in the State of Connecticut, Bishop Lori, for his efforts to tell fellow parishioners about the Douglas Perlitz case and the questionable role of Catholic priest Paul Carrier, who appears to still have been soliciting for funds for accused pedophile Douglas Perlitz, even when Father Carrier was no longer affiliated with the Haiti Fund for over a year. (See Letter to Parishioners for exact details.)

{{Emil Danto is an award winning playwright, a performance poet, author and human rights attorney. She was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and raised in the USA. She holds a BA from Boston College, a JD from the University of Connecticut School of law. She is a human rights lawyer, cultural and political activist and the founder and president of the Ezili’s Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN).}}

NOW HERE IS PART OF THAT LETTER:

Letter to Parishioners
by Michael Nowacki
November 7, 2009

Dear Fellow Parishioner,

As a Parishioner of St. Thomas More for the last eighteen years, it is with some genuine concern that this letter is being written.

On the morning of September 12, an article was sent to me which had been posted in that day’s edition of the Connecticut Post. The article was about an indictment of the former executive director of the Pierre Trouissant Project in Haiti on nine counts related to charges relating to child molestation. 

The devastating indictment indicated that Douglas Perlitz had used money that had been raised largely through the efforts of Father Paul Carrier, who has been an active homilist at St. Thomas More, especially in the last two years.

Perlitz allegedly used funds from The Haiti Fund to purchase electronics and other inducements for these children in order to purchase their silence from this abuse.

Perlitz was a student when Father Paul Carrier was the Chaplain and Director of Campus Ministry at Fairfield University. Father Carrier was removed from his position at Fairfield U. in the spring of 2006 and devoted himself to raising money in Parish’s including St. Thomas More for his favorite charity—the Haiti Fund.

In the allegations, Perlitz was also the recipient of wire transfers from the Haiti Fund to personal accounts. . .

The author continued to follow up on the situation, particularly after learning that Fr. Carrier had a class of confirmation students….

. . . My response was somber: “ in this case, you don’t get an indictment from a grand jury without compelling evidence of wrongdoing.” Douglas Perlitz was arrested in Colorado on September 16, where he was living and escorted on Thursday, September 17 with a federal marshal and incarcerated after arraignment in the Federal Courthouse in Bridgeport on Friday in Federal prison in Rhode Island.

Father Bob then startled me when he said that he couldn’t talk to me about this subject because he was under a gag order. “A gag order?” was my question, isn’t that usually connected to a court proceeding? A court didn’t direct your silence did it Father Bob?

I then explained to the lector that Father Carrier had been identified as the “religious leader” in the indictment for having signed a pro-Perlitz letter in the spring of 2008 supporting Perlitz.

Despite the knowledge of the problems for Father Carrier in Haiti, Father Carrier continued to raise money at our parish after he was removed from his role as the Chairman of the Haiti Fund. He raised money at Fairfield University and other parishes including St. Thomas More after he was removed for his favorite charity.

AND SO FORTH. . . . . .   NB.  In another context, Mr. Nowacki is a father’s rights advocate and has sued the STate of Connecticut for violation of his constitutional rights, etc.   The Catholic church is pretty big on fatherhood, and I am not by publishing this letter standing with that court action (which haven’t read enough about anyway).  WHat’s the other side of the story, was this a Catholic family?

These days when money can be raised also easily through web pages — it’s important to check facts.  Time and again, when I check, the groups are not current.  Moreover, since when have religious groups NOT been associated with abuse & molestation of children male and female (cf.  Bishop Eddie Long, who settled out of court) ? ? ? ?   And since when have faith communities NOT been adept at ignoring what’s in their face, and covering up when it’s one of their leaders?

Ask me how I know that. . . . . . apart from what’s available in public….

Here’s the background story on the Project Pierre Toussaint, including the investigative reporter who broke it.  Please read!  I posted enough segments to explain why it stands on this post (fragments may not be in order).

What Happened at Project Pierre Toussaint?

Picture 9

A confidential Haitian police investigative report portrays, in shocking detail, how Perlitz may have preyed on even more students — up to 29, investigators believe. Perlitz was warned not to continue taking children to his house for overnight stays, but former school employees told Hearst Connecticut Newspaper that a culture of silence grew out of the fear of wrecking the economically flourishing charity. A former friend of Perlitz’s who shared a Cap-Haïtien apartment with him said that as far back as 1998, Perlitz was bringing young boys into his bedroom.

Project Pierre Toussaint probably would not have existed without the Rev. Paul Carrier, a charismatic Jesuit priest, close mentor to Perlitz and the longtime director of Fairfield University’s Campus Ministry program. He has not been charged with any wrongdoing, but his role in setting up the charity that raised millions of dollars for Perlitz’s programs — and where that money went — has aroused the interest of federal investigators.

And Perlitz might not be behind bars save for the work of Cyrus Sibert, a Haitian journalist who says he ignored threats and refused bribes to expose allegations that the boys of The Village were being abused.

“Students began writing graffiti on the tall concrete block walls surrounding the Carinage Intake Center regarding how some boys went home with Perlitz and what happened when they did. Each time staff painted over it, more would reappear.”

 . . .

Excellent said, “The kids believed so much in Doug — that he would take them to another level in life.” But too often, he claimed, Perlitz was taking them to his bedroom. “Doug did not have to answer to anyone,” he said.

Sibert broke his first story on Aug. 19, 2007.

Around that time, Louis Petit-Frère, an investigator with the Institut du Bien Etre Social de Recherches, whose responsibilities are similar to Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families, recalled finding several anonymous notes posted on his door when he arrived at work.

Petit-Frère described the notes as “saying sick things…that boys were staying with Douglas in the evening, he was promising things” in exchange for sex.

. .

Kendrick, the Fairfield University graduate who had become an advocate for sex-abuse victims, visited Project Pierre Toussaint. At first an admirer of Perlitz’s work, Kendrick became alarmed when he saw Perlitz associating with a former priest who had moved to Haiti after being defrocked for allegedly abusing minors in the U.S.

And Cyrus Sibert kept digging.

. . .

Armed with evidence showing child pornography on Perlitz’s computer, federal investigators dismiss those claims. They maintain those boys either are driven by a misplaced loyalty to Perlitz, or that Perlitz and his supporters may have bribed them to lie. Prosecutors, citing Western Union records, said in court documents they believe Perlitz wired money “to buy the silence” of former students.

The Haiti Fund, the charity that raised millions for Perlitz’s project, is in disarray. Past and current board members — prominent residents of Fairfield and Westchester counties — are locked in a bitter dispute. Some ex-board members say Perlitz has been railroaded. At Fairfield University, where the Campus Ministry’s efforts in Haiti have long been a source of immense pride, an internal investigation is under way to determine the school’s financial relationship with Perlitz. . .

(Para. out of order — see original article)

By 1997, Perlitz began looking for space to begin a program offering food, a change of clothes, some basic schooling and showers to homeless Cap-Haïtien boys. Connections through the Order of Malta, a Catholic organization providing medical and humanitarian aid, provided him with a grant that helped create Project Pierre Toussaint, named after a Haitian ex-slave who made a fortune in New York and shared it with orphans and the poor.

Project Pierre Toussaint’s Village at Blue Hills was well on its way to becoming a compound. It would grow to encompass eight buildings — dormitories, classrooms, a dining hall and chapel, as well as athletic fields. And the Carinage intake facility in town handled kids who could transfer to The Village if they showed promise after six months.

By then, Perlitz needed more than handouts and grants from other religious organizations.

Back at Fairfield University was just the man who could help.   For 20 years, the Rev. Paul E. Carrier, S.J . . . .

assisted in establishing the Haiti Fund, a nonprofit organization, and over the next several years helped recruit a roster of well-connected board members active in Catholic circles in Westchester and Fairfield counties. Among them: attorneys Philip Allen Lacovara and Thomas Tisdale; wealthy benefactor Hope Carter; and Suzanne McAvoy, Cathy Lozier and Deborah Picarazzi, all Fairfield University employees at that time.

Carrier visited Project Pierre Toussaint monthly, often leading groups of students for volunteer missions. He vacationed with Perlitz in the Bahamas, Project Pierre Toussaint staffers said. When CNN needed a guest to explain the impact of political upheaval in Haiti, the network’s reporters turned to the Jesuit priest.

Project Pierre Toussaint grew. Its reputation blossomed and donations poured in, bolstered by events like the February 2002 visit from Bishop William E. Lori of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport.

http://www.haitian-truth.org/what-happened-at-project-pierre-toussaint/

As one can see — Haiti was in a desperate situation (85% employment mentioned in the area), and how high a price did the boys pay for food and lodging?

Perlitz background from Illinois:

At the convocation, few were surprised at the accolades for Perlitz. After all, Perlitz’s missionary zeal to aid poor Haitians seemed almost foreordained.

Perlitz was born June 23, 1970, and grew up in Barrington, Ill., a community of 10,000 northwest of Chicago that is among the wealthiest towns in the nation.   Religion was a cornerstone of his education. He attended Carmel Catholic High School in Mundelein, Ill., continuing his Catholic education at Fairfield University in 1988.

Catholic and well to do from the start, and consumed with a zeal for helping young, desperately poor boys in a foreign country.
Fraternizing with a priest who’d already been caught at abuse back in the US
Unbelievable.
And Fr. Carrier, who mentored him as a young man, continued raising money even after off the board. . . . . .

NOW LET”S TALK ABOUT THIS MARRIAGE AND FATHERHOOD PROMOTION WHEN MIXED WITH “FAITH-BASED”

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/ofa/grantees/list10-06.htm#rfg

By now, I “know” (through their on-line profiles and corporation status, etc.) many of these groups.  And I noticed the grantees that are receiving $1,000,000 or over:

Grant Awards List  (page is not courteous enough even to list which year…)

Healthy Marriage Grantees | Responsible Fatherhood Grantees

Healthy Marriage Grantees

Priority Area Legal Name Organization City State Award Amount
1 Auburn University Auburn AL $1,660,798
1 California Healthy Marriages Coalition Cerritos CA $2,342,080

(CHMC is a faith-based coalition, it says — including Unification Church adherent.  It’s also got some zany habits when it comes to staying incorporated)

2 The East Los Angeles Community Union (TELACU) Los Angeles CA $1,100,000
Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C0546508 05/28/1968 ACTIVE THE EAST LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY UNION MICHAEL LIZARRAGA

Forty years ago, TELACU was established as a pioneering institution committed to service, empowerment, advancement, and the creation of self-sufficiency. Chartered as a Community Development Corporation (CDC), TELACU was initially funded through federal legislation authored by Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Jacob K. Javits to revitalize urban, underserved communities throughout the United States.

Utilizing a unique business model – The TELACU Model – for community and economic development, each and every business TELACU owns and operates has a double bottom line – profitability that is inseparable from social impact. The parent, non-profit CDC owns and operates a Family of Companies called TELACU Industries. These for-profit businesses not only provide valuable products and services to the community; but they also provide the economic means for TELACU to sustain its non-profit community-focused entities.

(It is the largest CDU in the nation.  It is still getting federal grants, despite all this success and the concept of nonprofit tied to for-profit tied to local communities, because . . . . .. ?) (because families are, despite all this construction and business-building effort, completely “Tool-less” when it comes to having a strong family (and probably because the grants are available to snag):

FuturoNow Healthy Marriage Initiative

TELACU believes in providing people with the tools they need to build strong families. Because strong families are the cornerstones of healthy communities. And healthy communities form the foundation of a thriving society.

To provide the relationship-building education that is often unavailable in underserved communities, TELACU collaborated with Urban Strategies to launch the FuturoNow Healthy Marriage Initiative. Through programs delivered by a network of faith- and community-based organizations, individuals and couples are empowered to create and maintain healthy relationships that enrich each partner, their children and the entire community.

The charity IS current (per California OAG site) and this was the 2009 financials:

Total Assets: $44,895,796.00
Gross Annual Revenue: $5,393,630.00
RRF Received: 18-NOV-10

Collected TAGGS (HHS) grants:

Recipient Name City State ZIP Code County DUNS Number Sum of Awards
EAST LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY UNION  LOS ANGELES CA 90022-5147 LOS ANGELES 010720597 $ 18,725,773

(active links easy to explore by clicking).  Since 2006, it’s been getting about $1.1 million on one grant/ 2006, 2009 & 2010  for “Healthy Marriage” for total of $3.3 million.  However in 2011 a different grant name (same general idea), “FUTURO NOW” (90FK0019) also a fatherhood grant, for $799K has just started.  2011 is year one.  WIth the remaining $222 on “healthy marriage” and another grant series started (marked like the others “Discretionary”) it’s over $1 million in 2011.   And thanks to TAGGs data entry? mess-up? we have the vital information that the Principal investigator’s first name (in a Hispanic-oriented community action org.) is “Jose.”

Program Office Grantee Name Grantee Type Award Title CFDA Number Award Activity Type Award Action Type Principal Investigator Sum of Actions
OFA EAST LOS ANGELES COMMUNITY UNION Community Action Organization FUTURO NOW FAMILY STRENGTHENING INITIATIVE: FATHERHOOD PROJECT 93086 DEMONSTRATION NEW JOSE JOSE $ 799,999

Here is an HHS-primer on the overall program; the last page shows that TELACU has contracted with Meier Clinics — not not the Foundation, but the for-profit Meier Clinics — to do data reporting and program evaluation, and another company, “Urban Strategies” for day to day operations.  (Sounds like the money is really going to the needy of the area…).

There’s an Urban Strategies with a Registered Agent in Los Angeles but place of Business in St. Louis — in fact these are the three active “urban strategies” corps. in California (4 others are dissolved or suspended):

C3300711 05/27/2010 ACTIVE URBAN STRATEGIES CONSULTING INC. IRA JOEL DANKBERG
C1198200 07/29/1987 ACTIVE URBAN STRATEGIES COUNCIL ROBERT SCHWARTZ
C3150159 06/02/2008 ACTIVE URBAN STRATEGIES, INC. C T CORPORATION SYSTEM

(Direct HHS grants to Urban Strategies, Inc. are from year 2009 only, including ARRA grant)

Recipient Name City State ZIP Code County DUNS Number Sum of Awards
Urban Strategies Inc.  SAINT LOUIS MO 63103 ST. LOUIS 052294910 $ 1,117,647

(It’s the bottom one, obviously — which registered to do business in CA in 2008):

Founded in 1978, Urban Strategies is a not-for-profit corporation that works with its development partner, McCormack Baron Salazar, to help communities build safe neighborhoods, good schools, and a range of comprehensive human service supports. Our goal is to lead distressed, urban-core residential communities and low-income families toward positive social and economic mobility.

2009  431141027 Urban Strategies Inc MO 1980 03 4,759,230 4,007,076 990

Meier Clinics(r) (given that its own Meier Clinics(r) Foundation also got a hefty grant) will make sure to be honest in reporting.  AFter all, they are a Christian group.   [[Actually I’ve heard they are reputable.  Who knows?]].

And like XX% of the fatherhood and marriage promotion — of course they are going to be promoting certain curricula:

Given the variety of audiences— youth, married and unmarried couples, and individuals—the partner agencies use a wide array of curricula including “Within My Reach,” “Family Wellness,” “Love U2,” and “Mastering the Mysteries of Love”** (a “Relationship Enhancement” program) to teach 8 hours of marriage education to mostly first generation immigrants or second generation U.S.‐born Latinos primarily of Mexican descent

“Mastering the Mysteries of Love” is run by many grantees (including California Healthy Marriages) and appears to have been designed specifically to profit from the faith-based and marriage-education grant stream.  For example, here’s a description from the ”

National Institute of Relationship Enhancement®

Mastering the Mysteries of Love (MML) is a research-validated Relationship Enhancement® Program developed by Dr. Bernard Guerney, Jr. and Mary Ortwein, MS. You will be qualified to teach the 8 hour MML program ideal for low income, community, or faith based groups.

Who Should Attend: (the training to run MML classes and support Dr. Guerney, Jr. & Mary Ortwein…..)

Community and faith-based marriage and relationship educators, clergy, students in the helping professions, professionals who want to include an educational approach for their families and couples.
Cost: $225 per person includes leader manual, participant workbook, snacks and certificate of completion ($150 for spouse w/one leader manual and 2 workbooks

The same logo at NIRE(r) above (two interlocking hands in a circle graphic) is found at IDEALS of KENTUCKY site, a URL called “skillswork.org”)

This site (which is Red — the other is Green background) on left column simply lists the marriage/fatherhood grants:

MML Curriculum

(They hint — not too subtly — that our curriculum would be just Grrrrreat for Getting a Fatherhood Grant….)

2011 Marriage and Fatherhood Grants

Various Mastering the Mysteries of Love Relationship Enhancement (MML) curricula fit well in the recently released RFP’s for Marriage and Fatherhood.

In addition Louise Guerney’s Parenting Skills Programand Mastering the Magic of Play (Filial) program bring the SAME skills taught in Marriage Education classes to parenting.  Both the Parenting Skills Program and Filial ARE ALSO research-validated.

Recent Research on MML

California Healthy Marriages Coalition has conscientiously evaluated MML, the traditional RE program, and numerous other marriage education curricula used in CHMC’s current marriage education grant.

In findings presented earlier this month at the NARME Conference in Dallas and in personal communications with IDEALS staff, we are happy to report that (read it yourself to see….)

(Not mentioned on the Promo:  NARME is what Dennis Stoica went to Florida to Incorporate after California decided to suspend two or so of his corporations out there).  NARME is a nonprofit whose members include FR grantees, including “WAIT” training (next up, below).  So when the “Credits” going to both CHMC and NARME look like two different entities — basically, they are not.. It’s the same, small circle of folk recirculating pretty much similar material with the intention of getting federal help to promote it.  Do they love and have concern for couples?  I don’t know.  Maybe.  On the other hand, if they were truly concerned for relationships between men and women, perhaps they’d stop taking so much HHS money to teach the same prefab franchised stuff, and let it be put to better use)….

Here’s even a chart showing how close this MML is to the grants requirements!  I notice that the bottom two rows of the chart (domes violence and child maltreament) have only 2 checks each — out of a possible 10 programs offered by IDEALS, only 2 cover child abuse and (2 different ones) cover DV.   Here’s what taxpayers shelled out for “IDEALS”, the “Institute for Development of Emotional and Life Skills“:

Recipient Name City State ZIP Code County DUNS Number Sum of Awards
IDEALS, Inc.  FRANKFORT KY 40601-2458 FRANKLIN 137666603 $ 50,000

they helped establish it!uin 20

FY Award Number Award Title Budget Year of Support Award Code Agency Action Issue Date DUNS Number Amount This Action
2007 90IJ0831  THE COMPASSION CAPITAL FUND (CCF) TARGETED CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM – MARRIAGE 1 0 ACF 09-15-2007 137666603

whoIncorporated in Kentucky in 2002 (Registered Agent, Mary Ortwein) as a nonprofit, got a grant in 2007, and by 2010 had its status revoked by the State of Kentucky (a

$ 50,000 

Incorporated in KY in 2002 (handwritten, Registered Agent, Mary Ortwein) as a FOREIGN (from Pennsylvania) nonprofit, got a grant here in 2007, and by 2010 had its status revoked by Kentucky for failure to file annual report within 60 days of due date (guess they’re kind of strict in KY):  https://app.sos.ky.gov/corpscans/82/0547882-09-99999-20101101-REV-4556691-PU.pdf and the assumed name Ideals of Kentucky, Inc. is also “inactive”

YET I just showed us, and the website does, it is openly advertising its products for 2011 Grant series, now, almost a year later.  Let’s hop over to Pennsylvania.  The Kentucky app. shows they incorporated in PA the month before (OCt. 2002) and Board of Directors include from MD (Guerney), New Mexico and North Carolina.   Starting to remind me of that group of 8 influential Bishops I blogged the other day, all on on Florida corporation. ….

Name Name Type
IDEALS, INC. Current Name

Non-Profit (Non Stock) – Domestic – Information
Entity Number: 169407
Status: Active
Entity Creation Date: 11/10/1972
Registered Office Address: 442 PARK LN
STATE COLLEGE PA
0 -0
Centre
Mailing Address: No Address 

(the business has no mailling address?)  The registered agent is a spacious single-family home — why is there no registered agent name, I don’t know).

EIN Name State Rule Date IRS Sub- section Total Revenue Total Assets 990 Image
2010  237315118 Ideals Inc MD 1973 03 260,620 42,363 990

 A 2010 990 of this Silver Springs, MD (note — near DC area) shows Bill Coffin as the Executive Director!  And Mary Ortwein working 30 hours a week and a salary of about $30,000 with another person about the same.  Revenue is around $201K — and the entire tax return is scrawled, it’s almost illegible!

BILL COFFIN worked in HHS as Special Assistant on Marriage Education (or similar title) from 2008-2010.  Then in 2010 he is executive Director of IDEALS (unpaid, though).

The “PROGRAM PURPOSE” in 2010 filing is simply (scrawled, as if by a very old person), “Education of Mental Health Professionals.”   That’s a far cry from “anybody willing to promote my materials, sit through our $225 training & $150 work, and you, too, can run “Mastering the Mysteries of Love” classes — for our retirements…

EIN#
952554256
2 WAIT Training Greenwood Village CO $1,010,330
2 Family Resources, Inc. Pinellas Park FL $1,093,365
1 Meier Clinics Foundation Wheaton IL $2,000,000

The Foundation is a nonprofit.  Doesn’t look like the Clinics are….

Meier Clinics® Foundation

Meier Clinics® Foundation is a non-for-profit, tax exempt organization.  Since 2001, we have provided around $1 million in charitable care annually as generous individuals and organizations who share our vision have helped to fund the Christian care provided through Meier Clinics.

 

Paul Meier, M.D.

Founder of Meier Clinics®

“Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.” 

2 Corinthians 9:7


Includes “Pathways to Freedom” to help people with sexual addictions:

PATHWAY TO FREEDOM
An Intensive Outpatient Program for Treatment of Sexual Addictions

It is no secret that our culture has become increasingly obsessed with sex.  It is inescapable.  It is plastered throughout magazines, on billboards, on the internet, in books, on TV – just about everywhere you look. While many felt that a more unrestricted approach to sexuality would liberate people, it actually has lead to bondage for many.  An alarming number of men and women have experienced painful consequences and find they are unable to stop sexual behaviors that are destroying them emotionally, vocationally, relationally, and spiritually.

Just the way Jesus did it …..  with a program…  (Mark 16)

This $2 million, however, is for making Family Bridges (whether or not someone is free from sexual addictions and acting out?)

List of providers, starting with the “Archdiocese of Chicago”  So glad we’re helping support the impoverished Catholic Church, alongside many of their impoverished (in part by them) parishioners.  SOMEONE needs to pay those settlement suits for abusive priests… Why not taxpayers?

http://www.familybridgeschicago.org/ourpartners.asp

The Family Ministries Office of the Archdiocese of Chicago offers services to more than 8,000 couples annually. Through a wide range of programs, classes, workshops, and conferences the group helps build strong relationships among engaged, married, and remarried couples with or without children. Among other things, Family Ministries hosts an annual conference for stepfamilies, and is currently developing a program to train family coaches for the Hispanic community.

 One of (Family Bridges’) Board of Directors lists “CCDA” after the name.  WHy not just write that out for the uninitiated (like me?).  It stands for:
6 Child and Family Resource Council Grand Rapids MI $1,001,276
2 Forest Institute of Professional Psychology Springfield MO $1,037,362
2 St. Louis Healthy Marriage Coalition St. Louis MO $1,099,731
2 Better Family Life, Inc. St. Louis MO $1,097,000
1 Elizabeth’s New Life Center, Inc. Dayton OH $1,754,872
8 Operation Keepsake, Inc. Mayfield OH $459,419
3 Marriage Savers of Clark County, Inc Springfield OH $524,790
6 Public Strategies, Incorporated Oklahoma City OK $1,000,000
8 Oklahoma Department of Human Services Oklahoma City OK $549,791
HMRC Public Strategies, Incorporated Oklahoma City OK $1,300,000
2 Northwest Family Services Portland OR $1,100,000

…(some of the Ohio ones seem to be related;,

1 Family Guidance, Inc. Sewickley PA
$1,510,098

I looked up Sewickley, PA — know the population?

Sewickley is a borough in Allegheny CountyPennsylvania, 12 miles (19 km) west northwest of Pittsburgh along the Ohio River. It is a residential suburb of Pittsburgh. The population was 3,827 at the 2010 census. TheSewickley Bridge crosses the Ohio River at Sewickley.

Allegheny County in PA, and Sewickley in Allegheny County (maps):

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Allegheny County.svgMap of Sewickley, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania Highlighted.png

STATE of PA . . . . . . . . ..  County of Allegheny, with red dot = Sewickley.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total area of 1.1 square miles

(Clearly a distressed area in need of marriage promotion)

39.8% were married couples living together, 10.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 47.1% were non-families. … For every 100 females there were 79.8 males (Maybe they should push polygamy, to catch those unattended females who have a 22% chance of actually having a child in the household…)

The median income for a household in the borough was $39,598, and the median income for a family was $56,500. Males had a median income of $48,988 versus $33,311 for females. The per capita income for the borough was $30,571. About 2.6% of families and 5.0% of the population were below the poverty line,

With that GENDER wage gap, and a stretch of the imagination, possibly a case could be made that the children of the female wage-earners were at risk of being poor (a 5% risk, that is, for the area), which perhaps a great public school system might help with:

Education

There are several private schools in the area; Sewickley AcademySt. James Catholic School and Eden Christian Academy. The public school system,Quaker Valley School District, is renowned for an innovative laptop-technology grant received in 2000 from former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge. Quaker Valley School District is often regarded as one of the best and academically top-ranked school districts in the nation. In the spring of 2006, U.S.News & World Report ranked Quaker Valley High School among the top 2% of high schools nationwide.

Health care

Sewickley is home to Sewickley Valley Hospital, which is part of the Heritage Valley Health System.

FAMILY GUIDANCE, INC. is a very Christian organization.  Obviously a lack in Sewickley, also ….  DNR if I posted (I remember looking this one up)

STATEMENT OF MISSION

Family Guidance, Inc. exists to bring hope and a future in Jesus Christ to vulnerable children and families of all cultures throughout western Pennsylvania. 

…Rev. Dr. James M. Leckie founded Youth Guidance, Inc. in 1964 to reach adjudicated youth. He quickly found that he could multiply his impact by equipping others to do what he was doing. This was the birth of Pittsburgh’s first youth mentoring program, the One-to-One Program, which originally worked only with boys and within several years offered girls mentors as well. Dr. Leckie quickly developed one of the region’s best camping programs for at-risk young people.
It goes on and on.  Read, to see how one thing leads to another, and sooner or later it gets down to promoting marriage curriculum also, including programs used throughout the country.
 Back to some of the luckier grantees, whatever year this was:
1 Longview Wellness Center, Inc. Longview TX $1,500,000
2 Center for Self-Sufficiency Inc. Milwaukee WI $1,097,000
Those are the “Healthy Marriage” awards over $1 million for (whatever) year.  The “Responsible Fatherhood” awards (pretty much the same idea, and both “CFDA 93.086” by category anyhow — seem to go more to departments of social services; here’s one:
Capacity Building National Fatherhood Initiative Gaithersburg MD $999,534
Like that nonprofit needs more capacity-building help than it already has.
Anyhow, this is the end of my blogging day; any of the above groups can be looked up (above) to check their religious affiliations (wanna make a wild guess as to “Elizabeth’s New Life Center” affiliation?  WAITT training, which I have profiled (and mocked), which is also a member of “NARME”(see “About this Blog” — post) — began as Abstinence Training in Colorado also.
A lot of this boils down to (and feeds off of) a certain woman’s “SmartMarriages(R)” for-profit.  Being very smart, she arranged a yearly conference.  Thus, the membership-based nonprofits which take federal grants to promote fatherhood and marriage (if I may add — FROM NEEDY FAMILIES) can write off conference attendance, promote their products (if they have one), or if not, grab a “Teach out of the Box” program, and write that off too.  As one can imagine, profits probably end up in the people (and businesses) running this conference, plus those whos curricula get marketed.  It’s oldest story in the book — and “the world’s oldest profession” as the saying goes.
http://www.smartmarriages.com/keynotes.html  (The list of speakers, scanning it, I could almost go one by one and name the federal grants recipients each one is associated with.  Why should the US Public be paying for this?)
Except for the federal financing of it.
SmartMarriages
The words Smart Marriages® and Smart Marriage® and the couple puzzle logo are registered trademarks of CMFCE, LLC The words smart marriages® and smart marriage® cannot be used in any context. The couple puzzle logo cannot be used in any representation whether multiples, changed perspective, etc in the context of marriage or relationships. Copyright (©) – CMFCE, LLC
She’s definitely a Smart woman (Diane Sollee).   Thanks to this, the yearly “Battered Mothers Custody Conference” in upstate new york will have no lack of clients either — they sell products to help stop domestic violence and losing their kids to batterers.  They do NOT share what I do about this side of the story (might diminish sales; I guess perhaps it’s just professional courtesy — we have our market niches, we understand you have yours).
Kind of reminds me of churches, that way.
Remember

What Happened at Project Pierre Toussaint?

After its director was arrested (grand jury), the Connecticut Jesuit Priest continued soliciting money for the Haiti Fund.
Child Abuse, Woman Abuse, Financial Misdeeds goes with the territory.  Time to Get those two BUSH Executive Orders Repealed (January 2001)
and while we’re at it consider repealing tax-exempt status for ALL religious organizations, who are both alleviating AND causing social problems, do not respect the United States Constitution as the primary allegiance, intend (many of them) to set up theocracy — which will be a nightmare for women and children, who are already been thought of and used for the wrong purpose, along with poor people — and have already swiftly (since the door was opened) established in state after state separate, executive level (i.e., bypassing legislative approval and OPEN consent by the citizens of the state) networks to funnel funds.  They absolutely do not seem to care if caught in scandalous behaviors; their heads are somewhere else.
Besides which, even the most basic reading of the Bible does not justify setting  up major institutions — in fact, for the NT, Jesus Christ was excommunicated (as were his followers) by the presiding ones, and the prophets of the Old Testament were constantly warning on and railing on their own people about injustice, bribes, and other treacheries committed by their own upon their own — usually for financial gain.
So I hope this has been a basic rundown of the concept.  I speak as a woman of “faith” and not a “faith-based person.”  My FAITH is that it’ll make a difference if I continue to speak up about this.  Consider the appeal to the religious mind for money:
In 1997, God broke Keith and Cindy’s heart for the children of Haiti. They moved their family of 4 from Martinsville, Indiana, to Port-de-Paix, Haiti. Lashbrook Family Ministry was born and now they are a family of 110. God has put it in their hearts to love each of the children like their own.
Then consider the civil lawsuit filed by “both sets of parents” against the overseeing company the Lashbrooks worked through, Globe International…

The families say Lashbrook and other orphanage staff repeatedly molested the Haitian orphans, with Globe’s knowledge.

“On or about Aug. 24, 2010, Globe admitted and acknowledged to potential adoptive families of the Haitian children, including plaintiffs, and other donors to Globe and Lashbrook Family Ministry that sexual assaults occurred and a culture of sexual abuse existed at In the Father’s Hands Children’s Home.

Globe itself was a similar type organization — what do people expect?  Accountability from a religious organization?  Have you not read the history of the Roman Catholic Church  — at all?  And some of the Protestant mega-churches, including the ones obsessed with naming themselves “Bishops” and the whole bunch of “Fathers” have aspirations to the same cause, only some of them allow marriage, some don’t, and some follow Sun Myung Moon who REALLY loves marriages, lots of them…   After all, Jesus screwed up because he didn’t marry.  (Yes, this IS implicit in the large breadbasket term “Faith-based Organizations” – basically if a group mumbles something about God, or higher power — and/or  has access to the congregations of potential product consumers — after all, they show up to preached to, right? — that’s faith-based enough for the HHS….
Accountability from THIS crowd?
I say this having worked for years with a wonderful group of religious people (professionally that is) of all kinds, as well as secular.  The art and architecture, music and eventually sculpture are terrific.  Hey, some of my best friends are Catholic, and have stuck with me far longer than another would to support under trying circumstances (so have some atheist friends).
But when I needed some help getting personal abuse stopped, was it a religious group, or person (male or female)  that developed some guts and went to nose-to-nose with either the perpetrator?  Or when my kids were snatched?  The support was terrific, but not one religious group expressed even the least indignation, even. I had help surviving the onslaught — but not one fierce man or woman to take on the perpetrator even verbally — over two decades.  
Helping the needy is in the paradigm.  Identifying & Stopping the source of the need would probably be too close to home, and that’s women as second-class citizens, let alone human  beings (including spiritually) and women who don’t accept this as the enemy of family, America, and of course God.  MOST religions are built around community (reporting abuse disrupts most communities), and following leadership, even after the founders of them often showed extreme courage under solitary confinement and heretic or fugitive status.
These reports kind of give a new meaning to “In the Father’s Hands.”  Perhaps there’s more than one reason this Indiana family felt moved to remove themselves from Indiana, which is not being publicized.  Re:  the statement “God has put it in their hearts to love each of the (Haitian) children like their own.”  Let’s hope the Lashbrook children were not “loved’ like the ones on the orphanage.  
There are many benefits to belief in God, and understanding of the holy scriptures of different faiths.  More than one language of understanding the world gives depth; one alone flatlines it.
But it is time for more people “of faith” (whatever that means) to tell the truth about their houses of worship and evangelism — and let’s get it straight:

Trafficking in Children and Keeping Women Submissive

and the Community in Ignorance

or Silence under threat

is part of the deal – –

and always has been.

As such there should be ZERO “Faith-Based Initiatives” let alone any “Offices” to Facilitate them.
These should be defrocked, defunded, and the premises vacated.
Anyone who believes that the Office of Faith-based  should have to wear a Gold Star for “Gullible”*
Those who will tolerate child-trafficking, woman abuse and collective silence
will also tolerate just about any dictatorship
If Haitians can speak up, certainly Americans can.
Churches need attendees, volunteerism, and tithes.
There’s the collective power.
Just say NO!  I gave at the office
if your church group refuses to come clean.
Do like Jesus did — and countless others did —
spend some serious time in the wilderness; face your personal adversary
(like, having to think your own thoughts without the crowds of “Amen!” to buoy them up)
— check with IS it Written? — and come out stronger.
(*reference intended, because that’s the direction this movement is headed)
(which, as it happens, some of the groups do after they get the grants — see WeCare America &
Ohio’s Governor’s Office of Faith-Based…..)
which exist only to prove that
the entire US Public (not just the religiously affected)
will believe anything if it’s repeated often enough and sounds official.

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

December 2, 2011 at 10:45 PM

WIth Them in Spirit Tomorrow — Pennsylvania Parents Protest Apparent Court Cronyism (12/2/2011, Lackawanna County)

with one comment

 

This information is on a public forum, so I took the liberty of copying it here — from a thread from “Scranton Political Times” “Doherty Deceit Forum

It’s a quick post, but covers topics I’ve been blogging for a long time:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

PRESS RELEASE SENT OUT AT NOON TODAY

Second Lackawanna County Family Court Kids 4Kash Protest Set For December 2, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Scranton, Pa

The second in a series of demonstrations in what The Protesters have labeled The Lackawanna County KIDS 4 KASH Corruption Scheme will begin at 9am this Friday in front of the Family Court Building at 200 Adams Avenue. The protesters, many of whom are family court litigants, are in disbelief and outraged that President Judge Thomas Munley has not taken any action against the Court Appointed Guardian ad Litem, Attorney Danielle Ross. Unbelievably, Ross who is currently under investigation by the FBI and the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Court (AOPC) is still being assigned new cases every week.

{{WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF PARENTS SIMPLY REFUSED TO PARTICIPATE?  REFUSED TO PAY? AND THE JUDGE THEN TRIED TO INCARCERATE? }}

Their investigation of Ms. Ross was set in motion when a parent named Bruce Levine contacted Detective Michelle Mancuso from the Lackawanna County District Attorneys Office about discrepancies he found on Ross invoices for the services she claimed she provided as Guardian. As fate would have it, right about the same time, a thread directed against Ross called Kids 4 Kash was started by political activist Joseph Pilchesky on his contentious website, http://www.dohertydeceit.com. Fundamental to Pilchesky’s website is The First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech.

The site encourages antagonistic dialogue about current local and global issues that is often times abrasive. Users that post comments on topics typically remain anonymous; therefore, it provides a safe venue for other parents and litigants to share their family court horror stories and eventually their identities with one another. Several of those parents that connected with each other on the website began to turn over Ross’ invoices to the authorities, which eventually lead to the involvement of the United States Attorney General’s Office.

The FBI began their investigation with a subpoena requesting all documents involving each and every case to which Attorney Ross was appointed and a Grand Jury was convened. In days to follow, many additional subpoenas were served upon court employees including the Lackawanna Count Court Administrator, Ron MacKay. When federal agents showed up at MacKay’s office located inside the county’s main Courthouse, he was sequestered and forced to remain in the hallway while agents searched his office. After about an hour, the agents left the Court Administrator’s Office with several boxes of documents.

It is unknown at this time what the FBI confiscated from MacKay’s office. As to why they raided his office, those close to the case strongly believe that the scope of the federal investigation has broadened well beyond the alleged fraudulent billing practices of Attorney Ross. Rumors of case steering and monetary kickbacks are out there.

The status of the AOPC investigation into the Guardian ad Litem Program, as well as Home Evaluation and supervised visitation payments, is unclear at this time despite the fact that on November 2, 2011, AOPC Attorney, Michael Daley, stated in open court that it would be available two weeks ago. To date, a RTK letter that was sent to the Court requesting the report has gone unanswered. Reliable sources within Family Court speculate that there are at least two plausible reasons for the delay. On one hand, there are many who are convinced that the AOPC investigation amounts to little more than a smoke screen used to give the Court a few months to cover its tracks and get its act together. While others believe that public pressure has forced AOPC investigator, Joseph Mittleman, to hold off on finalizing the report. He states that the AOPC is obligated to look into alleged acts of attorney misconduct as well as to conducting interviews with alleged victims of Family Court corruption.

Protests will be held every Friday starting at 9am in front of Family Court. The goal is to bring forth public awareness and gain support in the effort to expose what appears to be a moneymaking racket devised by the members of the Judiciary and several Child Custody/Divorce Professionals who do business with Family Court. The individuals with whom the Court most frequently Orders Family Court litigants to consult are Guardians Danielle Ross and Brenda Kobal, Lackawanna County’s sole co-parenting coordinator, Anne Marie Termini, Kids First presenter, Chet Muklewicz, Court mediator, AnthonyLibassi, Psychologists Drs. Ronald Refice and Arnold Shivenhold, and various child visitation supervisors affiliated with the Scranton Counseling Center.

The Parties who have been forced by Order of the Court to see these providers, attend numerous appointments, whether they need to or not, and pay enormous fees (if they are not declared indigent) have a lot of unanswered questions. Until those questions are answered, the only logical conclusion is that the Court and these providers are unjustly enriching themselves not only with the millions of Federal and State Grant dollars allocated for indigent Lackawanna County Children and Families but also money from private-pay litigants.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

“SHIVENHOLD” I’m fairly sure means “SCHIENVOLD”  who is AFCC leadership:

 

Here’s one filing in which Mr. Shienvold was called as Expert Witness for the Father, who wants primary physical custody of the children, and after the mother submitted to custody reports preceding a “Custody Trial” the mother then, of course, had to make special motions to actually read what was reported about her, and apparently planned to call him up and interview or cross-examine him.  The father then protest — aw heck, look at it yourself.

 

http://www.courts.state.pa.us/OpPosting/Superior/out/a29038_05.pdf  (his name is apparently mis-spelled here, too).

 

I have already posted on the forum that Mr. Scheinvold is a primary player in the Pennsylvania Commission for Justice Initiatives, and a key AFCC person, as was at least one of their judges, and that Harhut, Termini, and (was it Ross?) were presenting in Brooklyn, 2009 together at an “NACC” association meeting on matters related to Guardianship and Domestic Violence.

 

He is ALSO the “President-Elect” of AFCC, meaning his influence will be upon more parents than just those in this area.  I hope they figure this out quickly in time for the next generation of children, that an international association with a checkered history is helping run the courthouses, but right now, most don’t seem too interested in this, they are scrambling to survive, and have not looked up to the horizons.  In other words, for control to operate freely, it’s connections to other control must remain subterranean.  AFCC is hardly “subterranean” when it’s publishing statewide model custody evaluation standards, inventing new fields of practice faster than the previous ones can be caught and complained about (Parenting Coordination) and with personnel (over 3,000 membership) including, for example, at least a few on the California Judicial Council Administrative Office of the Courts.

[AFCC]

President Elect 
Arnold T. Shienvold, Ph.D.
Harrisburg, PA

Arnold Shienvold is the founding partner of Riegler, Shienvold & Associates. Dr. Shienvold received his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Alabama and has specialized in dealing with high-conflict families since he began his practice in 1980. Dr. Shienvold is a member of the American Psychological Association and is a fellow of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association where he also serves on the custody evaluation task force. Dr. Shienvold is a past president of the Academy of Family Mediators and a past president of the Association for Conflict Resolution. He is also a member of the Pennsylvania Council of Mediators.

The PA Adminsitrative Office of the Courts and FBI are supposedly investigating the Lackawanna County parents’ complaints, so I hope they take it upon themselves to figure out — quickly — who the Pennsylvania Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is comprised of, paid by, and answerable to.

 

  1. [PDF]

    Commission for Justice Initiatives in Pennsylvania Changing the 

    www15.brinkster.com/ncfcpgh/Report.pdf

    File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
    Arnold Shienvold, Ph.D., brought great understanding of the dynamics of separation, ….. 3 Site visit by Judy Shopp April 5, 2006; Dr. Arnold Sheinvold provides 

    You’ve visited this page 5 times. Last visit: 11/30/11

I don’t know that these parents have yet accepted that a State-Level “commission for Justice Initiatives” report (2007) called “Changing the Culture of Custody” with Mr. Shienvold listed front and center as a consultant actually relates to problems they are having at the county level

 

Arnold Shienvold, Ph.D.


Dr. Shienvold is the founding partner of Riegler • Shienvold and Associates.

Education
Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Alabama. He specialized in child clinical psychology and completed his internship at the Ohio State University Hospital.

Area of Emphasis
Dr. Shienvold has specialized in dealing with high conflict families since he began his practice. He is recognized locally and nationally as an expert in the areas of custody evaluations and family mediation. In addition to his direct clinical practice in those areas, Dr. Shienvold has consulted to public and private agencies, taught and lectured at a multitude of professional conferences and schools and published papers on these topics. Dr. Shienvold continues to see individuals and couples in therapy and he has an active forensic practice. Additionally, Dr. Shienvold has served as a professional facilitator for group meetings.

 

 

Yep.  High-conflict families.  Here’s a website I found in Australia (where AFCC has active membership, FYI) which calls “High Conflict” what it is, if I may quote them.  As an added bonus, I stuck two or three comments on this post, which is a year old now.  I hope that by the time 2012 is halfpast, the people in Scranton area will figure out (accept) what they are dealing with in the Unified Family Courts per se — which is an expense-paid (by txpayers) largely immune from responsibility, self-referring, self-propagating multiple income stream and often tax-exempt cash machine for paid membership of  about 5 different organizations (all playing at monitoring each other, instead of, more commonly, referring each other and providing business referrals to make them look  more expert than they really are.  If “expert” means, learning a business-specific jargon,  and to have a greater conscience about one’s cohorts than one’s clients — then a 12 year old, for example, has already learned to speak his or her own cultural language among peers, and probably knows as much about bullying, gangs, exclusion and arbitrary standards for who is IN and who is OUT.

In order for this field to continue until each generation of Family Court professionals retires (and eventually some will die of old age, though many of the originals are still collecting royalties, probably through Kids’First type operations nationwide), it MUST continue the lie (that’s  L.I.E.) that adult parents are by and large to be treated like misbehaving children, or punished until they play along.

This has been going on SO LONG that what they are studying and conferencing about now is basically a contaminated sample (of people and personalities).  In addition to the many factors of society contributing to any parent’s “psychological profile,” is probably such things as motherless children, children in foster care because there’s an incentive to put them there, kids who run away from abuse because there was no other safe option (they do not all turn out as well as Alanna Krause of Northern California, whose father, once he got custody, sent her away at age 13 to some kind of reform camp), and a series of protective mothers who feel it necessary to flee the US, or the state — although they, too, are quite likely to be hunted down and incarcerated.

 

10 Reasons The Family Court is Not Just About Conflict

1. Family Violence is often referred as “High Conflict”, “Entrenched Conflict” to mask the severity of the situation.

Mentioned in the latest report on Family Violence in Family Courts, high conflict has often been a tool to diminish support for victims within the media and inside the courts andwritten judgments.
For Instance, a judge referred to death threats, property damage and stalking towards the mother as, “High Conflict”:

 

 

Here’s a 3-page outline from a 2007 Texas Meeting of the AAML ( a group which initials anyone with a family law case should look up themselves!)

DEALING WITH CLIENTS WHICH ARE TOO HARD TO LOVE

The presenters gratefully acknowledge the work of Arnold T. Sheinvold, Ph.D. Dr. Sheinvold is the managing partner of Riegler, Shienvold & Associates, a comprehensive psychological practice in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The materials in this presentation were developed and presented by Dr. Sheinvold {{that’s SHIENVOLD}} at the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers’ 2007 Midyear Meeting. The presenters appreciate Dr. Sheinvold’s generosity in sharing his materials with the Texas family law community.

(and lists the personality types — borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial, etc.)

 

Here’s a 2006 article (abstract, I guess) from the FAMILY COURT REVIEW — which is a publication jointly published by AFCC & Hofstra Univ. in New York, listing this psychologists among others the parents are protesting, a number of AFCC personnel, including Philip Stahl, Ph.D. which virtually guarantees there will be (more) conversation about parental alienation (one of Dr. Stahl’s favorite topics), etc.

  1. Task Force for Model Standards of Practice for Child Custody Evaluation,

  2. David A. Martindale Reporter,
  3. Lorraine Martin,
  4. William G. Austin Task Force Co-chairs,
  5. Leslie Drozd,
  6. Dianna Gould-Saltman,
  7. H. D. Kirkpatrick,
  8. Kathryn Kuehnle,
  9. Debra Kulak,
  10. Denise McColley,
  11. Arnold Sheinvold, {{per his website it’s “SHIENVOLD”}}
  12. Jeffrey Siegel,
  13. Philip M. Stahl

Article first published online: 7 DEC 2006

DOI: 10.1111/j.1744-1617.2007.129_3.x

Issue

Family Court Review

Family Court Review

Volume 45, Issue 1, pages 70–91, January 2007

Additional Information(Show All)

 _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

Ronald Refice

 

A Bit About How It’s Done”  (familycourtmatters Sept. 2011 post)

Here’s one of my former posts showing people samples of how to look things up — corporations, associations, just stay persistent!

Today’s Post is “all over the place” but provides a sampler of how — with as clumsy tools as various states give, the habit of searching for corporations and people who incorporate them, and then comparing boards of directors, whether they actually file tax returns or not, and whether while the press is all about justice, children, and helping resolve conflicts, a view at the nonprofit characterization many times simply categorizes the group as “Board of Trade” “Business Promotion” — which is what it is.

 

Too bad Thomas Szasz professor took up with a cult that’s been literally booted out of a country, the Church of Scientology — but think about what’s being said here:

Thomas Stephen Szasz (play/ˈsɑːs/sahss; born April 15, 1920) is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990[1] he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in SyracuseNew York. He is a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as of scientism. His books The Myth of Mental Illness (1960) and The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1970) set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.

 

I wonder how the book compares to Phyllis Chesler’s “Women & Madness”

 

His views on special treatment follow from classical liberal roots which are based on the principles that each person has the right to bodily and mental self-ownership and the right to be free from violence from others, although he criticized the “Free World” as well as the communist states for their use of psychiatry and “drogophobia”. He believes that suicide {{!??!}}, the practice of medicine, use and sale of drugs and sexual relations should be private, contractual, and outside of state jurisdiction.

In 1973, the American Humanist Association named him Humanist of the Year and in 1979 he was honored with an honorary doctorate[2] at Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

 

Who wants a CONFLICT-FREE SOCIETY?  Is this some sort of death-wish, or a wish for a sedated society?  Or a managed society, as opposed to one where leadership is not shut down (because most leaders are going to cause some conflict; in fact some of the most significant leaders around — Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Lincoln, John F. Kennedy,  and others –  (may I say Jesus Christ in this context?) — end up getting assassinated — yet their work lives on.  Most particularly, Gandhi was assassinated, but through NONViolent protest and understanding the economic system, helped get the British Empire out of India.     Maybe all of us should re-read his “moment of truth”  and get to ours, quicker, building upon what others before have actually learned — and not continually recreating from scratch as if the world has no history.

These groups are causing the conflict themselves by a number of habits:

  • It appears to be greed, dishonesty (chronic, though I can’t say all) and wishing to turn our justice system into their personal ATM and Rx-dispensary.  Psychologists can’t force-medicate people (I think), so the next best option is to become a Parent Coordinator adn get off on wrecking kids lives based on the fact that one of their parents disagrees with the other, and ignoring the fact that this might be because one is genuinely dangerous (or simply an _ _ _ hole hell-bent on punishing the other).
  • Using federal grants to assist one side of the party — and this is the fatherhood movement, sorry you honest Dads — to tip the scales.
  • Building courthouses when the rest of the country needs LESS micromanagement, not more of this kind.
Any one seeking to control language seeks to eliminate the First Amendment (typically for gain) and do so through a propaganda-driven war on the unaware.   AFCC has admitted it seeks to control language.  The associated groups do not respect the basic concept of due process — which requires no conflict of interest.

Go, Lackawanna!

I hope that protesters, besides correcting the spelling of “SHIENVOLD” (for credibility reasons), also feel free to search my site reporting on LibassiMediation being built by revising rules of court, into the custody modification form, my comparison of KIDS FIRST to KIDS TURN (California)*

And come to realize that a fifth column of psychologists, psychiatrists (adult, child, whatever) and mental health experts is basically a “Family Court Archipelago.” Even physicists have to examine their fundamental assumptions from time to time (cf. Newton, Galileo, and the recently publicized “String Theory”) not the least by at least examining evidence.  in this field — ONE NEVER HAS TO; It’s just about become THE primary field of the US Government (world’s largest contractor, and debtor) — and there are no right answers.   There is only a caste system:  Paid Expert v. Humble Subject matter).

 

 

 

*which is virtually a training ground for the California Family Court personnel (almost everyone has been on its boards, not to mention a person who was “most-wanted” or close to it as a Tax Evador — Halsey Minor (I think he’s on the Board too), plus the defenders of the high priestess of Satan against the High Priest (LaVey, and I”m using the terms loosely), operating at the time out of the same address were, it seems, Kids Turn was operating (2nd floor, 1242 market Street) and I posted that link also.

 

THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS, from ARACHNOID.COM/Psychology

with thanks to its author for presenting another outlook on the “experts” causing the trouble above.

The evidence-based revolution in psychology.

Copyright © 2011, Paul Lutus

For decades there has been increasing evidence that psychologists can’t reliably diagnose or treat mental illnesses, or mental illnesses aren’t objective illnesses as that term is understood, or that psychology has no testable scientific content. Psychologists’ reaction to this long-term trend has been to add more human behaviors to the “mental illness” category, in order not to lose more ground to medicine.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)5, what many call the “Bible” of psychology and its single most important guide to practice, shows this trend clearly — each new edition contains more conditions thought to merit the label “mental illness.” Here is a count of “mental illnesses” included in the DSM by year:*

Year Number of mental illnesses
1952 112
1968 163
1980 224
1987 253
1994 374

Obviously this trend might reflect an increase in our understanding of mental illness, and there might really be hundreds of legitimate mental illnesses. But let’s take a closer look at some conditions listed in the current DSM, conditions thought to require intervention by a mental health professional:

  • Stuttering
  • Spelling Disorder
  • Written Expression Disorder
  • Mathematics Disorder
  • Caffeine Intoxication/Withdrawal
  • Nicotine use/Withdrawal
  • Sibling Rivalry Disorder
  • Phase of Life Problem

Hmm. It seems if you don’t like your older brother, or can’t spell or do math very well, you aren’t just growing up, you’re suffering from a mental illness and need help from a professional. But I favor another explanation — as time passed and psychiatrists and psychologists realized they couldn’t reliably diagnose or cure real mental illnesses, they decided to repurpose themselves as academic tutors, babysitters and hired friends for wealthy patrons.*** For this strategy to work, the DSM needed to include ordinary states of being that could only justify the help of a teacher or sympathetic friend. In other words, in rewriting their profession’s guidebook, for self-serving reasons psychologists deliberately blurred the distinction between everyday problems and mental illness.

**For an account of the struggle to include just a few women in the review board, see “Backlash:  America’s Undeclared War on Women.”  For a bonus, you can also read in this book (probably available at low cost or used, or library) a chapter on Robert Bly and Warren Farrell — after he recanted his prior feminism (Warren Farrell these days wants to start a White House Council on Men and Boys, I heard).  It’s pretty funny.
*** Actually, the statement in blue may be a rational explanation for AFCC’s origins.  They quickly realized that the wealthiest patron around was the United States Government (i.e. those who fund it).  One of its founders was a prison psychologist.  Other hotshots in this in this AFCC association come from (or still work in) psychiatric hospitals.  COmbined with the wonderful reputation the legal field has for ethics and honesty (:  (:, it sounds like a dynamic duo to me:  Psychology plus lawyers, plus judges, most of who probably used to be lawyers anyhow.
profit (apart from sheer conniving and greed, the joy of “getting away with it” and being somewhat close to the top of society, without actually having to do more than rehash the catechism yearly in slightly different terms, and assign outreach coordinators and “evangelists” to connect up with people already ensconced in the judicial and psychological professions, etc.)
ONE FINAL NOTE — ACESTUDY.org
Long-term trauma and abuse (“Adverse Childhood Events”) is going to have an impact on growing children.  As such, abusing children would become literally profitable.  StoppingCourt-Ordered Abuse of Children might be contrary to the purpose of the courts from the start, which was to ensure psychologists increasing respectability, whether earned or not earned.
I don’t want to dismiss anyone’s Ph.D. lightly.  But with a Ph.D. there comes a responsibility to make sure it’s not just the same thing, Piled Higher and Deeper.  And in this particular field, it had very little foundational depth to start with.
This can be seen in the tendency to pompous declarations and mutual self-admiration among many of the associations, and in some cases (I doubt in Dr. Shienvold’s) far too many false credentials.
(That’s all I have time for on this post.)