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

“ABOUT HOLIDAYS, SPEAKING PERSONALLY:”

{*The aside added for  international visitors to the blog.  I don’t know all their national holidays, and they might not know all ours, either. While this blog covers some international issues because it covers private associations dealing with US courts — many of which make sure to advertise that they have an international membership— FamilyCourtMatters still primarily addressed to people dealing with Life In The USA… because the courts here are tax-supported and public institutions in every state, and in territories, of the USA.  We pay plenty for them, while we also through our system here (as to the income tax, corporate taxes, and tax-exemptions) sponsor, incubate, and overall, encourage the formation of tax-exempt corporations to fix whatever national, state, or local governments omit, forgot, or “got wrong..”}

BELOW HERE (within this blue box) is “Soap Box” talk on public vs. private.  If you “get this,” skip it this time. If you don’t, please consider the stakes are high in blurring one with another, which is a known practice and agenda now commonplace in the country (and not USA only).

These tax-exempt and other corporations can legally register as domiciled in one place, but operate and influence operations across state and national lines.  But the family courts regulating life within the states are subject to state legislatures for individuals once they obtain jurisdiction over a case — and through that, the family members involved — do not have innate jurisdiction over people outside the state except as related to something anchored in it. There’s a division, in other words, between jurisdictions within states, and federal. What I’m saying here – it seems to take corporations to overcome legal boundaries to representative government at the state level — and that seems to be the intent and purpose of a variety of such corporations who would rather “legislate” or at least influence, rule, and have power, over whole regions, or nations, at a time, and the streamlined ability to also influence legislation in multiple jurisdictions without having to fight it locally, place by place — and deal “face to face” with those who might, were they aware of the purposes — have cause to oppose them.  (See “Big Seven Associations” and/or the variety of “Do You Know Your NGA, NCSC” etc. posts I’ve written within the last year, or maybe two.. for how this seems to work when those on the private corporations ALSO hold public office, either concurrently, or in revolving-door fashion, recently…

{{As I understand it, there ARE no “regional governments” under the US Constitution, that I’m aware of. Some people have a problem with that (search “functionalism” on this blog for more info), and want it changed. The more and more functions that can be “outsourced” to regionally organized private-sector organizations (or JPA’s — Joint Powers Authorities) — the less and less individually responsive less-than-regional governments become.  They feel the pressure and appreciate the prestige of “belonging” as evidence of good governmental behavior.   

Sure, federal government’s Executive Branch Departments (like HHS, which was formerly — taken together with the part that split off, the Dept. of Education and any other — “HEW”) organize operationally by regions (cross-state lines), as do Districts of the Federal Court system yes — but even those are not independent government entities.

To organize legally cross-jurisdiction WITHIN government here, one must either be anchored in some part which IS either federal  OR state, i.e. be state government or something underneath it– or simply be a corporation, including tax-exempt ones.  Joint Power Authorities such as I’ve been blogging, like WestED, SWRL, or FWL (Far West Labs, South West Regional Labs — subject matter, education) still must anchor with a state domicile.  WestED’s state domicile, so far as I know, is in California, although other states are spanned in its OPERATIONS (shared programming).}}

That’s why, at a time when “Public/Private Partnerships” (or, strategic operating relationships in the forms of Memos of Understanding — one shown below here as to CENIC and California’s HighSpeedRail Authority) are MOST popular with those already in power — we really should be able to tell the difference between that which is public — and its LEGAL power over individuals, including the power to tax, incarcerate, seize assets, seize children, etc. — and that which is NOT public, over which when we are not consumers of the product or entering into conscious contracts with the corporations, we don’t have many real rights.  So government uses corporate to cross jurisdictions, and to (as privatized) avoid full responsibility for its actions, and streamline (efficiency) and corporate uses government to encourage conditions it finds conducive to operations and bottom-line profits.  This may or may not include the public interest or health; it depends on the situation.   [[end of “SoapBox” commentary.]]

**[Corporation for Education Network Initiatives in California, “CENIC.org”; its network “CalREN,” and as it’s a membership association, one of its Auxiliary Associate members (in fact the only one currently) “City of Hope” (hospital, institute, development corporation, foundation all inter-related) and dark-fiber network subcontractor, “Level 3 Communications” with its own fascinating history, intersecting with some of the giant telecommunications providers (esp. broadband) mergers of the turn of the century — and its predecessor entity “Kiewit Diversified Group,” which came out of Peter Kiewit & Sons (or similar name), the construction industry.  This is basic communications history in the US, and fascinating.  It also speaks to the access to high-quality internet capacity and speed of higher education institutions (membership to CENIC or groups like it) vs. the average person, who is the subject matter of so many of the programs, including the social science R&D, federal designer family, poverty research, behavioral mod etc. — while when working as employees, contributing to support the same infrastructure financially based on the trickle-down premise.

Californians are aware of longstanding plans, highly political in nature, for a high-speed physical, commuter (to carry human beings!) rail system connecting Northern Cal. to SoCal (take another look at the map of the USA and see — that’s a good distance!).

So, it looks like CalREN’s (CENIC’s network name) involvement with this high-speed rail project may result in communities along the intended route getting an upgrade to their free? Broadband service.  Amazingly, the researchers figured out that poorer, less-educated people living in rural areas are less likely to have internet connections –aren’t they smart?  Courtesy “California Emerging Technologies Fund” field research poll, I see.  

CENIC article referencing Calif. HighSpeed Rail Authority (a gov’t entity) plans to make broadband communities. CENIC is private nonprofit, so that’s another Public/private partnership, assuming it goes through.

Announced at “Cenic.org” NOVEMBER 10, 2016, under · PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES & NPS, RENS & NRENS

In general, the HSR will connect Los Angeles to San Francisco at 200mph or in about 3 hours by (2025?  see info).  Another phrase that comes up is “Silicon Valley to Central Valley” with Central Valley being an area where unemployment (and poverty) are high.  I see from HSR website that ARRA funds were involved:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –The California High-Speed Rail Authority today announced it has met federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 requirements by fully investing the more than $2.55 billion granted to the State since 2009 to build the nation’s first high-speed rail system. These funds have helped to create thousands of new jobs and generated approximately $4 billion in economic activity in the Central Valley and across California. Read our News Release to see what Board Chair Dan Richard is saying about meeting the ARRA deadline. For more information, read the full Investing in California’s Future through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 report.

Wow.  I remember where I was in high-employment area SF Bay Area in 2009, after child-stealing events, retroactive reduction of child support arrears owed, dramatic curtailment of my own work as I went repeatedly to court in an attempt to resolve the household who stole the kids’ reluctance to comply with court orders granting me:  visitation, or even at its lowest point, weekly phone calls placed by the children (after my attempts to reach them weekly went unanswered time after time), and by 2009 I had not one job in the profession left.  No one in the agencies or law enforcement seemed to care about enforcing any court orders which would mitigate the situation, and I was running out of the wherewithal to keep coming back to court (let alone even get TO the courthouse) time and again.  During that time I had not yet “figured out” what I have since (on this blog) regarding potential financial DISincentives for continuing any government OR nonprofit advocacy group, i.e., the whole systems, to protecting maternal parenting time once it’d been eradicated without legal cause stated on the record, let alone proved on any record…

In other words, those “access and visitation” grants aimed at increasing non-custodial parenting time, apparently lost their motivational impact when that non-custodial FATHER time had been increased to 100% and mother’s to “0%.” I had never been offered or encouraged to do supervised visitation to prevent the stealing in the first place, and when it was brought up, a commissioner said “there’s no money for it here..” — AFTER which I realized, well, yes there was, in the form of those grants to the state of California for such supervised visitation and exchange — to protect the children from being stolen, and myself from injury or repeated forced dealings with traumatic situations absent support for them, in the context of known prior domestic violence…

That fall 2009, I also had learned my children had been abandoned by their father (physically and it appears financially) and was dealing with both stalking while attempting to extract information from ANYONE involved on WHEN this occurred (including what month/year) or in what manner (two conflicting versions were presented by the ex-girlfriend and my ex-batterer (husband) and father of two children by then both almost adults, with me.    Abandonment is also a felony, so I was working through both shock and again attempting to speak with law enforcement on this (district attorney’s office, as I had when they were stolen the first time three years earlier).  This went nowhere — other than that in my need to speak to their father for this information, he somehow decided again to claim me “before God” as his wife, resulting in the need to at this low point now deal (again) with the stalking issue — which was terrifying… especially without funds to leave the area even temporarily which was a need.

But that commentary is getting ahead of the subject matter of this section…. Just correlating the State-level developments with my personal timeline developments.  Back to “HighSpeedRail”….

Read it from the HSR.CA.GOV (HSR=”High Speed Rail”) point of view — this is their MOU (Memo of Understanding) which, actually, clarifies that one is a 501©3 and the other a state agency, and that a partnership, this absolutely does not make!.  The signatures of each party are shown — but not dated (so this is probably not an executed copy of any MOU, despite its title page):

MOU as shown (Nov. 2016) header.

REGARDING OTHER CENIC or “NATIONAL LAMBDARAIL, LLC” referring to a different kind of “rail” with different kind of cargo (the optic fiber kind) images I may include below — these are obviously another story waiting to be posted (here — it’s already posted elsewhere!), consider these footprints and reminders for now.//LGH 10/9/2017

This excerpt of a Form 990 shows Nat’l LambdaRail as a related entity of CENIC, though not the largest one… || … “NLR” has a major, and dramatic though short history, and was purchased in 2011 by a billionaire from its university (public/private) membership. Won’t fit in a single caption. Stay tuned (or look up yourself!)It is a 12,000 mile optic network and the first one to go transcontinental (See Wiki or Bloomberg.com for more; also IO.com)

just web page header.

CENIC corporation, California Registry of Charitable Trust (search results page)

[That] page (#28901)  I have named:  How and When Problem-Solving (make that ‘Collaborative Justice’) Courts were Institutionalized and other Consolidate/Coordinate/Standardize/ PRIVATIZE Stories at Courts.CA.Gov 

I was talking on [the] post  —  NAATPN, Inc (2000ff, Total Current Assets, $0) and Caffee, Caffee and Associates PHF, Inc. (Hattiesburg MS, 2003ff, Total Assets $0, Tax Filings Questionable), and others trying to squeeze a California Race-Based Stop-Smoking Network (AATEN) into that recipe. ..  [Published 8/28/2017 evening and as usual may be updated for clarity, basic copyediting, or length (splitting)//LGH]  —— about how the 1996ff (PRWORA-related) events overlapped with my current blogging interest, the 1998 (Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement) events, and similarities (not to mention overlap) of involved networking nonprofits, along with the stories told the public omitting the details of Who’s Who and the gradual, (dare I say “progressive” in today’s political climate, but referencing the generic, not political, meaning of the word?) incremental erosion of local or even state-level accountability to citizens living within those state, as opposed to privatized special-interest nonprofits continually telling us all that the same are protecting against other privatized special-interest FOR profits as though these two were unrelated….

ABOUT HOLIDAYS, SPEAKING PERSONALLY:

Incidental, personal comments on the passing of one holiday after another in this context):

While I notice them in passing, or use them to make or mark progress on certain personal goals; while they are common ways in our national culture of marking time, organizing people’s, schools’, and businesses’ social, economic (incl. specialty marketing) and work lives, I don’t do “holidays” and haven’t for years.  There was a period after my children were abruptly removed (overnight) from my life — and basically NO more holidays possible with them (although this was progressively made known over the course of a year and multiple court hearings) — during major holidays I would celebrate with others, including remaining work contacts, or sometimes helping or eating meals with the homeless at respite centers, or a near-casual relationships (neighbors, a client) which might classify as “sympathy invitations,” at some point, I just stopped pretending there was some substitute.

One of these “Thanksgivings” I was en route to sharing a holiday dinner in Oakland, California, and ran smack into a row of police vans and at least one TV van with that elevated camera.  It turns out to have been a triple-homicide involving — guess what — family matters, as I recall an Ethiopian family line.  It’s not uncommon knowledge that holidays can be dangerous when there’s DV in the area, or on the periphery.   Might be good to keep in mind as the federal government social science research continues to claim that the building blocks and foundation of our society is “family.”  Speak for yourselves — not always!

Holidays + Domestic Violence: While married, and while our children were still minors after I separated, most holidays were occasions for incidents, threatened incidents, or recovering from actual incidents, sometimes with police involved.  Some of this seems to have been because holidays can be public occasions with other family or people who allegedly knew us; it was “performance time” and any real or even perceived flaw on my part could, and at key times did, lead to physical assault, starting with a key incident I still remember when I was mid-trimester pregnant with our second child. No negative consequences (arrest, report, police called) this time seemed to have sent a message this was now “permissible behavior”; another one within about a MONTH, almost identical in what was done to me — I reported to oby/gyn doctor and a pastor, and later my (by then getting elderly) mother who’d been visiting from out of state in support of my mid-pregnancy surgery, which was to preclude lifting, including during recovery, of the other toddler in the home.

Within a half year, this TYPE of assaults had become routine.  I did not know the law, or my options, or see an option at this time, and was dealing with the shock of it, and ongoing daily maintenance, survival issues. It took FAR too long for anyone to clue me in that domestic violence support groups or advocacy existed, although I was living and working in a progressive, urban area, and frequently on public transportation, or dealing with other parents of small children along with my own.

Before marriage (as an adult), in general as a professional and single (no children yet) classical musician, holidays were marked by positive, creative, and often financially rewarding (connecting, relationship and resume-building, etc.) engagement with, taken as a whole, a socioeconomically and religiously and professionally diverse (from beginners up through professional level) group of people, for fun, for work, for building my resume and a base of referrals for future work — also my way of contributing positively to others’ lives as well.   Unlike my ex, these individuals seemed to understand that such endeavors were good for the soul, and beneficial for growing children, including children who like ours were, were expected one day to have an extremely competitive college competition process, and, given our household income levels, would be needing scholarships to attend.

Not long after separation years later by way of DV protective order with kickout, as before, I was because of this separation, allowed to re-engage in positive relationships, and earn money from many of them, without fear of immediate, or delayed for later punishment retaliation, sabotage, for doing so.  I also regained control of my own finances (bank account) and had the privilege of exercising responsibility to balance income earned with household bills with children’s needs.  During this time, the father was regularly contributing his initial level (set belatedly) of court-ordered child support to just below welfare level.  In other words, had we continued on welfare, it would’ve been about the same.  I had utilized welfare, including food stamps, briefly only (just a few months!) in order to make the transition.  Not knowing that this would trigger the system to come after us, or the impact of this having happened shortly after radical shift in practices involving that system and the related child support system.

So this process of my again working fluently in the profession and supporting them around their school/arts activities also allowed them to see their mother interacting positively with people who showed respect and appreciation for her personally, and for work, which for any children who have witnessed violence towards a parent in the home, is a very big deal  and a change from the humiliation, degradation that goes along with the violence, and it part of the overall intent to control, intimidate, and harm another human being. In other words, dealing daily with domestic violence and its collateral effects (including poverty and unstable work life) was no longer “front and center stage” in my life, and by association, theirs.  HOPE CAME BACK.

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During holidays, before marriage, like others I might travel to see one or another family member.  In other words, holidays were fairly normal, and with positive anticipation, preparation, enjoyment and afterwards, dishes and cleanup, and if it was outside the home, travel back home, with those memories.  There was a sense of belonging to the general flow and rhythms of life.

While some of this holiday activity, including SOME music involvement or (my side, who were local) of family involvement initially continued while married and involving our children, my, or at a certain point, even our children’s, music involvement involved significant risk and, eventually, personal danger (especially involvement in the profession. Involvement in a profession = my positive contacts outside the home, and possible income = possible exposure of the violence AT home, and my possible independence, i.e., ability to “leave his behind.”) For abuse to continue, isolation and financial coercion seem (in my experience) to have been required strategy or at least practices. So I, and at times they, our children, were “allowed” to start, then forced to drop out, of involvement once it became clear the situation was working well… whether it was art, gymnastics, dance, or music — the routine repeated.

Or, their and/or my involvement was allowed up to about “performance” time at which point, there would be argument, incident, or more direct sabotage.  It was a constant fight, unless I backed off or quit, or tried a different line of work, arrangement of work schedule, something which (at first I naively thought) wouldn’t trigger such violent retaliation.  However, it didn’t that take long to realize it wasn’t just music itself, but also my working for pay itself that apparently threatened my ex (as much as he wanted the money from it).  

Practically, however, there were the ongoing maintenance of life efforts with our children to work in around the incidents and chaos that came with them.  I had not been raised “welfare” and didn’t consider “single mother on welfare” an option, let alone at the time know about the laws against domestic violence and options under them.

So during these times, and when it came to “holiday participation” — we were mostly living double lives. Even though I was telling all kinds of people (incl. my own family) about the abuse — most of these people didn’t seem to know any more than I did about my legal rights, or about the possibility of getting the guy arrested and see if this might produce a change of attitude about the habit. Police that were called by others, like neighbors who overheard, to our home at times, didn’t arrest either.

When I finally filed for legal intervention, i.e., got out, I re-engaged in work and a  new, nearby community, diligently and was happy to be expanding opportunities for our children as well to be involved (often negotiating work for their tuition or opportunities, etc.).  I felt like and was functioning initially like a normal human being and parent again, although obviously a single parent at the time.

AT THIS TIME — FOR A WHILE..

For a while I really believed there had been a community consensus on the positive role of these activities in children’s lives, my role in actually bringing in sustainable income as well, and at least a minimum recognition that ongoing engagement with a human being who was opposed to all the same, and had engaged in patterns of violent (assault and battery) abuse, injury, work interference, and more than a few times, threats to kill, weapons accumulation and “in-your-face” demonstration to me meanwhile, and so forth, should be protected, and at a safe distance while (as I then believed — in hindsight, I’m no longer so sure) some continued visitation (but not to the point of endangerment) with our children should continue.

I also, as it turned out, naively believed that a general consensus regarding this situation** would exist at least in my own family line (which includes more than one lawyer, and all of us and both our parents too, college graduates) that respect for court orders at this time was priority, and that demonstrating respect for them in front of growing children was a healthy and at this time, vital family value of which they would naturally approve. Why would I believe anything different, having had no basis so far not to?

• **The situation of my having filed for domestic violence restraining order with kick-out, and the court regulating by court order, matters of visitation and exchange AND conditions of communication between parents under the restraining order.

THE ORDER ITSELF:

The civil, not criminal (a mistake, in hindsight) protective order originally started out weak, not clear enough, and as written basically unenforceable until I moved out of the original rental home:  he was granted permission to keep access to garage and driveway, and back yard, under the premise that he was throughout the primary breadwinner.  ONLY after we did finally move a moderate distance (less than 20 miles) away, continuing the court-ordered visitation, did I have a sense of enough safety, privacy and  breathing space to focus on accelerate the healing/rebuilding (work especially) process. That move didn’t happen for a full year and a half, effectively shorting the time of protection by about half.

Through networking and reading on-line, I’ve heard over the years of women whose protection was even less than mine originally, or whose orders were stripped off even faster.  This communicates to all involved, especially those subject to them, often but no longer always men and fathers, they weren’t that important to start with, with negative consequences for the law-abiding, the protected parties, and for society.  

THE ORDER EXPIRING:

When the protective court order then came off, not long afterward (on my first attempt to renew at the time), it immediately had negative impact on my work and the (then still young) children’s education and engagement with other professionals in the arts or enrichment activities common in the area, and essential to distinguishing themselves from other academically advanced college applicants (a category they were already in), the aggression and harassments resumed, just about on a weekly basis (as often as the children visited their father — each exchange became another potential opportunity, with buildup, incident, and aftermath just as when we were living together — only without the direct physical assaults which (by now had been figured out) might get him arrested.

Others, apparently starting with and including but not limited to adult, married siblings from my side of the family, were encouraged to and did participate in ongoing harassments if not in person, through written and electronic (telephone/email) communications, so that now instead of facing ONE personal and physically dangerous, armed terrorist in the home while raising children and, periodically, maintaining employment outside or extremely part-time, inside the home, as to communications and during visitation exchanges,, I was instead facing essentially a growing “gang” of people, all with apparently time on their hands (i.e., like my ex, not full-time employed) when I had less and less time on my own as a result of dealing with the same.

Timeframe I’m referring to: during the first decade of the 21st century.  Meanwhile, in our area and others across the country under President George W. Bush, concepts like “Family Court Justice Centers” were being sponsored and promoted as the “One-Stop-Justice-Shop” model, but still failing to deliver the goods when “the goods” were already involved in family — or was it “conciliation?” — court litigation and the protective order had already been retracted after three short years.

During this time frame (post-restraining order, pre-abduction), repeated police/law enforcement involvement became necessary around the simple act of forcibly retrieving children from an overnight visitation — and the trauma associated with not only the incidents, but also awareness of their acceleration and escalation (in type and frequency) increased.

As when I’d been married with very young children, I witnessed the “economic footprint” it was so important for me to re-establish being erased before my eyes, progressively — and all this was occurring, BEFORE people and groups empathizing with this on-line (I.e., “protective parent” organizations in my state) had grudgingly revealed that such things called “marriage/fatherhood promotion” and federal incentives to tweak the custody court OUTCOMES using alternate programming these grants supported, existed.

Another woman in Pennsylvania (Doreen Ludwig) for years also had a website up acknowledging the federal grants — but apparently continuing to work alongside those who refused to discuss it, including those at BMCC, i.e., tolerating the collective censorship in exchange for, possibly social moral support (or reasons I do not personally know).  Now, I learned within the last year or so, two of the same (Leonore Rosenberg, representing the DV field, and Kathleen Russell of Center for Judicial Excellence representing — people who may know her will probably validate — Kathleen Russell’s interests — are said to be feeding Doreen information on the grants for publication in a (self-published?) book on the same.Parallel and simultaneous with these were on-line presence (and actively seeking distressed mothers through group email forums) and word of mouth, were the “Broken Courts Crowd” of people and organizations unified around, in part, NOT telling all they knew about the federal grants’ and private trade association involvements in the problems mothers were having post-domestic violence in the family courts.  Their collective censorship and (recently) partial, belated, and I have to say, reluctant disgorgement of some of the truth on these issues compounds the confusion where exposing the grants stream and social policy rhetoric would clarify.

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[NOTE:  This information is searchable using the above information on-line, it’s something I’ve tracked with interest as puzzling, both earlier and since I became aware in fall 2015 that CPPA had circulated through the periodic newsletters a “white paper” on fatherhood funding… and asking people to send it to their Congresspeople.  I went through it with a “fine-toothed comb” (complicated because it was so poorly organized…) and communicated some privately on the situation, but have not (yet) posted any write-up.  At the time, in my defense for not doing so, I was being forced out of my own home and stable rental…]

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As testimony of previous exposure of this TYPE of information: Two images upcoming are from an April 2011 reposting at “ABatteredMother.WordPress.com” of Part 2 of a 2003 article by Cindy Ross (then director of NAFCJ California), out-ing the grants, and AFCC, and truthfully describing what mothers and their children were going through even just within the first decade of passing of 1996 PRWORA, in retaliation for attempts to separate from abuse WITH their children and lives intact, and attempting to even move forward to “restored…”  It’s called “Family Court Corruption: Federally Funded Misogyny and Pedophile Protection.”

Several of these “lone wolf” bloggers (I include myself) “nailed” (accurately identified) major elements to institutionalized corruption, including getting the public to fund the bribes, altering the impact of existing criminal laws through diversion, privatization of government, and in particular rolling back the perceived dangers of feminism and women’s rights.  AND overall, they were met with a resounding, enthusiastic DISMISSAL by others with financial backing to talk about correct vs. incorrect psychological theories instead, and recommend to solve the problem, similar solutions — assign technical assistance and trainer consultants, but better ones.  Meanwhile, another generation grew up “retarded” on critical information while the infrastructures were further established and solidified into practice, and eventually entire professions.   With the return to previous background-color (light blue) I am returning to personal, anecdotal (my experience) expressive narrative, not the larger situation.  The context is still at least as prompted to write about it today, experience of holidays…

Look at the two different dates: Posted April 2011, written Feb. 2003!! I am reposting it (again) now in Sept. 2017 If you only read the first sentence of each paragraph, that’s an improvement upon the general information on-line about custody issues these days, STILL (well over a dozen years later…)

“AFCC was originally established in California to enact Conciliation Court Law…” (I’d agree with this, although not the only purpose behind AFCC). Initially in California (and outside it) AFCC pushed for court-ordered mediation…Decades later, a chapter was established in Florida to get “Parenting Coordination” passed into law. At another time, it seems that in Connecticut, AFCC chapter presence (though not legitimate as a corporation, as was exposed in 2011 and publicized) played a part probably in getting a statewide “high-conflict court” established. Overall, the infrastructure and LACK of financial accountability of the organization helped facilitate the ABILITY to push whatever was wanted, including “problem-solving courts” and prioritizing behavioral modification programming over prosecuting criminal activity by at least male parents. The pattern includes public/private partnerships + public funds AND private funds to both partners.

 

{{Continuing the context from this sentence, above…”

During this time frame (post-restraining order, pre-abduction), repeated police/law enforcement involvement became necessary around the simple act of forcibly retrieving children from an overnight visitation — and the trauma associated with not only the incidents, but also awareness of their acceleration and escalation (in type and frequency) increased.”}}

I.e., if I couldn’t get the children back on a given weekend, yet they still had to attend school in my neighborhood the next morning — I would have to call police.

At times  this included particularly holiday weekends, sometimes involving concert participation on my part, which was part of my work life, including networking for additional work after satisfactory performance at existing jobs, gigs, performances, or with clients (such as students or ensemble work).  My ex through ongoing contact (encouraged by the original protective order and family courts in general) was aware of my music work, and despite attempts to keep this private, often concert dates.  For a while I was actually a church musician, so it wasn’t too hard to realize that these coincided with the major holidays. In other words, through logic or at times it seemed an uncanny awareness (or perhaps this was just elicited from our children on visitation) of when I was most vulnerable to interference — and those times were targeted for disruptions, arguments, etc.

Eventually, the word got out post-separation as it had become known in the same circles during the abusive marriage, that, my qualifications aside, and willingness on both my part and the client / employer / often parents of children taking music lessons’ parts that I should indeed work for them, for agreed upon fees, that I could not be relied on to show up in one piece emotionally, immediately after a major incident involving (a) the drop-off or pickup of our children on court-ordered visitation days AND (b) because of the resistance to simply complying with this routine, involvement of law enforcement.  In addition, with no more restraining order in place, my under-employed (and it doesn’t appear, looking very hard for work) ex would be showing up, with or without new girlfriend, on the premises, or parked a half block away staking out the house.

Eventually (after two years of this) I managed to get another temporary restraining order and a hearing was set for it.

At that hearing, NO legal assistance was available from any advocacy group (including the same group which had helped me file the original order).  Allegedly they didn’t have the staff. I since then looked up the history of the nonprofit, its incorporation into the family justice center, and various mergers, as well as the pattern of involvements with father-friendly programming, and realize this likely wasn’t true.  It simply wasn’t policy after the first “triage” to deal with what was going on in the family courts post-retraining order expiration.

To this day, I believe that if the original years had been FIVE, not THREE, I might have made it fully to financial independence from any need for child support, which (as it turns out, socially) provided leverage for him — not me — to get pro bono help in filing for something he didn’t even really want — (a) divorce and (b) full physical and legal custody of the children in the first place, and from there, responsibility for them.
After their father with help from his girlfriend and “aiding and abetting” by the local law enforcement whom I’d had to resort to AFTER his (not my!) threats to kidnap had been documented (repeatedly, to me, and on the record at least a few times) our (sic) children, stole the children, holding them truant illegally from school and in blatant violation of an existing court order, without any proof of the allegations he filed at the time as justification, the school year (it happened at another major life transition, the beginning or end of another school year for our children) continued — only me with an empty house, having been hauled back into court simply in an effort to regain contact with the daughters who, days previously, had lived with me, and my work life was supposed to magically re-arrange itself around the same.

As the weeks stretched into months, and to years, another “theme” which emerged was that — unlike my practice while the children lived with me, as their mother with full physical custody — those involved in the parental interference / pre-emptive kidnapping, and holding children truant for weeks from school on the (known by ALL adults involved, and our now adolescent children, to be false) allegation that they weren’t enrolled in school at the time,  i.e., that I was the criminal and endangering parent in that mix — with each and nearly EVERY subsequent holiday, I at first hoped for some court-order compliance, and a chance to see my children, then gradually realized this was not going to happen.

On at least a few extended Winter (“Christmas/New Year’s/Kwanzaa, whatever you wish to call it) and Spring school breaks They were “MIA,” and several times, belatedly, I discovered (not through being informed by that household, but other sources) that they had been driven and/or flown out of the state, and more than a few times, out of the country rather than be allowed to see their mother as per existing court order (which clearly stated alternation of major holidays, and a few other times, such as Mothers’ Day on my part, Fathers’ Day on  his) I might continue having some relationship with the children I’d, up to that day, been raising, with hopes and plans for their eventual access to college scholarships, as both were academically and with other identified long-suits in non-academic areas, more than qualified for and which we, due to our income levels, also both qualified for them to receive.

I also learned, being their biological mother and entitled to through court orders that law enforcement deliberately refused (when the custody switched) to enforce, and piecemeal, that for some of those times, there was NEITHER father nor girlfriend involved in the transportation, but instead one of my own family members (!), another time, it was a church trip.  Naturally, churches “didn’t want to get involved” in custody matters — but they were clearly not above helping one side violate existing court orders involving their attending “members,” as happened here.

I also learned, belatedly, but had it in writing and later confirmed from different individuals, that not that long after obtaining full control of both our children, and bringing his current (as small as they were — set below welfare level) child support payments to an IMMEDIATE stop, and obligation on the about $15,000 arrears to a complete, retroactive one year to time of abduction, that “Dad” had been outed or otherwise abandoned the household, and ALL involved reasonably aware of this** had kept it from me, and apparently, the courts (if not also their school), and we are talking a religious household, so add to that, the local church and pastors.  They knew that this non-relative, ex-girlfriend was hauling around, not being a legal guardian, another woman’s children, and did not report it, or get involved in attempting to contact me.

(**ex-girlfriend, who finally admitted in writing to me, he’d abandoned them the year before; on being confronted with this, he said she threw him out — and then attempted to resume OUR relationship, claiming me as his “wife” a.k.a. stalking…), father, and from all I can tell, my late-middle-aged adult sibling and spouse, who had collectively made this cause their by then post-retirement (?) life purpose, to ensure my functionality as a mother, working professional with a base of clients, or as adult daughter to our (at that point still alive) elderly mother, was compromised, if not simply cut off…with such parental abandonment (let alone child-stealing/kidnapping, stalking, terroristic threats to kill and injure previously, and injury resulting in serious physical damage reflected in our marriage itself) was also classified as a felony under California law.  

In this case, it left our children (one of them still a minor) then in high school having apparently gone through most of high school in the care of a non-relative, non-guardian, disgruntled ex-girlfriend of their father.  What’s the “LOVE and CONCERN” for our children got to do with any of that? 

Likewise, what’s ANY PUBLIC BENEFIT got to do with the influences and forces that facilitated this worldview and events, that promoted such a gender-preferential for “evening out” the alleged maternal preference social policy while targeting the application of this world view onto the family court (ruling on custody, divorce, visitation/parenting, child support) arena under state jurisdiction, but as influenced by federal grants under the Social Security Act of 1934 (radically revised in 1996 under PRWORA, and repeatedly in differing versions since then)??

From this perspective, it more closely resembles government-legitimized RICO and facilitation of money-laundering through conveniently losing track of the money trail as it diverges into rivulets of nonprofits, and as promoted, some or several of them, from university centers named after the great causes.  Which may be where my personal anecdotal account, which I fully realize readers (mostly, not including those directly involved) are not in a position to discredit or believe, leads me to focus on the things we CAN examine more directly as indicators of which underlying values are held dear, and which NOT-so dear, to those involved.