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

Disclaimer:  This is my opinion and not legal or any form of consultant advice.  I am so fed up, currently, with attempting to complete proper posts (while managing living without a permanent address, week by week), I’m going to just publish the whole post “as-is.”  That probably represents later embarassment and excising about a third (or half) of it, BUT it’s still important information — it is just not polished and may have too much repetition for a casual reader.  Thanks for understanding!//LGH Oct. 16, 2022.

Post titles on this blog and on these topics tend to be long — full sentences, often with short acronyms.  For this one, DV LEAP, NFVLCgwu, NSPC (although that point or reference after my several posts changed its final word in the acronym from “Coalition” to “Organization”), or, see my Twitter threads for recent hashtags.

See also my May, 2019 Page (not “Post”), DV LEAP’s New Website Still Derails OPEN (Uncensored) Discussion of The PROBLEM, Digging A Deeper Hole for Survivors of Abuse and Their Children (Started Jan. 27, 2018 | Publ. May 19, 2019). (shortlink to this PAGE ends “-8um” | about 5,800 words)

I also mention GWLaw, DCCADV, and a few other acronyms [BWJP, DAIP] which should be known as USA-based domestic violence government-funded state coalitions or official (HHS-named) “DVRN” “resource centers” such as “NFVLCgwu” at a private university now seeks and likely intends (see its name:  “National”….”Center”) to become, although the current focus seems “international” for validation. But calling it “National” possibly sounds more loyal and patriotic to the country where it’s been made possible.

With some interjections coming up, I’ll repeat the post title, previous post title and lead-in paragraph just above, after those interjections (mostly about a similar but not identical organization in California, formed only in 2012, by a professor who’d been around and involved in this field since the 1980s…).  I was still in the state at the a time but, our own case was “toast” by then and both children had aged out.  Nevertheless, I had approached the leader (by phone once) and submitted comments on-line on the announcement of the formation of this nonprofit — at a university law school website which allowed those comments.

I asked the usual:  “Why aren’t you talking about the access visitation grants and the role of the AFCC?”  to DV attorneys by then).  My comments were about topics (which in California, of all places, must have been no secret to the Domestic Violence Nonprofit leadership in the state, or Ms. Lemon. THe comment was never answered, that I saw, and later somehow (comments moderation) deleted. My question was not unprofessional in tone, it raised specific points and terms ,and as I recall may have had active links.

I have over the years, whether by phone (occasionally) email (several times) and in on-line comments fields on public media continued to point to these specifics about the grants, and about the court-connected nonprofits (in addition to keeping up this blog)…  I never got a straight answer, I have had comments shut down after I raised the question, I’ve been called a “fathers’ rights mole” (for being too “analytical”) and, though it’s rare, threatened personally on-line (2011) when publishing anonymous under this gravatar.

More indicators that people who aren’t letting on do indeed know (this is a quasi-rant, a few paragraphs long, but deliberate.  Feel free to check any facts (not anecdotal; I’m talking about public situations) below:

It had been exposed a decade earlier in Southern California, and in the San Francisco Bay Area (where at least one California Judicial Council Office is — and where a major nonprofit which rebranded in 2010 as “Futures without Violence,” — and about which this professor MUST have known, as would any law students focused on domestic violence).  My Home Page mentions both the statewide California DV coalition and “Futures” above, which got fat around the time it started taking fatherhood grants from HHS (as well as investing in real estate in the San Francisco Praesidio).

I myself had somehow learned, being a traumatized survivor, by about 2009.  California NOW knew (Family Court Report 2002), it also knew and talked to the HHS grants in 2005 on its website.  Moreover,  as the California Judicial Council AOC (Administrative Office of the Courts) “bulked up” and (around the turn of this century), Family Court Services (statewide) and “Children’s Services” (also statewide) centralized under that CJC/AOC as “CFCC — where substantial “AFCC representation existed then and no doubt still does — I’m talking, the administrative sector of the highest ruling body of the largest state court system (California’s) in the USA — and with any focus on “Family law” and “Family Courts” anyone who knows his or her “stuff” as an  attorney or law professor mentoring up-coming attorneys — the nonprofit “NCFJCJ” (based in Reno, Nevada and training judges) had overlapping membership with and at times collaborated (presented trainings or other conferences alongside) the “AFCC,” which claims to date back to the 1960s in Los Angeles (not quite true, but it was around — and operating out of a Family Courthouse in Los Angeles as of about the 1970s).

Who else knew what, and when?  Well, in 2007 I attended (in full-scale trauma, shortly after my children had been stolen overnight and contact still RECENTLY cut off) a 2007 conference at the then-Family Violence Prevention Fund in San Francisco (before the “rebranding.”) I already noticed a presence of fatherhood groups as presenters. However, around 1999-2000, the Greenbook (and following Greenbook Initiative) NATIONAL conference had taken place with partners listed including HHS, DOJ, and significant other private foundations.  As I recall (but doublecheck, please) this would’ve been in Racine, Wisconsin at the Wingspread Conference Center, architecture courtesy Frank Lloyd Wright, fairly private and “by invitation.”

Basically, given all this, there is “no way in h3ll” the dominant and coordinated leadership, between law schools with law professors into the DV field, the nonprofit executive directors (including but not limited to Esta Soler of “Futures”) and Professor Joan Meier, as well as Professor (upcoming, see next section) Nancy K.D. Lemon –) as well as some of the protective parents groups in Northern California, as well as the Center for Judicial Excellence, Inc. in the San Francisco Bay Area (Marin County) (startup approximates the time DV LEAP started on the East Coast).

These individuals would know about Welfare Reform and they would’ve know about the fatherhood funding from the federal government and about those access visitation grants, and probably (as to the California Judicial Council, who among AFCC personnel would be promoting and/or overseeing their distribution from the state to sub-grantees).

Whether or not law students, first year or second year, knew or comprehended the significance of these things, I don’t know, but there’s “no way in hell” (did I say this already above?) people setting policy, or seeking to, didn’t.

DVLEAP.org tax return for FY2019. I zoomed in, omitting the header info which indicates the year, and the last few lines (incl. Assets – Liabilities, and signature block at the bottom; it was signed 11/2020). But the “summary” part, up through Line 19 (not Assets and liabilities) is displayed. Link to the full return on this post (Oct 16, 2022), or, look it up yourself at IRS.gov. This also doesn’t show the EIN# (it’s EIN# 201076297) on the header or the IRS Form Showing the year 2019 in large bold print at the top right, but this screenshot (image) does show DVLEAP started in 2004, is legal domicile D.C. (District of Columbia) and reveals the website. / / / The financial Summary (Lines 8-19, Revs & Expenses) show basically DVLEAP is spending almost everything taken in, with only about $8K left over.

While this law-school-based nonprofit focuses on the legal appeals process, it’s still, even on its tax returns  (which it doesn’t divulge voluntarily on the website, or file timely, but I post one below) talking “national in scope.” To understanding ANY entity functioning as a nonprofit which must file returns, you MUST find and read those returns, or you just won’ understand that entity — even if the people are familiar on-line, familiar names, talking in terms that resonated and associated with well-known universities.  Those returns, I’ve found, often show things that the websites just don’t and which often can answer “if this group is so national and has been “on it” for so long, why are kids still being killed on family court-ordered visitations, why does custody still go to abusive fathers?

In the case of DV LEAP, just a look at the small revenues should indicate that the goal of international influence is “off,” and it’s also elitist. Also “off” is failure to have an independent audited report even filed (says its 2019 Form 990) and post it.  BOTH forms of reporting present a fuller picture of operations.  Making one only “by request” when it could easily be scanned and uploaded, makes no sense. See details of the return pdf I included below.

[Repeat paragraph from the top of this post]:

I also mention GWLaw, DCCADV, and a few other acronyms [BWJP, DAIP] which should be known as USA-based domestic violence government-funded state coalitions or official (HHS-named) “DVRN” “resource centers” such as “NFVLCgwu” at a private university now seeks and likely intends (see its name:  “National”….”Center”) to become, although the current focus seems “international” for validation. But calling it “National” possibly sounds more loyal and patriotic to the country where it’s been made possible.

However, NFVLCgwu is not yet among that HHS-identified DVRN list.  It might as well be, however, as the policies pretty much line up with those that are.

Its leadership, from what I can see on social media (especially Twitter) is currently seeking and obtaining some credibility and a name outside the USA where what its practices and ideology represent to the maternal survivors of domestic violence and some, even the nation’s (state-jurisdiction) family court systems is probably less understood, and the grandiose talk, works.  An “endowed professorship”in 2020 seeks to entrench the practices at this private university in the Nation’s Capital, whether or not the it passes public approval, or represents informed public opinion.

In other words, there is some money and some coordination (internationally, not just nationally) behind promotion of this less-than-up-front agenda by a historically (and still) less than transparent process, or even reason for having committed to such an agenda.  That money is not only through the university (including salaries of the director as a professor, use of the university domain name for legitimacy) and anonymous donations to an endowed professorship, but also behind some of the money visible initially at the NationalSafeParents.org website (which I’ll call “NSPC” for convenience, even if it’s now an obsolete acronym) early key membership, all intent to tweak and leverage the extension of V.A.W.A. and, that having passed, now get it passed state by state in the USA.

DV LEAP and my prior post on it are relevant now because, while it no doubt continues — as a member also of the DC Coalition Against Domestic Violence — the same leadership and ideology continues, most likely there, and also in an expanded and better-funded form at the same university in Washington, D.C.  I know many people may be new to this material and my blog, so this post reviews some, updates some, and includes a link to the prior post.

I take a look at a c.v., and because it mentions both Harvard and the University of Chicago, I reference what that university represents to the field of Social Work, historically.  In doing so, I just discovered another recent very large ($75 million) donation in January 2021, and subsequent re-naming of that school. I provide links and points of reference and cannot pretend that this is a thorough coverage.

Last August, I tried many title phrasings to include the points of reference and my strong opinion on this topic.  While I do not remember exactly what inspired this the situation is ongoing, the promotions by Ms. Meier’s “successor” (non-entity) also housed at George Washington University’s School of Law are expanding and (I speak now in Oct., 2022) increasingly ludicrous, given the people involved.

See also my May, 2019 Page (not “Post,” which affects the short-link), DV LEAP’s New Website Still Derails OPEN (Uncensored) Discussion of The PROBLEM, Digging A Deeper Hole for Survivors of Abuse and Their Children (Started Jan. 27, 2018 | Publ. May 19, 2019). (shortlink to this PAGE ends “-8um” | about 5,800 words)  (http://wp.me/PsBXH-8um)

Latest tax return ℅ the IRS is only for Fiscal Year 2019.  The tax return, despite being so small (four employees, only one executive director), few assets, no endowment, was still delivered seven months late (i.e., at “the eleventh hour”– November 20 for a fiscal year ending December 31. If you care to take a look (my image from above — the fine-print, first page — is from here.  This is latest return provided by the IRS, as of Oct. 2022 — (which doesn’t mean DVLEAP hasn’t filed it FY2020’s yet, though, or FY2021’s although I doubt it…)

DVLEAP.org EIN#201076297, 2004ff | FY2019:YE Dec Form 990 (signed Nov 2020) (1 ExDir, Revs-Exp = ab $8K~~2022.Oct.16 (for post) Only four employees, and Meier is “Legal Director” but not referenced as an Officer, so her (salary. no doubt in addition to anything from the university) doesn’t show on Part IX (expenses), Line 5.  126 “volunteers” are listed on page 1.

How many people even know about DV LEAP as a nonprofit— how financially small AND unrepresentative it’s been year after year? How many understand the background and collaborations of promoting education and awareness of almost anything BUT: the basic elements of family court infrastructure; the private conflicts of interest built into these courts; how those conflicts of interest with the public, and the litigants comes in public/private forms with federal incentives from the U.S. Congress; that those incentives DV LEAP (and most statewide Coalitions Against Domestic Violence*) did not, and do not on their websites, systematically tell people about (nor do most of them post their financials, either); that these incentives stacking the odds against and seek to sway public opinion against single mothers and divorce, i.e., against women (in this context, mostly “mothers“); how this set-up functions to churn cases to keep referral businesses in the “therapeutic jurisprudence” “behavioral modification” fields, even while at the same time talking concern about domestic violence, violence towards women and of course, “the kids” is an over-riding concern.

Instead, the focus “must” be maintained on behavior of unsafe (batterers) and the supposed cause of poor custody-decision-making:  believing “parental alienation” is the real problem, not greed, and not a corrupt infrastructure which rewards dishonesty and, on closer examination, resembles a racketeering operation involving public institutions and civil servants.

This is part of GWU/Professor Joan S. Meier legacy, I suppose; the career curve.

This continues at NFVLCgwu: The associated constant mutual back-slapping and promotions for every media mention, every professor NOT from the United States who speaks in similar languages, i.e., Coercive Control, Safe Parents in the Family Court, keeping children safe, only trained experts being able to testify about parental alienation of course pushing for local passages of Kayden’s Law USA (with state-level advocacy sought) and, it seems, daily, “great work, people!”

Pick almost any month’s 2022 Archive on this blog (note: I’ve been blogging here since 2009), and you’ll see me reporting on some aspects of “NFVLC” or on the “Go-Team” coalition, “NationalSafeParents.org” Initially “Coalition,” now “Organization” on its logo, no apparent legal jurisdiction, etc.  I have looked at various advertised “members” of the NSPC, and showed direct connections in promoted ideology with the AFCC which neither NFVLC nor NSPC (sic) will talk about.  Probably because by now almost everyone involved is connected in some way to the mis-handling of nonprofit + non-registered + not really helping parents directly entities leading the cheering sections, and for doing so, honored in conferences and so forth.

Recently (while this post was on draft) I’ve been noticing how individual journalists are adding to the public messaging in uniform languages.  As it turns out, these journalists are foundation-sponsored and (at least one) working at nonprofits, leading me to (each time, most of the time) research which money is sponsoring this type of journalism, and where.  That’s good individual learning, but no way can I keep pace as a volunteer, with the output.  I can simply continue to point to basic principles and protocol for checking whether the positions taken is reasonable, and how far money and university names and positions can stretch a few basic, UNproven assumptions — can laws be passed internationally as “hope for justice” on such unproven assumptions?

A position being ‘ludicrous’ doesn’t stop this kind of commitment with, apparently, significant institutional support, not coming from a director with a Harvard + University of Chicago credibility —  both high-ranking and both (not to forget) PRIVATE universities.

(2019 c.v., Joan Meier posted at GWLaw.  NB: there would be some additions since 2019, but this gives a timeline and with whom has been collaborating, as well as date of the earlier degrees (early 1980s)… The  latest reference is DVLEAP, obviously now NFVLCgwu would be appropriate.

The B.A. 1980, magna cum laude in “Government” is from Harvard; the J.D. 1983,  cum laude is from the University of Chicago Law School. at George Washington University since 1991 (four years as Associate Professor of Clinical Law, and 1995-(2019, probably also now, 2022) Professor of Clinical Law.

For this post, I’m not going to do a “tableau” (screenshots annotated or plain) of the affiliations shown in a three-year-old resume, but because this post IS about DVLEAP (et al.), I think it’s only fair to post a resume which does show the credentials.  Harvard is Ivy League, University of Chicago isn’t, but it’s a top private research university, in many fields, and a known force in social work.  With an urban population and metro area like Chicago to practice interventions on and write up evaluations, what an ideal place to practice!

For people unaware of the significance of U of Chicago in the Social Service “Work, Policy and Practice” field, I’m including some basic background (Wiki, and, as I just discovered this, a recent $75 million donation from the Crown Family generating a rename and expansion of that graduate professional school’s vision (for a more just and humane world, and how to get there).

Further comments on the resume should probably be a separate post, because they are (1) many and (2) relevant to why real help isn’t coming from this source, and what types of chronic problems (for those it’s purporting to help) will only continue to expand and increase in scope and influence, unless properly confronted.  I am in a position both experientially and through ongoing investigative bloggng, to address this. I don’t have the public relations or political clout, but I have equal persistence to Meier’s and I believe, especially when the NON-interruption of her own academic career at GWU, and my chronic, decades-long attempt to preserve, maintain, and (after abuse) re-establish even a work life IN my profession (at a survival level) is taken into account.

I do not sense, overall, a human being subject to differing opinions from perceived inferiors or “unimportant people” while close working relationships with groups from California I know to be both corrupt AND abusive in withholding from (women, especially) recruited and fed to the career professionals for “exhibits” to push legislation favoring, in a word, their colleagues — at least as such as any children, alive or dead — or justice.

Based on this, I believe Ms. Meier is probably only a few years younger than me.  I was actually in Chicago (working as a single woman in a profession that was ultimately destroyed by the family courts in California) in the early 1980s, both in schools, after school, and among professionals, with colleagues.  It was  a wonderful had formative time.  After this, I went for another (related, work-study) degree in the late 1980s, then migrated to California where I married (as it turns out, an abuser/batterer), had two children with him, eventually filed for protection, and of course then was hauled into the (at the time still evolving) family courts — right around the time groups Professor Meier (from across the continent) continues to support who I knew to have been at the time, aware and informed of the federal incentives to give fathers, especially batterers, full custody of children and that a key reason for this was welfare reform’s agenda, and financial incentives made available through public funding and heavily appropriated by AFCC members — an organization which, strangely, doesn’t make Meier’s 2019 resume although for years (at least two, probably more) decades, domestic violence-focused and funded nonprofits have been sending their experts to AFCC conferences (I refer specifically to Loretta Fredericks (and Denise Gamache?) of BWJP, see next paragraph.

For people who follow how domestic violence organizations, coordinating councils, coalitions, etc. are organized, and who understand the structures of the (US) Domestic Violence Resource Network (of which one “member” is the Battered Women’s Justice Project (“BWJP”), spun off from Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, Inc. (“DAIP”) in Duluth, Minnesota, to a Minneapolis address only in about 2011(), several references should be familiar.  DAIP founder Ellen Pence died in 2012.  The organization is a shadow of its former self, but the policies it promoted have gone mainstream and made careers in the field….

Others unless you follow (I try to) various publications, or publishers promoting an (obviously) coordinated agenda may not be quite so familiar — such as references to “Civic Research Institute” (Mo Hannah-Barry Goldstein’s “Domestic Violence, Child Abuse and Custody [or similar name] 2010) and a 2019 “Lifetime Achievement” award by the Battered Mothers Custody Conference. 

University of Chicago major strength (not its only one, but a significant one in the field) is Social Work — that’s ripe material for the family courts, child-protection, children’s rights as claimed by family court reformists (my term) to promote more  “coercively controlling” legislation, including some to stop “coercive control” for which we can thank networks spanning a continent (USA) and at least one ocean (the Atlantic), and — hardly surprising — a book by a Rutgers (New Jersey, the state university) Professor Emeritus with an early-career British connection through a Fulbright Scholarship, etc. …. (I have his book; to speak in the royal plural: “we are not impressed.”).

Please read some of the University of Chicago Wiki’s describing this background, for more understanding:

Chicago-School (Sociology)

The Chicago School (sometimes known as the Ecological School) refers to a school of thought in sociology and criminology originating at the University of Chicago whose work was influential in the early 20th century.^[1]

Conceived in 1892, the Chicago School first rose to international prominence as the epicenter of advanced sociological thought between 1915 and 1935, when their work would be the first major bodies of research to specialize in urban sociology. Their research into the urban environment of Chicago would also be influential in combining theory and ethnographic fieldwork.^[2] …

Major figures within the first Chicago school included [15 names are listed here, not one woman.  Louis Wirth] …The activist, social scientist, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams also forged and maintained close ties with some of the members of the school.

Following the Second World War, a “second Chicago School” arose, whose members combined symbolic interactionism with methods of field research (today known as ethnography), to create a new body of work.^[3] Luminaries from the second Chicago school include …. [just one woman mentioned here,…]  Frances Fox Piven.

University of Chicago (Wiki) I may include an image:  Note that the U of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States, the University was founded by a Rockefeller, and eight professional schools, including one (now called)  “The Crown Family School of Social Work,_Policy,_and_Practice (<~Wiki),” so-named after a $75 million donation, renamed only January, 2021, and with a building by the famous architect Mies van der Rohe.

This wiki’s footnote on the (former — renamed after its donors) School of Social Service Adminiistration, at News.UChicago.edu describes the situation (nearby image, perhaps):

Landmark gift to UChicago is nation’s largest ever for the study of social work, policy and practice (subtitle, below large photo):

Commitment will address social problems through research, advanced training and direct community engagement

A new commitment to the University of Chicago from James and Paula Crown and their family will support the School of Social Service Administration, which will be renamed the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. This honors the School’s historic legacy and enables an ambitious expansion of its vision to advance a more just and humane society.

WHERE have I heard that before? (just kidding…)

The landmark gift—the largest ever in support of a school of social work—will advance the School’s educational and scholarly mission. ­­­It will increase student financial aid, support faculty research and hiring, and strengthen community engagement to address the challenges of inequality and related social problems.  …

…Guided by an interdisciplinary tradition, its scholars conduct innovative research to address interconnected social challenges such as educational inequality, health disparities, crime and violence, poverty, and child and family welfare—working at multiple scales, from individual to policy-level interventions.

“Since its founding more than a century ago, SSA has been a leader in applying rigorous research to address social issues,” said President Robert J. Zimmer. “…

Rest of the article, which tactfully does NOT include any link to Henry Crown and Company (how wealthy the family, how the money was  made, etc — perhaps its common knowledge for Chicagoans).

The School recently celebrated the 100th anniversary of both its Ph.D. program and its formal relationship with the University of Chicago to become one of the first graduate schools of social work in the country. It has since become the premier training ground for social workers and social welfare scholars, enhancing social work education through its commitment to evidence-based research and community-engaged scholarship­­. Last year, it became the academic home of the Urban Education Institute (UEI), which combines ambitious research, close collaboration with Chicago Public Schools, the dissemination of new tools, and the operation of a charter school with three campuses on the South Side of Chicago to foster greater opportunities and excellence in public education.

Wiki (first-glance search results.  I didn’t know, so took a look):

Henry Crown (1896-1990, nee Krinsky; his father changed the family name).

August 25 versions of this post title which didn’t make the cut:

You can see what kind of mood I was in.  Not that I’d retract any of the statements above.  They’re points of reference for consideration, especially the last one.

Final version, or close to it, with short-link :

DV LEAP’s “Leap of Faith” Demanded of Moms From “Day 1” Didn’t Then —-  and (With Its Founder’s Other Newer Projects) Still Doesn’t Pass This DV/FamilyCourt Survivor’s Basic Smell Test [Begun Aug. 25, 2022, Publ. Oct. 16, 2022] (short-link ends “-f9d”)

Perhaps if its founder had been walking a few miles IN our shoes instead of, despite perceiving some of the crap we were walking through, opting instead to further entrench the family law field (appellate records)  with its by-definition (built-in) ever-expanding system of add-on trainings with a behavioral health focus that paved that sh^t to start with, she might have acted differently.

(Added a few thoughts, bulleted points on deciding early October, 2022, might be a good time to publish this one//LGH)

• Having a career OUTside academia which didn’t depend for its credibility on generation after generation of survivor mom’s ignorance of the impacts of welfare reform, how to research grants, the importance of looking at nonprofits and (last but not least) how the Illinois nonprofit AFCC, as small as it is, fits in, and what its membership have been and still are doing to expand and preserve an abusive form of courts, and laws.
• Moms who withhold their case stories from news lines, research independently and find things which might undermine the agenda (more mandated trainings by [essentially, OUR] experts for judges) and keeping up the pretense that V.A.W.A. (1994ff) effectively counters abuse, misogyny or even intends to (while not even mentioning how P.R.W.O.R.A. (1996) based in “Moynihan” (1965) opposes and neutralizes domestic violence protection.
• And Moms who understand that this isn’t only a conservative (or a progressive) values issue.

To understand some of the basis for my harsh but I believe realistic Point of View, not to mention where DVLEAP has been going, and with whom,  I highly recommend reading my May, 2019 Page (not “Post”), DV LEAP’s New Website Still Derails OPEN (Uncensored) Discussion of The PROBLEM, Digging A Deeper Hole for Survivors of Abuse and Their Children (Started Jan. 27, 2018 | Publ. May 19, 2019). (shortlink to this PAGE ends “-8um” | about 5,800 words)

I wrote in 2018, thought I’d published, discovered in 2019 I hadn’t and then published. DV LEAP isn’t the only organization referenced here. Recommended Reading!!

Also this page (2020) will also help; the clip is from the top:

I don’t expect to publish this part, but it helps me feel better to at least type it out as though I was going to (I sense an extended rant about to emerge.) (Actually, it already did, below, and this is for future reference when I come back to the draft post later and will need to move it, or just delete it).  Thinking aloud, I guess….

• .None of this helps preserve or protect representative government.  Such individuals do not represent me — they are non-elected; I had NO say in promoting their special-interests, specialized vocabulary, and the arrangement is not susceptible to participatory democracy, let alone a republican form of government.

Part of a republican form of government entails power base being between those represented (jurisdiction GEOGRAPHICALLY) (politically too) as opposed to those who can afford to travel as courtiers or professional classes, or to pay entrance fees for publicity (without selling something valuable — like the truth) to get to the elected representatives.

The folklore, at least, of this county, while it has to be acknowledged, it began colonizing a land already inhabited, when it came to forming a government, the issue presented was taxation WITHOUT representation, and being subjected to laws from a monarch a whole sea away, and in general, a sense of encroaching dictatorship.

The United States (48 contiguous & D.C.) is geographically large, with Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands — how in the hell is it not just as inappropriate to be ruling individual families and life-and-death matters involving their immediate relatives in courts subject, by admission, to STATE, not federal powers, while attempting to unify, coordinate, centralize — but less than openly to most — a stealth incursion on the powers and responsibilities of the states.

This arrangement — of which taxation and tax-exempt status plays a HUGE part — would require ALL people at ALL times to maintain an awareness of which PRIVATE companies (and individuals, or family lines) seek to promote their mutual PRIVATE interests over the PUBLIC (masses).

I learned this early on (but not early enough after I filed for protection from domestic violence) and for two decades now, have been both dealing with these courts driven by an obsession with mental/behavioral health and with fathers’ rights, while publicity and endless lists of “call this referral” hot-line continue to talk about concern about violence against women.

How about put justice and rule of law FIrst (respect both the federal and the state constitutions, and rights of people to maintain their own lives in which ever state they call home) — not about 16th, as the UN SDGs have it — and then see who others are protected.

Anyhow…  (“Grrr…!!”) I don’t think law school professors should be driving public policy until they put THEIR lives and have children with abusers to understand what it’s like to seek help and instead get “technical assistance and training” dismissals. If you can’t or won’t WALK in our shoes, then don’t TALK as though you know what’s appropriate.

The domestic violence field (I’m calling it from about the early 1980s, though some shelters started in the 1970s) was from the start slated to be:

• privatized
• professionalized
• internationalized
• and to be compromised.

The answer (‘counterpoint’) to actually protecting women and mothers as human beings (and from there, enabling them to protect their own children, a natural instinct unless previously driven out) by writing laws outlawing it and providing for criminal prosecution of perpetrators — was the establishment of no-fault divorce, mandatory mediation, conciliation courts attached to superior courts, and eventually the family courts which would then handle “domestic violence disputes” in the behavioral modification / curricula peddling manner.  As the Internet was approaching, or by then here (check the progress yourself: I have some coverage on it under topic “CENIC”), fast replication and taking it on-line made it even easier.

But not if you’re at home, isolated, and intimidated out of access to that internet, something I experienced as late as the late 1990s (in California).  I knew how important it was — so did my spouse, and he would have NOTHING of me using a computer — except as his business required it.  I had to learn what I could in the one safest place in those years — at work, on my lunch hour.

Other groups (besides government offices, universities, and law firms, not to mention research institutions not necessarily within a university) who caught onto this early includes the evangelicals and their television/radio and (to this day) website telemarketing how to be a man, how to be a good wife, how to be a Christian, how to read the Bible, and to whom to tithe, and from whence to purchase all the publications.

SECTIONING OFF MY SENTIMENTS HERE, For FUTURE Quarantine:

(IT doesn’t help much that I can only VIEW a few paragraphs at a time while writing.  Whether on a web page or on an 8X11 (software or hard copy). I miss the real desktop view, where you can spread the pages out, but only need to work on one at a time.

DV LEAP called itself thought-leader(s), stated a problem, and focused on entrenching the family courts with appellate precedents, under basically a single professor’s anme, tag-teaming with a like-inded psychologist.

Together, somehow, these came up with such gems as “58,000 kids a year” “the problem with UNsupervised Visitation” (as though supervised visitation was some sort of solution, and despite statistics showing children, mothers, supervisers and even at times bystanders could be an were murdered during exchanges (in addition to the many other places they might be murdered after family courts worked hard to obstruct move-away provisions).

These also sold the concept — with others — of “flawed practices” and “broken courts” (i.e., “Our Broken Family Courts” (2012ff).

The more SOME of us survivors who weren’t raised on Kool-Aid and hadn’t drunk theirs, were separately following the financial incentives, identifying the infrastructure and networked nonprofits that hadn’t helped us historically, being generally ignored and at least a few of us (and it does seem to be VERY few) even read tax returns.

The more we consistently “outed” the flawed logic, incomplete presentation of the problem, the unstated collaborations with known fathers’ rights groups (including but not limited to leadership of grantees from the marriage/fatherhood funding stream generated after welfare reform 1996 in the USA), the more new names and labels the same basic groups (adding fresh disaster story and survivor Moms as they went — although not being above at all exploiting older cases for as many years as possible) came up with to discuss what they were consistently doing — running a distract, derail, and divert discussions among survivors and withhold information they had access to, reasonably knew was HIGHLY relevant, and would put an entirely different “spin” on their own spin.

In other words, the more light being shed domestically (that means, in the United States for such individuals), the more and louder it seemed the claims to be “shining the light” “breaking the silence” and in general, acting in the capacity of heroes.

Sooner or later (and after, so it seems, some of my more open critiques of the DV LEAP approach), Professor Meier would logically have to distance herself from who and what DVLEAP in fact was, and “turn it up a notch” as though the whole body of work was a consistent contribution — and not, as it in fact has been, a consistent obstruction, to exposing and properly objectively defining the family courts as a forum, as a venue, and in their historic promotion.

Not happy with that preview, it’s probably been said a dozen times on this blog, but it still irritates me.  Why?  POSSIBLY because I’m a mother aware of the opportunities and closed doors of my generation, and who was intent they stay closed, while claiming to be instead “opening” them.  I wonder, of this leadership, not including those who are identifably men with a related male agenda for hanging out and hitch-hiking off the work of women, including early feminists whose main concern seems to have been women being beaten and/or murdered in their homes — not just equality, second class citizen status in general, and being disenfranchised from major leadership positions, colleges, and professions (and among the latest to get the vote in this country)….

I really wonder how many of these specific career professors with an agenda that “must” be executived, regardless of its merit, or the honesty (or lack thereof) in executing it, and regardless of how it in those regards discredits women in general, and women protesting prejudice and injuries inflicted upon (us) via the family courts, in particular — I wonder how many of these actually had children; and for hose who did, how many of them were not raised privileged.

Certain Law Schools and How They Endorse and Facilitate Arrogant, Globalizing, Professors’ Plans to Undermine the U.S. Constitution, Representative Government and Separation of Powers, Disrespecting Women, and Calling that Protecting Children (in the Family Courts.).

Predictable, Coercively Controlling (The Courts) Agenda] [Aug. 25, 2022].

For example, in George Washington University Law School, a lone (pretty much) professor cites H.Con.Res.72

This was SO predictable — but then again, I think in terms of system infrastructure, I’m a twice-burnt, thrice-shy domestic survivor with an analytical streak who doesn’t appreciate my time being wasted, systematically, and so isn’t afraid to speak up when this is common pradtice among self-described thought-leaders who can’t even state a problem (let alone it’s solution) honestly, and for (about two, here) decades have been leveraging an academic post at a private nonprofit institution near Washington D.C., and  (previously; it still exists though), a domestic (DC-based) SMALL nonprofit — also a member (so it says) of the D.C. Coalition Against D.V. — thus being in several ways a part of the system it claims to be in a position to restructure towards a more global orientation and standardized, nationalized, and centrally administered (like the failed D.V. system it’s criticizing in this process).

Why Promote, Perpetuate Or Even Facilitate Law Schools and Their Arrogant Globalizing Careerist Professors,  Predictable, Coercively Controlling (The Courts) Agenda] [Aug. 25, 2022]. (short-link ends “-f9d”)

My issues with H.Con Res.72 (although the above posts also lay them out) and who considers it a wonderful thing to jumpstart another problem-solving national resource center:

Nor does it deal with the discrepancy between federal courts NOT having jurisdiction, generally, over the state courts making those “custody and visitation” decisions.  Certain collaborating individuals  are determined to federalize the family courts now under state family jurisdiction, along with existing nationalization of the domestic violence prevention, the marriage/fatherhood promotion, mental health policy, child welfare policy — almost ANY policy which relates to controlling and determining the belief sets of future generations, not to mention their work options, and respective values of mothers and fathers..)

It’s called “functionalism,” takes a few generations to get going really well, and at its juicy core center, is NOT about stopping violence against women, poverty, or even child murders — but USING those circumstances for undermining, first state, and (now in progress, people!) also national borders, sovereignty, jurisdiction, and independence in favor of, basically, a one-world government modeled after the UN.

The family courts by their nature accommodate diversion of criminal, felony, behavior into behavioral-modification/intervention-dispensing courts. They thus decrease the definition of right vs. wrong (Criminal versus not-criminal), seek to replace punishment as a deterrence with behavior modification curricula in exchange for reduced or eliminated sentencing, and instead of addressing a perpetrator, seeking to treat “the whole family” (holistic, etc.)

The family courts (I speak as to USA) can afford this and attract people to the field by specific federal funding streams directed towards them, thus further confusing the public who’s led to believe (through domestic violence movements, formerly protecting battered women, etc.) that making it “illegal” (i.e., laws against it which might and sometimes even did result in criminal penalties, i.e. JAIL as a restraint) meant the family courts gave a damn about that — while family law, and the proliferation and promotion of “conciliation” alongside eliminating, or seeking to as much as possible, the concept of “felony” causes for divorce: i.e., “irreconcilable differences” is good enough.

That’s obviously going to be a problem! Having helped establish a continuing source of ongoing conflict — of standards for right and wrong, criminal versus just a misunderstanding, Now, here come the problem-solvers, observable a half-century later, including but not limited to:

A Google search result for NFVLC (written out) and “H.Con.Res.72” is a “myemail-contact” “Joan Meier and GW Law Announce New Family Violence Law Center” “Friends,” communication (which ended up on the Internet, too), thanking GWU law for its support (which should be noted), naming esteemed helping colleagues (including the law school’s dean (!) and (mentioned first after the dean; they are not listed alphabetically), Naomi Cahn, who I noted previously (on Twitter if not here also) has had connections with a Marriage center at University of Virginia, and, generally, AFCC.  So — does Meier just not know about these things?  Nope.

…As the proud founder and director of the center, I am delighted to announce that esteemed colleagues, Professor and Clinical Dean Laurie Kohn; Professor Naomi Cahn; Professor Catherine J. Ross; Professor Mary Ellsberg, Director of the GW Global Women’s Institute; and Dr. Nicole Lang have all agreed to work with NFVLC. Collectively, they bring critical expertise in scholarship, policy development, research, and alliance-building to the center’s mission.

Interesting how two professors and one doctor are named, but without any other point of reference outside their names (such as, at which institution:  all at GWU?) and for the “Dr.” — in what (medicine?), not mentioned.  Also, while the operation and center is labeled “national,” a director of the Global Women’s Institute is involved.  Three focuses are mentioned;  H.Con.Res.72 is mentioned in the second.

I’d like to discuss (the deficiencies and characteristics of (this summary, again — but for now, won’t.  It’s “off” and it’s typical in how it’s off, and it betrays (but only if you pay attention to the financials and networked nonprofits involved here, and their characteristics and agenda over the years) who they are and what they intend to do, as more self-serving than concerned — even about “child homicides by parents in the family court systems.”  At this point, I think it’s more than fair and gracious to say the justice and due process aren’t really in the picture here — just scrambling to maintain and retain a piece of the pie to be divided up (at public expense) for a guaranteed-to-fail cause (fixing the family courts) based upon poorly and impossible-to-prove assumptions, routinely slipped into their own summaries.

So, the three focuses — “NFVLC will structure its work around three primary efforts” are:

…my recently completed five-year empirical study, the results of which are reported in Child Custody Outcomes in Cases Involving Abuse and Alienation Allegations. (the “study”).  This study is a rich mine of pioneering original empirical data which is urgently needed to inform critical “data-based” policy changes.

NFVLC will mine the study’s considerable additional data for further analyses of myriad topics, including the role of child welfare agencies^^ and other things …It^^^ also will commission additional research and reports using existing databases, such as the database of children killed by a parent involved in a family court proceeding.

In addition to continued empirical and qualitative research, NFVLC will host national conferences to bring together constituencies that rarely collaborate, including domestic violence and family law academics and professionals, as well as juvenile and child welfare law, and child maltreatment and domestic violence professionals

^^ taking a playbook off the existing situation:  domestic violence agencies already collaborating with child welfare prevention.  NFVLC (Meier et al). aren’t at all unique in this.  DV Childwelfare.org (check the dates), Wingspread Conference of 2000 (correlation between domestic violence, child maltreatment, and custody, with a judicial benchbook published and pilot tests nationwide)…

^^^ not to sound like “a broken record’ (if LPs pre-date you, scratched vinyl records could result in the same phrase being played repeatedly on the phonograph, which depends on a sensitive needle to produce the sound).  (Look up “phonograph”!), but NFVLC — like FRPN.org — is no “it” and so can’t commission anything, at lesat as of this date.  “It” may file for separate legal entity existence at some later date,  but UNTIL and UNLESS someone does, under that name, saying “IT” does anything or commissions anything is basically a lie — a commonplace, garden variety misleading statement — but still a lie

Joan Meier is working the agenda, essentially, of the Association of  Family and Conciliation Courts, which is shared by certain others (obviously) — and that’s not “just” nationalizing issues under state control, but also promoting “Unified Family Courts” which grab separate subject matter AND geopolitical jurisdictions, and obtain control of them by the favored view.

2. State Family Violence Law Clearinghouse:  [[This section is where “H.Con.Res.72” is mentioned]

As a result of ## the growing number of child homicides by parents involved in family court, as well as the unanimous adoption by the House of Representatives of H.Con.Res.72 on Child Safety in the Family Courts, state lawmakers have begun to focus on the problems in family courts. [Para. break inserted to comment]]

(‘child homicides by parents” link probably ties right to Center for Judicial Excellence, whose standard operating procedure to date has been derailing conversations from, despite having been informed from at least its initial filings (early 2000s), welfare reform and access-visitation grants impact on custody courts,m in other words, had it done its job (or, in Washington, D.C., Professor Meier dones hers before starting “DV LEAP”) I wouldn’t need to be writing this blog periodically homeless and now a senior, or have needed to write this blog, except for my own personal understanding).

This assertion, that two elements (a growing number of child homicides by parents involved in family court + the unanimous adoption of H.Con Res.72 has gotten the apparently distracted or UNfocused on family courts House of Representatives to pay better attention to those courts) is truly slick, and typical of the “Dear Friends” communications styles of the protective parents associations also — couching unproven (and in the larger contexts, not even logical) assumptions of ‘causation” and of how the world works to justify what it wants to promote.

Seriously! — casual use of “As a result of” is claiming causation. It could have been said more directly:  “State lawmakers have begun to focus on the problems in family courts BECAUSE parents involved in family court(s) [but stated in the singular “family court”] are increasingly [committing/perpetrating] “child homicide” — murdering their own, or her, children — come to notice it, the term is “parents” not “fathers” right?  If this is evenly distributed between mothers and fathers, then the word “parents” might be appropriate, but I’m betting from this source (and I read headlines, too), it’s not.  Here, Meier says “parents” not “fathers,”* writes the sentence so as to avoid indicating any agent or actor who killed the kids:

“growing number of child homicides”

Things that “grow have some life within them, and have some nurturing environments (soil, air, icrobes, water, etc.) and conditions — or they wouldn’t “grow.” Again, another word might’ve been “increasing number” of.  Despite the emphasis on “empirical” throughout this announcement, its summary as stated defies proof of its own assertions.

(*which MIGHT conceivably draw some attention to fatherhood programming, if only by using the word “fathers.”  I mean, there are television ads now on the topic, it’s not 100% hidden from the public view).

There is currently no centralized or national entity to support local and regional legislative reform efforts; the center will fill this gap. NFVLC’s clearinghouse will support advocates and policymakers by providing expert research and analysis, offering best-practices templates for legislation, and working to coordinate diverse legislative efforts around the country so that each jurisdiction does not have to start from scratch.

MORE THOUGHTS ADDED SHORTLY BEFORE PUBLISHING THIS POST:

We are to believe that the problem isn’t constantly adding on trainings and the financial incentives involved, nor is it trying to handle criminal matters in a “behavior modification” way, it’s just who’s in charge of training and after the first decade fails, what other kinds with slightly-different buzz-words can be added on.

The mentality (and premises are): It’s not the foundations, it’s just the administration of the programming, or not enough programming, or not the right consultants on the (endless) trainings.  FINANCIAL audits?  Heck no!  Financial literacy for the commoners?  Heck No!

And THAT’s where I say, the body of evidence available — some of it hidden in plain sight, others more hidden — indicates that that premises of the ENTIRE family law system (and the larger ones withinwhich it was successfully created in the USA) weren’t  challenged or properly vetted from the start.  No matter how “off” cruel, immoral, dangerous, illogical and NOT subject to real restraint (by the people, or self-regulation) this system based on “behavioral health + lawyers = less violence and abuse” (+ privatization of government functions, already a pretty well done deal…) is, we must all subscribe to the mythology that it’s capable of reform — in the right hands, and with a few more laws.

I say it’s not, but even if it were, I wouldn’t choose hands with this level of arrogance and a practice of censorship on the economic incentives to NOT fix the issues, ever.  I also wouldn’t choose groups which have demonstrated they, with colleagues, don’t REALLY subscribe to our form of government, i.e., representative.

Many people underestimate the coercive, controlling, abusive, and domineering combo of the fields that populate the family courts and surroundings, fields developed in part from Freud (psychoanalysis with the constant guru-worship, mentoring, controlling teacher/patient relationships), from psychology, from tactics used on prisoners of war to break them, while at the same time, exploiting their labor and appropriating / re-allocating their profits.  Fields with expertise in trauma from decades of inflicting it on others, let alone the gaslighting of reality through ongoing story-telling.

There’s also the religious influence, whether occult/new-age or traditional “Abrahamic” religions (the famous three), which are also political movements, historically AND now.  The family courts (and faith-based offices in the Executive Branches of government) are now a natural habitat.  Not to mention sociology (studying those socially-engineered lab rats to find out “what works”).

Lying, re-framing, spinning, withholding (information), and in doing so, doing it under names whose finances either can’t be traced or maintain such a LOW profile, how they’re still in operation year after year, while those they purport to be most concerned about are often bankrupt or (like me, this round) homeless as a DIRECT result of family court treatments following (often) abusive marriages or partnerships where credit was destroyed, work lives trashed or forbidden, access to basic tools of our culture (phone, transportation, a bank account, a footprint of paying bills under one’s own name, that is, an economic identity history should it become necessary in the future to operate independently), and so forth.

I realize that last sentence was long; it was written remembering several ones I’ve profiled here.  I’ve either looked for and read, or looked for and found “not available” the ones I described above.  Many are on this blog year after year, some are newer, some just rebranded.

CoDependent Relationships?  Or Funding Just Not Reported? With the networking, it’s common to find “money” with the “basically broke” (according to available public profiles) nonprofits, whether formed by survivor mothers in desperation, or by advocates in proliferation of the same basic concepts — we can salvage the family court systems and reduce child murders (maternal murders, i.e., femicides, seem almost off the radar these days; “CHILD” seems to have more political clout)

I’ve blogged, I’ve reported, I’ve exhorted, I’ve as I could taught how, and I’ve annotated.  But I can “do the math” and realize that my posts, one by one, and increasingly sporadic each time I have to address another personal or life (or safety) issue — unfunded — isn’t sufficient.  Right now, it’s a track record. 

As hard as I come out against nonprofits on principle, and as long as I’ve resisted starting one, that time seems to be approaching – – – I don’t believe I could live with my own conscience if I just quit.

Thanks for reading this far.//LGH

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