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

This post is: Incentivizing Reunification Camps While Existing (Family) Policy Already Sets The Stage for FAMILIAL Abductions (Case-sensitive short-link ends “-8fE” published Dec. 23, 2017).  

On a Saturday night after working more on this and a related post, including processing new information, and Monday Dec. 25, 2017, being a well-known major holiday (for which I have no particularly different plans — there are no family members, at all, to contact with whom I have any ongoing communications or that I have seen face to face since, oh, about 2011..  Which isn’t to say they aren’t missed!!), I’m going to publish it, although there is obviously more subject matter to cover.  I know it’s interesting and has some good links, and images too, within.  

This post might be a wake-up call, and I hope it will wake some up to what is, literally, being set in streamlined infrastructure, to use the fields of mental health, particularly psychology, to justify taking children by force and separating them from one parent, driving and/or flying them out of state (or country!) to be deprogrammed on the premise that failure to bond with both parents is evidence of having been brainwashed (Regardless of bad behavior including chronic abuse, by the one they don’t want to see, which these courts are pre-set to tune out unless it qualifies under their unique definition of abuse: reporting it)  by one or the other.

In the process, both children AND the caretaking parent (often a mother) can also be threatened with jail OR jailed, be ordered to lie to the children, leaving them subject to additional stress and trauma, not to mention the caretaking parent, and in general raise hell via the family courts in almost any neighborhood.

Now that enough people are being constantly traumatized through these means, and on the advice of the group(s) which repeated, like a mantra, the real intent was to reduce the adversarial nature of divorce and destigmatize it,** then it’s time to hold conferences (one shown below, coming up this next summer) on compassionate and trauma-informed courts. This is fun and obviously profitable for those involved.

**(I expect to move this next spontaneously-added, post-publication section stemming from my intent to explain how “reducing adversarial nature of divorce” translates into practice…//LGH 12/24/2017)

Google search results for “reducing adversarial nature of divorce” (run on “Christmas Eve” 2017)

**Search results (phrase added after publication) will bring up ads for mediators and collaborative divorce organizations or providers.  It will at times also bring up nonprofits whose chairman of the board, president (etc.) or founder has direct connections to court-mandated mediation services.  Without getting into too many details (on this post…), the “Collaborative Divorce Solutions of Orange County (CDSOC, in “SoCal,” Southern California) (see nearby image and caption) mentioned a nonprofit which website (oddly) gave its own EIN#.

I looked it up, and some past returns and see what appears to be ONE professional (and says “1” employee currently), showing only the (also) collaborative coach.

Earlier returns (FY2002) attachments mention taking referrals from: social services, child support services, court facilitators, and training the local DAs.  And that was just for “United Fathers of America”  (“UFA”).

To me, UFA has the appearance of simply facilitating reduction of taxable income through being a nonprofit, and writing off a variety of expenses, while (for someone this long in practice, and this area, the salary is nowhere near typical) showing the sole Board member or officer listed, taking a salary of, then, about $32K, and currently, only $42K. Basically, about the same amount is being taken as “non-government contributions” and (currently) split down the middle, writing half off as “salary” and half as “Expenses.” (IRS forms from 2002 differ from those now), leaving a steady end of year “assets” of next to nothing.

AFCC is the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts – the premier interdisciplinary and international association of professionals dedicated to the resolution of family conflict. AFCC members are the leading practitioners, researchers, teachers and policymakers in the family court arena“…(and, in opening, Para. 2…) “convenes members of multiple disciplines in the public, private and nonprofit sectors, from all over the world. AFCC is unique as a professional association because members do not all share a common profession.  Rather, AFCC members share a strong commitment to education, innovation and collaboration in order to benefit communities, empower families and promote a healthy future for children.

It’s also understandable how such tactics (replicated) might well appeal to anyone potentially under a child support order as minimizing income on the record, which is not to say that the president of UFA is in that situation. But if he were or had been, this type of business entity (501©3) might help.

Once the associations for “collaborative divorce” started, they began multiplying (by region) with, looks like, often shared logos, and common origins in AFCC professionals.

As with any created profession, one can then have academies, training institutes, membership lists (helps with advertising and credibility no doubt) and of course conferences.  (International Academy of Divorce Professionals).  (“CollaborativeDivorce.com” in San Francisco).

NB:  Emphasizing the word “professional” without specifying which one (i.e., you don’t need to do this with lawyers, or accountants, or when licensed, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. — emphasize that they are “professionals” because it’s generally understood) is also typical of the concept behind AFCC’s motto as well (see extended yellow-background caption, taken from top “About” phrase on the website, to nearby logo).

The association is very much into the prestige and uniqueness of its membership, yet speaks truly vaguely of all non-members not even as identifiable individuals (or even individuals) but according to broad-based, generic labels:  “communities, families, children…”  Without actual exposure to reality, one might think there are no other professions in the world (that really count) outside of the ones involved in this association.

Again, last post I showed AFCC’s IRS returns are consistently under $4M a year total assets, and its chapters do not represent all states (or even half the states) in one of the most powerful countries in the world, the USA.  They also noticeably don’t represent, really, all regions or even all continents of the world.  Numerically, the organization (AFCC) is not showing up as (in any way) representative of the people whose lives it wishes to “improve” for the sake of the kids.  (Older newsletter banner read “Kids Count on Us.”)

So, if anything, for the word “collaborate” I would add, “collaborate to dominate…” including dominate the lives of children by re-aligning, re-assigning, having helped create and, as it says, claiming to lead, an entire court system where this actually, literally, can be done.

It seems to be a public/private version of the Harvard/Bain/Bridgespan consulting model, a sort of “LBO” (leveraged buyout) but involving the courts, not just corporations and their employees…  Those first in the new field get to define the field and set the rules. And focus on consulting to (subcontracting with, operating from within) the nonprofit sector of business and commerce (Bridgespan in effect copied for the nonprofits what Bain had done so successfully in for-profit with help from Harvard Business School along the way, or professors at it).  +++++

Beefed-up nonprofits (AFCC isn’t one as far as assets, obviously, but it’s pretty adept at facilitating how assets get moved from family member to family member, or extracted for use in consultations) tend to hold investments — and those investments still help whatever sector they land in.  Or, if sold off cheaply, for next to no profit, or for a loss declared on a Form 990PF or Form 990 (something I’m also noticing in NCMEC, returns below), then they help whoever got them cheap.  (On a Form 990 (not 990PF) tax return, look for any major differential between “Total gross receipts” on the header info. and Line 12? Total “revenues”).  When the difference is large, why may show up on Part VIII, statement of revenues, under “Sale of assets other than inventory / securities” which shows Gross, Cost of Sale, and Net figures).

And then there has been the habit of operating as I understand it illegally, that is without registering openly as an association or corporation, then when being confronted on this, pulling a “chameleon” or skipping the state, or shutting down.  Just look at the track record of various chapters from the IRS and (Secretary of State) annual report filing levels (for example, Connecticut, Massachusetts, or Arizona.  Or, originally, California).  Consistent avoidance of fiscal accountability AND tax on what might otherwise be taxable income (to the members) naturally facilitates an underground economy.

Personnel are attorneys and ‘Divorce Coaches’ (which tend to be psychotherapists). The first one listed running “United Fathers of America” (since 1975), and on that website (not this one) also references under professional associations “Association of Family and Conciliation Courts” (and “CRC,” or Children’s Rights Council, another well-known and politically influential (dating to the mid-1980s) fatherhood organization, with founders in common, it’s believed, with AFCC (Jessica Pearson, perhaps others).

Now, we are finding out through “reunification camps” there is also something of an “underground railroad” of “alienated” or “contact-resistant” children — but not to freedom, but to being like caught slaves, or ripped from their families in the middle of the night to go with strangers, being punished for ‘rebellion,’ and in intensive treatment scenarios, observed, supervised, and coached into re-acquainting themselves with who REALLY is in control… and their proper duty as minors, which is to accept both parents, no matter what.. … …unless the court decides that a parent has also been bad, and should be put on a long “time-out.”I’m NOT done reporting, but this is a start. If you currently think these court-connected “ATM machine” corporations, cloning themselves (so to speak) year after year represent manageable systems, or will somehow self-correct, or that the mutually congregating, (word choice intentional) linguistically-aligned professionals will hold to a high standard of ethics when it comes to things OUTside the jargon… keep reading and think again!  //LGH.

This post comes from my Dec. 21, 2017, post, Revisiting Reunification Camps: The Nice Clinical Psychologists involved Just Want to Help Traumatized Kids and “Families in Transition” (or “Transitioning Families”), in “protected spaces” (away from naysayers, critics, and potential negative witnesses) … It’s the Good Ole, Time-Tested, Court-Ordered and of course (™)’d Way [Publ. Dec. 21, 2017].. (Case-sensitive shortlink ends “-8cC,” written Dec. 16-21, 2017, publ. 21st, updated/expanded some 22nd.)

I’ve been looking again more closely at certain networks who have been replicating the equine-assisted (or otherwise) reunification therapy “camps” or “outpatient treatments” in California, Massachusetts and Florida (referring to legal domiciles; the activities apparently also happen in other states, such as New Hampshire or Vermont).  If you haven’t read that post yet, start there.

This follow-up post was inspired in part by discovering more details, some filling in missing puzzle pieces from that last time I encountered or heard about the reunification camp in Northern California (Transitioning Families) and its psychologist leadership, Rebecca Bailey, also associated with a high-profile rescue case in the general area.  Earlier I had wondered how the rescued family somehow connected with this particular professional. This time, I found an answer, although only from one source, a news article.

Doing just a few extra, a bit more, name-searches led to discovery of a recent (October, 2017) article in a nearby (to me) Northern-California county showing how the entity and situations I was researching were hooked up with a high-profile, major-media-coverage non-family abduction rescue whose victims (two, born in their mother’s generation-long captivity) that received a multi-million-dollar settlement from the State of California (where they were held captive and where rescued from in 2009).

What this answer looks like, in tax return form:

Total results: 3. Search Again.  NCMEC, $36.1M @ FY2015(=calendar year), EIN# 52-1328557

[Tax Return for FY2002, the earliest I could get to].

I have no problem with the settlement — that abductee and her children deserve it — but unfortunately (from understanding and my perspective on the family courts’ involvement in such camps)* her/their post-captivity connections for family therapy to a psychologist “wheeling-and-dealing with” the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts** which is — and I doubt this abductee or her mother and relatives would at the time have had any way of knowing this — in the business of breaking up intact households and effectively and dramatically (as in, at times overnight or on even less warning) cancelling non-abusive parent-child (often mother-child) relationships while (in part, thereby) intentionally blurring the line between criminal and non-criminal behaviors by individuals who happen to also have children, I felt when I first heard of it was puzzling, and is I still feel regrettable.*** (I feel that the Dugard/Probyn family, so horribly traumatized, have been exploited to further legitimize such services)  …

[Two days later…] Interesting, I really didn’t see this one coming before making that comment on the draft Dec. 21.  Inbetween, I was looking at an AFCC (Mass.) chapter website, which led to an upcoming (June 2018, timed close to Fathers’ Day, and apparently in Washington, D.C.) AFCC’s “55th annual” conference.  Guess who it’s featuring? Take a look: (All images except “#5 of 5” taken from the conference “brochure” available at AFCC website.  Image order may not be brochure order, and probably isn’t).

Img #5 of 5: AFCC’s 55th Annual Conf featuring Jaycee Dugard [+ Rebecca Bailey, and JayCFndtn (adv)] early June 2018 in DC [as shown on AFCC website]

Img #4 of 5: AFCC’s 55th Annual Conf featuring Jaycee Dugard [+ Rebecca Bailey, and JayCFndtn (adv)] early June 2018 in DC (front matter)

Img #3 of 5: AFCC’s 55th Annual Conf featuring Jaycee Dugard [+ Rebecca Bailey, and JayCFndtn (adv)] early June 2018 in DC. Opens DAY 2 of the conference…

Img #2 of 5: AFCC’s 55th Annual Conf featuring Jaycee Dugard [+ Rebecca Bailey, and JayCFndtn (adv)] early June 2018 in DC (among the advertisements near the back of conferenced brochure. Donate to JAYC foundation?

Img #1 of 5: AFCC’s 55th Annual Conf featuring Jaycee Dugard [+ Rebecca Bailey, and JayCFndtn (adv)] early June 2018 in DC

[Back to previously written narrative!] And when I heard how the hookup happened (according to this recent article is the only evidence) more lights started turning on such that I want to look closer at the connecting organization, “NCMEC.”

This same psychologist, I heard, may have also provided reunification services with their father for the Grazzini-Rucki two teenaged girls (case based in Minnesota) who ran away from their father (and had no contact with their mother after reaching a safe place at, get this, an equine-involved ranch for abused children run by a man and his wife, Doug and Gina Dahlen.

That the Rucki girls were specifically with the same reunification camp (or “mental health services”) above is I admit hearsay.  These things are often kept private.  I also heard that the father, who was claiming “broke” (moved a major trucking business into someone else’s name…) managed to have the camp paid for by another foundation dealing with missing children.

However, on having heard about the Dugard/Rebecca Bailey (a name otherwise previously  unfamiliar to me over the years)  the first time, I went to take a closer look at the professional Rebecca Bailey, briefly at the JayC Foundation (which names her and one other as advisory committee an advisory committee of just two), and quickly realized that this was an “AFCC-style” operation.

More coverage of the Minnesota high-profile family (divorce, custody and yes, abuse) case (apart from any I may have done and linked to during early 2016) can be found at RedHerringAlert (a wordpress blog) and my inbox {email alerts on certain blogs when a new post is made} says some more on “JusticeForSandraGrazziniRucki” or similar blog. I’m not sure whether the information originally posted on this case is still at RedHerringAlert there, but perhaps a link to where it might be found is.

More of my commentary on “Grazzini-Rucki Reporting,” its general trends and its ongoing, notable omissions, is footnoted below.   Basically, It seems that telling all available, relevant “background info” on cases which, told without that information make for better publicity, is engrained into media. There’s always the tension between reporting by involved people in the case (when they haven’t been slapped with some gag order, or threatened to be slapped with one or sued — as happened there) with reporting by others, outsiders, who just don’t seem to have the interest in exposing underlying systems more than enough to sell or print a few more stories and build some freelance reputations a little more.  There’s also the matter of who’s been sponsoring the writers, and what positions those organizations might take on, for example, things gender-war through “post-PRWORA” policies…(specific example in mind, just not getting into it here..)…

This article  2017 Article in the Sonoma Times is quoted and discussed.

I also looked again at some of the JayC Foundation tax returns as it relates to this article (though I’d viewed them about a year ago also).

I also quote a few related articles from July 2015 in the Detroit Free Press connecting three or four of the reunification camps by name (which I have in the recent, and an earlier (2011) post herein firmly, and without much debate because the boards of directors are posted, connected ALL THREE firmly to the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. A fourth one, Families Moving Forward, in Toronto, Canada, I haven’t looked up yet, but an educated guess, based on which one it’s modeled after and AFCC’s fond connections at many levels to Canadian family courts, professors dealing with parental alienation and domestic violence, and some judges, it’s also AFCC-involved). Program and/or website names:  Overcoming Barriers, Family Bridges (Warshak), FamiliesMoving Forward (Canadian; I did look and it has common board member with Overcoming Barriers…), Transitioning Families (of course) and “Stable Paths” (So. Boston/Florida).

Look for titles such as “Judge jails kids for refusing to lunch with their Dad” or (quoting the programs I referenced in “Reunification” post 12/21/2017, and in “Evaluate” post 6/15/2011) “judge seeks to unite dad, kids after camp.

And, last but not least, in poking around on these things, I found another freelance writer Cara Tabachnik, whose name I recognize but so far DNR from where, in Washington Post Magazine, has related the accounts of several children (some, now grown) or cases where and how minor children were carted away by force, in special transport arrangements, to these situations for the “crime” of resisting visitation with one parent, and how they were threatened with never seeing the parent they were, at that time, living with again — or of causing (her) to be jailed, or themselves.  Unfortunately, that article chooses not to make the professional association connection.  I need to review this a bit more before publishing, and expect to contact the author also. Article title and link:, under “Magazine” and dated “May 11” (no year shown, but the url reads 5/9/2017): They were taken from their mom to rebond with their dad. It didn’t go well.  This one, I’ll quote now: Pls. note some of the cross-continental travel involved here —  a case in Virginia/Pennsylvania ordered to transport the kids to California??  

What kind of transportation company (kickbacks) might possibly be involved…

… What Laura didn’t know was that Loudoun County (Va.) Circuit Court Judge Burke McCahill had just granted her father, Raphael, temporary custody of the children so he could take them to a four-day workshop in California to repair their relationship. The judge ordered Sharon to bring the children from her home in Pennsylvania to their therapist’s office in Virginia without telling them where they were ultimately going, according to the interim custody order. If Sharon couldn’t get them to comply, McCahill warned, a warrant would be issued for her arrest.

“She was supposed to lie,” said June Burke, a family friend, who accompanied Sharon to the court hearing. “But the children knew something was wrong.” …The night of Dec. 14, Laura and David recalled, they were abruptly awakened by Raphael, [their father] accompanied by four burly adults. The grown-ups, from Bill Lane & Associates, a youth transport service based in San Diego, shuttled the disoriented children into cars. With little understanding of what was happening, the frightened children were separated and sent off: Laura recalled that she went with a man and a woman, while the three boys went with the other two men. After spending the rest of that night at a motel, Laura was taken to Dulles International Airport while her brothers went to Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport; and in the dawn of Dec. 15 they boarded flights to California.

(It’s a fairly long article and names many professionals and at least two reunification camp service providers (one from Canada) and on my part, is notable for having next to no links to outside information provided.  There were 166 comments of which, so far, not one has referenced the involved organizations promoting “parental alienation” and their involvement, sometimes as judges or as professionals handling such cases, in the court system.

Actually, not one except (Bonnie Russell still?) FamilyLawCourts.com, which comment goes like this (2nd comment from “pleasepayattention.”  I just revisited that website and it’s still not organized for navigation — just lots of articles, links, and a topical sidebar (no “About” page).  There’s a “Sitemap” (and “Sitemap1”) which appear to be a very long list of, essentially, alphabetical tags only.  There’s no “search” site, and from what I can see, no overt reference to the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.  When it comes to “supervised visitation” and “Access visitation and even Shelly LaBotte at the California Judicial Council AC, the website just doesn’t make the connection…although year after year on this blog, I have… (another image below shows that section).  She makes some very good points — the family law system is misogynistic and is asking women to handle violent criminals on our own despite our taxes as well as men’s paying for police and the courts….

• Notation: Comments to the article referenced citations for peer-reviewed material on “parental alienation.” I noticed one at “Vanderbilt.edu” which turned out to be Vanderbilt’s Knowledge Center and “PASG” (Parental Alienation Study Group.).
• Charles Pragnell (whose work I’d read years earlier, and who I basically respect more than many sounding off on this topic, not that I agree with his proposed solution stated in “An Open Letter to the Parental Alienation Study Group” which came up during a search for it as well.
• No comments (of 166) really dealt much with nonprofit names as nonprofits or how they connected with each other. Within perhaps 15 minutes (max) looking at the site, I went to Tennessee (address of this “international nonprofit” whose EIN# wasn’t posted on the website) and discovered it:
  • Was only formed in 2014 (!);
  • Is registered to William Bernet, M.D., PhD, which locates it generally speaking in time, space, and expressed beliefs (Bernet has subscribed to the “warrior gene” theory as defense to a virtual slaughter-house which occurred during a court-ordered (what else) visitation exchange — possibly in TN (I DNR).
    • Genetic Literacy Project (a Cincinnati? 501©3 – see main url’s “About” financials etc.) taking it seriously… (No overt reference to Bernet here)..
    • “Waldroup’s defense” (The situation I was referring to above). (“Can your genes make you murder?” NPR in 2010.  Warning:  this is graphic (both article and inside the next box quoting it):
      • When the police arrived at Bradley Waldroup’s trailer home in the mountains of Tennessee, they found a war zone. There was blood on the walls, blood on the carpet, blood on the truck outside, even blood on the Bible that Waldroup had been reading before all hell broke loose.Assistant District Attorney Drew Robinson says that on Oct. 16, 2006, Waldroup was waiting for his estranged wife to arrive with their four kids for the weekend.
      • (What’s a good defense attorney to do?  He went to William Bernet and had Waldroup’s genetics tested):
      • “Richardson says he realized that the testimony at trial would be “very graphic.” The defense team, he says, did not try to dismantle the graphic evidence but rather sought to “give a broader and fuller picture of what that was.”How to do that? The answer, it turned out, lay in Bradley Waldroup’s genes.Immediately, Richardson went to forensic psychiatrist William Bernet of Vanderbilt University and asked him to give Waldroup a psychiatric evaluation. Bernet also took a blood sample and brought it to Vanderbilt’s Molecular Genetics Laboratory. Since 2004, Bernet and laboratory director Cindy Vnencak-Jones have been analyzing the DNA of people like Waldroup.
  • Apart from that,and as I posted on 6/15/2011 (but possibly within a 2016 update), he’s presenting alongside AFCC professionals and is probably a member. And,
  • This international study group with so many members which Vanderbilt has taken under its wing, somehow, is filing Forms 990-N (No revenues about $50K) thus avoiding blurting out other information such as its board members, or how it operates. The EIN# is 465096749. Its annual reports are current and its legal domicile is also Tennessee.  Here’s Bernet page (he’s under “Members”) at Vanderbilt-Kennedy Center (“Disabilities: Hope Through Discovery”)
  • I imagine I’ll be visiting that website again (Parental Alienation Study Group, Inc.).

“Pleasepayattention” commenter on the Tabachnik (5/11/2017) article re: Reunification camps directed readers to (her) website FamilyLawCourts.com. I looked again for any comprehension of the private associations organizing to work the funding and court-referred services. Shelly LaBotte is associated with at least two I know (not to mention AFCC): SVN (Supervised Visitation Network) and CASVSP (acronym, whatever order it occurs in, refers to professionalization at the California STATE level of those supervised visitation professionals who get paid for it. Training, and getting legislation in place to mandate it — just for the professionals of course — was involved. Having a trainer/provider/association organizer presiding over federal grants to the state to fund the same profession is one big red flag. Where’s any reference to (ANY of this) in this context, on the familylawcourts.com website? And if there was, who could ever find it (organization issues)? (See my TOC for more on this situation, 2016 or possibly back in 2014 or before.. Or search “Shelly LaBotte..)

This (article’s, not comments on it) writing style (whether or not it’s Washington Post Magazine-required) sets the discussion up for easy rebuttal by “to the contrary” and by lack of supporting evidence making the programs, or businesses running them, or people involved in them, more tangible, credible, and connected to anything other than this reporter’s narration. Unfortunately.  What isn’t even raised in an article isn’t like to provoke a discussion of in the comments on the article, with some exceptions, and didn’t in these comments. The website notes that comments are closed after 42 days as policy.

Still, some of the comments — and the contents — raised enough more information I feel this might belong in a separate post.

None of this all should take too long.  I just want the information out near the recent post because it is related.

So, Revisiting Reunification Camps: The Nice Clinical Psychologists involved Just Want to Help Traumatized Kids and “Families in Transition” (or “Transitioning Families”), is a substantial post which documents how I discovered many connections showing the establishment of a basic “mental health archipelago” through the family court systems, and through which any protesting individual, mother, father, or child (and extended relatives, step-parents, grandparents, exes, new partners, etc.) could become involved and through which an agenda exists and is being implemented to order ENTIRE FAMILIES, ideally, into anti-brainwashing sessions, including “reunification camps” and “outpatient treatment” for having a different vocabulary and belief system than those endorsed by, specifically, those promoted by and/or through the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (or any of its, though not many exist, state chapters), when it comes to matters of the heart law.  Specifically the penal codes.

If you read through this post and the 2011 post (herein) it cites to, the AFCC connection is established.  It’s not really debatable.  The next question: how can an organization showing year after year minimal assets and revenues with chapters in fewer than one-third of the united states (and of those listed, many of them either not now operational, or so small they only file Forms 990-N) have been allowed to achieve disproportionate influence over the family courts?

Are there specific elements in society (global or domestic) behind this setup?  What does this situation say about whether or not our local justice systems are not just compromised, but possibly corrupt by design?  Why have not non-members (which I have to say, presumably would include most family law judges, family law professors, and most custody evaluators, too) pointed their fingers, when protesting policies clearly aligned with and promoted by AFCC, AT AFCC as an organization (as I have done for years now)?  Are these non-members going along with what appears to be a privately organized, and self-serving membership/oligarchy under forms of undue influence, being extorted or somehow threatened — or do they just not care?

Or, are possibly the revenues actually flowing through the chapters, members, and their multiple spinoff organizations and “goods & services” or publications, just invisible because they’re unreported?  I had this question years (about five years) ago regarding a training center for parent coordinators run by two women Ann Termini (of Lackawanna County, PA connections) and another Susan? Boyan, whose connection seemed to originate from Georgia.  The training website was up, but any registered entity, barely visible.  I posted all this on this blog.

(Checking back I see website “parentingCoordinationCentral.com” is still up, though doesn’t seem current, and referencing to contact either trainer (in GA or in PA) at their “Cooperative Training Institute.” The one in Georgia (corporations search: ecorp.sos.ga.gov/BusinessSearch) was formed Feb. 6, 2008, didn’t file in 2009, was warned in 2010, then administratively (involuntarily) dissolved in 2010. Registered agent “Purcell” is all that displays.. Meanwhile the “Cooperative Parenting Institute” websites featuring both states and women,remains up). Looking for “Officer” last name Boyan, I see that “National Parent Coordination Association, Inc.” formed (as a domestic nonprofit, the filing took only 3 pages) incorporated by Susan Boyan in Feb. 2002, was administratively dissolved by 2003 (reason, unknown), filed again the following May 2003, didn’t file again until 2005, and in 2010 was finally administrative dissolved.

Off-ramped the topic to a new post called:

I think in 2018, despite the turmoil and disturbances occurring pro/con around our new U.S. President, and his position on major world situations (such as recognizing Jerusalem as  the capital of Israel, and other matters almost too ongoing and too many to count), the question about the exact status and condition of the “Association of Family and Conciliation Courts” and the networks it’s part of and its members have helped sponsor, should be answered.  The ramifications would affect the national budget.  It also has to do with no-limits on nonprofit formations and no enforcement of standards (sufficient to stem illegal treatments) of them.

You cannot “make America great” while terrorizing about half its population who may have to undergo a family divorce or custody proceedings, and extorting a good portion of the same through “threat-therapy” with similarities to the Communist “re-education camps” in Viet Nam… My life goal isn’t, anyhow, to make America “great” but to make it safe to live and work in for myself, and for my children and future generations and particularly for women.

Being exposed again to the pervasive “presence” of these policies, and witnessing yet another round of “reunification camps” being financed and publicized, and around this holiday season, has definitely got me deeply considering the situation, and wanting to speak about it, even though it’s a season when all is supposed to be family, friendly, sweet, and inspiring support of the retail sector for gift-giving, connecting with distant friends and relatives (a thing not always possible for many family court “vets”), and being surrounded with persuasions to make things more warm, fuzzy, and pleasantly home-like. Or, get involved with the homeLESS in commiseration with them.  Or, for those in the performing arts, to perform, and those who participate as consumers (audience) to go see, hear, and enjoy the various media as they can.

I’m well aware this subject matter may be considered “unsuitable” for the season, however the situation is ongoing, it’s objectionable, and there isn’t enough objection to its infrastructure, I feel, being voiced.  One reason is that journalistic, anecdotal, and hearsay reporting, while it sells, draws reader, and is AN important component of investigating any system, it may not be the most important component.

Where are readers left after reading accounts of yet more children, for example, sent away to reunification camps (this post contains links to some more accounts), and more declarations from experts (pro/con to show “balanced reporting” of the same, depending on the media)??  What are readers expected to do after they wake up to the situation? Stand by in despair or confusion, stand by and say, “well, that’s one point of view, but who really knows the truth?” or what?  Say, “well, the authorities know what they’re doing..”

Reading again about the networks which are NOT being featured on most reports of the trouble or turmoil involved (case in point, for reunification treatments, or healing of families after long-term non-familial abduction and exploitation, such as Jaycee Dugard and her two children, and parents and relatives, endured while she was missing)… raises the feminist hairs on the back of my neck.  The prospects are chilling.

I’m going to sound off, then get down to the documentation part of this post.  To better identify which part is “sound-off” and which documentation, I’ll mark the sound-off part background-color the same red as borders to the other part (with green or black borders), then switch back. If you want to then skip it, just scroll down!

Anyhow, I said on that post, “Revisiting Reunification Camps: The Nice Clinical Psychologists involved Just Want to Help Traumatized Kids and “Families in Transition” (or “Transitioning Families”), in “protected spaces” (away from naysayers, critics, and potential negative witnesses) … It’s the Good Ole, Time-Tested, Court-Ordered and of course (™)’d Way [Publ. Dec. 21, 2017]..(finally!) (Case-sensitive shortlink ends “-8cC,”):

I started this on and as a post update to one I wanted to cite to (first published June 15, 2011, already with a 2016 update; apparently the topic retains its relevance…), but from slightly different angle of approach, as it explains in the first few paragraphs.

• Evaluate, Coordinate, call “Alienator!” Pt. 4– Three AFCC Ph.D.’s on ONE case and “PAS” = 2011 NH Supreme Court custody reversal. And what’s Warshak got to do with it? [First publ. June 15, 2011, not on blog TOC yet]. with WordPress-generated, case-sensitive shortlink ending “-JR”.  Publication date added to title later]. Originally about 11,200 words. Some image links have been broken, a few (not all) replaced later.

This is followup and because one cannot simply put everything into a single post. Some of the follow-up is new information to me — the NCMEC connection to Rebecca Bailey and Jaycee Dugard — but other parts are not.

I saw some more issues to bring to our attention after reading a 2017 article from Sonoma News on Rebecca Bailey’s involvement with the Jaycee Dugard case (and foundation, which I already knew), with references to Bailey’s involvement as a “go-to-resource” from “NCMEC,” which I hadn’t known, but which apparently introduced this loyal AFCC member and anti-alienation psychologists from the (larger) SF Bay Area to a just-recovered NON-family kidnap victim.

NCMEC (“missingkids.com”) stands for “National Center for Missing and Exploited Children” and this includes family abductions, it makes clear. I’d like to talk more about some of its current information at the bottom of this post.

My life was also upended, as followers of this blog probably picked up on by now, with a family abduction in the context of a “contentious” divorce, but on my part there was NO interference with court-ordered visitation.  My hopes that this would be a two-way street (i.e., that the standard would be compliance with court orders, and law enforcement, without legitimate evidence or protective orders indicating children were at real risk, or were being harmed) which the local county’s law enforcement would take as seriously as I did, were eroded, when my ex was allowed to drive off, NOT having a legitimate address registered with the court (which I’d brought up the prior year) and after having falsely claimed I was somehow an abduction risk, providing NO evidence of the same, and despite evidence that I’d just enrolled the children in school and signed a 12-month  lease, and was working in the area with professional and social connections there of many years.  And, unlike my ex, I had never threatened to, nor planned to, cut off his contact with the children, or abduct them with that purpose, although he had battered me pregnant and while we were married, and was an abuser.  I had been basically casting my hope on government entities to do their jobs, and protect me as an adult, and my children as minors, through, with me, taking a stand to enforce existing orders when they were being intentionally violated.

Theoretically, it shouldn’t matter that I was a woman and that most of the law enforcement involved (including those who facilitated parental interference, child-stealing, which later became abduction when it crossed a country border, and even later abandonment) were male.  In this country, women work, women vote, women help run businesses, and we engage in a variety of professions too — and we also have and raise children. Why should it not matter when orders protecting us or our children are routinely and chronically violated, but it matters apparently to the part of custody-switching and various other forms of cruel and unusual punishments when we (women, mothers) standing upright, say — this law, or that court order — should be enforced!!

Again, this was before I’d seen the depth of emotion and rhetoric behind the social science fields with the semi-religious conviction:  “Single mother, BAD.  Single noncustodial father, BAD.  Fix Now!  Single custodial FATHER with no contact with mother, OK especially if she’s got a problem with us not protecting the children, or enforcing court orders violated by Dad. (see recent post with the words “racist, sexist” in this — while sarcastic, this paragraph has substance behind them and distills the practice, generally).

I see now that California’s Child Abduction Unit requires the district attorneys to “get on this” when the children are taken — but they did not for me, and I got the clear sense that there was little concern for the family court orders favorable to me as a mother — but when it came to facilitating the chronic violation of them as possibly cause for contempt or any interference to STOP the “pre-emptive abduction” — they refused.

Into this mix comes the larger culture of calling out ‘alienation’ when the words the children, or other adults, have actually been calling out is “abuse.” The words “abuse” are like red flags to cause retaliation, and seem to indicate punitive action to be taken towards the parent OR if the children call it out, not the parent, the parent AND the children.

While there may be some overlap, this is a separate situation from the Garrido/Dugard kidnapping case, and from stranger kidnappings and/or rapes. Those are NOT in the context of the strange family court system of later 20th and early 21st century USA.

Link to Aug. 8, 2011 LA Times article here:

I was in the area when Jaycee Dugard was recovered, and believe me, many emotions surfaced on realizing the many missed opportunities for recovery of this horrible non-family abduction case were accompanied by a culture in the same general area (counties) towards single mothers such as myself who were fighting to stay grounded, employed, and in contact with our children, while the law enforcement said “not our problem — go back to family court..” and so did the District Attorneys, who were likewise more interested, it seems, in their local “family justice centers” and handling their own various scandals.

I’d like to say also that the situation broke when a woman security officer on the UC Berkeley campus noticed (what turned out to be Jaycee’s daughters) acting strangely around their kidnapper and (because he was also a rapist) biological father, Philip Garrido. That woman had said, “my mother’s instincts kicked in” to notice something out of context about the young girls’ behavior.  That attention, followed through on, led to their rescue — while, to the contrary, it seems that probation visits to the actual home where Jaycee was being forced to live in backyard tents and what probably looked like part of a homeless shelter, which had been HOME for her daughters growing up, as best of a home as she could make it, and where they were (by direction) led to believe that their actual mother was their much older sister….  After all, Garrido had his own wife, Nancy…

Here’s a link to (read the rest, although I’m providing one image) a July 2, 2010 Los Angeles Times article on the State of California’s $20 Million settlement with the Dugard family.  It notes that the state offered the settlement before lawsuit was filed, in an unusual move, and that the legislature voted in favor of it 70 to 2 and 30 to 2, in light of the unique situation of her captivity.  And that had it gone to trial, the state could’ve been liable for a whole lot more.

Jaycee Lee Dugard’s family will receive $20 million from the State of California.

Legislature OKs settlement for woman kidnapped and held for 18 years by Phillip Garrido, who fathered two children with her. The state was accused of failing to supervise the paroled rapist.

July 02, 2010|By Maria L. La Ganga and Shane Goldmacher, Los Angeles Times

…Nielsen acknowledged that the state could have faced legal liabilities “vastly beyond $20 million” if the case had gone to court. He lamented Dugard’s 18-year abduction and blamed the state’s correctional system for lapses that extended the young woman’s ordeal. | “It was a failure of the administration of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and their woeful disregard of statute and regulation,” he said….

Weinstein also praised Dugard, whom he described as “a truly remarkable young lady.” Weinstein spent a day with Dugard during the mediation process, and he said “she’s very sincere. She’s not angry and blaming.”  [retired San Francisco Judge Daniel Weinstein, who mediated…]

The settlement will be used to provide therapy for Dugard and her daughters and go toward their education, Weinstein said. Dugard’s schooling stopped when she was abducted at age 11; her daughters have never been to school. It also will provide an income for them for the rest of their lives.

In addition, “part of her money is going toward a foundation she’ll use to help others,” Weinstein said. “She’s very interested in helping other people in predicaments like hers…. She wants her experience to be instructive to other parole systems.”

The other point in this post I wanted to bring out was how Rebecca Bailey of Reunification Therapy (Transitioning Families) was being quoted back in 2015 in the Detroit Free Press (despite her practice located not in Michigan, but in California).  Bailey was not directly involved with the headline -making case in Oakland County, Michigan (and involving a father whose main job was in Israel), but she was quoted regarding it.

AND, “post-juvie detention” possibilities for three YOUNG (ages only 9 – 14) children ordered by an angry (female) Family Court Judge included specific reference to one associated with Richard Warshak, another modeled after it.  My related post is thorough enough on its own; this deals with more variables and adds some background color to the same topics. Read the post, see what you think…

The first part, also moved from the other post, presents a professional bio and some comments about the JayC Foundation before I get to the Sonoma Times article with photos of Bailey and Dugard together…

Transitioning Families is more than one professional (check website to see others), however, the JayC Foundation, formed by famous and horrible NON-family abductee Jaycee Dugard, which (note!) does post its EIN# (272878309) on footer, and which deals with reunification issues, cites Rebecca Bailey and Jane F. Dickel as “Advisory Committee” and the only website-identified advisory committee to the foundation (click “Board of Directors“).  Jane F. Dickel (Napa, Calif) seems to be the older of this pair of advisors, at nearly 50 years in the field. Rebecca Bailey’s “LinkedIn” profile, while emphasizing this last project and featuring her relationship to the JayC Foundation and Stable Paths (links below, operating in South Boston & Florida), also admits she’s active in AFCC, which is no surprise given the language used throughout program descriptions, and the program’s focus.  And claims to have been doing “Transitioning Families” since 2000 (although application for US Trademark only said first used in commerce “2010”).

Anyone who would be associated positively with this high-profile abduction for which a major settlement by the state was eventually ordered, would get a career boost for it — however, this was a NON-Family abduction.  2017 Article in the Sonoma Times mentions that Bailey got involved with Jaycee Dugard (whose abduction was a real, and a very long, nightmare) within days of her recovery, apparently through Bailey’s connection with NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) and was privately with her, with her mother and others, for two years:

Jaycee Dugard was abducted on her way to school near Lake Tahoe at age 11, rescued at age 29 from the Antioch backyard where she was imprisoned for 18 years, and today is 37 years old.

Glen Ellen psychologist Rebecca Bailey has been the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s go-to resource for families in crisis for more than a decade.

Within days of Dugard being reunited with her family in 2009, the Center phoned Bailey, and Dugard arrived at Bailey’s modest ranch in Sonoma Valley to begin the long process of recovery.

Bailey pulled together a team and spent two years actively working with Dugard, her mother, aunt, sister and two daughters. Amid the endless media coverage of the case at the time, the fact that they were in Sonoma was a secret that the community kept proudly. …

“Families typically arrive with very little,” explained Dugard. “My mom quit her job and moved to Sonoma with me right after I was freed. We had almost nothing.”

Dugard eventually received a settlement from the State of California, and today, Rebecca Bailey’s ongoing work with families in crisis is made possible in large part by Dugard’s JAYC Foundation.** ….

When Bailey was 11 years old, she herself was part of a high-conflict divorce.

**Later in the same article, contradicting this statement, Bailey says her bills are paid with “high conflict divorce” and her “therapy practice, Transitioning Families” not through the foundation (which was only formed in 2010)

Photos from that article show some of the media circuit:

#1 of (my) 3 from Sonoma County news (Oct 5, 2017) article, which had 12 photos. Jaycee is on the left/ the blond.

#3 of (my) 3 from Sonoma County news (Oct 5, 2017) article, which had 12 photos. ABC News.

#2 of (my) 3 from Sonoma County news (Oct 5, 2017) article, which had 12 photos. With Dr. Oz.

I’ve looked before at the JayC Foundation’s returns (there are some oddities, including continuing to claim expenses under “salaries” while stating there are no employees, being managed by someone in Los Angeles (preparer), and the largest expense item each year (under Part IX Statement of expenses) going to “Outside Services-Program” with no identified payees — as the amounts are under $100K and so don’t qualify for listing under Part VIIB, Independent Contractors (over $100K).  No board member is paid, Jaycee (President) is recorded at 5 hours a week, and the others for less than an hour a week’s work.  It sells pine cone jewelry, and periodically donates small amounts to what look like equestrian-related therapy nonprofits around the country (I saw NH, IN, among others). This foundation isn’t focus of this post, but its advisory committee shows connections to Transitioning Families.

I started this on and as a post update to one I wanted to cite to (first published June 15, 2011, already with a 2016 update; apparently the topic retains its relevance…), but from slightly different angle of approach, as it explains in the first few paragraphs.

• Evaluate, Coordinate, call “Alienator!” Pt. 4– Three AFCC Ph.D.’s on ONE case and “PAS” = 2011 NH Supreme Court custody reversal. And what’s Warshak got to do with it? [First publ. June 15, 2011, not on blog TOC yet]. with WordPress-generated, case-sensitive shortlink ending “-JR”.  Publication date added to title later]. Originally about 11,200 words. Some image links have been broken, a few (not all) replaced later.

A non-familial kidnapping is something quite different from a familial one.  It made national news (2015) when an angry (woman) judge ordered three children (one girl and two boys aged 9 – 14) to summer “Juvie camp” when they refused to have lunch with there Dad.  Follow-up says that she then tried to get them into Family Bridges (Warshak’s) reunification camp, while keeping a gag order on, but when they couldn’t get in there, considered another one modeled on it.  Read carefully –while this case reported in the Detroit Free Press doesn’t involve the featured “provider” here who runs Transitioning Families, and is involved also with “Stable Paths” (and the AFCC), she is quoted  and refers to both of them in how alienated family members can be “induced” to get along with each other…(which also may include preventing the “alienating” or “preferred” parent (such as a mother…) from having contact with them.  == As the judge apparently did in the Tsimoni case reported on, 2015, in this article.  And the oldest boy in this (Tsimoni) case was complaining about domestic violence, his father hitting his mother, and had witnessed it.  In this case, both parents were apparently successful professionals:

..a highly contentious divorce case that began more than five years ago between their father, Omer Tsimhoni, an internationally prominent traffic safety researcher and GM engineer who works frequently from a GM research lab in Israel, and their mother {named previously in article: “Dr. Maya Eibschitz-Tsimhoni,”}, a pediatric eye doctor and widely known glaucoma researcher who is an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Michigan and has an office in Canton.

In her divorce complaint, Eibschitz-Tsimhoni said that the couple married in Israel on Aug. 17, 1995, had three children between 2001 and 2005 and lived as a family in Ann Arbor until her husband accepted a job in Israel in November 2008 and moved there permanently.

Eibschitz-Tsimhoni said she was living in Bloomfield Hills in 2009 when she filed for divorce in Oakland County.

I excerpted the information above for the context…it’s from the article, though.

Judge jails kids for refusing lunch with dad.  July 9 2015, in the Detroit Free Press (“freep.com”) by Bill Laitner.

The children were sent to a juvenile detention facility for defying her orders — while in court — that they go to lunch with their father.

Three Oakland County children who refused to go to lunch with their father, as part of a bitter divorce and custody battle between their parents, are spending their summer in the county’s juvenile detention center, according to court records.

“We’ll review it when school starts, and you may be going to school there,” Oakland County Family Court Judge Lisa Gorcyca told the children during a June 24 hearing, referring to the center in Waterford Township called Children’s Village, where authorities house as many as 200 juvenile offenders.

Gorcyca, who blamed their mother for poisoning the children’s attitude toward their father, ordered the children be sent to the center for defying her orders — while in court — that they go to lunch with their father. The children — ranging in age from 9 to 14 — were deemed in contempt of court last month by Gorcyca for disobeying her orders to “have a healthy relationship with your father.”

Linked from that article leads to one that quotes Dr. Rebecca Bailey, above.  I’m posting this because among the businesses she and many colleagues are in is re-unification to correct “parental alienation” where there has been claimed abuse or violence in the home as committed by the parent they are resisting seeing, as the Tsimoni boy reported here, too.

Juvie center where 3 kids sent ‘no Mother Goose’s house’ L.L. Frasier, Detroit Free Press, 7/9/15.

The Tsimhoni children are in Mandy’s Place, a 44-bed building designed for abused or neglected children, that is not locked down.

…Gorcyca has repeatedly said that she believes the mother has brainwashed the children into rejecting their father and was clearly angry that the children were not following her orders to reconcile when she ordered them into custody. ..

The county-run facility also includes children the courts consider dangerous:

The village houses up to 240 kids, including those the courts consider dangerous, as well as those requiring intensive rehabilitation for mental illness, addictions and social and emotional problems…{{But these children were in a part which is not locked down, for abused and neglected children, “Mandy’s House..”}} …

There is no cable television. There is no Internet access. There are no cell phones or iPads. And children cannot accept incoming calls. Out going calls, when allowed, are monitored. …For the Tsimhoni children, there are even more limitations. The judge has ordered that their mother, and any of her family members, be prohibited from seeing the children.

(having seen this page once, it was really hard to find it again from within the related articles on the same publication.  I went back to Google search; this is a “cached” version of an August 10, 2015 article, with photos, which part I was looking for in setting up this post in the first place:

Judge seeks to reunite dad, kids who were sentenced to camp

…Court records say Family Bridges was “unable to accommodate” the family but does not say why. And Warshak, likely because of the gag order, is not saying.

“As you can tell from my website, normally I welcome speaking with the media about psychology topics, including parental alienation and its remedies,” Warshak said in an e-mail to the Free Press seeking an interview. “However I cannot speak with you for your piece regarding the case you mentioned.”

The judge is now considering sending the family to Families Moving Forward, a Toronto-based program similar to Family Bridges, staffed with psychologists and clinical social workers skilled in handling family conflict. The program bills itself as a “multi-day intervention with separated families when children resist contact with a parent.”

Those who run similar programs, and experts on high-conflict divorces, say the method generally works well when children are severely alienated from a parent, oftentimes at the instigation and encouragement of the other parent during and after a divorce.

“It’s really to gently recalibrate the child’s beliefs about the targeted parent, by exposing them to a safe environment to let that kid open his or her heart to that parent,” said Dr. Amy J.L. Baker, a psychologist and researcher who has been studying parental alienation for decades. She is the author of several books, including “Co-parenting with a Toxic Ex” and “The High Conflict Custody Battle.”

“There is no shaming or name-calling or anything like that,” Baker said. “There is a great emphasis on face-saving, and giving the kids the skills they need to resist the strategies of the other parent. These programs can be very, very promising. I’ve spoken to people who have been through them who found them incredibly helpful.”

In the Tsimhoni case, the judge, court-ordered psychologists and the children’s attorney, William Lansat, say the mother has worked to hamper the relationship between the children and their father.

And here’s the section quoting Rebecca Bailey.  Two others were quoted as “skeptics” citing concerns about domestic violence and “perhaps it’s time we listened to the kids.  (just two, and at the very bottom of the article, though).

Dr. Rebecca Bailey, a clinical and forensic psychologist, founded Transitioning Families and runs programs in Sonoma, Calif., and Miami. She says she sees almost immediate improvement the first day, particularly if family members are working on a project together, like cooking dinner.

“You get people in the kitchen, you can get them talking,” she said. Her program in Miami,** called Stable Paths, includes several horses, to be used in equine therapy. The family stays nearby but works with the horses on-site.

Soon, family members are focused on the horses — and not their own pain — opening the door for communication. Like Family Bridges, the parent who was encouraging the alienation does not usually attend.

“Sometimes, the favored parent has to get out of the picture,” she said. Some programs recommend that the favored parent be kept from the children for several months following the intensive therapy.

It’s unclear whether “Stable Paths” is “her program.” It appears to be using, however, her concepts and acknowledges this.