Archive for October 2019
Trouble Navigating the pro/con “PAS” Conflict? Keep it simple: FIRST, Identify the AFCC Authors/Speakers/Presenters (often also Judges/Lawyers/Psychs, Program Operators, etc.)! THEN interrogate any remaining non-AFCC, Gov’t.-Funded Violence-Prevention Leadership.. (started July 30, 2019, Publ. Oct. 30).
This post may be further edited (including being condensed) after publishing.
POST TITLE: Trouble Navigating the pro/con “PAS” Conflict? Keep it simple: FIRST, Identify the AFCC Authors/Speakers/Presenters (often also Judges/Lawyers/Psychs, Program Operators, etc.)! THEN interrogate any remaining non-AFCC, Gov’t.-Funded Violence-Prevention Leadership.. (started July 30, 2019, Publ. Oct. 30). (shortlink ends “-asn”). Currently a long post…
WHY I said “non-AFCC” — most “government-funded violence prevention leadership” (speaking for in the USA, and I’ve seen some in Canada and the UK also) are working for or leading what by definition are AFCC-enabling violence prevention groups:
Actually, they’d be pretty hard to find. The field is pretty well financially co-opted and controlled already. Why? With AFCC comes certain father-focused grants streams (both federal and private) and known networks, as well as programs (curricula) run through the same; the DV prevention groups draw off those streams too, in the USA; this is a general “fact of life” post-welfare reform (1996 P.R.W.O.R.A and subsequent versions) to this date. Those funding streams have not been stopped, yet, and (like the AFCC) rarely (if ever) make main stream media critique tied into the family court systems.
Any”Gov’t-Funded Violence-Prevention Leadership” complaining about the use of “parental alienation” as unsound science (i.e., psychology) allegedly causing the under-informed judiciary to mistake batterers (male or female) for “nice guys” without referencing AFCC probably are AFCC or colluding with to protect the mutual, respective niches. The silence when addressing the public is likely a professional courtesy to members of the “practitioner/trainer” etc. class than none of the masses, really, belong to… or need to know about….
The “Family Court Reform” regarding domestic violence or “abuse” organizations (and leadership, conferences, etc.) also tend to ignore AFCC; many seem to be a subset of the DV groups and working consistently with them. From the start until this day (I’m thinking specifically of people historically involved with the (USA) “Battered Mothers Custody Conference” held in upstate New York or Washington, D.C. area, but with organizations and individuals based in other states, including California). Basically, anyone who doesn’t align with this ‘ignore/enable AFCC” policy is ignored, sidelined by silenced, and certainly unlikely to gain access to the US HHS or DOJ (whether under VAWA or NIJ) funds to publicize the field and “raise awareness.”
Key claim in this post, which holds some recent and I felt easy-to-grasp current illustrations of one aspect of it (although, generally, the blog handles this topic at length), you’ll see this below:
I’ve got evidence of, what seems to be originally USA-based AFCC-associated professionals ranging across North America (including Canada, the USA (with Hawaii), Australia and New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (at a minimum) ensconced for YEARS inside and leveraging their positions and influence, or outright directing: [there follows a list of what they’re directing, in context below]
Which is why you should
“Read a few damn tax returns!”
and see another interpretation of why some people are so intent on establish more and more layers of administrative trainers for the entire population (Pro, or Con PAS, too…). They know more than are telling the public about available resources and while it seems proud of some of this support, still discourage the public from actually looking at or assessing it.
Even living in countries which don’t make them available, you can read tax returns (or see lack of them) from companies based in the US — which AFCC and many of its spinoffs are… You can also, probably, view (where available) records of government grants to some of those larger tax returns, showing the Public/Private symbiotic relationship between corporations and government for social services. It is actually a SHORT CUT to better understanding of the family courts, though it may seem on the surface like a side-trip.
This post had a preview, published Oct. 27, now about 3,100 words.
Behold, a municipal family court clinic, “Inc.”|| London, Ontario, Canada’s Answer to AFCC, USA (or vice versa?): ‘LFCC’ (1974) — I mean, ‘CCF in the JS’ (sometime <2009)– no, make that ‘LFCC’ (2014) but led by at least one AFCC-affiliated "C.Psych" and, like AFCC, set up privately to feed off [a.k.a. ‘service/help’] BOTH Family (Private*) and Children’s Office (Public*) Court by way mostly, of Referrals & Lots of Gov’t Funding (Publ. Oct. 19, 2019).
Just so you know: This post has many large BIG pictures with pretty springtime–bright colors, even a few cartoons, directors’ head-shots in circle’d cutouts and is possibly even shorter than its title.
I’m as tired of the word-games / name-changes as anyone else, but not too tired to make fun of a few of them such as the ongoing attempts to use graphics, including pie-charts with tiny numbers, and half the facts to coverup conflicts of interest and erect barriers to seeing the financials (even as posted under a link labeled “Financials”) followed by a lot of name-dropping (parts of Canadian government and specific foundations that are behind it).
This one is about 7,500 words, after I did “just a bit more” look-up and added that information to the top of the post (and more updates, reformatting Oct. 20).
LONDON FAMILY COURT CLINIC INCORPORATED
Digging for information:
Basic Website: https://www.lfcc.on.ca Motto: “Professional Services for Families in Court”
Directors: Daniel T. Ashbourne, C. Psych, Kimberly C. Smith, C. Psych, Joyce Radford, C. Psych.
(No JD’s or accountants?)

LFCC.ON.CA Charity Registration from gov’t website. Read the legend for the categories. Fees for services and “All other revenue” under which they’d be included (dark green) only 20.8% or about 1/5th. What kind of assets are accumulated? Doesn’t show.
(Bio snapshots of each from web page shown in 21-image series below).
Is it a Court, or a Clinic? Well, Canadian Charities Search Site has it as a charity (private entity), effective date 1977 (not 1974), Fiscal Year ending March 31, and a pie-chart (differing from the one shown by the organization on where its revenues come from by category (Remember: not US$)
Originators, per its “About Us/History” page,## which holds just three short, “link-less” paragraphs to cover over forty years (##an image provided below also):
Judge Maurice H. Genest, “mustered a small group of local professionals” to start “family court clinic” modeled after one in Toronto — but where to get the money? Oh… the Ministry of Health… .
Exploring “Coordinated Community Response” | London,CR Ontario, Canada’s CREVAWC (1992), LCCEWA (1981), London Family Court Clinic (“LFCC”) (1974?)
Exploring “Coordinated Community Response” | London, Ontario, Canada’s CREVAWC (1992), LCCEWA (1981), London Family Court Clinic (“LFCC”) (1974?) (Short-link ends “-aPz”. Started Aug. 26, 2019, published Oct. 17 with notice of more images to be added Oct. 18, or 19th, about 7,500 words (as of format-check Nov. 3, 2019))
Title Correction & bonus update comments: I originally labeled post as though the final name, “London Family Court Clinic” was claiming a trademark (™). I think I may have mis-read the fine print (“1974”) in their logo and til further notice am correcting it now for all occurrences in this post. I cannot correct it easily as posted to Twitter without losing any associated thread, which am not willing to do. If I were to be more consistent, I’d also add the acronym (which is reflected on its url) for the London Family Court Clinic, “LFCC.”
I also learned eventually (by reading; the usual way!) that this “family court clinic” (in fact, a private entity) had a temporary name change to something else and only reverted back to [LFCC] about 2014. The temporary name change to something else closely resembled the “CFCC” pattern shown in both California (California Judicial Council/AOC/CFCC) and in a center at the University of Baltimore (part of public university system in Maryland), originally with the acronym “CFCC” but now with some major donors’ names prefacing it, i.e., “Sara and Neil Meyerhoff” [CFCC]. BOTH public sectors (California’s highest ruling body of the state’s courts and Maryland’s law school center under direction of Barbara Babb (and last I looked also Gloria Danziger) involve AFCC professionals as employees and in positions of authority. As does, at least now, I found out, the London Family Court Clinic, also.//LGH Oct. 18.
I started exploring this as a result of some follow-ups from Twitter involving the same (old, same old) Family Court Reform cronies (<~definition |”crony” & “crone,” both from<~etymonline):** which eventually led to my hearing about the Collective Letter of Concern to WHO on the classification of Parental Alienation” which I then blogged my concern about on August 28.***
(**I feel the term applies, and while plenty of men are involved or involved as self-described feminists and there only to defend innocent protective mothers, when it comes to the logic of the movement, the phrase “Old Wives’ Tales”## comes to mind, no matter how much language like “empirical” or “clinical” is flung about, or how many footnotes. ##With the exception that some “old wives’ tales” in fact may hold unrecognized truth. I actually look up footnotes… So, if you want to argue, submit a comment; I’m up for it!)

London Ontario Canada (geographic showing nearby US States, bodies of water) ~~(url in window frame at top) viewed 2019Aug26). This image also appears in Aug. 28, 2019, post, “My Concerns about …Collective Letter of Concern to WHO about… parental alienation.” Pls. Notice where Boston is (latitude) related to London Ontario. The “CaringDads™ program from London, Ontario, Canada showed up within one year (2001 – 2002) in EmergeDV.com based in Massachusetts, showing coordinated interests, cross-border USA/Canada.
***In fact, please go there first; it springboards into this post and gives a context for my concern about this whole “coordinated community response” situation — and I’m a survivor of domestic violence in the home, or a “formerly battered mother” if you want to get technical. This movement is supposed too HELP women like myself, whether in Canada, USA, or the UK, but instead it’s simply continuing to facilitate the entrenched interests, including AFCC domination of themes regarding the response to domestic violence within the family courts. As you’ll see….
Here, at about 3,000 words (section in black-background, multi-colored frames below), I could’ve published this post and almost did, Oct. 11, 2019, evening. No single post is ever a complete expose, but this one at just 3,000 words already conveyed many key, basic realities on who runs the domestic violence field in at least two North American countries, raising BIG questions about which country is really dominating the other, or if neither, why the “urge to merge” and execute the merger privately before the public catches on to what they’ve lost.
I could’ve published it at just 3,000 words last night (Oct. 11), but in taking a quick review of just one of the websites involved (for the London Family Court Clinic) I saw overt acknowledgement of it being run by a person with long “AFCC” connections. So I took the screen shots (~>software terminology, not mine) and decided to add them as a ‘Hidden Out in Open’ visual exhibit, with some labeling, to the bottom of this post before publishing — which I knew would probably quickly double its size.
What I saw quickly on visiting and exploring even partway down the above websites was how the power to confuse and disorganize readers’ understanding is mathematically increased by the number of networked organizations, broken links, and misleading program, entity, committee or “centre” names
Habitually withholding proper identifiers (public or private? entity or non-entity? If private entity, for-profit or not for-profit) facilitates replacement of proper identification by a collective “storytelling” about the amorphous collaboration’s (whatever it may be named at the time) own origins.
Substituting simplistic summaries for proper (honest, accurate, open) self-identifiers undermines a viewing population’s (composed of individuals) options to judge for themselves one of THE most important things individuals ought to be able to judge — is this movement, collaboration, or group conflict-of-interest free? And, if local to any individual’s home (residential, citizenship) jurisdiction, how can what funds that entity (whether public or private) be tracked back to my own taxation and support of that jurisdiction? IF I really knew, would I consent to this as wise, commonsense, or in the public welfare? IF I really knew, what would individual elected officials’ private interests, if any, be in the business model (overall) proposed?
“How representative is it, really?”
In these circumstances, you don’t get to the truth unless you dig, and forcing you to dig is a form of harassment/obstruction and waste of time — the public’s time who will be funding these.
Read (with the goal of understanding!) Our Own Government’s Independent Agency Annual Financial Reports (at least parts with texts and colorful graphs) and “learn stuff.” Like NSF’s Brain Initiative, Its Big Ten Ideas, and Domestic|Foreign, Public|Private Revenue Sources. I just did…(Published Oct. 16, 2019)
This post is:
Read (with the goal of understanding) Our Own Government’s Independent Agency Annual Financial Reports (at least parts with texts and colorful graphs) and “learn stuff.” Like NSF’s Brain Initiative, Its Big Ten Ideas, and Domestic|Foreign, Public|Private Revenue Sources. I just did…(Published Oct. 16, 2019) (short-link ends “-bie”, published at 8,700 words with extra section on the NAS and some intro).
The National Science Foundation (“NSF,” 1950ff, under President Truman) history ties in closely to Vannevar Bush. So does the history of Abt Associates (1965ff) as it intersects with Raytheon. In many ways the history of the NSF illuminates the history of the United States in the 20th Century. You can’t understand much of where we are now, and why, without some acquaintance with it.

BRAINInitiative.NIH.Gov (Google the term; many web domains will come up describing it, and President Obama’s 2013 launch of parts of it!).
The NSF website has a nice version, but this enthusiastic short summary is from Research! America, a nonprofit I also researched because of its involvement with (and dependency on) the buildup of the HHS and NIH especially as promoted Mary Lasker, and because of other certain Brain Institutes (as I recall) funded by, well, rich people….
- Research! America (searchable on this blog; see tag I added to this one) waxing eloquent about the National Science Foundation and in the process giving us a nice, short summary. (Basic URL visible in top of images) in 4 images viewed Oct. 2019
- (One reason for this image gallery: note the classifications, esp. the one on bottom right: Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences)
Any history of the NSF will mention how it arose after World War II and in the early years, USA was caught off guard by Russia in the “Space Race.” “What’s it to me?” (Keep reading…)
I have a short post on Abt Associates who, possibly because of its data-crunching ability, like many companies formerly involved in U.S. government military contract, found purposes in both consumer electronics AND continued dealings with the might of the U.S. government built up for and during wartime as turned to “health, education, and welfare” purposes (1953-1980) thereafter, at least that “health” part called “Health and Human Services” — the largest grant-making department. Other groups (like MDRC or the Urban Institute) would run the social science R&D on poor people and certain types of consulting agencies would then analyze and write up the projects — like Mathematica Policy Research, MEF Associates, and Abt Associates.
Some companies, also specializing heavily in federal contracts and consulting, seem to have managed to both get grants to run the projects AND be on the evaluation teams (I’m thinking of ICF International which got so wealthy doing this it continued acquiring other companies and now is a multinational for-profit (i.e., global) corporation. Its advice was sought during the 2000 Greenbook Initiative on Overlap of Child Maltreatment and Domestic Violence, with participation from (then-called) Family Violence Prevention Fund, which has also since gotten fairly fat on contracts and grants — and become a real estate investor in the San Francisco Presidio, too. (Searchable on this blot).
My recent, short, Abt Associates post: