Published “WYSIWYG.”  The “ReadMore” link will be much closer to the top in a day or so. Revisions for basic copyediting and for better flow likely to continue over the next few days. The theme is important and timely; thank you for tolerance of the initial version in my voicing my concerns. //LGH.

THIS POST IS: Coercive Control and Co-Opted Conversations in Connecticut (Rutgers Professor Evan Stark, his wife Yale MD, Ann Flitcraft, Serial Global BIP Entrepreneur(?), Safe&Together’s David Mandel) = LGH’s FrontPage Sept. 2, 2019 Subsection #2 (Short-link ends “-aUL,” published Sept. 7, ca. 7,500 words):

“BIP” – Batterers Intervention Program”

I’d said and I still feel that:

…Many of us who’ve lived with in-home violence (rarely restricted to the home environment only) could “write the book,” on coercive control, probably without that label.   Some have written their own personal accounts, but the moment this goes into “the conference circuit” that’s not really in good company — and without the travel budget (etc.) impossible to keep up with AND manage one’s own life AND continuing research.

I say, why MUST we support all these professions which then have networked nonprofits, publications, policies and of course RoundTables with people basically in agreement with SOME of the basics — like the health paradigm, coordinated community response, and in general sticking the public with if not the costs of domestic violence, the costs of treating and “preventing” it…?  And why must “father-engagement” be central to all forms of abuse prevention, whether in child welfare services, or in the family courts, in child support agencies, in prison/re-entry situations — at all points?

 

While the term “Coercive Control” now has specific meanings, including a legal one in the UK (since it  became an official crime in 2015), I’m also using it to describe a type of coercion in those co-opted conversations (around the field of domestic violence and protection from abuse, stopping violence against women, etc.).  Hopefully by the end of this post, readers will understand that co-opting conversations in these fields exists; that there are “on the table” and “off the table” topics, with certain career academics in certain fields (particularly sociology and psychology) and their backers making the call. And that this is an effective form of coercion, to cut-off other plausible explanations of why it seems just SO hard to stop violence against women, and to explain the behaviors of the family court systems, here and abroad.

Doing so is morally and ethically wrong, although probably not legally wrong, that it’s been chronic in this field since “domestic violence” became a word, that is, just about from the start.

Note:  laws against battering women and protests of it is not synonymous with the usage of the term “domestic violence” and development of a major state-funded industry around it, a key part of which includes NOT talking about the state-funded marriage/fatherhood/family values” industry.

One analogy for the word “table” above would be “roundtable.”  There have been major round-table conferences and/or consultations on this topic (some even called that); defining features of any RoundTable are who convenes it, who is or is not invited to present, and where they occur.  Also who sponsors them.

Publications catering to fields and professions (i.e., research, publication, practice etc.) which rely so heavily on state (i.e., government) funding also impact what ideas are and are NOT in significant circulation.

PREVIEW

(Up front: more text, my voice.  Below: more pictures, links, and quotes)

Most of this post was previously published on my main (Front) page for at least a year.  I removed it on Labor Day, (Monday, Sept. 2, 2019) to condense that page.

On finding new information since adding this segment to the Front Page (in January or as late as December, 2018), i.e. especially since obtaining my copy of Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life book, (<~~that link is to a title search so you can see where it’s being promoted (notice url domain names..including “global.OUP.com”) New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2007, hereafter “the Coercive Control Book”), ….

…based on this new information and on general principles (reviewing some of my existing links,** and my ongoing awareness of the expansion of this field internationally, and from all of the above, my perspective about a year and a half later), I decided to develop this post further before publishing and to prioritize publishing it first among the many (about six or seven) other Front Page extracts which became separate posts now in draft.

In other words, it’s not going to be just a “block-copy, paste, re-publish as a separate post” project!

To completely distinguish previously published (2018) and my progressive updates since (Sept. 2 – 7, 2019) is probably impossible, but I’ll leave several indicators throughout the post below.

**(Especially from a long post, of Stark’s testimony January 2016 on a Connecticut Task force on Children Exposed to Violence).

I posted some of the new (to me) information on the Front page (pending publication of this post first among all the (about six) off-ramped sections during a “massive edit”) because I believe people deserve to have it brought to their attention promptly. Coercive Control conferences continue.  People have been arrested for violating the new (2015ff) law against it in the UK, there is  plenty of social media “buzz” around the theme.

IF there is major co-opted conversation, any censorship, or significant reporting gaps in those from the USA running (personally or professionally and in publications as only the internet and certain types of academic journals can do…) to the UK and elsewhere pushing programming, the “left-behind” sector in THIS country more acutely aware of how this field was set up and run — and what elements are historically omitted from its history — that information should be publicized, however imperfectly, as fast as possible.

Such reporting is, I’d say, right now about THIRTY YEARS behind in awareness.  Mathematically speaking, given the distribution and publication networks and proliferation of DV organizations and university centers (or “Centres” as it applies),  for every professional who claims “30 years experience” there are probably many more individuals who have 10, 20, or 30 years “in your face” experience off exactly what “coercive control” looks and acts like. Many of (us) HAVE been speaking out all along– but we cannot keep pace with Oxford University Press, Sage Publications, Wiley On-line (Taylor & Francis) AND government-sponsored “Centers” at various universities, or simply on their own specialized websites ending “*.org” in the USA, or “*.org.UK” or *.co.UK” etc. …

Unlike the academic professionals, many of us continue to get killed off over time (“roadkill,” or some of the children do). I’ve read of various professionals dying of old age or cancer (Schechter, Pence, others) but not so many being murdered, jailed, extorted or being full-time occupied in economic survival from onslaughts (so to speak) via the family court systems. That is a genuine hindrance. This doesn’t seem to slow down others publication and conferencing while we are so occupied, speaking for myself and others I have known over the years.

So, built-in “institutional” issues include access to funding and of course, access to media (which requires generally, access to funding).  How many ideas are being squeezed out of consideration simply because those with better financial incentives and job stabilities for the respective authors (pardon me for making this reference again, but with  existing PhDs, JDs, and so forth) to NOT talk about what I’ve been blogging about for ten years now?  And what I am a witness was basically unearthed (at least the basics of it) a minimum of twenty years earlier (that is, 1999)? And if you include Liz Richards (NAFCJ.net) claim of having started in 1993, make that about twenty-seven years.

Having done that, now I’m working to get this post out so I can in good conscience shorten the footprint (some quotes, links, and discussion of the “new information”) left behind) making sure nothing is lost in the move.

Sept. 7 comments (appear periodically):

A Matter of Principles: I will continue also to highlight, where I see it and as I can, how the domestic violence movement in the USA from the start (if the late 1970s/early 1980s may be generally called “the start”) has been and continues to be entwined with the concept of “batterers’ intervention’ (primarily male behavioral modification psycho-educational programming as a specialized, public-subsidized profession, with associated membership societies, overlapping in many places with (a) groups like ‘Supervised Visitation Network’ and (b) Like the SVN, with close and significant overlap with leadership and activist members of the AFCC.)  At all points, it seems, this programming will be supported as policy with public funds, and will typically also be charging (sliding scale or otherwise) fees to people ordered to attend.

Sept. 2, comments (except where otherwise marked):

Obviously I’m having compressed-title issues. I just can’t coerce enough content into short-form to express the problem with what, on the surface, sounds like a wonderful guy (Evan Stark) who seemingly “gets it” on domestic violence and has made it a career and publishing curve in the USA and ‘Across the Pond’ and wherever else the trademarked term has become public policy, or the book with this term is marketed and promoted (etc.).

Unfortunately what he didn’t get is how unfair it is to battered women and children to take it on the conference circuit, refer to the USA while in England, to England and Wales while in the US, to NJ while testifying in Connecticut, and ALL the while ignoring, what he’s certainly well aware of, including that:

• The fatherhood movement is entrenched into welfare reform
• Connecticut’s longstanding “Fatherhood Initiative,” related, is embedded at the state level.
• Organizations like AFCC and its long-standing interest in organizations like Cafcass and aligning practice across national borders, despite the US not being subject to the same form of government (or having ratified the UN CRC — quite relevant here) actually exist.

(“Cafcass” is a searchable term.  If you’re reading this post, you have internet access…utilize it!)

Begins Sept. 7 comments##

The omission of these realities forces me to talk about them and say:

• No logical, rational, complete or even halfway honest discussion of: the family courts, child safety within them, domestic violence, or batterers’ intervention** , and child safety impacted by family court decision-making is complete at least in the USA without admitting to (at a minimum) the three bulleted points above.

• This level of coverup for this long is an insult to abused women/battered mothers, and in general women everywhere — but particularly in the USA, where “welfare reform” was passed in 1996, VAWA in 1994, and before that the state involvement in “family violence prevention” as an add-on amendment to Child Abuse Protection and Treatment Act, i.e., the “FVPSA” in 1984.
• Writing any history of this movement to stop domestic violence and continuing to recommend/advocate for future policy omitting such major elements, while I wouldn’t quite call it “fraud” — where the existing contents are reported accurately — does bring up the adjective “fraudulent” unless the excuse can somehow be made “they just didn’t know,” which then raises the issue of “the blind guides.”  If they DID know, but somehow the significance just didn’t register, the issue then becomes, why didn’t they report
• Continuing failure of most people to figure out which it is just “kicks the can down the road” year after year.  Done over time, make that, “a generation or two more” than it already has been.

One reason I’ve chosen Connecticut in the post title — besides that it’s home to Yale University and the John S. Martinez Fatherhood Initiative (which website contains a CRS (Congressional Research Service) non-partisan summary of fatherhood legislation over the years by (I believe) Carmen Solomon-Fears, and, it seems briefly (if “existing” means, legitimately registered as an entity) a state chapter of the AFCC, and Connecticut’s Middlesex Statewide (“Regional”) Docket (for high-conflict custody decision-making) which was presided over by AFCC-affiliated individuals (both Judge and supporting persons) — and that’s quite a bit on its own — and historically like all states, it has a state-based “Coalition Against Domestic Violence” (not particularly raising consciousness about the previous situations, as most DV organizations taking HHS (and DOJ?) grants just do not) — is that Connecticut also seems to have been home base for David Mandel, and historically through a DVTP (DV Training Project?) and more (comes up in the links below) Evan Stark.

I lived in California for decades and am a formerly battered mother who’s been fighting for basics throughout those decades; who was isolated overnight from her own offspring despite no criminal complaints or history of CPS involvement or even risky behavior when their father chose to disobey both a standing, and a recently (within last few days) re-affirmed family-court custody order stating with whom the (still-)minor children should continue to live. If I am aware of these things, UNpaid, how is it that academics with (presumably) either ongoing pay or a pension of some sort — and book royalties, probably speakers’ fees where it applies — are not?  How dissociative can key leadership become, and to what degree is this spread upon (their respective) followers and adherents? Stark had a Fullbright Scholarship:  There’s no an issue of basic intellectual capacity here, so it must be other explanations why this consistent level of omission.

Connecticut is also, it seems, a very wealthy state or at least home to some very wealthy people (see “Westport”; it’s within commuting distance of NYC, and it holds a historically male-dominant Ivy League university which didn’t admit women as undergraduates until the 1970s!!  Nearby Massachusetts (Boston, Harvard), same deal.

## (From “## to here are Sept. 7, 2019 comments as I continue to consider the policy landscapes, existing organizations, etc.) Click “Read More” to view original extract (more images, links and quotes) and more, below.

On moving this from my front “HomePage” Labor Day (Monday, Sept. 2, 2019),** I read again all the way through one of the links I’d provided (Evan Stark’s testimony January 2016 on a Connecticut Task force on Children Exposed to Violence, posted, a long post (Thank you!) by the administrator of DivorceInConnecticut.blogspot.com) and was reminded again of how he still came out of the batterers’ intervention philosophy and movement and remained apparently influential in the same.

Like many men concerned about this topic, it seems the concept of NOT having batterers’ intervention (and NOT going on international conference circuits with their books, programs, curricula, etc.) never comes up in his discussions.

Nor, it seems does EVER dealing with why we even have family courts (which itself would lead to some valuable information explaining better why they behave as they do).  On this read-through, it again “got to me” how entrenched this paradigm (complete with the major missing pieces) is now.

(There’s still more which the “Coercive Control” book itself reveals that an outside look wouldn’t.//LGH comment added Sept. 6).

I’m also going to order the 1996 book below.  It shows major effort and diligence in what it does report. Please notice who published it (and where:  that’s “SAGE Publications”) and that the publication was time, as it happens with the passage of Welfare Reform in the US (1996).

And who some of the key influences were upon his thinking and the husband/wife (sociologist/physician) hard work which produced, in 1996, the above book, according to the partial Amazon preview available above.

Sept. 7, 2019 comments (added material about the above book, and links to it) (my original Front Page section had, as I recall, no reference to this book):

I found the book as shown above on Amazon first as part of another search result, probably for Dr. Ann Flitcraft only, as I see less on her than on Stark.  However searching the book title and both author’s names, this was the fifth search result.

(I wrote, then off-ramped more detail on this just now):
POST FOR NOW IS CALLED: ‘Women at Risk: Domestic Violence and Women’s Health’ (SAGE: 1996, authors Stark, Flitcraft) — 8 Google Search Results for the Same (started Sept. 7, 2019) short-link ends: “-b0R” (middle character “0”is a zero, not an “O” as in Ohio) under 3,000 words.

=========[End Sept. 7 added material section on the 1996 book, above]

Now that I think about this, specifically Connecticut’s AFCC Chapter made headlines about five years ago for operating unregistered out of the judiciary. A big “stink” was made about it, with competent testimony and a crackerjack investigative journalist (Anne Stevenson) on the job; a GAL appointment to the judiciary was challenged; the abuse of a little boy whose MOTHER was put on supervised visitation was exposed. I blogged it, others blogged it — we women certainly knew about this at the time.  Given the heavy overlap of material (i.e., with child abuse and domestic violence and the family courts), how could this NOT be on Stark’s and Mandel’s radar to report?

Around the same time (2011-2012) another movement generated by, admittedly, leadership with some mental health “clout” (I.e., Nicholas J. Cummings, former head of Kaiser Mental Health) whose foundation sponsored an “Our Broken Courts Conference” and publicized the mutual sudden shock about the state of these courts (about fifteen years after they were set up in some quarters?), which “expose” was echoed East Coast and West Coast (USA) among battered mothers advocates, including those with a presence at or around the “battered mothers’ custody conference” (held since 2003 in NY; in 2013 a mini-conference was held instead in Washington, D.C., hosted, as I recall, by DV LEAP (Legal Education and Advocacy Project) at George Washington University.

Where this gets more interesting is how the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, which comes up below, seems to have also been or may still be at (i.e., I need to check street addresses or otherwise confirm yes/no what Wikipedia said) at George Washington University.

Yet only four years later, here Professor Stark is (on the link I mentioned above), talking as though AFCC does not exist and no state has any incentives to switch or increase noncustodial parenting time for more with fathers.

That’s leadership all right — but not the kind we needed twenty years ago…

So I’m thinking of revising my (personal), “Professor Stark is one of the good guys” assessment, as I eventually also had to a similar sentiment regarding Lundy Bancroft (about two decades ago) having learned what he, too, was strategically NOT talking about, year after year…

BELOW THIS LINE was moved from my Home Page via: Block-copy & Paste, where it’d been published for, probably, about a year and a half. The process of moving got me to review an existing link to a January 2016 testimony by Professor (Emeritus, now?) Stark, which I may include here (with the 2019 move):

Professor Evan Stark’s [image at Rutgers, “The State University of NJ” (viewed recently, 12/10/2018).

…Evan Stark is a leading authority on woman battering and child abuse and has won numerous awards for directing The Yale Trauma Studies in the 1980s with Anne Flitcraft, M.D.

His new book, Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life won the excellence award from the American Publishers Association; it was named the 2007 best book in sociology/social work.

Dr. Anne Flitcraft is a 1977 graduate of Yale.

Interesting “NLM.NIH.Gov interview with Dr. Flitcraft  (<~~a good read) describes beginnings of her involvement (as post-doctoral intern) with using medical records to identify battered women before it became a “field,” and how again it was submerged under other issues (years later, “gender disappeared”).  It also references her having been with (at least working with) Evan Stark since the 1980s (met in California?) and his having gone to England (that long ago) on a Fulbright scholarship.  I recognize many, not all, of the people named.

1996 “The Costs of Domestic Violence” ℅ Victim Services of NYC, Institute for Women’s Policy Research, & Domestic Violence Training Project (New Haven, CT), Sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation (just found this one), lists Stark on the front cover, and Flitcraft (also on the Roundtable) in fine print at the very bottom among many other names. (The names at the back are alpha by last name). (From the 1996 Stark/Flitcraft work, “Women at Risk” above, it’s said that this couple co-directed that DVTP).

QUICK COMMENTARY: I see from more recent testimony in Connecticut and (retrospective, Washington State, WSCADV.org) that Professor Stark is with (aligned in interests) with David Mandel in favor of “Safe & Together” and seems to set a bottom line that there MUST be Batterers’ Intervention; cutting funds for it somehow endangers women.

That bottom line goes back to at least the 1980s (if not earlier) and dissent with that position, that bottom line seems to be heresy.

A recent conference list at “BISC-MI” (most recently, involved in out-reach to the faith community and changing the corporate name from “BatterERS” to “BatterING” because the “-ERS” characterized the person, jeopardizing the concept of behavioral modification   (excuse me), “change.”)

I say, why MUST we support all these professions which then have networked nonprofits, publications, policies and of course RoundTables with people basically in agreement with SOME of the basics — like the health paradigm, coordinated community response, and in general sticking the public with if not the costs of domestic violence, the costs of treating and “preventing” it…?  And why must “father-engagement” be central to all forms of abuse prevention, whether in child welfare services, or in the family courts, in child support agencies, in prison/re-entry situations — at all points?

So I’ve noted even more now, seeing the alignment of Mandel/Stark, that follow-up is in order, particularly as David Mandel has made nice connections for his programming (as has Stark) around the Commonwealth countries (Australia, UK — Mandel; at least UK – Stark)…  (About: TheNewJournalAtYale, Oct. 16, 2017 “From the Ground Up” by Mark Rosenberg, like the 1996 Rockefeller Foundation-sponsored study linked above, starts with a story of domestic violence (this one, starting in 2013), then eventually gets down to business after the problem is stated as anecdotal evidence from a woman can’t safely be quoted or fact-checked, as she’s had to flee the area..

Quoting experts, citing statistics and announcing (promoting) new programming: Another Family Justice Center because the real problem is (allegedly) that services aren’t coordinated and centralized enough.

So, they toured models in San Diego,[California] Manhattan,[New York] Bridgeport [Connecticut] and “hey, what a great idea!” — and this is being promoted to Yale students now, free of charge.

WHO follows up on them?  Look at the pattern of reporting in this one:  A 2017 article.

New Journal [at Yale] (10/16/2017 article “From the Ground Up” by Mark Rosenberg, referencing Stark & Flitcraft.

“It took Valerie over three years to escape her abusive partner. “I moved three or four times,” she said. “I had to start all over again. I had to change my job, the vehicle I drove, everything.” … In 2013, Valerie’s partner began to act erratically and stopped taking his medications. (Victims’ names have been changed to protect their identities.) She met with her partner’s mental health counselors repeatedly to try to stabilize their relationship, but he began to make verbal threats against her. In July 2014, she contacted the New Haven Police Department, seeking protection for herself and her two children, both under ten years old. An officer drove her to a police substation across the city from her home. But the officers she met there were unsympathetic… …

New Journal [at Yale] (10/16/2017 article “From the Ground Up” by Mark Rosenberg), announcing planned “Hope Family Justice Center.”

Today, The New Journal is published five times during the academic year by The New Journal at Yale, Inc. Two thousand five hundred copies of each issue are distributed free to members of the Yale and New Haven community. The New Journal is printed by Turley Publications, Palmer, MA; bookkeeping and billing services are provided by Colman Bookkeeping of New Haven

Many of us who’ve lived with in-home violence (rarely restricted to the home environment only) could “write the book,” on coercive control, probably without that label.  Some have written their own personal accounts, but the moment this goes into “the conference circuit” that’s not really in good company — and without the travel budget (etc.) impossible to keep up with AND manage one’s own life AND continuing research.

NEXT TWO IMAGES are in “GALLERY” FORMAT ( click on one, swipe or click to the next):

Because the long caption on one of those images is in such fine print (the caption was from previously posted image, not written specifically for this inclusion), I’ve also pasted it here in somewhat larger font, with some paragraphing.

Link is: biscmi.org/aboutus/history where BISCMI is a nonprofit. This image covers two diff’t conference dates.  Note participants of each.

USDOJ/OVAW has accepted the Batterers Intervention field and a private business membership association of its providers.

“CCR” (“Coordinated Community Response”) is a concept pioneered by DAIP (theduluthmodel.org), Pence’s org.  Ellen Pence has been called the “rock star of domestic violence prevention” (or similar term), and died in 2012.  This conference ALSO has adopted the common practices of using names (“IDVAAC” written out) which do NOT represent any business or legal entity as if they did.  One cannot “partner” with a non-entity, so describing a “partnership” above is diversion from the underlying reality and shows a willingness to, basically, lie for the cause.

That [IDAV’s] partners ARE legitimate lends (an appearance of) legitimacy to the non-entity… The word “Institute” has no business or legal definition and can mean or be used to describe almost anything, anywhere, but here was associated with a major research university in MN, meaning, “good luck” tracking any financials.

The BISC-MI screen shot (image) above per my filename was taken Dec. 22, 2017.  The Coercive Control screen shot (image) above was taken per my filename Aug. 11, 2018.

The conference circuits/ created-professions professional networks are a basic part of the problem in the first place!

I know from years of having read (“waded through”) the rhetoric, looked up the participants, looked up the tax filings, corporate statements, registration habits, and (if available) often the financial statements of so many regulars in conference circuits (US, Canada, UK, Australia, the Netherlands, etc.) about how to handle things we deal with, in person, ongoing — all the time.

If I were a dozen or more people, or managing a team of volunteers for a nonprofit, we could do an entire blog per cause-based conference circuit cause showing those financials — or the lack thereof– and at least a few slush-funding behaviors among them, including “chameleon-corporation” (changing names), state-jumping (getting confronted in one state, closing down or letting status get administratively revoked, then opening up again in a nearby — or distant — jurisdiction, and I’m talking cross-continent (USA) or transAtlantic.   And another blog to link them all together as they operate within the family courts (etc.) ..

Or, getting administratively revoked and NOT opening up (legitimately registered) anywhere — or at most under a “dba” where dbas are only recorded at (for example) the county level.

Until then, what you have is basically this blog.  Ongoing surveys of others also show classic “avoidance” behavior dealing with these situations — i.e., nonprofit behaviors (not philosophies, but behaviors and specific profiles).

THIS NEXT SECTION INCLUDES NEW PARAGRAPHS I WROTE WHILE EDITING THE “Footprint” left on the Home Page, mostly regarding IWPR (Institute for Women’s Policy Research).  LGH  9/3/2019..

I also (not shown here yet) looked at the tax returns of IWPR (“not impressed” is an understatement!) printed some to pdf (for future reference) or “*.png” files and noticed some of the other (well-known) board members of earlier years, for example:  Kathleen Kennedy-Townsend (son of Robert F. Kennedy; i.e., yes, a “Kennedy” and from 1995-2003, Lt. Governor of (Massachusetts?).. I saw her name on a FY2004 tax return of IWPR.  Another, Emilie Atgmael, married to Antoine Atgmael (“emerging markets” and etc.).  Evan Stark in 2004 seems to have been the only man on board; no longer so.

The IWPR’s withholding of their own financials, put together with (at least from a Wiki) the background of Heidi Hartmann (Swarthmore, married & divorced quickly, Yale, City Planner/Computer programmer, New Haven (early years of internet), remarried, more children, clearly drawn towards Marxism and equating capitalism with the innate cruelty towards women, and so forth.

Again, you don’t really “see” any organization until you “see” its financials.  For a group that’s been around so long and taking, at times, a portion of its grants from “governments,” IWPR shows neither good planning, budgeting, nor good stewardship. Political connectivity? Obviously a long suit.  Stewardship of the about $1 – $2M (sometimes as much as $4M year contributions (visible from early 2000s only; I know nothing about before then as databases don’t go back that far) tell a lot — not so much.

No Form 990 for FY2018 for this organization (and the fiscal year ends in Dec) is showing yet at the Foundation Center.  No offer to provide audited financial statements (under “Disclosure” section ) shows up on any tax return, and as late as 2014? (as I recall), it was said Forms 990 would be provided on written request, for a small copying charge.  (At the time, Hartmann was being paid well over $100K/year).

Besides being filled out improperly and incompletely, several other forms of “dodging” show up on most of the tax returns I saw (electronically submitted) at this time. Wikipedia says the nonprofit is at “George Washington University” (also houses the well-known “DV_LEAP” — what do they know about each other?) which I haven’t verified yet, but should.

My key interest isn’t the IWPR, but how a single man — actually couple — involved in the battered women’s movement for so long, and seemingly genuinely concerned about it (extensive experience with and around women’s shelters also) could say he got most of it from this entity.…

There’s more I’d like to say (having now the Coercive Control book, which next section references), but at this point, haven’t got to yet.  For a reminder, the index lists “Casey Quinn” which is clearly referring instead to Casey Gwinn (once only).  That’s no accident....  People know who the Family Justice Centers are, and Casey Gwinn (former City Attorney for San Diego)’s and Gael Strack’s name are associated. They are on the batterers-intervention conferences list (Alliance for Hope International, see “BISC-MI, above); they were promoted by President George W. Bush in 2003 (Justice Department grants) as an ideal model…  the model has been taken to the UK.

There’s no way Stark didn’t know that his last name began with a “G” and not a “Q” or, for that matter, how to (on Chapter 1 page 1, see next paragraphs) spell a certain person’s name!

What’s more, he’s not referencing a major family court influence, the AFCC.

It’s probably also no accident (Unless the woman had her professional name changed, after a Harvard J.D.) that on Part I, Chapter 1, SENTENCE 1 (and several times on the page), not only is it Casey Quinn (instead of ‘Gwinn’ which is known in the field, at least in the USA) but also the featured “hook” anecdotal story begins with “Sara Buell.”   Her first name is “SaraH” and her last name is “Sara Buel” (one “L”) — and this is an Oxford University Press book in a series overseen, as I recall (doublecheck!) by Jeffrey L. Edleson.  Do your “Google search” of both names (correctly spelled) and fact check.

Who was not supposed to connect this with the FJCs?

~~~~~~~~~~~~

My revisit of the nonprofit “Emerge, Inc.” came out of an awareness of a recent (July 21, 2019) Canadian website posting of “Collective Memo of Concern to WHO.” (recent posts in late August mention).  Because “CaringDads” was part of this, as well as the connection originally with Professor Stark and David Adams of Massachusetts’ “Emerge, Inc.,” I looked at it again and included it here.  When I do this there is also often other material I’ve visited but not posted yet; including this here reminds me to “stay on it” for later follow-up.

The second part of this [post] deals with the (1987ff, Washington, D.C.-based) Institute for Women’s Policy Research (“IWPR” see next two pdfs, for Forms 990 2017 and Form 990 2004, just over a dozen years earlier, showing an established pattern.  The IRS form arrangement of parts changed in 2008 due to the (recession surrounding the mortgage/real estate fiasco), but parallels can be seen.  Also look at a Schedule A of support which will show, basically the organization’s funding has been (#1) mostly private and (#2) fairly stable over time.  The long name on the link is also my filename for the pdf; as you can see I try to include EIN#s, Years, Content (990) and a few reminders for future reference.

• IWPR Institute for Women Policy Research (HeidiHartmann, 1987ff in DC) EIN#521549572 FY2017 (YE Dec) 990, last at FndtnCenter @ 2019Sep3(!) FLUNKS basic accountability and is incomplete (+ $969K in the red, it says)
• IWPR Yr 2004 (HH paid $100K as Officer (only paid) AND sept’ly $144K as employee (?) | EvanStark among other unpaid officers (only guy) ~ 521549572_200412_990 <~~click twice to view either one as they are pdfs.  Second click on the blank page icon if needed.

The IWPR made it onto my radar (as next paragraphs say) after I ordered and had in hand the book on “Coercive Control,” as opposed to just websites discussing it or conferences promoting it.  At any rate, in the future I will probably shorten this section of the Front Page… I will mark the section I intend to remove in the future with this different background color.

//LGH Sept. 5, 2019.

(EMERGE CaringDads Program Model page Annotations Aug. 29, 2019, post-publication for an Aug. 28 FCM post, shortlink ending “-aSg”). Search “Emerge” (It’s full name is “Emerge, Inc.”) at Massachusetts Sec. of State|Corpations Search and view “All Filings” (uploadable pdfs) for more info. Current address seems to have changed only in 2017; current director (Arthur W. Pless, Jr.) associated with APHA; two officers have same street address (in mid-Cambridge MA) and one of them (the woman) currently filling two officers’ roles. EIN#942639947, only one involuntary revocation shown in 1986 (organized, 1978)

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[Sept. 2, 2019 Update Comment:  I now have the Coercive Control book, paperback, Oxford University Press: 2007.  I read the Front matter (Acknowledgements (pp. vii-x); Introduction: 17pp), Table of contents (only four sections:  I, II, III & IV) and (as I often do) at the back, the index, scanning for key information on the family courts (“operations and systems” etc.).

The index is 12+ pages single-spaced; there are ample end-notes too.  Because I own the book, I get to underline, highlight, and otherwise mark it up.

What the “Coercive Control” book index does NOT contain could fill a post, and maybe (someday soon) will…

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Stark’s first acknowledgements for his introduction to the concept of “coercive control” mentioned (pg. vii) are to (the late) Susan Schechter, who also introduced him to David Adams using it as a model for his work with “Emerge” in Boston:

(Acknowledgements, para.2, from the top:) “Two of those to whom I’m most indebted died before I could express my appreciation, leaving a hole in my heart as well as my intellectual life.  The late Susan Schechter introduced me to the concept of coercive control as well as to David Adams, who was using coercive control as a model for his work with Emerge, the innovative program for abusive men he cofounded in Boston.**  A founding mother of the battered women’s movement and its political conscience and historian, Susan….”

(** When people use the word “cofounded,” why not, as a habit, mention the other co-founder/s?)

(Emerge now running a CaringDads™ model, from the charity “ChangingWays.ca” (in Canada).  Susan Schechter (see post “By Now We Should Know”) also co-authored with Jeffrey L. Edleson, Ph.D., “The Greenbook” published in 1999 by the NCJFCJ. (See my (@LetUsGetHonest) pinned Tweet/thread or more in this blog). The NCJFCJ has partnered with AFCC which is now partnered with (UK’s) “Cafcass” to the point that I now use a hashtag “#Cafcass_AFCC_NCJFCJ” — all of which has ramifications on the safety of women and children IN the family court system.

On the next page, page viii of Acknowledgements, as well as mentioning more well-known (if you follow DV advocacy in the US) people and authors; some are lawyers or professors (or both):  Nancy Lemon (normally “Nancy K.D. Lemon”), Eve Buzawa, Barbara Hart, Andrew Klein, (of AHP, Inc.; less so, but in association with Barbara Hart on a certain DV newsletter; I’ve posted & when it came up again (a book co-authored with his wife?) Tweeted) (among those I recognize off-hand), I see the emphasis on a certain, presumably feminist-oriented nonprofit…

Virtually all the information I present on women’s unprecedented gains since the 1960s as well as on persistent inequalities is drawn from the work of Heidi Hartmann, Amy Ciazza, and the extraordinarily talented research staff Heidi directs at the Institute of Woman’s Policy Research, a group on whose board I was privileged to sit for more than a decade“

I do not believe I had my hands on the Coercive Control book when first adding this section to the front page (likely in 2018).

As you can see, Stark especially credits the “Institute of Women’s Policy Research.”(<~Website, “Our History & Impact” link viewed Sept. 3, 2019:   That page doesn’t say much, but does reveal its founding perspective):

IPWR Institute for Women’s Policy Resesarch (1987ff), quoted on LGH Front Page in context of EvanStark’s ‘CoerciveControl’ book acknowledgemts. Img1 of 2 (logo)

“Our History & Impact” | A 30-year Track Record on Illuminating Gender in Policy Debates

Named a top think tank in the United States, IWPR has shifted conversation on issues such as the gender wage gap, employment and job discrimination, Social Security, welfare reform** and access to public benefits, educational access, child care, and many others.  Our ongoing Status of Women in the Statesproject and other state-specific research initiatives produce real outcomes for women and families. In recent years, IWPR expanded its Status of Women model globally,** working with partners to produce a series of reports on the Status of Women in the Middle East and North Africa.  [[i.e., “MENA”]]

Our work and experts are cited and appear regularly in more than a thousand news items each year, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, USA Today, The Atlantic, broadcast, cable, and satellite, and digital media outlets such as The Huffington Post, Vox, Buzzfeed, The Daily Beast, and others.

• [IPWR, 2nd bullet] Testifies regularly before Congress on issues related to women’s economic security, employment opportunities, and retirement income.***

**font emphases mine. ***I notice this short-list doesn’t even mention women’s safety, even now, in 2019…or the word “mothers” as a related part of this.  Lower, on the same page under “Our History” (Top part should’ve been labeled only “Impact”).

 

IPWR Institute for Women’s Policy Resesarch (1987ff), quoted on LGH Front Page in context of EvanStark’s ‘CoerciveControl’ book acknowledgemts/ Img2 of 2, Sept. 3 2019.

IWPR was founded in 1987 out of a need for an organization whose distinct purpose was to develop comprehensive, women-focused, policy-oriented research. By conducting rigorous analyses using federal data, the social scientists at IWPR shook the gendered and racialized assumptions underpinning public debate.

and the first study, 1987, was on:

In its founding year, IWPR analyzed the costs to American workers of not having unpaid leave for childbirth, personal health needs, or family care giving in its inaugural publication, Unnecessary Losses: Costs to Americans of the Lack of Family and Medical Leave. A companion fact sheet on the estimated impact of the new law on Black women showed that they lost more than white women by the lack of leave because they were the very workers to go back to work after childbirth sooner but lacked leave and thus had to search for a new job guaranteeing lower wages. IWPR’s research showed that, by not recognizing the need for work-life balance in all families, established policies not only failed to support workers and their families, but were costly to taxpayers. Now nearly a quarter [of a] century later, the Family and Medical Leave Act [year passed is omitted] has become a cornerstone of U.S. employment law and human resource policy.

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IWPR’s Wiki is flagged for “Reads like an advertisement — info too close to source..” etc.

 

FOOTNOTE/s

In the next post on this topic (Off-ramp link provided above, surrounding the 1996 co-authored book “Women at Risk:…”) I will probably post more resume indicators.  The process of searching for it on-line also showed who was quoting it, as well as a direct link to a 1981 study “Wife Abuse in the Medical Setting” and who sponsored it (Yale Trauma Center of the Medical School, Yale Institute for Social and Policy Studies).  It gets interesting…