This post is about 10,000 words.  Enjoy!

I have about six posts in the pipeline, all of them timely to some recent indicators (developments) in the “protective mothers” field. All of them, as usual continuing to emphasize a functional vocabulary in discussing the family courts, and pointing out a few significant historical developments affecting them that those IN them rarely point out to clients, which I find strange.

By contrast, the developments in the “responsible fatherhood” field seem to be moving ahead with the usual momentum, and under-reported among “the commoners,” i.e., the general public and most family-court reform groups, who, apparently, don’t consider worthy of notice that this network even exists, or is a priority to understand.

However, it does.  In fact, if you check some of the post-PRWORA-propped up nonprofits, centers, institutes, programming and the “same old, same old” hotshots, there is apparently nothing more important to talk about than what they have done, are doing, and how much HHS is going to pay them this time (sometimes that refers to a five-year, multi-million-dollar grant) to further strengthen and extend their communications, technical support, outreach/ recruiting and funding pipelines already set up in the “Fatherhood” network. (Recent example) Using federal funding to a university. One of team members historically associated with AFCC, another thing family court advocacy groups are averse to talking about.

There are also certain chronic weaknesses and vulnerabilities within this “HMRF” field (but also present, to a degree, in the domestic violence prevention field also), which would be excellent leverage to address some of the problems protective mothers are having in the courts, and I have yet to hear any legitimate (if indeed any) explanation why no significant protective mothers organization, or their featured professionals, has seen fit to raise the topic seriously with a view to DOING something about it, for at least the past dozen years, even when after a certain point, the leadership surely became aware that “outside” information on the responsible fatherhood field, HHS grants and AFCC was somehow “leaking” into the field of vision of some of the “fix the courts” promoters.  One whitepaper did come out over a year after I, literally, did several posts (on two blogs) naming names of the “Let’s JUST not talk about it!” groups and proving which personnel at least knew the whole time.

Nearly two days of technical (keystroke processing speed almost at a standstill) problems with my computer slowed getting them published.  Meanwhile, working out that situation, and concerned about output at this time, I decided to re-publish a 12/5/2009 FamilyCourtMatters post which is STILL more relevant than the average conversation I see on the family court reform in 2016, original title “While You Were Sleeping,… How Congress got into the Family Law Business.”  

I have not yet extended the “Table of Contents” back to 2009, so “While You Were Sleeping” was probably missed by most people who may read or follow this blog.  It is not the kind of information one tends to stumble across in general search terms on the family courts or its handling of situations and allegations of criminal behavior such as domestic violence or child abuse. Last month, I felt this post was important enough to clean up (formatting) and link to it, now I am actually re-posting.

It references by name key elements in networks I am blogging consistently on — public/private partnerships, and HOW does the federal government got its hand in into the state-level cookie jar without quite getting caught at it, and vice versa, while the courts themselves contribute to an ever-expanding and increasingly dependent on social services population.

**Mostly, these posts-in-the-pipeline again review some basic vocabulary with which we can talk about things which both the protective mothers’ perspective, and definitely in the fathers’ rights perspective have for years resisted discussing on-line in anything approaching a coherent manner, using accurate and relevant terms to describe the infrastructure and how it networks to promote either their own perspective, or the perspective for which they want “systemic changes” or “a paradigm” change for [divorce law, family courts, child support] because it’s:  unfair to fathers, unfair to mothers, dangerous to children, or gender-biased against men (or women), is destroying the American family, human rights,civil rights, etc.

We who are concerned, afflicted by, or discussing the problems in the family courts, should ALL know and talk what top-level state institutions (such as the California Judicial Council), federal deliberations courtesy of CRS (Congressional Research Service) (“Should the Federal Government get involved in Family Matters which are under State law jurisdiction?”) (unsaid: “HOW can we get our fingers into family and divorce courts without getting caught on it, or held responsible for any negative effects after we have?”) ….. (And “WHO will help us do this?” some of which this post shows who actually did) are actually involved, or, for example, just how one state ends up copying the court (privatization and outsourcing) practices in another.

For example, I had years of personal encounters through the courts before I became aware of the information in just this excerpt from that 2009 post below.  The publication talking about it came out in the context of a state-level, state-wide evaluation of the ruling body of the courts published around May, 2012.  Take a look at this excerpt, which will be repeated below, without the olive-green background:

But notice, they first set up two separate elements — a division within the AOC, and a Statewide Office.  Then, they combined them.  Then within the State-level office are links to the private, tax-exempt sector encouraging business with it. Any entity (which is to say anyone running an entity) which wants excellent, authoritative, advertising then is helped by connection to a state-level promoter within (here, as an example) the CFCC section of the Administrative Office of the Courts.   “Coincidentally,” it appears that key members of the CFCC (such as Charlene Depner, and I believe, Shelly LaBotte as to the Access Visitation grants management) are also long-time, loyal members of AFCC.  AFCC as an organization has certain interests that not all Californians, or Americans, may necessarily agree with, and in its own website claims responsibility for many so-called positive innovations in the family court field.

They are also pretty good at setting the stage for creating new professions at the expense of the courts (the public) and parents (also, the public), one of the earlier ones pushed was mediation, one of the later, “parent coordination.”

Another reason I would question any advocacy group who, knowing about this organization, didn’t talk — and keep talking — about it.

From the Courts.ca.gov website for the CFCC, one can see direct linkage to the private sector, including to AFCC-connected personnel nonprofits (in supervised visitation field), and in one place, even advertising for a Canadian curriculum for children, relating to another famous AFCC theme, “transitioning families.”

Why would a USA State government court website direct people to a product put out by a Canadian entity for the Canadian court system, which is a different form of government, obviously, than the USA?  File under, “Seriously??”  [Submit comment if you don’t see it and want to. To find, click on resources or recommended links (look in the sidebars) and once there, as ever, read the fine print at the bottom of web pages, and follow up on it.  That’s what I generally do — leads to more information]. There is a clear attempt to internationally align family courts with those of other countries, from the top down, that is not by asking the public, is this a good idea, and do we want it.  Legislators might not be positioned to do this, but a private association with membership in public office, is.  That’s another reason people should be informed about organizations such as AFCC.  And centers labelled CFCC!

Another example I found recently, through looking at affiliations of a Minnesota mediator:

http://globalpoundconference.org The IMI logo in the middle stands for “International Mediation Institute.” (Please explore website).  IMI as an NGO has special consultative status to the UN, and is the only NGO on mediation which does:

Consultative Status – ECOSOC

By recommendation of the UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), IMI has been granted Special NGO Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at their Coordination and Management meeting, held in July in New York.

ECOSOC is a founding UN charter body, established in 1946, that has responsibility for about 70% of the human and financial resources of the entire UN. 3,900 NGOs have achieved Consultative Status with the ECOSOC. The status enables organisations to actively engage with ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies, and with the United Nations Secretariat, programmes, funds and agencies.

NGOs accredited with ECOSOC may designate official representatives to the United Nations Headquarters in New York and the United Nations offices in Geneva and Vienna, to attend and contribute to sessions of ECOSOC and other UN Inter-Governmental decision-making bodies. They may make written statements relevent to the work of the council and offer expert opinions on subjects where they have a special competency, as well as organize events at the UN.

This status will enable institutions, companies and others associated with IMI to represent the mediation field in deliberations at UN level. IMI is the only mediation body to hold Consultative Status.

!!!  Not only is IMI a “foundation” but it’s based outside the US.  These “Articles of Association” (see main website for link) show that the Dutch “foundation” (except for the “appointed by the Queen” factor) in many ways resembles the basic qualities of tax-exempt foundations based in the USA, i.e., no shareholders, must be registered, must file annually within six months of fiscal year-end, and are NOT accountable to anyone outside their own Board of Directors:

IMI’s Articles of Association

IMI is a foundation, known as a “stichting” under Dutch law – an organization with legal personality, typically used to manage a fund or funds for a specific (good) cause or purpose. The purpose for which a foundation is established must be stated in the foundation’s Articles of Association (i.e., Charter Deed). In almost all cases it is to realize a charitable or societal goal. Except to realize its charitable or societal goals, the purpose cannot be to make distributions to the founders or those constituting its internal bodies (such as Board members).

Foundations can only be established by a deed executed by a civil law notary (a specialized lawyer appointed by the Queen). A foundation has no members or shareholders. It is managed by a Board and may or may not have an advisory council whose advice is not binding on the Board. The Board elects from within its ranks a chairman, secretary and treasurer. The last two positions can be held by the same person. In their capacity as Members of the Board, individual members owe only allegiance to the Foundation and its purposes and do not represent the interests of any other organizations which may have nominated them.

A foundation and its Articles of Association must be registered with the public trade registry of the Chamber of Commerce. The registry also lists the members of the Board and any other functionaries of the foundation. A foundation must also file its annual accounts with the trade registry within six months of the close of its book year.

For the full translation of IMI’s Articles of Association, please click here

The “multi-disciplinary” and the “substantive area of the law” (i.e., specialty by subject matter — how much broader a subject area is possible than Children and Families?) is overall, part of outsourcing and privatizing of the business of the courts.  Remember (I referenced it in 2016 posts) “Outflanking the Nation-State: David Mitrany and the Origins of the “Functional” Approach to the New World Order“?  (By Will Banyan (Copyright © March 2005).  This incremental policy continuing to undermine the structure of and protections of the United States Constitution, creating confusion among the customers who still expect civil and individual rights, due process, etc., to be meaningful within the USA.  It is absolutely a “stealth tactic.”

Outflanking the Nation-State: David Mitrany and the Origins of the “Functional” Approach to the New World Order“?  (By Will Banyan (Copyright © March 2005)

In the dense academic language employed in the International Relations departments of most universities, “functionalism” refers to that policy of shifting responsibility for resolving various problems from the nation-state to international bodies “indirectly, by stealth.”^[1] According to one key academic International Relations textbook, under functionalism “the role of governments is to be progressively reduced by indirect methods, and integration is to be encouraged by a variety of functionally based, cross-national ties.”^[2] As international mechanisms expand in scope and authority, “the role of the nation-state would diminish and the prospects for world government [would] become more real”^[3] The functionalist approach, quite simply, seeks to undermine the nation-state and build world government, not through a frontal assault but by outflanking it.

This strategy involves “bring on the experts” — and all that’s left is defining WHICH experts, who controls (finances them) and giving them quasi-judicial immunity at several points, and the judges a built-in excuse for their own decision making.  What’s taking place in California as I showed in the excerpt above, and other states who may wish to copy its practices (or vice versa), is just part of privatization in preparation for aligning ALL justice systems for one world government; family courts just happen to be a really effective part of the overall strategy, as so little effort can create SO MUCH DISRUPTION and turmoil almost at will, and almost anywhere.  It takes a while to set the various elements in place before hitting various “down-beats” — merge these two; introduce a new type of expert, market “best-practices” as endorsed by private organizations NOT held accountable, at all, to the public will. Do not let the public know how these marketing efforts are coordinated, as they continue to focus primarily on the PUBLIC part of what are in effect, Public/Private collaborations.

I also posted, earlier, “The Rise of the dual culture of world development and world government in International Affairs, 1930-1950” by Giovanni Farese, and how part of the preparation for world government includes parallel institutions in different countries.  The role of the RIIA (Royal Institute of International Affairs) and “Chatham House” as well as the Council of Foreign relations was mentioned.  The discussions from 1930-1950 were again resurrected in later decades, for example the 1970s, and only a real fool would pretend that ALL of these influence have simply somehow dissipated, been neutralized and everyone involved with them has simply given up the idea.

The Rise of the dual culture of world development and world government in International Affairs, 1930-1950” by Giovanni Farese

…Today, in the age of globalization, only joint solutions will work. We need multiple lenses: the historian’s, the economist’s, the jurist’s, the political scientist’s and the practitioner’s. This is why this virtual issue draws on different disciplines. Therefore, while some of the articles will be familiar to many readers, only a few are likely to be familiar to all. Rosenstein- Rodan’s article on international development will be known to economists, but most of them will be unfamiliar with David Mitrany’s article on functionalism, well known among political scientists, and so on. The attempt here is to draw also on the practical culture of ‘men of deeds’, those who did not write scholarly papers, but who—in their capacities as bankers, diplomats, policy-makers—were at some point invited to present a paper at Chatham House (the London-based Royal Institute of International A airs [RIIA], established in 1920).7

…[Discussing some of the authors represented, and various international organizations]…Despite their differing views, they agreed that supranational orders could foster prosperity and security.

Interestingly, these men had ties not only with Chatham House but with a web of sister institutions, including the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR, established in 1921), the Honolulu-based Institute of Pacific Relations (IPR, established in 1925), the Toronto-based Canadian Institute of International Relations (CIIR, established in 1928; today, Canadian International Council), and their journals Foreign Affairs, Pacific Affairs and International Journal. A network of universities of global reach also emerges from the authors’ multiple ties (including Cambridge, Harvard, London School of Economics, Oxford, New York University, Princeton, Stanford, University College London, Yale). Notably, some of the authors joined larger intellectual circles as part of the global elite of past recipients of prestigious fellowships (Rhodes scholars, Rockefeller fellows).

[Virtual journal, it says, published Oct. 2015]

When it comes to the family court’s CLOSE connection to the Federal HHS agency and grants (in NY) and many of the programs we have in both the courts — and within HHS — having some origins also in London, should not be ignored.  For example the vast expansion of the mental health, behavioral health sectors has direct ties — and at times (See Top Ten Sticky Posts) I may mention these too.

May 25, 2016, Introduction,

…including some basic public/private network vocabulary, and an appeal to admit these things exist and just might have some influence on how the courts, the justice systems, operate at the “street” level, and some exhortation to, well, wake up!!

“While You Were Sleeping” in its entirety from the 2009 version (with 2016 formatting and additions) starts below this section, initial background-color is light-blue.

There are certain elements to become aware of AND talk about. “I don’t want to talk about it” hardly helps confront abuse of power, which ANY form of “out-come-based” courts are.  There should be a basic literacy level.  It takes some personal work to acquire, and some personal discipline, but of course it can be done.  This re-post should help with at least two major elements.   Attention has to be paid to what types of information (is the peripheral vision ON or OFF?) is being acquired.

If it is only case-specific, county-specific (i.e., family courts in specific counties), judge/custody evaluator/opposing lawyer and at times, police-officer specific; that’s limited vision.  You don’t know who else’s information is in the room, and for most of the bystanders, it’s anecdotal or hearsay information and easy to counter with opposing anecdotal or hearsay information.   The longer the bystanding public following, for example, a single case is pre-occupied with that case, the less chance they will EVER get to the other, more radical and valuable information about the justice system and what changes its undergoing.

If it is ONLY subject-matter specific as defined by others how the narrowly subject matter is to be described:  for example, is your key concept something like” the family courts are biased against fathers” or “custody of children is going to be batterers”?   Neither phrase is specific enough, major truths are omitted (the federal incentives to correct perceived bias against fathers is now over 20 years old, and the money involved is substantial.  IF the courts are still “biased against fathers” then fathers should go complain to management in the “Fatherhood.gov” circles).

As to “custody of children is going to batterers” that’s partial truth and narrowly phrased. By focusing on the word “batterers” you have played into the hand of any number of private causes and agendas who (typically) want to be on the “training” circuit like others they already see on that circuit:   Batterers Intervention Programming (there is a BISC-MI Coalition even), Battered Women’s Justice Project (recent spinoff of a primarily government-grant-funded nonprofit on the HHS take in Duluth, MN), “The Batterer as Parent” book sales, etc.  Yes, there is a crime called assault and battery.  Many of us know this personally and some have sustained permanent injuries.  I happen to have a missing front tooth, but eventually this can be replaced; it could’ve been much worse; it could’ve ended in death for one or more family members, and so far, hasn’t.

What we are facing in the family law courts per se is an intentional DOWNGRADING of criminal felony charges to relationship disputes, and those who would like, if possible, to turn back the clock to when such crimes were not even reportable, or to be prosecuted.  What we are facing is also the process of reframing a WHOLE lot of the justice system away from criminal prosecutions into diversionary courts, diversionary processes, and in short, diversions into the behavioral modification fields and associated professions.  That involves out-sourcing and privatization and it comes with a LOT of problems.

Everyone should know the basics, as this subject matter is relationship of citizen to government entities and who the government entities (the United States of America, the State of New York, the State of Florida, the University of Minnesota (a “constitutional corporation, see its latest comprehensive annual financial statements for more exact description), unified public school districts (a School District is a specialized unit of government)) are, and what they are doing, and when those entities are in a coordinated motion — in what direction is it going? The short form of this answer is:  They are engaged in public/private partnerships “The better to serve you with, my dears,” but in effect to cloud accountability, and to overcome what otherwise would be legal limits on their jurisdictions.  As we speak, those are being restructured and re-organized by subject matter to better blend with… as to matters involving FAMILIES and CHILDREN and the COURTS …. a globalized standard more in line with countries which down play such things as “Bill of Rights” or, particularly, individual rights and representative government.

The government entities are taking public resources, privatizing and hoping people don’t notice where money gets lost.  This “lost money” can then be used for fees to friends and crony capitalism, or any other type of black ops in which the money also is supposed to be black ops.  However, the most tangible effect which I think we are feeling individually is loss of a sense of justice and confidence IN the justice system.

We have to acknowledge the blind spots and correct them, and where there have obviously been “blind leaders of the blind” either find other leaders, or become one.  Some people who just won’t talk about certain elements are NOT blind; they are either in on it, or have been somehow compromised such that they can be used to mislead others, OR they simply have no internal backbones to give enough of a damn to get honest about their choice of companions in the cause.

No one really discusses the various collaborations showing just how inbred the entire power structure is, who’s steering some of the top-level institutions, and label the diversity* of networked elements to that infrastructure concealing it from detection at the local, county, or state level — because the networks are around subject matter, professions; are public/private partnerships (as to funding), and typically use the private part to coordinate across political jurisdictions, even national boundaries.

When I say “diversity” I’m not talking about the political-correct usage meaning race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. Maybe a better word might be “variety” of networked elements with uniform practices, goals, and habits.

For example: as a media campaign, promoting “solutions” to fatherlessness may be found at:

• Sponsored centers at well-known Universities, and NOT just one;
  • Such centers may focus on schools of law, schools of psychology, I saw one Graduate School of Education, Schools of Public Health or Social Welfare.  (Where you will typically not find them is in schools of engineering (any kind), architecture, math, science, generally speaking, economics, or in the creative arts of any sort, where logic, reason, and problem-solving and independent thinking are more highly valued)
  • The colleges in which these may be found might include large public universities or private, religious-affiliated (particularly Jesuit) colleges, or private non-religious affiliated colleges.
  • The sponsored centers will also often feature significantly foundation or federal-agency-sponsored academics known in the field for their studies and publications.
  • The sponsored centers tend to network with other sponsored centers at the university level, including publications, webinars, seminars, and websites advertising what they do.  But for those who don’t look there, they are easily missed!
• Sometimes similarly named centers at the top (State) level of the State COURT system.  Two examples come to mind:  In California, the Center for Families and Children in the Courts [“CFCC”] (The Judicial Council of California, under the AOC- – Administrative Office of the Courts; the Judicial Council with its Chief Judge being THE top ruling body of all the courts in the state jurisdiction).  At the CFCC level and operating in coordination with it, are many and highly-positioned AFCC membership, some of them have been there for YEARS.
• In New York, another large and influential court system of an influential state,  “The Center for Court Innovation“ is a partnership between the private nonprofit, Fund for the City of New York (Ford Foundation initiated) AND the entire New York State Unified Court System.  What the United States government entity (the NYS Unified Court System) cannot legally do, it can start getting done with the help of a private major Corporation (Tax-exempt), which does have the right to do legally.  Fund for the City of New York is the “Private” in that “Public/Private Partnership.”  By agreement the role of “Fund for the City of New York,” while admitted to, is somewhat hid behind the name of the Public/Private Partnership, “CENTER for Court Innovation,” which is not a separate legal or business entity, but as it says, a Center.
• Another center which has had father-focused nonprofits associated with it, is the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin. This came out of the 1960s “War on Poverty,” see its History page for more.
  • When the federal government undertook new efforts to aid the poor in the 1960s, it also determined that social programs would be studied and evaluated to determine their effectiveness. In 1965 a presidential executive order directed all federal agencies to incorporate measures of cost effectiveness and program evaluation into their decisions. The guiding concept was that the policies and programs then being developed should be shaped by sound logic, firm data, and systematic thinking rather than by good intentions alone.Charged with implementing the War on Poverty that President Johnson had declared in 1964, the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) sought to establish a center where experts would perform basic research, provide counsel, and serve as a ready information source. To remove it from the arena of day-to-day issues and problem-solving, the center should be located outside of Washington. The University of Wisconsin was a likely site in view of its long tradition of applied social policy research and also because several of its faculty members had served on the staff of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers when the antipoverty strategy was being formulated. Prominent among them was Robert Lampman, a member of the economics department, who became interim director of the new institute.At first cool to the idea of becoming too closely involved with immediate government activities at the expense of more academic pursuits, the university accepted OEO’s offer on condition that the Institute exercise full authority in allocating grant funds to researchers, selecting research topics, and publishing the results. The agreement signed in March 1966 describes the essential features that characterize the Institute today, even though the OEO has not existed for many years and the optimistic belief that poverty could be eliminated within one generation has faded.The agreement specified that the Institute would embrace a number of the social science disciplines, would encourage new and established scholars to inquire into the origins and remedies of poverty, would promote sharing of knowledge among researchers and policy analysts by means of conferences held at periodic intervals, and would communicate its findings through a publications program.[2]

My acquaintance with this center was in tracking down some of the Family Impact Seminars which had been promoting responsible fatherhood to the nation’s governors without exactly telling the nation’s women, who lived in states run (in part) by these governors, that this was taking place.  At this time I personally, was near the start of several years of in-home battering from my spouse.

If the extent to which, for example, the Ford Foundation (for just one example) has been behind some of the university centers (I’m thinking of some at Columbia University in particular, if you’ve heard the term “Fragile Families…”), the Center for Court Innovation, AND (initially, see next bullet point, the MDRC), we might be closer to realizing that what we may call “government” is in fact a collaboration from tax-exempt wealth, historically in power for decades, and public institutions AGAINST the best interests of the public who are not employed by this power block, but by process of elimination (not employed therein) must be its raw materials (subject matters for the studies) AND simultaneously supporting it through their own taxation.

• Well-known (Brookings, The Urban Institute, MDRC (formerly “Manpower Development Research Corporation) and not-so-well-known nonprofits because they are not so old or not so large — and most, but not all, containing the phrase of the times, “Fathers” or “Fatherhood,” alternately “Neighborhood” or “children” but on closer examination, fathers’ rights-focused). Other nonprofits are staffed by or named after government functions, i.e., “National Governors’ Association Center for Best Practices.”

And last but not least, what about the government named grants streams and “CFDAs” (Categories of Federal Domestic Assistance) designed to affect custody-outcomes and state-level policies, even though the federal government is not supposed to control the state legislatures which in turn, control the people who claim residency (citizenship) WITHIN those states.

• Federal Agency funding of the desired social perspective changes, based on gender, religion, or anything else.  Case in point here — gender.   HHS funds both fatherhood-promoting and supposedly family violence-protecting grants. At the “street level” we are led to believe it’s men against women, and in many ways it is.  BUT at the fiscal level, both sides of this are funded; after many years I have come to the conclusion that the “VAWA” was in fact a large token gesture in exchange for which MOST of those working in the VAWA-funded filed agree to keep completely silent on the existence of the other side of the same coin:  The marriage/fatherhood promotion field and how it affects the family courts.

This 12/5/2009 post was “cleaned up” (formatting) so I could refer to it in an April 3, 2016, post on the DV Cartel. However, I think it’s well worth-reblogging. (as a Copy and Paste, from older post, its less “burdensome” on the cranky processing speed).   It raises key topics that most people STILL don’t want to talk about and connect the dots on perhaps WHY we are seeing a top-heavy (but still networked through nonprofits) power structure which could care less about local accountability to people not in on the power structure already. Those who are on the bottom of this pecking order should start to take a reading on the history of the development of these power structures which are occurring — as the older post says in its title,

“WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING,…HOW CONGRESS GOT INTO THE FAMILY COURT BUSINESS””

2016 BLOGGER UPDATE on this December 5, 2009 post:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Congressional Research Service

Report 97-590

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

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

Updated June 20, 2000

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

Abstract.

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

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

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

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

Recommended reading for the uninitiated, for example:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(viewed April 2016)

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

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

SUBCOMMITTEES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Benefit From Child Support? January 2000.

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

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

by Suzanne Le Menestrel and The Child Trends Research Brief.

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

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

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

---

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

---

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

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

---

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

---

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

---

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

---

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

---

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

---

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

Here’s another tidbit:

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Division Description

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Concerns

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

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

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

Should the Federal Government Promote Access/Visitation Rights?

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

---

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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