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

MY Concerns about the July 21, 2019, Collective Memo of Concern to WHO about (‘What else?’ – parental alienation!) [Aug. 28, 2019]  (shortlink ends “-aSg” and this is indeed shorter, at about 3,500 words.  After Aug. 29 update, now still under 6,000 words)…

In explaining why I used the word “emerged” another section, miraculously spontaneously (? hardly..) “emerged” on the top of this post.  I, the author, blog administrator, and human being who decided to put it in there under no outside pressure, just as a matter of choice, had nothing to do with it, which structuring sentences to read “such and such emerged” implies… The programs have no real proponents, all was just a natural progression from grass roots local (?? really??) demands, and as such shouldn’t really be challenged….So the next time you see the word “emerged” (even if characterized as a response to, in the context of social services, or abuse-prevention or criminal justice improvement programs) look closer!  Typically there are human actors behind the natural occurrence…and with them, typically a profit or business model and motive beyond the sales pitches.  Sometimes not far below the surface, although some digging for the data will be necessary….

**(That’s a joke in case you haven’t been reading enough literature about how theories and practices, concerns and psychological beliefs about the cause-and-effect relationship of human [parenting or co-parenting] behaviors mysteriously “emerge” throughout the family court systems in various countries to see how often the word “emerge” is used as a substitute for the underlying truth of who lobbied for what and how…).  Let alone the batterers intervention program from Boston called “Emerge.”

…Emerge is one of 17 certified programs in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, programs such as Emerge are called Batterer Intervention, but we try to be clear that this terminology does not speak to the services we provide.

The term “batterer” often has very negative connotations and is typically defined as someone who repeatedly physically abuses their partner. In fact, many people who have come to Emerge report that they have not been physically abusive, but have been quite emotionally, verbally or psychologically abusive. Despite the fact that these forms of abuse are not physical in nature, we challenge group members to recognize that they are still harmful and in fact can destroy relationships.

People coming to Emerge are asked to recognize how they have chosen such behavior as a pattern in their relationships and families and how those choices have harmed others.

Approximately 20% of clients at Emerge are self-referred, although we still see many people who are referred by the court systems or through child protective services (Department of Children and Families).

Does 20% (of how many “clients” in what timeframe?) + “many people” referred through one of only two other named sources = 100%?

20% of what, regarding when? Are there any hard (absolute) numbers (total people run through programs [starts vs. completes], calling for help, stepping in the door for informational interviews, submitting their emails to find out more, etc.) attached to any time frame (like last year, meaning 20__ __?)

The Dangers of Derailment from “First Things First!” in Family (and Conciliation) Court Reforms to Save Children from Violent Parents (and/or Prevent or End Violence Against Women)(+/- Aug. 20, 2019) (short-link ending “-aJX”)…

This segment post ‘previews’ that post, although technically speaking, I published it Aug. 24,  making it more of a review,

while “Reform, Solutions, Enhancements, Adjudication Improvements Built on WHAT?“,

as of Aug. 28 is still in draft

My post Dangers of Derailment from First Things First‘s strong international component ties into the top two sticky posts on  FamilyCourtmatters.org and my current interests and concerns as an investigative blogger.

I’d love to have stopped at the US border in explaining why the state-based family courts are so dangerous, but it’s clear those protesting child abuse, domestic violence, and claiming to represent the best interests of women in my class (by description of what we’ve gone through) and our children (also exposed to it growing up), have no intention of restricting their operations and solutions to just one country for application (and publication).

It’s obvious that the “end” (prevent, stop, etc.) violence against women movement/s overlap because we have family courts with the family court reform movement/s and these have already been organizing, publishing, and publicizing shared beliefs and values internationally.  So what’s being done in that realm impacts people, potentially long-term and for future generations, in their home countries (whether or not we are dealing with an international marriage, child-abduction, parental interference situation or not).

Where the “protect children from abuse” aspect is factored in, it gets complicated because both women’s rights (“EVAW”) and fathers’ rights movements have claimed that same turf as a social, moral high ground, but (separately) my explorations show (beyond dispute) that, when not facing off in public, they often share funding, backing and at times even programming, as well as often enough, even values, and have made a point of their collaboration.  But this is not brought up, apparently to women clients receiving services from the DV organizations — nor is it shown on their websites, for the most part (as to the ones organized and federally funded — i.e., controlled through financial dependency — in the USA).

So I discussed some of the recent evidence. Most of it is a drill-down (as far as just one post could contain) on two documents.

Addressing the international character of the “parental alienation” (pro/con PAS) debate as the “only game in town” for family court reform when addressing violence against women and children IN the family courts this time I quote and focus on some self-identified, networked violence against women centres, collaborative ventures and/or partnerships located in Canada.

The collective/respective/collaborative/international assemblage of concerned family court experts declared to WHO in public (by posting it) a Collective Memo of Concern (“Memo”) about the inclusion of  “parental alienation” (for short here, “PAS”) in the ICD (International Classification of Diseases)-11 as a parent-child relationship disorder.

The July, 2019, Memo and a related “Brief on Bill C-78” document, found on a House of Commons website, undated but apparently written sometime between spring or summer 2018 and Summer (June 21) 2019, by the Memo’s  lead author**, both present “to the contrary” PAS arguments, both quote US DV advocacy groups known to be taking federal grants as part of the US response to domestic violence, and (at least Memo) near the top, Cafcass-sponsored authors from Wales, and both have some odd, quirky qualities to the footnotes, often overlapping cites.

You can read full the post. Here, I’m just showing a few images and explaining again on THIS post why I find it so alarming.

I found it deeply disturbing along many lines (less that the inclusion of PAS is being protested than how it’s done, and the information NOT raised at such an opportune moment by the same people). As some of the collective entities and websites involved were new to me, I have also been exploring them: because people so integral to what’s happening in the USA are synchronized with (yet) another country to control this discussion and drive it in a certain manner (only). Viewers are apparently supposed to pick one side or the other in this international debate (and many have) but I’m here to say there is another, UNidentified side, habitually, historically ignored as/when these debates go public.

In my experience, none of these experts quoted are going to voluntarily deal with that other perspective, side, or the collective, ongoing, mutual (both sides of the PR debate) acts of omitting basic, critical-to-understanding-the-situation information (and so better comprehend its scope and nature) on websites the public is likely to view.  It’s possible, if not likely, there’s also an intent to withhold this information from future mentored generations of lawyers, social workers, or advocates, but on that I’m less sure speaking of other countries than I am in the USA.   Where the focus is on “experiential” learning, that learning is by example.  The example being set, from what I see on-line, is censorship of the discussion by omission of identifying organization names.

That’s why, and I’m a mother who survived domestic violence in the home, followed by the family courts,  I continue to blog it.

Many footnote formats (in two official documents I featured in the “Dangers of Derailment from First Things First” Aug. 24 post are irregular and some contents inaccurate: missing key identifying information. In general they are also excessively (a value judgment I realize) repetitive — “supra” this, “ibid.” that.  For a formal memo and a formal reply brief by a (then-) professor with a doctorate (Dr. Linda C. Nielson) in which footnotes occupied so much space, I’d expect better quality control and more forethought into the layout.

A closer look would really untangle them all, put ’em in a chart form and show who, in fact, is being quoted.  I’ve considered doing this for an exhibit of just what the “supporting evidence” to the arguments is — evidence presented by collective signers including I believe lawyers from at least three different countries, FIVE different universities, several referencing Law School faculty, involved in the presentation!  (See Memo, Footnote 1 list of involved experts & signers, next image):

(Footnote 1 shows) In Canada: University of New Brunswick, University of Ottawa, University of British Columbia, Western University in London, Ontario.  In the USA: George Washington University, Washington, D.C.  In Israel:  Bar-Ilan University.  Because the image isn’t that clear, I’ll point out a semi-colon “;” after DV LEAP, limiting “with the support and assistance of” for Dr. Nielson to one person.  However, there are signs of collaboration among at least the Canadian references when the CREVAWC website is explored further.

What concerns me (besides the content and the withholding of key information from the conversation, the footnotes and thus, essentially, from the public who may read this — and it’s posted at a large university website in Western Ontario) is how academics, in presenting something to a global body such as the World Health Organization, would not make sure to engage a few copy-editors and proofreaders and adhere to some sort of style chart.  They could’ve!  They’re surrounded with students interested in the cause, many of the signers are obviously employed, and the project posting this presumably also has a budget.  What does that negligence say of the attention to detail in their own research  even if it’s just in format a “Memo“?

(This summary doesn’t mention all examples; see the post for more specifics).

Are we (the parents being so advocated for, women and mothers mostly) being set up for failure and ridicule by this? In other words, how is not building on truly solid ground when such ground may exist, and not even structuring their arguments in a copyedited, proofread (and sensible) format, not setting others up for a fall?  It doesn’t take an advanced degree to proofread a Memo (text) and footnotes!  The amount and nature of errors and slip-ups is distracting, some more overt than others.  

Some I didn’t catch until including another image and magnifying its print during a post update:  the word “country” for “county.”  Omission of an issue or volume number.  Omission of a known date of publication (in a mainstream media piece). Getting the name of the publisher (where a nonprofit) wrong, not to mention quoting a nonprofit which barely existed for a year or so twenty years back.  Getting author’s last name (a time or two) wrong, by a single letter, and so forth.

How would such messiness work in an actual physical battle with lives at stake; in wartime?  Would it not increase the likelihood of casualties?

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ISSUES in the PRESENTATION/s: <>Repetition ad infinitum also seems a tactic (or practice), as well as <>piling long, disorganized (not by date, not, it seems, by relevance, or alpha by author) lists of cites into single, fine-print footnotes, typos, missing-info-and-all and — collectively, it seems — <>not even caring how legit the publishers are; <>adding in mainstream media reports, and all the while <>avoiding mentioning (even once!) a key organization which is outside this circle known to be part of the problem but which, likely, many of those reporting are members of or working with.

Again, the content/discussion standard seems to be — it’s OK to mention NCJFCJ in this context, not just AFCC. When quoting two 2018, Cafcass-sponsored pieces (Footnote 3, lead author cited Julie Doughty), with at least one piec of information missing (Volume/Issue#!) citing a piece I can’t even access — it doesn’t seem to be public domain, but I can read the description of it which clearly references “Funders: Cafcass-Cymru” (I detailed in the post), while technically it’s not incorrect  to fail to reference “Cafcass,” referencing instead just the government (because Cafcass-Cymru, in this case, is in fact part of the government of Wales (England has Cafcass without the suffix), that omission — with omission of the issue number also — neatly obscures a Cafcass connection which might lead sentient, awake observers of the groups aware of the Cafcass/AFCC hookups, right back to AFCC in the US.

In Canada, since the 1970s, the “London Family Court Clinic, Inc.” (a nonprofit) seems to function in a vaguely parallel role to both of the above — just not part of government (as is Cafcass) but taking grants from it.  I’m working on that post, separately. This plays into the theme of “Coordinated Community Response” (to social problems, including violence against women).

Again, these individuals in Footnote 1, Memo likely know about both Cafcass and the AFCC; what’s unclear to me is how much the Canadians (and Ms. Halperin-Kaddari) know about what we in the US have unearthed about the nature and character of the nonprofit called, for short, “AFCC” and its involvement in driving policy in the family courts in which so many problems continue to surface, decade by decade (starting probably only in the 1990s in the USA).

Journal of Child Custody and “IVAT” at Alliant:

Another key association visible “behind the cites” in there (especially with quotes — separate document and this one — of Robert Geffner in the Journal of Child Custody, is the non-entity (it’s a dba of another one), “IVAT,” the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma.  (Searchable on this blog; I posted on it at least as far back as 2014), originating in (Tyler), Texas, moved in 1999 to southern California.

Journal of Child Custody|Editorial Board (Taylor&Francis) Geffner Editor, staff heavily IVAT, (Alliant Univ etc) (<~~This pdf was taken from the website about a year ago: May, 2018; I also annotated it then or before.  A number of AFCC members seem to be (but not so identified)  on the list.) **

(**On that pdf, I just noticed one editor, “Ronald Stolberg, PhD” (at Alliant) was listed as “Core Facility.”  That sounded like a substitution for “Core Faculty” which, it turns out, it was.  This journal is published by “Taylor & Francis, an Informa Group” and (scroll down to the bottom of that pdf), at least as of May, 2018, registered in England and Wales, despite most of the editors and the editor in chief here being based in Southern California at an unusual university which specializes in Psychology and underwent many mergers around the turn of this century into its current state.

Robert Geffner, overall background, and structuring of IVAT/FVSAI at Alliant International(?) University in San Diego, looked at closer, is an interesting (strange) guy… but the focus on trauma and, as a consequence, on the specialty area of forensic psychologists, is a favorite and ongoing theme of the family court reform advocates, several of who show up on the board of editors there, as I marked. FVSAI (EIN# 752401334, Geffner, San Diego) Char Details No Founding Dox shown, highest year ca 2001-02 (and RRFs, IRS forms not uploaded for those years).  I am not prepared to fully explain this in the middle of another post, but have discussed it with some others (knowledgeable in general) and it’s likely to come up soon in its own right.  That whole situation, for many years, has seemed so puzzling an emphasis in the family court reform circles.  Sometimes it takes time for awareness to sink in, or for (me to) run across the missing pieces of the puzzle on some related search, or double-checking things I’d checked a few years back.

RE: Critiquing the “trauma” focus. I understand trauma is real, has a major impact; I have been repeatedly traumatized, first by a batterer, second, through the family court systems, and since then until and since I became a senior, by other family members who litigated against me each time I sought to retain just enough safety zone to preserve my professional work life.  

I was harassed (safety-wise) and traumatized (PTSD-wise) out of that profession, as well as driven out when unable to responsibly guarantee to my clients (some young children, which meant, to their parents; others were adults) they’d be safe, or I’d be able to show up trauma-free in a leadership/performance capacity, which at the time, I was in.

Within barely the last year, I felt it necessary to flee the area, after having been first forced out of a rental lease and held (again, more litigation was generated, improperly and without a legitimate cause) unable to get into another one, for nearly three years (in-state; it was three years if while in transition is counted), wasting limited resources for no good reason. [See Footnote “ANECDOTAL: “Yes, I get “Trauma,“ Footnoted below to avoid any mis-statements which might conceivably, inadvertently, compromise me legally in the future if I got a phrase or timeline out of sequence, resulting in an unintended yet on the fact of it, untrue, characterization].

So I’m not saying trauma isn’t real, a health issue, a problem, or result from chronic, ongoing, family court proceedings (let alone the abuse which accompanies or proceeds many of them), or that it doesn’t need to be addressed.  

I’m just saying that focus may and has distracted people from systematically following the money (which requires in part following certain tax-exempt organizations and their networked connections) and actually, having made that a habit, more closely considering the original blueprints of the family courts and their designers.  

Talking so much about trauma are often as professionals dealing in fields which propose solutions and treatments for it. https://www.isst-d.org | https://www.istss.org (see the “History” page with references to when the DSM-I and DSM-II came out, “gross combat stress” (Vietnam era) and “PTSD” which it predicts will sooner or later also disappear from the DSM.  Political correspondences with diagnoses, etc.) | https://www.aces.me.uk | [in the US:] ChildWelfare.gov/…Resources/ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences) (etc.)

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So, to summarize the preview of this other (interim) post, here’s that link and title again:

The Dangers of Derailment from “First Things First!” in Family (and Conciliation) Court Reforms to Save Children from Violent Parents (and/or Prevent or End Violence Against Women)(+/- Aug. 20, 2019) (short-link ending “-aJX”)…