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A Few FAQs on Major Family Court Programs (NYEve 2012 Reflex on the Gender Gap)

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(Written the last day of 2012) This post is about 10,000 words and was edited supplemented several times after publishing [INCLUDING IN 2014, when I was formatting a Table of Contents] .
FYI, that’s typical of my blogging… Also thanks for patience with formatting, as I deal with a different input device and fewer “buttons.” It’s cumbersome, only lets me compose in HTML mode..) [extra horizontal lines may appear as forced “paragraph breaks” which otherwise, get erased.

I am, to tell the truth, having an awful day, struggling with computer issues, web access, and, apart from the electronic struggles, with grief.

Also the long-term effects of chronic, for lack of a better term, Family Violence — in its ugly, needless, heartless, dishonest, deceitful and extortionist self. People reach a limit, and because I am NOT of the inclination to behave like those who have a conflict with me — i.e., my faith doesn’t endorse the criminal behavior part — I am finding it just this much family violence, all this just too much.

Normally this article wouldn’t be much of my concern — it’s talking about “Wage Gaps in MBA Programs” — I mean, a woman that has got through an MBA program is not likely facing the same issues I have been.

But from my perspective (year after year, there has been a return to literally begging status around the court fiascos, which is hardly unintentional from a systems, or my ex’s part; I’d been promised before separation that he knew how to get out of paying child support (wonder where learned it from….), but well, I just didn’t know at the outset of the program how many other parties profit from this. In fact I didn’t know til I revisited Liz Richards’ NAFCJ.net site and worked through the basics — almost no one else at the time was talking about the grants incentives…..


So what happens when WAGE GAP is multiplied by REPEATED WAGE DISRUPTIONS AND DECREASES (when an employee has to miss too much work, move for safety, return to court to try to contact one’s kids — often — deals with stalking and has to re-arrange work life for protection from it, has to take into account client/employer safety in future business dealings, and word gets around that the individual has “family problems” which interfere with work problems, and that’s chronic? The main concept behind having a sustainable work life is that it’s sustained. Or moves are strategic, or for exploring different options?


So, look at this from SFGATE.com (San Francisco on-line, it was also in the print edition, page A1):

MBA Wage Gap between Men, Women Grows” Dec. 29, 2012

[Alison Damast is a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter. E-mail: adamast@bloomberg.net] Ten years ago, the wage gap between men and women graduating from top MBA programs appeared to have been nearly erased. {{that’s astounding, considering the rest of society..}} That suggested that women would launch their careers on an equal footing with men and then experience a gender-blind sprint up the corporate ranks. A decade later [i.e., NOW], a far more sober picture is emerging: The pay gap among graduates of elite business schools is widening, according to new research from Businessweek’s biennial survey of MBA graduates. On average, female grads from top MBA programs now earn 93 cents for every dollar paid their male classmates.

{{that still didn’t grab my attention. At least they are working!!}}

At about a third of the top 30 U.S. business schools, women earn less than men – sometimes considerably less. Female MBA graduates from the class of 2012 at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, earned 86 percent of male wages, while those at Stanford Graduate School of Business earned 79 percent.

{{Now, that has my attention. (I’m also remembering that Catherine Austin Fitts attended Wharton. Of course she had a lot of other things going for her personally as well, I saw some MIT in the background, time in China — she’s no slouch…)…Two more short sections of this article here:}}

“The gap numbers at the beginning are not very large and can be mostly accounted for by differences in grades, course selection and the fields people are starting in,” says Marianne Bertrand, an economics professor at University of Chicago Booth School of Business, citing results of studies on compensation among female MBA graduates from her school.

What is much more striking is how much that gap grows over time.The pay gap is especially wide for women heading to finance jobs.

A study of 2010 census data by Bloomberg found that among the six categories with the largest gender gap in pay were insurance agents, personal advisers and securities sales agents.

Women in those jobs earned 55 to 62 cents for every $1 men pulled in, the census data showed.

In 2010, research from Catalyst, a nonprofit group that focuses on expanding opportunities for women in business, found that female MBAs were being paid, on average, $4,600 less in their first job than men, a disparity that grows to $30,000 by mid-career, says Anna Beninger, a senior associate in Catalyst’s research department.

{{Add to this the fact that the dollar is hardly stable, you can imagine it makes an increasing difference!}}

Even women placed in high-potential leadership development programs often miss out on what are considered hot jobs, or projects most critical to career advancement, Catalyst found. Says Beninger: “Women’s careers lag behind men from day one.” . . . .

[Alison Damast is a Bloomberg Businessweek reporter. E-mail: adamast@bloomberg.net]

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The term “HIGH-CONFLICT” — Docketed, Trademarked, Franchised, and Distributed!

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Post title: The term “HIGH-CONFLICT” — Docketed, Trademarked, Franchised, and Distributed! Published May 10, 2012 (About 5,500 words; case-sensitive short-link ending “-14I” + some re-formatting for easier “cite”)


HIGH CONFLICT is turning out to be a HIGH-CASH-COW in the Family Law business:

High Conflict Case Management

A new program has been instituted in San Diego to deal with certain High Conflict Cases.  A number of therapists and a small group of lawyers and judges have participated in training to manage these cases.Attorney Robin A. Devito is one of the few lawyers selected to participate in the initial training program.  For more information, contact Robin’s Office.

If you click on the attorney’s name, the assortment of terms is typical AFCC, and she notes she was trained by Joan Kelly of Northern California Mediation, Center. etc.   All the phrases are in place:  Collaborative Law, etc.

Robin was trained in mediation through the Northern California Mediation Center, by Joan Kelly and Nancy Davis, in 1994.  She is a trained Collaborative Practitioner, and a member of both Collaborative Practice groups in San Diego, and the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals [IACP].  She conducts mediation, and handles Collaborative cases.

The emphasis of her practice is Alternate Dispute Resolution and Private Judging, each of which is consistent with her solution-seeking approach to resolving Family Law matters of all types.  She is frequently hired by other lawyers as a mediator, settlement conference judge, arbitrator, or private judge, to help them resolve their clients’ cases, spends much of each week active in that capacity.

[Basic description above unchanged May 2012-May 2018. Link: https://www.divorceandmediation.com/high-conflict-case-management.html;  In case that changes, a “screen print” (image) to the bottom of this post. // //Blog administrator LGH, 5-14-2018]

This is simply what the family law system is about  It wants to order more services– that’s the name of the game:  Now there are HIGH-CONFliCT DOCKETS or PROGRAMS showing up in various states and jurisdictions, with some serious repercussions.  Always it’s the parents’ problem (usually a communication problem) they can’t co-parent, even if one of them is committing incest.  Talking about this, or supporting a child if they are afraid to see the parent can cause serious conflict with the courts, and might get you sent to jail, or being forced to pay supervised visitation for not being more cooperative.  

In a NJ County, this is what’s likely to happen if there’s “high conflict”:

    • Custody Neutral Assessment Program 609-518-2515

The Custody Neutral Assessment Program (CNA) is available for high conflict cases** that are inappropriate for, or are unable to be resolved, through mediation. This program utilizes several mental health practitioners in the community who meet with the parties, discuss contested issues and make clinical recommendations to the court on how to resolve disputed issues.

    • Expert Evaluation Program 609-518-2515

The Expert Evaluation Program is a clinical service available for high conflict custody cases that are not appropriate for mediation or Custody Neutral Assessment. Cases are referred by court order to mental health evaluators within the community for psychological or psychiatric evaluation. Completed reports are submitted to the court to provide the judge with clinical insight of the case prior to making a final decision.

{{**if you have conflict, you have a mental health problem… this is how abuse and DV cases will be managed from here on out, apparently.  There is no such thing as individual responsibility for cruelty, or abuse, or contempt of court, etc. – — BOTH parents will be held responsible and psychologically evaluated.  This MAY just explain why court dockets are so full….}}

I thought I’d “Seen it All” in how many ways the words “high conflict” could be used, but it appears I was wrong.  So today, here’s another look at how it can be trademarked, franchised, certified, shrinkwrapped, and sold.

Perhaps there’d be less conflict of more professionals were able to handle conflict with their re-branding of common criminal behavior as a psychological personality aberration on the part of the protecting or reporting parents, often female:

I have other blogs (that look better) — see The Family Court Franchise System, particularly the page (and also a post or so) on Connect-i-cut’s High Conflict Docket.

Which also made headlines – or at least a lengthy piece — by journalist Keith Harmon Snow on the nightmares American mothers are going through when it comes to coverup of serious child sexual abuse, to the tune of being extorted by supervised visitation provider, etc.

U.S. FAMILY COURTS SACRIFICING MOTHERS & CHILDREN
Family Courts Behind an Epidemic of Pedophilia & Judicial Abuse

keith harmon snow

First publication: 01 May 2012
Edits & Revision: 03 May 2012


A five month investigation reveals an epidemic of violence and corruption facilitated by Family Courts in the United States.  Children all over the United States are being taken from their protective mothers and delivered to abusers.  Behind this epidemic of judicial abuse are organized networks involved in racketeering and corruption, channeling and disappearing billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayers money every year.  Insurance companies are being defrauded by medical and mental health professionals rewarded handsomely for producing quack studies that criminalize loving mothers and protect abusive fathers.  With clear evidence of racketeering and corruption, high court judges and insider lawyers use and abuse the Family Courts system to destroy protective mothers and deliver life sentences of suffering to innocent children. 

Rich, poor, middle-class… No child in America is safe.

That happens to be true (we are in short, becoming quite the police state…..) although I still need to contact him (again) about this approach to the problem.  He is a reporter, not a litigant or parent snared by the system, and has a mixture of traumatized parents’ reports and the professionals, but very little on the organizational (corporate) structures that set this up.   But the case that got his attention — was the one in Connecticut where a HIGH-CONFLICT REGIONAL DOCKET had been set up.  THis is become a practice around the country.  WATCH OUT! — it’s not good news!!

All I intend to post today is a link to a program (Not necessarily a DOCKET) in San Diego area which shows some of the moulah to be made by franchising into the words “High-Conflict” and teaching parents how to cut it out.  Click and read — it’s fairly self-explanatory if you have some exposure to this system (and the AFCC jargon):

http://www.highconflict.net/instructors/become-an-instructor-2/

This one appears to have been slapped together — jump on the bandwagon.  I don’t know that the pricing reflects this — it’s HIGH!

BECOME A HIGH CONFLICT DIVERSION PROGRAM INSTRUCTOR OR COACH

HIGH CONFLICT DIVERSION PROGRAM

TEACHER CERTIFICATION WORKSHOPS 2012

Kingston New Jersey – June 8-11  2012

Austin Texas – July 27-30

We are very excited that you have expressed interest in High Conflict Diversion Program™.  The High Conflict Diversion Program™ was founded by Brook Olsen in 2006 as a resource for assisting parents in high conflict divorce with strategies to help them reduce the conflict in their custody issues and to educate therapists, attorneys and family court professionals in alternative ways to deal with high conflict divorce. The program, currently in San Diego County, is both court-ordered and non-court ordered in which parents in high conflict custody battles attend.

The High Conflict Diversion Program is committed to educating the family courts, family court professionals and parenting educators throughout the country about high conflict divorce through leading edge strategies for changing how parents deal with this difficult situation.

We are offering a four day workshop where we will be teaching cutting edge knowledge to become a certified High Conflict Coach and High Conflict Diversion Program™ Instructor.

. . .

This Program is already recognized in many counties in California, Florida, Colorado  and Puerto Rico and continues to grow in recognition through out the US and Canada. The first two days must be taken as a prerequisite.

This workshop is offered to mental health professionals, attorneys, parenting educators and family court professionals and by interview to other professionals wanting to teach this work.

We understand that your time and money are very important and realize the current economic situation makes investing in this education difficult so we have reduced the cost of this training to $1699 for the 4 day training. That is a reduction in the original cost of $300.00.

(continue reading, and most of us, I believe, will recognize the basic marketing program and buy-in (entrance fees) “sell.”)…

Brook D. Olsen

Director: High Conflict Diversion Program LLC

(the “ABOUT DIRECTOR” page is blank, currently)

Here’s the program’s own LinkedIn (where I learn that Brook is a man (?) and thereafter you can click on Brook or Debra Dupree (co-instructors?) and read more about their backgrounds, too.

 and Transitions for Life Mediation (both DUPREE): & Founder, Brook Olsen:

The Relationship with California Secretary of State (that matters) — well apparently it doesn’t matter:  She also registered it in 2007 (late in the year), not 2005 as website claims (typical!)

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
200731810061 11/08/2007 CANCELED RELATIONSHIPS THAT MATTER, LLC DEBRA DUPREE

(street address in El Cajon, now lists a real estate attorney there….)

Transitions for Life, if the bottom row,  just registered a month or so ago; if you click on it (or search again at CA Secretary of State Business Search site) has no street address listed:

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C2699054 02/11/2005 SUSPENDED TRANSITIONS FOR LIFE CENTER, INC. SHARON HEASTON
C3447150 01/23/2012 ACTIVE TRANSITIONS FOR LIFE INC. LEGALZOOM.COM, INC.
  1. TFL Mediation | LinkedIn

    Transitions For Life Mediation is about providing better solutions for divorcing families. We offer flat-fee Divorce Packages™ and hourly programs to help 

However a website http://www.lifetransitionsinc.net/ shows up a parent education group in Massachusetts called “MOVING FORWARD”

Moving Forward an educational program to diminish the effects of divorce on children and adults

Our 2-session program meets in Littleton and Chelmsford, in Massachusetts, on Fridays 6:00-8:30pmand Saturdays 9:30am-12:00pm.

Workshop fee is $80.

This parent education workshop is approved by the Chief Justice of the Probate & Family Court, Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Under the High Conflict Diversion Program’s site,

I count 15 instructors (read the pricing, do the math) and this website appears to be still in construction.  Perhaps Brooks was a little late on this bandwagon….

How to screen for potential clients (i.e., divorces that could be roped into this):

  1. By starting early in the divorce process, we can look out for potential “red flags” surrounding certain behaviors that will identify substance abuse issues and other indicators that suggest that a High Conflict scenario** may be present
  2. By working with attorneys in the early stages of potentially High Conflict divorces, we will increase the probability of obtaining a settlement agreement before the proceedings collapse.
  3. We teach communication skills and help our students to identify, and then responsibly avoid, “triggers” that lead to conflict. These skills are not only helpful during the divorce and parenting, but are also highly useful in maintaining a better relationship with a new partner or spouse. These communication skills also help the attorney-client communication stay clear and on track.
  4. By helping students think “outside the box,” we help empower them to rely on their own inner resources, rather than the court system, to remedy their situation.
  5. We help identify, both directly and indirectly, the belief patterns, triggers, coping mechanisms and survival strategies that prevent parents from accessing their capacity to disengage from a High Conflict divorce and move on with their lives.
  6. We teach centering and relaxation techniques to help students to calm down prior to, during and after contact with a non-cooperative ex-spouse, depositions, meetings with attorneys, court appearances and things of this nature.

** Notice that emotionally triggering terms like “child abuse, spouse abuse, kidnapping, stalking” etc. are not mentioned.  In fact, that’s part of the plan, evidently.  Domestic violence and child abuse (etc.) can obviously be handled by teaching (BOTH sets of) parents better communication skills, under threat of excommunication or being court-ordered into more classes, or loss of contact with one’s kids, etc.

What IS it about the City of San Diego.  So much (baloney) proceeds from this one city and it’s Family Justice Center Alliance, Relationship Training Institute (not current with their charitable filings, I suspect kickbacks at this point, take court-referral business), the attempt to get KidsTurn legislated (SB 577 was it?), not to mention Kids Turn San Diego, and Enron by the Sea.  The “California Healthy Marriages Coalition” (Stoica/Leucadia, etc.) is in the area, apparently — and getting multiple millions of HHS (Still — $2.5 million in 2011, jsut like old times) and it just goes on and on.  Anyhow, here’s a snippet from Debra Dupree’s “Relationships that Matter” website.  It does seem she’s a sucker for ANY training program she can stick up on the credentials page:

Debra moved into the field of Mediation in 1994 with advanced certifications in Workplace and Family/Divorce Mediation in 2005 & 2007 and attained the world-renowned CINERGY Certification in Conflict Coaching in 2009. Debra is also certified as a High Conflict Diversion Program (HCDP) Coach & Workshop Leader,** an authorized New Ways for Families (NWFF) Therapist and Mediator,*** and Parent Educator & Coach for  Transitions for Life (TFL).

The San Diego Superior Court and Family Court Services for High Conflict Divorce cases regularly refers cases to Debra to help families and businesses stay out of court.## Debra is an active member of the California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists (CAMFT) and its local San Diego Chapter, the Southern California Mediation Association (SCMA) as well as the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR)

CINERGY(r) (originator from Canada)
CINERGY (tm) - Peacebuilding... one person at a time
 **Probably for the price shown on the site, well over $1,000.
***New Ways for Families” is ? a Bill Eddy “thang.”  See my post about “Another AFCC wet dream” — and High Conflict Institute.
##Let’s hope that keeping families OUT of court is the only “perk” San Diego Superior Court and Family Court Services derives from referral business, but I’m not holding my breath.

New Ways for Families is a structured parenting skills method with short-term counseling to reduce the impact of conflict on the children in potentially high-conflict cases. It can be used whenever a parent or the court believes one parent needs restricted parenting (supervised, no contact, limited time), at the start of a case or any time a parent requests it–including after the divorce.

This method emphasizes strengthening skills for positive future behavior (new ways), rather than focusing on past negative behavior – while still acknowledging it. It is designed to save courts time, to save parents money, and to protect children as their families re-organize in new ways after a separation or divorce, for married or never-married parents. This method can be used in family court, mediation, collaborative divorce, or even post-divorce with the assistance of a Parenting Coordinator or High Conflict Case Manager.


Goals of New Ways for Families

  1. To immunize families against becoming high-conflict families during the separation and the divorce process.
I have no problem with this — if only the family courts would simply stop dealing with criminal matters, and where the crime has been identified, apply “you abuse you lose,” such that the ONLY cases involving co-parenting are those WITHOUT sexual, child, or spouse abuse.  THEN maybe those other things might work.  Then again, most parents have better things to do than (after running their kids to and from school, and themselves to and from work) go sit down in another court-ordered class, particularly of the psychoeducational sort.

New Ways for Families is a new method being tried in San Diego County for handling high conflict parenting cases in family court. Supervising Family Law Judge Lorna Alksne has authorized the downtown San Diego judges to try this method for three months, then it will be evaluated for further use.

 . . .

Step 1: Getting Started

Parents can agree to use New Ways, or a judge can order it while also making temporary parenting orders, support orders, and restraining orders. Then, each parent selects his or her own Individual Parent Counselor from a list of local counselors trained in the New Ways method. Before the counseling begins, each parent prepares a Behavioral Declaration and a Reply Behavioral Declaration, which are the only declarations provided to their counselors.

Hopefully this spells out why the family courts have become a “RACKET,” without me having to add much more.   You want referral business?  You buy into the system. Did we mention, there are probably still access visitation (federal grants to states, distributed from AOC downward last I heard) which ALSO help set up parent education programs, been going on since 1996…. taking welfare grants to the states, and just “diverting” some of it. For the public’s own good.  We can see this co-parenting thing “really helps,” from the Seal Beach, CA incident of (I believe it was last fall), where “only” 8 people were murdered by a man who didn’t feel that 56% parenting time was fair, and who’d already had a prior restraining order on.  His wife, and 7 others died.  HE DIDN”T (Scott DeKraii).

RE:  Judge Laura Allksne, she seems to have both mens’ and women’s (i.e. protective parents) groups angry with her.  This ANGIEMEDIA site has it exactly right, although I can’t say I’m entirely on the same page with the blog overall:

POSTED THIS PAST APRIL 21, 2012:

Eileen Lasher of the California Coalition for Families and Children was interviewed twice in 2011 by Walter Davis on his show Progress in San Diego. Dr. Emad Tadros,* an outspoken critic of the San Diego family courts, joined them in the first interview. The second interview was shown in two segments.

(*Dr. Tadros discovered the fake credential of a custody evaluator, Stephen Doyne, and has been heavily punished for publicizing this:  “Zoe the Cat” etc.) 

In the interview segment below, Lasher discussed her experiences with the misconduct of minor’s counsel attorneys and how taxpayers and parents are paying for what is in her view an organized criminal enterprise. She says children and parents are being abused by the courts and points out the taxpayers and the abused parents are paying the financial costs for this misconduct.

San Diego Family Courts: Organized Crime Ring Targeting Middle and Upper Classes

Lasher contends the San Diego family law courts are operated as a criminal business that siphons the wealth from families and places it in the hands of the attorneys and experts such as custody evaluators. She views judges who appoint custody evaluators and minor’s counsel attorneys and many of those attorneys as particularly culpable. A minor’s counsel attorney is to participate in a custody case by representing the children. However, such attorneys often have conflicts of interest. They also typically run their own family law attorney business and are also in some cases are attorneys who are involved in probate cases and serve as “pro tem” judges in family law court.

Discussion focused on how low income families seldom have minor’s counsel attorneys and psychological evaluators ordered by the courts. These families have little money, so it is not lucrative to put them through the family court extortion process reserved for people who have some money. Middle income or higher income families often suffer from these expensive costs because they have significant assets and income that can be exploited by the divorce industry.

You have a house, so the attorneys and court want your house to be forced into sale so they can keep the proceeds and ensure their own wealth and job security at the expense of you and your children. You have retirement savings, the attorneys want those, too. There are college savings for the kids? Those can be raided, too.

How better to extort all or nearly all of a family’s wealth than to threaten their children? The attorneys and judges know how lucrative this extortion is and are eager to bring it into play when they see income and assets that can be pillaged.

If the parents don’t have substantial assets, the grandparents might. The court and its allies know that threatening their grandchildren is often an equally effective way to “financially gangrape” the family.

OR (molestation case apparently involving this woman):

  1. Saving Damon – Saving Damon from his identified molester

    but Judge Lorna Alksne wanted to try a local psychologist, Dr. Breffni Barrett, first.  by Judge Lorna Alksne–with no supporting facts or evidence whatsoever.

Some of the families are having very high conflict with the way the courts do business, particularly when their custody evaluators are sporting fraudulent credentials . . . . . ANYHOW, under “NEW (court-ordered) WAYS FOR FAMILIES, INCLUDING THOSE WITH RESTRAINING ORDERS PENDING OR ON AND AS IT SAYS, BEING TESTED (OR BY NOW, IN PRACTICE) UNDER THIS PARTICULAR JUDGE’S WATCHFUL PRESIDING EYE:

Step 2: Individual Parent Counseling

This includes 6 weekly sessions with a separate, confidential counselor for each

parent using a Parent Workbook. Both parents are ordered into this counseling at

the same time, with no presumptions about who is more difficult. The focus of

these sessions is strengthening and practicing three skills: flexible thinking,

managed emotions, and moderate behaviors.

More on Mr. Brook Olsen from Mediate.com — catch the terminology?

Brook D. Olsen


Brook D. OlsenBrook Olsen founded the High Conflict Diversion Program in 2006 and continues to direct its evolution. Curantly Brook is training new teachers throughout the USA to teach the High Conflict Diversion Progream™ in their local communities. Brook is a Certified Parenting Educator with the International Network For Children and Families, a Certified Divorce Mediator, and Life Coach. Brook helps develop high conflict parenting programs for the San Diego Family Courts, and helps educate therapists and attorneys in high conflict divorce.  Brook’s training includes six years of study with Dr. Michael Mamas in the field of transpersonal counseling, trauma counseling and meditation. Brook completed three years of training in trauma resolution through the Foundation for Human Enrichment with Peter Levine and is a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner.  Brook co-taught the High Conflict Intervention Program for two years for the San Diego County Family Court System. Brook is a licensed Holistic Health Practitioner and Certified Clinical Nutritionist. He is also trained in Interpersonal Communication and High Conflict Resolution.
Here’s a page on Dr. Michael Mamas, a.k.a.

Maharshi Maheshananda (Dr. Michael Mamas)

Maharshi Maheshananda is the visionary and developer of Mount Soma.  Maharshi is a Master who brings out ancient Vedic Knowledge, the Knowledge at the base of all religions, in modern terms.  He is also the protector of the Knowledge, making sure Knowledge is brought out in its purity.

Maharshi MaheshanandaMaharshi was an honors student in physics and mathematics at Ohio State University prior to obtaining a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and a Masters in Business Administration. For nearly a decade, Maharshi lived a monastic life, studying with great saints and spiritual teachers from India and around the world.  From the wisdom and knowledge he gained, Maharshi derived a profound and practical approach to personal growth and health, one that transcends both traditional and alternative methods.

Maharshi is the only person from the West to ever be awarded the title Adhyatm Vidhya Visharad (mastery of the highest Knowledge of the soul) from Bhagavan Yagnyavalkya Ved Tatavagyan Yogashram, the Sanskrit College at the University of Gujarat, which was given to him in 2007.

An explanation of the title “Maharshi Maheshananda”:  A Rishi is a seer – one who sees the truth of life, the foundation of existence, and the mechanics of its manifestation in life.  A Maharishi is a great seer – one with the gift of being able to reveal that knowledge to others and help people cultivate a physiology that embodies the Knowledge.  Mahesh is a name of Lord Shiva.  Ananda means bliss.  Maheshananda means bliss of Lord Shiva, or one who is loved by Shiva.

iving in California has its advantages, there are the obvious benefits like Yosemite, great restaurants and magnificent sunsets, and then there are the not so obvious advantages like . . . schools. In San Diego alone, there are easily a hundred schools, from high schools to hang gliding schools and from computer schools to . . . schools for enlightenment. One need only scan the yellow pages and if you can dream it, someone has created a school for it.

One such school is the School for Enlightenment and Healing. The school was created by Dr. Michael Mamas, a former veterinarian, as a progressive training program for the development of hands-on-healing.

(so long as Mr. Olsen is not running KidsTurn Classes…)

ABOUT THE TRADEMARKING:  This can be searched, and gets entertaining AND informative.  For example, the short-lived trademarked term (still be advertised on the web for sale) was actually “abandoned” by Mr. Olsen in 2009:=.  First used in commerce:  Feb. 2007.  Trademark Filed, May 2008.  Abandoned, February 2009.

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
200904410130 02/04/2009 ACTIVE HIGH CONFLICT DIVERSION PROGRAM, LLC BROOK DELL OLSEN

Mark Image

Word Mark HIGH CONFLICT DIVERSION PROGRAM
Goods and Services (ABANDONED) IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Education services, namely, providing personal coaching, classes, seminars and workshops in the fields of conflict management, dispute resolution and mediation; On-line journals, namely, blogs featuring information on conflict management, dispute resolution and mediation; Publication of journals; Publication of training materials and other publications related to such programs or related to the subjects of divorce, family conflict, conflict management, dispute resolution and mediation. FIRST USE: 20070201. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20070201
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 77466340
Filing Date May 5, 2008
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Owner (APPLICANT) Brook D. Olsen INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES 28481 Gordon Hill Road Valley Center CALIFORNIA 92082
Attorney of Record Jason Belice
Disclaimer NO CLAIM IS MADE TO THE EXCLUSIVE RIGHT TO USE “CONFLICT” APART FROM THE MARK AS SHOWN
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator DEAD
Abandonment Date February 20, 2009
NEW WAYS FOR FAMILIES is still “LIVE” trademark:
Mark Image
Word Mark NEW WAYS FOR FAMILIES
Goods and Services IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Educational services, namely, live and on-line training and curriculum development of a structured parenting skills method with short-term counseling for families involved in Family Court proceedings and distributing workbooks and guidebooks in connection therewith. FIRST USE: 20090101. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 20090101
Mark Drawing Code (5) WORDS, LETTERS, AND/OR NUMBERS IN STYLIZED FORM
Trademark Search Facility Classification Code SHAPES-COLORS-2 Design listing or lined for two colors
SHAPES-MISC Miscellaneous shaped designs
Serial Number 77848927
Filing Date October 14, 2009
Current Basis 1A
Original Filing Basis 1A
Published for Opposition August 10, 2010
Registration Number 3866592
Registration Date October 26, 2010
Owner (REGISTRANT) High Conflict Institute, LLC LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY ARIZONA 7701 E. Indian School Road, Suite F Scottsdale ARIZONA 85251
Description of Mark The color(s) blue and brown is/are claimed as a feature of the mark. The mark consists of the words “new”, “ways” and “families” in lower case letters in brown and outlined in blue; the word “FOR” in upper case letters in blue.
Type of Mark SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE
So this ‘New Ways for Families” (trademark) is less than two years old as we speak.  It’s important for AFCC personnel to keep in front of the crowd with new programs, as the old ones are getting discovered, and sometimes lawsuits being filed over them.  The money appears to be in getting people to buy into becoming a certified trainer of (pick your product) — although who’s to know for sure?
“RELATIONSHIPS THAT MATTER”:
Serial Number Reg. Number Word Mark Check Status Live/Dead
1 78380846 RELATIONSHIPS THAT MATTER TARR DEAD
2 78038409 RELATOMIC.COM::BUILD RELATIONSHIPS THAT MATTER TARR DEAD
3 77793107 CREATING RELATIONSHIPS THAT MATTER TARR DEAD

(none of these related to the above products or service; just FYI, hardly an original term):
INTERNATIONAL NETWORK FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES” — is a Gainesville, FL Corporation of predictable business plan:

Would you like to make a difference in your community?
The Parent Instructor Network Training is a 40 hour intensive, personal training that will certify you to teach the popular Redirecting Children’s Behavior parent education course.  INCAF is one of the only organizations that require their instructors to get their certification and maintain their certification through continuing education. Your certification offers you the opportunity of experiencing the joys of teaching a successful course that empowers families.

The International Network for Children and Families trains people throughout the world to establish their own local parenting courses based on “Redirecting Children’s Behavior”. INCAF provides you with all the skills and materials you need to start a successful seminar business, facilitating a world-renowned course.

BROOKS OLSEN bought into this one, and so gets to also advertise off its website as well:

igh Conflict Divorce Resolution (HCDR) Instructor Training

High Conflict Diversion Program™
Teacher Training Certification

The High Conflict Diversion Program™ was developed by Brook Olsen to assist parents in high conflict divorce to acquire the tools essential to extracting themselves and their children from the devastation of high conflict divorce. The San Diego Family Courts as well as the Alameda County, California court system refer parents in high conflict custody battles to this program.

We are in the process of building a network across the U.S. in order to make this revolutionary program available in as many court jurisdictions as possible.

The High Conflict Diversion Program™ Teacher Training Certification is an intensive, professional training offered under the INCAF umbrella that qualifies individuals to teach the High Conflict Diversion Program™. This training is offered to parenting educators, therapists, attorneys and Family Court professionals. It is approved by the California Bureau of Behavioral Sciences for 28 CEUs and by the California Bar Association for 14 MCLEs. The course is a proven practice builder as well as an important resource to the community.

Why become a High Conflict Diversion Program™ Instructor?

  • To help families through one of the toughest life transitions.
  • To give parents the skills needed to stabilize their own as well as their children’s lives.
  • To play a key role in changing the way family courts understand and deal with the individuals and the dynamics involved in high conflict divorce.
  • To gain a cutting-edge tool that has been proven to help build your private practice and fill your RCB classes.

We are currently taking deposits from professionals who are interested in the Teacher Trainings. The current training schedule is as follows:

Oakland, California: September 8 through 11
Orange County, California: October 10 through 13

Is this the Mrs?

http://peggyolsen.com/classes/

About Your Instructor

Peggy Reynolds-Olsen is a certified parent educator with the International Network for Children and Families, a licensed Holistic Health Practitioner and Registered Craniosacral Therapist (RCST). For the past 18 years she has been a healing arts practitioner in the San Diego area. Working with infants, children and adults, she specializes in the treatment of early developmental trauma, attachment and bonding issues. Her passion lies in helping families create a healthy nurturing environment for the exploration of their full potential as they support each other along life’s journey . .

COURSE COST

$395.00 per couple per 5-week course. $100.00 to repeat Includes text and work book

$230.00 per single person

This parenting program is approved by the San Diego Family Court Serivces (sic)

From “divorce-support.about.com

Did your attorney make mistakes during your divorce?

My children and I have been held hostage in San Diego Family Law Court for 16 years without any issues being resolved. It is a “high conflict” case which means the attorneys deliberately churned the case for high fees using the children as a source of revenue. We are not the only ones.

Were you the victim of an unethical judge?

I have had several unethical judges and numerous commissioners. I have met with at least 50 other litigants who are currently suffering the same form of racketeering.

Here’s a FLORIDA-based “HIGH CONFLICT DOCKET” by none other than 20th Judicial Circuit (lee county), AFCC Board — Judge Hugh Starnes, and co-hort Sheldon Finman, Esq.  Searchable on this blog (the names, Association of Family Law Professionals, etc.):

June 17, 2010

“The Development of the Lee County High Conflict Docket”

Filed under: Uncategorized — Christina @ 1:43 pm

Many thanks are in order to Judge Hugh E. Starnes, a retired circuit court judge, who has volunteered his time, along with Dr. Deborah Silver and Sheldon Finman, Esq., to assist families going through “high conflict” family law cases involving children.  “High conflict” cases can be defined as divorce and custody cases where the parties have been involved with their cases for a long period of time and have not reached a resolution.  Often times, it is the children that suffer the most harm in “high conflict” situations.  Judge Starnes and his team have designed a case management program that enables the parties to come to the court and attempt to problem-solve with professional assistance so that the cases can progress in a manner that may be more suited to the children’s needs.  Hopefully the program will report success and funding will be in place to continue to support the program in the future.

(ALL 3 individuals mentioned above are Florida Chapter of AFCC and instrumental in getting that chapter opened, and passing a parent coordination statue in the state, over the veto of a Governor (2004) and objections (valid ones, no doubt) from domestic violence advocates, who were outmaneuvered and strategically just not up to the opposition….)

This young? attorney will probably carry on the tradition of problem-solving courts (the parents are the problem) with solutions provided by referring professionals, including judges and their friends.

Christina L. Holly, Esq. has been selected for inclusion in Super Lawyers® – Rising Stars Edition 2010. Only 2.5% of eligible lawyers in the state of Florida were selected!

This image added during 2018 update, from https://www.divorceandmediation.com/high-conflict-case-management.html (Robin A. Devito, Esq. page). In 2012 I didn’t know how to do screen prints. Click images to enlarge and notice “Associations” on left side-bar (do not include AFCC, but do include a common interest in “Collaborative Law” as started up (from my understanding) by AFCC members.  It’s a general theme..

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

May 10, 2012 at 4:51 pm

Maryland’s Family Court Expansion, AFCC Model, takes Unifying Symbols to a New Level: Paper, Cotton, Leather, Fruit, Wood, Iron…[Publ. Mar. 27, 2012, Reformatted Jan. 19, 2022..]

with 3 comments

Maryland’s Family Court Expansion, AFCC Model, takes Unifying Symbols to a New Level: Paper, Cotton, Leather, Fruit, Wood, Iron…[Publ. Mar. 27, 2012, Reformatted Jan. 19, 2022..] (short-link added 2022, ends “/psBXH-13l”)(<~to differentiate “I, 1, and l” characters, as you can see, last three characters are two numbers (one, three) [as in “1,2,3,4,5..”) and a lower-case “L” as in the word “lower” in this sentence).

This post has some tags which I’ll post up here.

2012 text begins below the next two text boxes (Preface/Previews in  this color and this color) (basically two sections for me to explain and complain a bit why it’s still necessary to promote and re-publish this information, i.e., why you should still read this and other very early posts, especially one dated Oct. 1, 2012). 

Except for adding some structure (boxes, etc.) to the post, or removing large images with now-broken links (i.e., to condense it), the text is as when I first wrote it, cleaned up somewhat and if any added text, I’ve marked it.

This post’s tags (also visible at the bottom of the post) and I see also “categories”:

Written by Let’s Get Honest, March 27, 2012 at 6:38 pm:

Posted in (blog categories): 1996 TANF PRWORA (cat. added 11/2011), AFCC, Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Child Support, Designer Families, History of Family Court, Lackawanna County PA Corruption Protests, My Takes, and Favorite Takes, OCSE – Child Support, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Parent Education promotion, Parenting Coordination promotion, Psychology & Law = an AFCC tactical lobbying unit


Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,,,

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

CONTEXT / TIMELINE of THIS REFORMATTING UPDATE, JAN. 2022:

If you detect some sarcasm (and very long sentences), that’s an indicator I’ve been recently exposed to some stunning levels of silence on the infrastructure and key players of the court as well as anything approaching tools to look for the funding, or remember what kind of Constitution we have in the United States of America, and what it’s goals are:  NOT centralized control by an elite, self-anointed few who plan all in private and where possible seek to undermine rule of law and separation of powers between federal and state governments, and between the various branches of government.  I’m also, upset by my own limitations in getting messages out while managing basic life responsibilities (even without young children still in the home), even after having fled “the scene of the crime” that is, the remains of my connections to my own family — and of course career — in California, after summer 2018…

Someone needs to stand up to the mis-information, not just “stand by” while it slides by and continues gathering momentum.  Selling false hope ought to be, but isn’t a crime.  It’s just unethical — but I believe that where good ethics fail to show up in the moral category, they’re not particularly likely to be present in legal ones either.

Withholding key information that would shed a different light than the one being sold on a situation, and which might lead to more sensible solutions — or at least refusal to waste time on ones with built-in failures and which refuse to look at the foundations of institutions (such as the family courts as parts of governments) is an indicator that the goal isn’t helping the public, it’s something FAR different, and far less altruistic.

This isn’t the place to identify which nonprofits or social media activity has “gotten to me” the past month or so.  I will elsewhere, though..


I recently had cause to quote my October 1, 2012, post called:

Family Courts: Crippled, Incompetent and Corrupt — or just “Broken”? [Published Oct. 1, 2012..] (short-link ends “-1a4”]

Looking on my blog dashboard to locate and label (short-link), reformat it, I mis-remembered the month saw this published (and a few more draft) posts from March, 2012 which might also be worth re-posting.  After all, anecodotal information tends to repeat and endure. While survivors come and go, somehow those saying the same types of things about the same systems they survived tend to have a longer “tenure” on publicity — for obvious reasons, i.e., their lives weren’t so disrupted ,devastated, and they didn’t, most of them, abruptly lose work, have to relocate in a hurry, and weren’t stranded a decade or a more in “high-conflict” (sic) divorces in a corrupt (not “broken”) family court system, USA, systems set in place by specific, identified tax-exempt organizations: two more high-profile than the third, but the third had the most vested interest in keeping the corruption in place. (The ABA, NCJFCJ and AFCC, in case you were wondering which ones).

Family Court “Reform” has been on a certain trajectory for two decades now (observed from the USA, but I also see the globe-trotting program reproduction and attempts to get similar legislation (can you spell “Coercive Control”?) legislated throughout the USA now that it’s been sold to the UK (2015ff).

I also think I’m going to re-post the Oct. 1, 2012 essay.  It’s been over ten years and it’s time, altnough no lack of new developments to report on

So, the globe-trotting and conferencing (without actual physical travel still possible) is even more intense recently, especially some of us “formerly-battered mothers/”family court guantlet survivors” haven’t forgotten what it’s like to see an entire sector (the domestic violence sector and self-appointed thought-leaders (as they’ve called themselves, on-line, on website, often for years) year after year spewing a combination of erroneous, undocumented on incomplete information to the unsuspecting, carried under advanced-degree and academic institution association status (i.e., as “experts” and all that goes with the common understanding of that word, in addition to legal definitions of it when testifying in court), and commending and giving air-time and in-hindsight sympathy to any mothers (target niche for carrying pre-fabricated messaging forward) so badly traumatized or devastated in the family courts trying to move on, protect themselves, protect their children, function independently from an impossible dynamic, they’ll go on “auto-pilot” without screening for truth, logic, reliability, and completeness of that which they’ve been fed, or screening what those who’ve been feeding it have been routinely, almost ritually, withholding, because it conflicts with the media messaging and the particular policy goals of such groups.

WHY this Update: To make it more readable while I’m in the vicinity of this post as blog administrator (and only contributor). I now include date and year published, borders, width-limits, and post title with visible short-links (in the opening body of each post).  Also a blog format update (to two front pages, allowing one stationary front page and another for “Current Posts”) somehow turned all former posts into a sort of sickly-pale-green background — not pleasant to look at!).

Even though I doubt my older posts are re-read much; they are a record of what I was saying when — and a witness to FOR HOW LONG so much of tis information has been covered-up by people simply with SO much to say, SO many people willing to say it for them, mostly (so it seems) for free, and for a little attention and sense of purpose.

The cover up is just as effective by social “excommunication” from close-knit and in-synched messaging by certain people who’ve been driving the “family court reform” sector as if it were an owned turf — when it’s not.  Others live in this country too, and what we have to say matters, whether it’s popular or not.  Unfortunately, some us have had to also say — often — that dishonesty and withholding IS the character of cults, abusers, sociopaths, and people with an ulterior motive than truth-telling, or fixing government (for the better, that is).  I didn’t ask for that role.  Finding enough truth and having a conscience basically has obligated me to speaking it.


Preface to Formatting a VERY OLD (nearly ten years ago) but what I was saying then might as well still be news, given the typical “Family Court Reform” rhetoric, including of known survivor mothers who channel certain nonprofits intent on NOT saying what I’ve been saying — unlike most of these — since the time I first heard of it.

There’s a need to keep at least ONE voice continuing to say this alive.  I’m still alive, so I’m intent to keep this voice out there, although it takes longer to put together and document with links (and/or uploaded images) post using reason and proof, than it does to repeat the mantras, incantations, catechisms so people go into trance mode and, like any good cult members, groomed personalities (or, are possibly being paid in more than just moral support and retweets, “honorable mentions” on-line for their collective silence on key elements and more probable causes of the family court custody crises), continue speaking the same ‘details-devoid, proof-absent, omitting the elephant organizations in the room rhetoric.

Meanwhile, periodically and privately, I’ll get messages (either on this blog or Twitter) saying how the information I post (i.e.. here and/or on-Twitter) or shared (privately as I have publically when it came up) has validated what they sensed, and were feeling really isolated about for not going along with the crowds who don’t like to talk specifics or keep “survivors” honest (keeping certain other organizations honest isn’t about to happen, I found out the hard way)…//LGH Jan. 19, 2022.


ORIGINAL (2012) TEXT BEGINS HERE:

This post is PR on something I just discovered recently and, to be honest, am distressed enough about to follow up by phone with the leadership of some of the groups involved, asking they why these things should be happening statewide.

The dialogue illustrates what’s going on, but is a little complex, and unless you have an interest in monitoring the expansion and methods of expansion of the family law bureaucracy WITHIN or as an ADJUNCT to our court system, you may not want to go through it all.

I think there is some legitimacy — however widespread, commonplace, and entrenched this system currently is, and however expensive and status quo it has become — to a theory that the “Family Court Services” if not the “Family Courts” themselves (as it pertains to divorce and custody) — are illegitimate.  They are private enterprises posing as public ones, and servicing their funders, who as it happens, tend to occupy high places in (1) the Executive Branch of the United States Government (I’m talking HHS, DOJ in particular) and (2) the corporate /tax-exempt foundation stratosphere — almost none of which is truly accessible to individuals who are coming through these courts, unless they already have prior involvement.

First of all, they are about as unbelievingly condescending and patronizing (‘move over, let us experts handle your family — give us your kid, etc.’) as it is possible for any human relationship to be, apart from some truly unhealthy (i.e., violent/abusive) ones.  They deal in force, and subterfuge when it comes to proliferating the program, and like any good, truly “disaster capitalism” enterprise, they deal with distressed populations, exploit them, and call that service.  I come from California, and preliminary expose on this was done courtesy one of the oldest and (not exactly being updated) sites around — but it still is up and still serves a purpose — Johnnypumphandle.com.  [[FYI, that website is still up  I’ve linked to it in the title.//LGH 2022]]


assn.gif (5213 bytes)  Dedicated to Exposing Illegal and Immoral Practices in The Courts

… Particularly the Family Law System which includes the Courts, Attorneys, Family Services, Psychologists and Therapists,Visitation Monitors, Ad-Litems, Social Workers, Child Protection Agencies and all of the agencies that support these so-called professionals.

Collusion among individuals within the family law system takes place to extract assets from troubled parents. The system is designed to increase the wealth of the family law professionals at the expense and heartbreak of families. Corrupt practices abound. [EndQuote]


For example, why does the “Los Angeles County Superior Court Judges Association” change its name to simply “Los Angeles County Superior Court” in its IRS filings? and what are they actually doing at their special events, including sporting events, and how do they manage to have (year 2010) a net loss of $10,000, being such smart judges (only revenue — membership dues, totaling $50K that year)?

[UPDATE:  Amazingly, tax returns (at the IRS) as late as FY2019 (YE Dec) are still around.  It’s filing a Form 990EZ (deprives people of significant details, such as naming its “affiliate”) and is claiming negative revenues (after raising $62K with “direct expenses” of $118K.  “Go figure…”  It also must be a business association, as its 990EZ filings are also labeled “990EO” where the “E” represents the EZ (abbreviated) part and the “O,” that it’s not filing as a public charity (501©3) but likely 501©6.  For comparison, the American Bar Association files as a 501©6 also.//LGH 2022]

….. (This is a table from the Foundation Center; its format looks different, but I’ve posted tax returns from this source throughout the blog for years. //LGH 2022)…….>> Look under “Candid.org/research-and-verify-nonprofits/990-finder” to re-run this search (use the EIN# below, “95-4663773” NOT entity name!), or go to the IRS (apps.irs.gov/app/eos/ for, these days, probably a more current return.  Or check the Secretary of State (businessSearch.sos.ca.gov) if this entity is still registered, which it probably is.  The adress in 2019 still read 111 Hill Street (#204)…

ORGANIZATION NAME

STATE

YEAR

TOTAL ASSETS

FORM

PAGES

EIN

Los Angeles Superior Court CA 2010 $120,654 990EO 10 95-4663773
Los Angeles Superior Court CA 2009 $95,314 990EO 12 95-4663773
Los Angeles Superior Court CA 2008 $102,801 990EO 11 95-4663773
Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association CA 2007 $87,134 990EO 9 95-4663773
Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association CA 2006 $90,509 990EO 9 95-4663773
Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association CA 2005 $70,106 990EO 8 95-4663773
Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association CA 2004 $55,818 990EO 5 95-4663773

per “Johnny” (at ‘JohnnyPumphandle.com’)

The Los Angeles Superior Court Judges Association is a good example of one of the latter Non-Profit organizations whose stated purpose is “promotion of judicial profession pursuant to section 501(c)(6)”. (see form 3500 – Exemption application). The Association boasts a budget of over $100,000 – none of which will be received from members dues {?} – and most of which will be funded by “Professional Education programs for the legal community”. Unlike most professional organizations, this organization was granted(?) the use of County premises, complete with facilities for it’s [sic] office space and management of it’s business within the County Court facilities at 111 North Hill Street.”

Copyright © Design Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. Last update 01/10/2010)

They call it collaboration, or cooperation, or “interdisciplinary.”  This person calls it, more correctly, “collusion” and states the purpose as accurately as anyone else . .. to extract assets from troubled parents.  Like I said, disaster capitalism.  Ambulance chasers.  Sometimes they (family law professionals) get impatient and take control of the wheel, cause accidents, and then show up to help solve the resulting “Family conflict,” at public and/or parent expense.  How philanthropic.

REGARDING THE TITLE OF THIS POST:

I called up Liz Richards of NAFCJ.net (who I think I’ve made it clear, has provided the skeleton which started my years of investigative reporting here on this blog and off it — not the motivation, but enough clues to grab onto, validate, and develop as now my own material).

She declared (I would like to see) that any family law judge in the state of Maryland must be an AFCC member to take office.  That’s an INexact quote, but I was very shocked to hear that possibly membership is a pre-requisite to the practice statewide.  Whether or not that’s so, it’s absolutely clear that this state is pretty well sewn up by those interests.

I have blogged before (herein) on UBaltimore’s School of Law “CFCC” in context of therapeutic jurisprudence.

This time, let’s talk about whose idea was it to create a system of family courts in the state? Perhaps you should forward questions to this person about what analogies of Paper, Cotton, Leather, FRUIT, etc.  say about the Department of Family Administration’s disturbing (in)ability to sort, label, categorize and prioritize information.

University of BaltimoreSchool of Law

Contact CFCC

Barbara A. Babb
Director and Associate Professor of Law
B.S., Pennsylvania State University  (interesting — does she keep up with the Penn State, Luzerne County or Lackawanna County scandals?)
M.S., Cornell University
J.D., Cornell Law School

UB faculty member since 1989. Member, New York and Maryland bars. National leader in family justice system reform, focusing on creation of unified family courts. Spearheaded Maryland’s efforts to create a family court in 1998. Advisory Board Member, ABA Standing Committee on Substance Abuse. Member, ABA Unified Family Court Coordinating Council and the AFCC Family Court Review Editorial Board. Past chair, Family/Juvenile Law Section, Association of American Law Schools.

Telephone: 410-837-5661
E-mail Barbara Babb

This professional is clearly AFCC-friendly (so is the ABA, it seems), and heads up this Center at a Law School.  Notice the bolded part.  This is what AFCC professionals, who can do this — do.  They Unify Family Courts (then preside over them, and appoint cronies).  I’ve seen it in state after state.  The Hon. Chester Harhut did this in Lackawanna County (as I recall) and the parents are already picketing outside the courthouse.  Or, were, until some of the protesters got manhandled (so to speak) by a local judge’s sheriff’s, resulting in a federal lawsuit on the civil rights violation, and a second one on the inappropriate pushing of the GAL system on the county without running it by the public!   

I’m only including the next individual to show that she hails from London! (see “three cities that rule the world”) in a country from which, allegedly, the United States fought a war of independence, in part to establish a DIFFERENT form of government …

Gloria Danziger
Senior Fellow
B.A., London University
M.Phil., Oxford University
J.D., Georgetown University Law Center

Former staff director, ABA Standing Committee on Substance Abuse, focusing on how substance abuse/truancy are addressed in the justice system. Former director, Communities, Families and the Justice System, an ABA unified family court initiative. Former public policy consultant, reporter and editor.

As we can see, this emphasis is on substance abuse and truancy (juvenile matters).  Applying this same model to divorce courts on the basis that divorce, too needs “treatment” is seriously questionable!
 For example, a symposium makes it clear who is leading the charge to change, and how they view themselves at UBaltimore.  I need to note that Ms. Babb has some prior experience and ties to Southern California.  California also has a “CFCC” but under the Administrative Office of the Courts.  Maryland has its one at this school of law, but that’s Ok — the courts are being transformed anyhow:

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

The Families Matter Symposium: Working Toward a More Therapeutic Family Justice System

The invitation-only “Families Matter” Symposium was held last Thursday and Friday, June 24 and 25, at the University of Baltimore.  Co-sponsored by CFCC** and the American Bar Association Section of Family Law, the symposium promises to be a powerful catalyst for change.  It was exhiliarating to participate in the exchange of groundbreaking ideas that emerge when you put together some of the leading professionals from a range disciplines to discuss how to improve the experience of children and families in the family justice system.  More exciting, however, is the fact that this group of high-powered experts is committed to move from theory to action by implementing many of their recommendations for changing the family law system.

[[IN HINDSIGHT: Jan. 19, 2022, update:  re-formatting and re-reading this post nine-plus years later,]] I notice that “CFCC” is not an entity and so cannot co-sponsor anything.  This is part of a sales pitch (I’m currently struggling to get out — again — several posts detailing and showing how awareness of exact ENTITY names involved is key to following any funding.  When it comes to the “CFCC” at the University of Baltimore School of Law, know that this School of Law along with the University of Baltimore is part of the Maryland University system — it’s a PUBLIC UNIVERSITY.  Hence this symposing was in effect a public/private “invitation-only” symposium held at public expense.  Also (I’m blogging this as I speak), the ABA Section of Family Law isn’t a separate entity.  So the real sponsors here (at least as labeled) were too huge established institutions pursuing what seems like a private agenda for “Families.”  How does that fit with the established ways to represent the will of the people and get laws passed?  This group of “HIGH-POWERED EXPERTS” intended to CHANGE THE FAMILY LAW SYSTEM.


The irony of it, the ABA and AFCC (obvious primary connection Babb, and likely also Danziger at the CFCC) were, along with (per a 1997 Ohio Supreme Court document which I blogged, probably under the post titled “Blueprints” or a nearby one) the NCJFCJ, the ones who spearheaded establishments of family courts around the country — and by the turn of this century, hadn’t even got them in all fifty states.  So, apparently if you established a thing, you’re also in charge of reforming the thing.  No matter what the public does or doesn’t know about its origins, its financing and the private cult-like behaviors and allegiances of those administering it — and no matter that the public pays for it collectively AND, as parents going through it, individually. //LGH 2022.

Most definitely, if laws, and law systems are to be seriously changed, it should be through closed-door conferences of high-powered experts excited about their collective clout, at law schools –and absolutely not through the legislative process involving the general public voting on bills they had some say in, or (God forbid) perhaps even initiated.

A Dec. follow-up specifically acknowledges AFCC leadership in this, and gives a detailed plan, which I gather has been followed, and we might as well read about for a retrospective!

Thursday, December 2, 2010 Families Matter: Reforming the Family Law Process

It is hard to believe it already has been almost six months since CFCC and the ABA Section of Family Law co-sponsored the Families Matter Symposium. We at CFCC are excited about the work that has been done since the symposium to expand the Families Matter initiative. Because of the partnerships that this initiative created – among CFCC, the ABA, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), to name a few – we are able to tackle the issue of family law reform from every angle, something that has been a struggle in the past.In the coming months and years, we will work together with our partners to ensure that therapeutic reform touches legal and court structures, relevant service providers from across disciplines, and the lawyers and other legal actors who work so closely with families.

“and other legal actors”???

The 2008 newsletter I quoted is titled” Families Matter.”  Now that we know where that came from, let’s go back to this 2008 piece of ?? listing marketable commodities to connect with court reform years….

“. . .Paper, Cotton, Leather, Fruit, Wood, Iron…”

SERIOUSLY?

Yes, apparently.  Look for yourself:

Newsletter of the Department of Family Administration

…and this is now nearly four years ago!  Shame!!! on those who did NOT blog the AFCC when they blogged against “PAS,” subconsciously? taking cues from leadership who, while knowing quite well about this, chose not to mention it in their press releases, news letters, or triumphantly mainstream on-lines, leaving the job up to volunteer bloggers, commenters (on those on-lines) and other “lone wolf investigators” who were honest enough to recognize something was missing in the protective mothers AND in the domestic violence rhetoric.

These people — and they still exist, generation after generation — should expect something a little better than to have the same groups simply sell out the mothers for profit, for professional respectability, for the ability to publish, for public platforms in setting agenda, and for nice websites.

To better understand this, also see the site “MDJustice.com” (I have a draft post explaining the presence of Parenting Coordination right next to Domestic Violence in a Family Law Task Force.  This is relevant because the training and resources are intended for PRO BONO service providers.  However, it would make this post too long….

I was very upset (and tweeted this) to discover HOW inbred the Women’s Law Center, and a spiffy website resource (MDJustice.com) focusing on pro bono legal services — not only are they sharing language of “parenting coordination” right next to “domestic violence” talks in the family law task force, (a clear indication of AFCC’s fathers’ rights agenda.  You can talk about domestic violence, or even child abuse, so long as you don’t seriously believe this should affect how much contact the offender has with the victim, and act on that belief to protect the child or (often as not) his/her mother. 

Newsletter of the Department of Family Administration

Maryland Administrative Office of the Courts  (“AOC”)

Vol. 8, No. 1 summer 2008

What’s going on when a system of progressive reform and expansion of the family law system (with a token nod towards protecting people) chooses to name each year of reform after a COMMODITY?  Subliminal message, much?

  • PAPER

  • COTTON

  • LEATHER

  • FRUIT

  • WOOD

  • IRON

  • WOOL

  • BRONZE

(See newsletter).  These are collective labels to conveniently (and privately to those who get the newsletter) describe an 8-year agenda for family court reform.  The use of these unifying symbols is specific to this court (from what I can tell) and is just — to tell the truth — weird.  I am remembering about this time how Hitler was adept at using symbols, flags, mottos, gestures, and of course music & staged events to get his point across.   So are the Boy Scouts.  So were are certain religious cults.  Is this what we’re heading for, again?

What do these commodities (which they are) have to do with the situations they are hooked to, except to, in the minds of the readers, signify some collective progress achieved in a collective goal?

Even little kids are often taught as youngsters, sorting shapes, and being tested on their ability to categorize various common objects.   But look at this order — is it by durability?  Is it by function?  Is it by value?  No – it’s a hodgepodge:

  • PAPER COTTON LEATHER FRUIT WOOD IRON WOOL BRONZE

By the most obvious (to me, at least) functions of the material, it would go:

  • Writing, clothing & linens, clothing & bookbinding, FOOD, building & fuel, Building & tools, Clothing, Statuary-sculptures.
By perhaps flexibility?  That makes no sense — as “fruit” is in the middle.
By FLAMMABILITY?  – – –
  • very, very less, Huh?, yes, with some tinder, no – must be smelted, yes, no unless you have a serious furnace.
But the people who put this together are not little kids learning to sort, prioritize and categorize — they are adults seeking to expand an expensive bureaucracy with authority to decide whether Mom & Dad get to raise their kids, (or which Mom which Dad) — or have them institutionalized and raised by foster parents, or adopted out.  These are major responsibilities.  It would be a little more reassuring if the people facilitating them had a little basic common sense!

The book of Daniel (Daniel 2), (Old Testament) Nebuchadnezzar’s dream , at least stuck to one material, and stuck them in some sort of order, from precious, to common, showing the ability to (1) sort and (2) prioritize.

The passage:

1And in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar Nebuchadnezzar dreamed dreams, wherewith his spirit was troubled, and his sleep brake from him. 2Then the king commanded to call the magicians, and the astrologers, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his dreams. So they came and stood before the king.  3And the king said unto them, I have dreamed a dream, and my spirit was troubled to know the dream.

In some ways, reminds me of our current Republican (?) system, complete with task forces, commissions, institutes, and initiatives.

4Then spake the Chaldeans to the king in Syriack, O king, live for ever: tell thy servants the dream, and we will shew the interpretation.

5The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.6But if ye shew the dream, and the interpretation thereof, ye shall receive of me gifts and rewards and great honour: therefore shew me the dream, and the interpretation thereof.

 As it goes, they couldn’t, and so the order was dispatched to dispatch all the wise men, etc., including at this time Daniel.  Daniel got his moment in the sun, and said (after introductions):

31Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.

32This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, 33His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay.

Perhaps our current leaders should take a lesson from history — and learn to sort and select:  The statue was described in general — and then in particular, from the HEAD to the FEET.  Each part, in order, was described as to what it was made of.  Then, stage set, the action was described:

34Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces.35Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth.

36This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king

 Right or Wrong, Real or Imagined, the image has persisted such that even infidels.org can discuss its meaning, centuries later, according to its organizing principle(s). . . .

To begin with, the four empires with their metals and beasts [different part of “Daniel”] fall into a simple pattern: they are listed in order of decreasing splendor and increasing strength and cruelty to symbolize their moral degeneration from one to the next (cf. Daniel 2:39).

In the vision of the statue in Daniel 2, the four empires are symbolized by four metals: viz., the golden head of Babylonia, the silver chest of Media, the bronze loins of Persia, the iron legs of Greece, and the iron-and-clay feet of the successor states of Greece. The metals decrease in monetary value yet increase in strength from the top to the bottom of the statue.

Our author probably got the idea of the four ages from Hesiod, an eighth-century BC Greek poet. Hesiod taught that the world has gone through four ages, each one morally inferior to its predecessor: viz., the ages of gold, silver, bronze, and iron (Works and Days 106-201).[8] Our author need not have read Hesiod; he and his fellow Jews probably picked up the idea from Greeks living in that part of the world.

SO, What, exactly, is the organizing and ordering principle behind this Department of Family Administration Newsletters’ selection of:

PAPER COTTON LEATHER FRUIT WOOD IRON WOOL BRONZE

IS THE TRUE MESSAGE BEHIND THE METAPHOR ITS INHERENT MEANINGLESSNESS?

BASED ON THE CONTEXTS, POSSIBLY THE CONTENTS AND WORDS ARE, INDEED MEANINGLESS, ESPECIALLY GIVEN WHICH IS NEXT TO WHAT….

Here’s the cute description provided in newsletter, after which on to more serious matters, for example, what is the DFA doing, anyhow? Why are there DFAs?  WHY are courts adding divisions to their regular courts, and doing so in particular “flavor”??

Scroll past my indented summary in this color font, to get to that discussion.  The choice of metaphors is basically frivolous and meaningless — the real agenda has already been identified years earlier and is in operation nationwide, anyhow.  The newsletter simply makes it sound more legitimate….

PAPER – Year 1 — “we have produced a lot of paper in ten years!”  ~ COTTON – Year 2 — “Courts have found creative and powerful ways to make connections with their communities. In 2006, Carroll County Circuit Court participated with a network of community providers to create a guide that provides survivors of violence with a roadmap to recovery.”  (Cotton refers to a “Clothesline Project”  The word “Cotton” is as arbitrary as Paper in usage).   LEATHER – Year 3 — “Over the past decade, the public “purse” that supports the family justice system has been strength-ened thanks to the advocacy of Chief Judge Robert M. Bell and State Court Administrator Frank Broccolina and the support of the Maryland General Assembly. Family divisions and family services programs are supported by jurisdictional grants given annually to each Circuit Court. In Fiscal Year 2008, courts received $11.2 million to support case management innovations and services to families involved indomestic and juvenile case types.” (LEATHER — the Purse Strings.  The State Legislature, obviously, opens and closes that purse, and for its own reasons, opened it towards the establishment of more programs and services).   FRUIT – YEAR 4 — “We profoundly hope that the efforts of the last ten years have borne “fruit” in the experiences of Maryland families and children. {{for that level of grants, it had better be more than just “hope”}} One measure maybe the level of involvement parents have in their children’s lives post-litigation. {{translation:  access/visitation grant systems, plus some.}}   WOOD – Year 5 — “The Maryland “bench” has been innovative in the last ten years,{{and produced a lot of paperwork}} and courts have shown a willingness to try new approaches. Administrative judges have adopted case management strategies to ensure family and juvenile cases are handled effectively”

 (Currently in Pennsylvania, those administrative orders, for example, to hire a certain guardian ad litem, are coming under FBI fire (Lackawanna County, Stefanov case, Pilchesky case, see my other blog http://lackawannafamilycourtfederal.blogspot.com and recent local news coverage)

WOOD is for “The Bench.”  Cute.  etc.  For example, WOOL – Year 7 — “Families entering the justice system are wrapped in the “mantle” of services that enable courts to make more effective decisions and that aid and guide families in transition. All Maryland courts offer co-parenting education, Family Law Self-Help Centers, child access mediation, and custody evaluations. Some courts offer psychoeducational programs for children and specialized parenting courses; others are experimenting with parenting coordination, employment programs for child support payors, and special dispute resolution services for high-conflict families.”*(*IN OTHER WORDS, BUSINESS AS AFCC/CRC/WELFARE REFORM USUAL).  BRONZE – YEAR 8 — “The Judiciary’s family court reform efforts have brought attention to bear on the special needs of victims of domestic violence.” (It seems very appropriate that the concern for domestic violence should be limited to their “special needs” not their protection — and come last.)

The Administrative Offices of the Courts (nationwide) are enough of an issue themselves (and the various “CFCC’s underneath some of them, like in California).  Yet under this Maryland one is a Department of Family Administration.  I guess we all one big happy family, then?  Or if not — and there are some unhappy upstarts, this can be administered?   (reminds me of the Texas Office of Attorney General’s “Office of Family Initiatives” associated with, at least recently, Michael Hayes).

NOTICE THE DETAILS:

Family Administration – Maryland state court system (http://mdcourts.gov/family/index.html)

(image removed/broken link, but it had been labeled: “Department of Family Administration-Administrative Office of the Courts 410-260-1580”

Notice of Funding for Family Division/Family Services Grants: Grant Documents

http://mdcourts.gov/family/grantadmin.html

Yes, please do click on the “notice of Funding” link above.  You’ll see about 9 different categories of funding.  I looked at “Child Support Incentives.”  These are programs that bring money to the courts, if these services are utilized (the $2/1 ratio, I believe) and while it’s labeled sometimes Welfare, there is a way to get non-welfare cases involved as well.  For example (and this is a CURRENT, 2013, OPEN (well, just closed 2/2012) grant solicitation):

“NOTICE OF FUNDING AVAILABILITY — CHILD SUPPORT INCENTIVE FUNDS GRANTS — ISSUED 1/3/2012, APPLICATIONS DUE 2/15/2012″

(Hover cursor over link or click on it to read description of the grant’s purpose — this is important, because it shows the HHS/Maryland Judiciary financial connection, in a Cooperative Reimbursement Agreement (CRA) according to performance incentives — i.e., how many child support orders did you establish, etc.  

(update note:  The link is broken, but the text showing if you “hover over link” is housed on this blog and can still be read (a magnifying glass might help.. or “zoom” function).

Given that, Funding Priorities, Category “A” actually seem to relate to — child support enforcement.   Such as:  “Privatizing and outsourcing of child support enforcement services;  Improving automation capabilities;  Creating public awareness projects;  Developing programs and special projects;

But Category “B” may sound familiar to some parents with the toughest custody cases around, that are behaving very oddly, given the circumstances of the case:   And this includes (notice order of Priorities here).   

Other categories of programs that are considered “non-Title IV-D” that may still be eligible for funding upon the receipt of a written exception by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement are set forth in OCSE-AT-01-04** and include, but are not limited to:

Fatherhood programs;  Education and job programs for non-custodial parents;  Programs targeting incarcerated or putative fathers;  Teen pregnancy programs;  Parenting programs;  (in CALIF, this would be a “KIDS TURN” or KY or PA, a “KIDS FIRST” get it?) Mediation or couples counseling (including as provided by faith-based grantees, no doubt), and  Visitation issue resolution when linked to non-payment of support.**

**WTH does that mean?  When a noncustodial parent actually says, “I’d be more willing to pay my child support ORDER if I were given more ACCESS to my KID(s)??” In practice, this may possibly include supervised visitation, it may also include abatement of child support arrears in exchange for more time with the other parent.

These programs must also demonstrate a clear connection and collaboration with the Maryland Child Support Enforcement program.

**”OCSE-AT-01-04” refers to an “Action Transmittal.”  Overall, this shows us that (no matter what a parent may have been told while filing for custody, or its modification up front) the judiciary is deeply hooked into the HHS financing and its incentives to do this, or that, regarding something as essential to life (in many cases) as child support. . . . . .  And I believe this particular grant notice demonstrates that the OCSE/Child support Incentives ARE indeed in good deal about fatherhood programs” and parenting education (etc.).

Supporting Children Through the Judiciary Conference

(Broken link/Image removed/ description read simply “Photo of children and families.” The url reads: http://mdcourts.gov/family/conferences.html)

The Department of Family Administration is responsible for assisting Maryland’s courts in developing a comprehensive family law system. Family Administration has overseen the creation of family divisions in Anne Arundel County, Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Montgomery County and Prince George’s County, and family services programs in the remaining 19 counties. We work with judges, masters, court administrators and family support services coordinators to develop family law policy and to identify and promote best practices in the handling of domestic and juvenile cases.(1*)

“The mission of family divisions is to provide a fair and efficient forum to resolve family legal matters in a problem-solving manner, with the goal of improving the lives of families and children who appear before the court. To that end, the court shall make appropriate services available for families who need them. The court also shall provide an environment that supports judges, court staff and attorneys so that they can respond effectively to the many legal and nonlegal issues of families in the justice system.”

Connie Kratovil-Lavelle, Esq.

(*1)  The sentence “we work with judges, (etc.) . . . to develop family law policy to . .. identify and promote best practices…..” indicates a different identity, a distinction between (1) “WE” (meaning the Dept. of Family Administration/”DFA”) and (2) said judges, masters, etc. . . . . . .

As I can see below, the Executive Director of this DFA is promoting AFCC policy, hook, line and “sink-it.”

There’s a long, colorful newsletter above, which mixes talk of in order, page 1, Civil Protective Orders (DV issues) &  Parent Coordination Promotion.

(An AFCC created profession, hostile to mothers in practice, which does an end run around legal protections and due process (as it was intended to) and to date already has brought up serious objections from parents and issues of billing, in PA at least (I blogged this over at http://thefamilycourtmoneymachine.blogspot.com, including the underlying case Yates v. Yates, where a father protested the parenting coordinator, and the family law div. of PA Bar Case Notes (newsletter 2009), exulting in how they shot down all his arguments.  Some of the casework I read showed a custody evaluator appointed in 2002 or 2003, who I looked up.  It turns out that in 2004-2005 (per 2006 Winter Psychology Board newsletter), this same man was cited for discipline and subjected to supervision of his practice!

NEWSLETTER, PAGE 1, TOPIC 1 — “SEE, WE ARE HELPING STOP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE!”

Statewide Civil Domestic Violence Database to be Launched this Summer

By Clifton Files, Esq., Domestic Violence Specialist, Administrative Office of the Courts, Department of Family Administration

The Maryland Judiciary will be one of the first states with a comprehensive database of civil orders of protection when it launches the Domestic Violence Central Repository this summer. In September 2006, the Department of Family Administration was awarded a grant by the Office of Violence Against Women from the Grants To Encourage Arrest Policies Program (GTEAP). The focus of the grant was to develop a Statewide Civil Domestic Violence Database. The Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) and the Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence (MNADV) coordinated with an advisory committee and held six regional focus groups to discuss and consider recommendations on policies, procedures, and uses for the database.

The end result of these efforts is a central database for District and Circuit Court judges and staff that will store all domestic violence orders, produce statistics, and enhance enforcement (cont’d on page 23….)

The Statewide Domestic Violence Coalition here is (was) working with the “Department of Family Administration.”  Who the “Department of Family Administration” is, matters.  How did the AOC (Admin. Office of the Courts) get a DFA? (Dept. of Fam. Admin.) anyhow — expanding bureaucracy?
That can be discussed in a moment, but let’s look at the focus of the “Executive Director” of this DFA in our next article, which I believe is clear enough…

PAGE 1, TOPIC 2 — “BUT DON’T WORRY, DADS & AFCC PROFESSIONALS — WE REMEMBERED YOUR AGENDA TOO”*

(*Maintaining a mechanism to apply “PAS” theory, retaining privileged quasi-judicial status without accountability, and more of us in every custody case)

Refining Emerging Practices Proposed Parenting Coordination Rule Completed

By Pamela Cardullo Ortiz, Esq., Executive Director, Department of Family Administration

Innovation always happens on the ground.*** In their efforts to better serve families, courts have experimented with emerging practice models, especially those with promise for assisting high conflict families who often require a great deal of court intervention. Over the last several years, a number of Maryland Circuit Courts have begun to refer high conflict families with child access issues to “parent coordinators.”

As practiced in other states, and defined by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC): Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal. . .(Cont’d on page 24)

..professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract. (Guidelines for Parenting Coordination, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts.)

A Maryland Version of Parenting Coordination

To ensure that Maryland courts have the requisite authority to order parties to work with a parenting coordinator, and to guide courts and define the practice in light of Maryland law, the Custody Subcommittee of the Judicial Conference Committee on Family Law has developed a proposed parenting coordination rule. The subcommittee, chaired by Judge Deborah S. Eyler of the Court of Special Appeals, worked for two years with judges, court professionals, parenting coordinators, attorneys, and others to devise a draft rule and proposed application for parenting coordinators. Those documents were reviewed and approved by the Committee on Family Law at their meeting this April. The proposed documents have been approved by the Conference of Circuit Judges and will be forwarded to the Rules Committee for consideration.

The proposed rule defines the practice for Maryland courts and addresses issues relating to the appointment of a parenting coordinator, qualifica- tions, selection, term of service, removal and withdrawal of a parenting coordinator, fees, and the powers and scope of appointment.

Paragraph 1, above, starts with a lie — it’s dissembling.  This is CLASSIC AFCC — referring to its own members as if they were actually independent of each other, in the overall strategic plan!  Here it is, again:
Innovation always happens on the ground.*** In their efforts to better serve families, courts have experimented with emerging practice models, especially those with promise for assisting high conflict families who often require a great deal of court intervention. Over the last several years, a number of Maryland Circuit Courts have begun to refer high conflict families with child access issues to “parent coordinators.”
LIE#1:   Innovation IN THE COURTS doesn’t happen on the ground, it’s mostly a top-down strategy, possible because those in control of the families in the courts are the judges — and AFCC overall is not at all lacking in judges.  Calling lower levels of courts “on the ground” is dissembling.  A pretense, in some senses it’s fair enough to call it simpy a lie.   AFCC’s own history page prides itself in spearheading innovations in family law practices.  That’s hardly “on the ground” except in a world of ranking professionals which excludes the very much “on the ground” litigants:

(AFCC) “History”

AFCC’s self-definition on their main website, at the top (it is the “motto”)is:
An interdisciplinary and international association of professionals
dedicated to improving the lives of children and families
through the resolution of family conflict.
It’s hard to know where to start, outlining the problems with this, given who the AFCC membership is.  DOES resolving family conflict (IF AFCC did this – it doesn’t, it exacerbates it, incites it, and then calls in its “experts” to allegedly resolve family conflict) improve the lives of children and families?
Who — besides this crowd — says that “family conflict” is the major problem facing families these days?  Go tell that to Jaycee Dugard; go tell that to the parents of Trayvon Martin.  Go tell that to MaryAnne Godboldo, who stood off a home invasion (unwarranted) to protect her 13 year old daughter from being forcibly put on Risperdal by CPS after a medical doctor had warned her to take her off it:

by Diane Bukowski  (photo from http://justice4maryanne.com/) August 12, 2011

DETROIT – Despite testimony that Mia Wenk, a “social services specialist” with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, authorized the  psychiatric hospitalization of Ariana Godboldo-Hakim, 13, and the administration of four dangerous psychotropic drugs, without reviewing the child’s  medical records, a jury found Aug. 9 that it was Ariana’s mother Maryanne Godboldo who had neglected her. 

Godboldo, who obtained alternative holistic treatment for her daughter from a medical doctor, testified earlier that she was suffering from a reaction to immunizations administered in Sept. 2009. She said Ariana had been diagnosed with encephalitis, not a psychiatric disorder. Neither she nor Ariana’s father Mubarak Hakim authorized their daughter’s treatment at Hawthorn Children’s Psychiatric facility after an army of police seized her from her home on Blaine near Linwood in Detroit March 24, 2011. 

This mother above, and the community that rallied to defend her (she got her daughters back and felony charges dropped) have a “high conflict” with treating their children as state hostages when they resist forcible drugging and unwarranted home invasions of their kids.  This was a single mother, and the nonresident father had no conflict with the mother’s resisting the situation.  44
AFCC believes that the primary social ill is conflict — not crime.  It believes that its professionals can, and should “improve the lives of children and families” according to their definition, and given the membership, they have the collective clout to do this pretty much over the objection of any individual family in any given case.
They are collectively dedicated to playing “God,” Declaration of Independence aside…. (all men created equal ~ which would mean that AFCC profesionals are not more “equal” than non-AFCC professionals, such as “flawed parents” (a term actually seen in one of their brochures) and endowed with their Creator (not AFCC) with “certain unalienable rights.”
AFCC most especially is concerned — in their policy agenda of playing God to “children and families” (note the order of nouns) — with getting rid of any God-given or due-process rights of individuals which might “conflict” with their determination to help people against their own will, in order to establish family peace, under conditions of extortion (virtually).
RE:
Innovation always happens on the ground.*** In their efforts to better serve families, courts have experimented with emerging practice models, especially those with promise for assisting high conflict families who often require a great deal of court intervention. Over the last several years, a number of Maryland Circuit Courts have begun to refer high conflict families with child access issues to “parent coordinators.”
 
LIE#2:  The courts are not trying to “better serve families” — they are serving themselves TO the families forced into their courtrooms, for profit, and for their overall agenda stated above.
This agenda includes transforming the justice system (complete with concepts of individual rights, due process, basic standing as an individual in the courtroom, right to confront one’s accusers, in fact just about anything traditionally considered a “right” including a little right to privacy, right to be free from undue search and seizure, and not be deprived of things unlawfully.) into a therapeutic turnstile attached to an ATM.
Part of which includes the power to traffick children, for profit, into the juvenile justice system (see Luzerne County kids for Cash RICO case!!) or, for drugging/drug-testing and Lord knows what else, into the foster care and from then on, adoption system.  A handy aspect of the permanent threat to all standing parents to having their children improperly removed is keeping adult parents in line, too, and/or extorting them financially. It’s a FANTASTIC wealth transfer system.  Saying this somehow “serves families,” in context of reality, is pure bullshit, and is keeping the blogsphere and, at times, the FBI, busy.
LIE/Truth#3:   Courts have experimented with emerging-practice models.  
Courts (meaning AFCC professionals, or courts run by them – if you want proof, or some samples, hit me with a comment below, I’ll post some) are, rather, experimenting with how asleep the American public is.  It’s not a true experiment about whether or not, for example, “parenting coordination” actually works.  The agenda is to ram it through over the objections of parents, and sometimes over a state Governor (Florida 2004, Gov. Jeb Bush), which AFCC has done and knows how to do.  
The word “emerging” from this group is never an honest assessment.  Read their conference brochures.  they don’t talk about emerging practices — they talk about THEIR practices, and discuss results, and how to expand the collective model  (refine it slightly, or re-shrinkwrap the concept).
For example, parent coordination is expensive to train for (check Parent Coordination Central, Boyan/Termini website), and has a host of products associated for sale (even though they are incorporated WHERE ?  ????).  It’s also not free to the parents.  Yet, I saw an AFCC conference brochure, I believe it was, discussing how to utilize this for the poor indigent parents on Title IV.  Surely they needed parent coordination more than food, housing, clothing, medical care or transportation in the form of child support or TANF benefits, right?   After all, wasn’t the reason they are poor, their “family conflict”???
PHRASE/Stray Concept #4:   with promise for assisting high conflict families . . . .
If AFCC has an agenda as a NONPROFIT alone and wants to pursue it — more power to them.  Take their funding from wherever (membership fees, people who wish to contribute to the cause, gaining a little tax-deduction charitable contribution perk also, for mutual benefit:  donor/Donee.  I have no problem with that.   It’s elective.
BUT AFCC is comprised in large part of JUDGES — who are public employees, MEDIATORS who are many times court-appointed and county-supported (plus some A/V funding to go along with it), and they are in positions which require them to (??) take oaths of office to uphold the constitution.  I hear that some jurisdictions do not– but their function in society is as public servants.  As such, they have no right to be pushing a PRIVATE, FOR_PROFIT AGENDA utilizing the authority of their office which was designed to rule in matters dealing with JUSTICE.
AFCC has rejected the concept of individual rights and placed it with the language of collectivism.  
As such, it might as well be a religion, or an instrument of socialism, as far as I am concerned.
The best assistance any judge can offer is to READ the case file (which many don’t), OBEY his/her own laws of procedure and Judicial Canons promoting ethical behavior, RECUSE him/herself when there is a conflict of interest (which no AFCC judge can deny exists when there are related professionals to steer business towards in the same jurisdiction), and honestly attempt to ascertain if one party or the other’s evidence does not support the claim.  To refrain from extensive ex parte and in-chambers deliberation, and to act in concert with the criminal law — not attempt to ignore the criminal law, create new “psychological crimes” (PAS theory) and so forth.
None of these judges are likely to do this, or they’d quit the organization.  The law as stated did not suit them so, acting more as priests than judges, they simply collaborated (“innovation and collaboration” is accurate, above) to alter it to suit their private purposes, which (see the cases I highlit above) conflicts many times with individual rights of U.S. citizens, and parental rights to avoid having their homes invaded, and their children kidnapped and institutionalized simply because Mom or Dad protested improper and physically/mentally dangerous drugging!


COMMENTARY, EXPRESSING INDIGNATION ABOUT THIS:
(These paragraphs may not be in the best order.  Please take them individually.  I tried yesterday, but PTSD was an issue in contacting the organization to talk about this, or emailing them. I suspect a phone call would work better).
By the time some file for a domestic violence restraining order (sometimes called Protection From Abuse, etc.) with kickout — a person has sometimes tried long and hard to handle the situation without legal action, and may have simply tried to stop the abuse, or get help to stop the abuse, before making the tough situation to throw someone out legally in order to stay alive or physically intact.  
In my case (now about a decade old or just more), as an educated, fairly liberal (I like to think) woman, I told people in my social sphere about the abuse.  The range of people who knew, witnessed dramatic incidents and longstanding patterns that clearly speak of domestic violence and “intimate terrorism”** was very wide.  Men and women of all ages, married and single, employed and stay-at-home, sometimes facilitated temporary survival post-incident, or to temporarily avoid one, but collectively it was a wash — no interference, no confrontation, no referral to outside resources, and no personal hard talks (man to man) with the father saying “stop!” Collectively, I have to say, society still values marriage over sanity, i.e., when marriage seriously endangers & compromises basic life, then it’s not worth preserving, and THAT marriage is NOT part of the “social unit of society.”
(**such as my fleeing my home to theirs for safety overnight; property destruction symbolically targeted towards what was of value to me, work sabotage by refusing to reliably watch our children, or be home in time for me to get to work, serious attempts to prevent me from access to transportation, or basics like holding an open bank account (there was never any joint one), or participate in inspiring or encouraging community activities, interception of mail, weapons collection used to terrorize me out of certain activities, and seeing me in complete trauma over a period of years and immediately after various incidents; seeing a mother and children without necessaries, yet a father with multiple pairs of shoes, electronics, and etc.; indications that the house was not being maintained in a functional manner (utilities, etc.) . . . .

Sometime the silence is religious, but not always.

So, when these mothers then figure out there are more activist, feminist women’s groups who really do say NO! !!! to sexual assault (including in relationships) and violence — and seek some help or leadership in navigating their legal and civil rights in the matter, and/or the police force, reporting, district attorney’s office, or as it may be, nonprofit domestic violence support groups which might help them file a pleading to protect their lives (and/or their kids), when they couldn’t safely flee or separate on their own — we should expect to be treated as equals and intelligent adults in knowing who has a seat at the roundtable deciding our future, and the future of others in our shoes.

In Maryland, it’s crystal clear — the women’s law groups and pro bono service providers — do not see fit to check back with these mothers after years after in the court, and to perhaps courageously revamp whether the Parenting Coordination Pushers deserve a seat at the round table.

FIRST, mothers, being women, tend to look for women’s groups for leadership when it comes to defense against severe violence in the home, or in attempting to terminate a relationship.   I know that’s all who helped me out — no patriarchal institution around did squat to stop, report, intervene with, or refer me to anyone who could intervene with, my ex’s nasty habit of assault & battery when offended, or when simply ornery, plus all the other things that I later learned compromised domestic violence (but knew at the time were simply terrorism).

Such mothers in these situations KNOW we could be killed, and after separation, are sometimes being stalked, threatened, have suffered serious injuries, major setbacks to maintaining stable employment and social involvements outside the home — or only such social involvements as will NOT intervene with the family situation and tell the batterer to stop!!! or suffer at least social consequences.

We also know (by now) that while the domestic violence groups have developed a language to describe and “unify” such situations, the domestic violence groups have lumped women WITHOUT children together with women WITH children (i.e., mothers), and focused their efforts on tactics and issues that assist the former — while failing to report in a timely and transparent manner about their dealings with the “fatherhood” (men’s supremacy) groups.  They do not even report that these groups exist, what their names are, and how their influence affects custody hearings.

They do not even name the groups, do not name the primary groups running the family law system; they do not warn mothers about what lies ahead in enough time to protect themselves, or to build some sort of “ark” to keep from being financially and psychologically drowned in the legal system after the DV group got its warm body, a protective order, a ## to put on a report, and enough to justify next year’s funding.

In short, they do not report what they know because it’s simply not a transparent situation.

Mothers are not told that they are fighting a contest which is funded on the opposing side by the welfare institution that perhaps may be providing them with housing, food initially.  That this institution literally has been diverting millions of dollars to assist “noncustodial fathers” in regaining contact with their kids, based on the theory that these same mothers are the serious risk to their own kids’ futures by the fact of not having a man in the home who is that kids’ Dad even when that kids’ Dad was assaulting her and/or them (or molesting them) is as such not a fit parent.

“Strong Field Project” caters to DV industry’s networks, enabled by ?? “Three Cities that Rule the World”

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This post to be read alongside a page added to the other blog, which explains the “Strong Field Project” reference.

Strengthening leaders, organizations, and networks to build a stronger domestic violence field“*

*What does doing THAT have to do with ending domestic violence, pray tell?

Three Cities that Rule the World,” Including the Ever-expanding but Centralized DV Field

(How interesting that a visitor today from “City of London” showed on Feedjit….)

That article was posted at http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=106799.0 by user  May 21, 2009.

chrsswtzr

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We think in terms of within our state (or perhaps as far as the federal level) when seeking justice from the bottom up.  However, the top down doesn’t think that way at all — and from what I can see these days, it doesn’t think in terms of the US Constitution either.  Consider nonprofit associations that help run our justice system, including particularly the one I blog on….

  • The AFCC is definitely international (Australia, Canada, UK, . . . . . .), as is the associated CRC (Children’s Rights Council).  Well custody disputes sometimes are international; sh*t happens.
  • International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution > Home

    http://www.cpradr.org/  The CPR Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank that promotes innovation in commercial dispute prevention and resolution. By harnessing the collective 

this nonprofit (founded 1979) is also listed on the New York State

International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution

Founded in 1979, the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution—an alliance of global corporations, law firms, legal academics and selected public institutions—serves as a multinational resource for avoidance, management and resolution of business-related and other disputes. Its site offers, among other things, project descriptions, publications, videotapes and training materials, and also discusses alternative dispute resolution in a variety of industry and practice areas.

I don’t have a problem with this, except when it comes to the family law courts handling criminal behavior involving physical assault and battery, or child molestation.  That’s where the line should’ve been drawn, yet intentionally wasn’t.  This crowd continues to promote dispute resolution for almost everyone, and the profession, including those that go on (as retired judges, as psychologists, or as attorneys, presumably).  I am working on a separate post (other blog), and have, yes, found it sponsoring work with AFCC, among plenty of other places; it has plenty of funding to go around for these grants, too.   The board members of this represent a host of major (multinational) corporations, and its chair (a Judge, or retired judge) formerly worked for the FBI and the CIA, which I think at least should catch someone’s attention.
Then Thomas J. Stipanovich stepped down from this nonprofit to run the Straus Institute of Dispute Resolution at Pepperdine, in Malibu, California.  In looking at this, and the related school of law, I couldn’t help but notice the close connection to London, and after this, conferences involving THE top justice of England and Wales in concert with a justice at the Supreme level in Belgium as well.
How in the world could we expect such globetrotters to see the safety element when it comes to dispute resolution in the family law arena?  Is that an unreasonable mountain to scale, or train to (somehow) hop — catching up with this global elite and saying STOP IT, DAMNIT!

. . .

The “Strong Field Project” is just another sapling off the DV as industry Tree, and not the main point here (see first link, above).  My point is, were it not for centralized wealth — and alongside that wealth, centralized decision-making (taxation without representation)  these things would not exist.  And so long as our medium of exchange is “fiat money” owned by private bankers, who lend to the U.S. Treasury at interest dumped upon the entire US Population, while talks about “stimulating the economy” “balancing the budget” etc. continue to roil the electorate — they rule that world, and it’s true — they do.

Maybe Jesus was right, in the wilderness -it takes one to know one and maybe whoever wrote the gospels of Matthew and Luke, describing his temptation, were absolutely correct (Mark, probably earlier than either, skims over the time in the wilderness).  As it goes in Matthew 4 (KJV), three temptations, which I’ll summarize as:  Do Magic Tricks (Stones into bread) to satisfy his empty stomach; Suicide (jump off the temple to test God’s safety net), and finally, Sellout (bow down, and be receive the kingdoms (plural) of the world, with their glory).


1Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. 2And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred. 3And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread4But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.5Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

6And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

7Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

8Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me10Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 11Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Luke 4 has it in a different order (suicide last, after getting Jesus’ worship fails), and adds detail on how the devil got the power over the entire world:

5And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. 7If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine. 8And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

“Power and Glory are mine,” boasts the devil.  “I have the kingdoms of this world.”  Well, were kingdoms around when this was written?  “And I say who gets them, and who does not get them; I am the boss.”  

It seems to hold true today, doesn’t it?  Only different terminology is used.  For example, the word “GRANT.”  A grant is a gift, but with the gift goes a little piece of the recipient’s independence in the form of strings attached — does it serve a particular agenda set by the grantOR?  Absolutely!  This is basically the buying and selling of kingdoms, power, and etc.   Whatever happens within them, that’s the umbrella over them.

Characterizing this as coming from “the devil” (invisible spiritual influence), i.e. bad — well, is this type of influence bad, and is it often exercised in hidden (invisible) ways?  I’d say, yes…..

Looking at these “kingdoms of the world” (as opposed to looking at, for example, “Nature” and things that grow, against the zoology, biology, anatomy, astromony,etc. that show more and more amazing details) I have to agree, that the greater the power, the greater the damage.  And that the lifeblood/energy is being sucked out of the some sectors of the world, along with money, and being centralized into who says who lives and dies; and who says who gets to keep their earnings and who doesn’t, however paltry they may beand for what social good?  For doing good?

No, not really — only good within limits of “I get to control what’s done with the world,” the song of the tax-exempt foundation run (or funded) by some great philanthropists, whose names are usally put on it too (good for PR), and in accompaniment with the corporations (businesses) that helped make that wealth.  The tax-exempt foundation, by being tax-exempt, serves as a drainage ditch to reduce the taxes that would otherwise be paid on the FOR-profit.

Why else do we think so many of them are running around all over (look at the civic works, PBS shows, “Models for Change” programs calculating how to mobilize swift transformation of chosen areas of reform, such as “Juvenile Justice” or other areas.  Go review MDRC again (I’ve blogged it) for an example of how inbred US Gov’t and Corporate wealth/tax-exempt foundations really are.  Even AFCC is getting some help these days.

RATHER THAN WORK TO ELIMINATE THE VERY TAXATION SYSTEM WHICH PRODUCE THIS LEVEL OF WEALTH TO START WITH (ALONG WITH THE WISDOM TO KNOW HOW TO UTILIZE THAT LEVERAGE), INSTEAD, THE OWNERS OF THIS WEALTH FLY AROUND AND COLLABORATE ON A BETTER JUSTICE SYSTEM THAN THEIR LOWER COUNTERPARTS – WHO HAPPEN TO BE IN POSITIONS LIKE GOVERNORS, OF STATES, JUDGESHIPS, ATTORNEY GENERALS, ETC. — THE TRULY ALTRUISTIC BENEFICIAL COLLABORATION WOULD BE TO UNDO THIS INCOME TAX, SWITCH OFF THE “FIAT CURRENCY” AND DEFANG THE FEDERAL RESERVE.  BUT HOW LIKELY IS THAT TO HAPPEN?

We’ve been hooked on it for 100 years next year (1913 – 2013) think about it.  What an addiction.

The greatest goods would be protecting unalienable rights is LIFE, and LIBERTY and PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, and having enough self-respect and self-restraint to allow others to do the same — how many golden yachts does one really need? You can’t take it with you, even if you have a golden voice (like Whitney Houston, recently:  global success, gone age 48, leaving one motherless child.  Well, young adult.  A wealthy one for sure, but one absent her mother).

So, here’s the Biblical worldview, at least in the book of Revelation. Followers are encouraged to keep it in mind that this kingdom is temporal and is going to be judged (by fire) — so choose your allegiances well.  Without my interpreting whether that’s smart or not to endorse, here’s the description of that buying and selling of kingdoms, Revelations 18.  As before, spiritual agents (angels, this time) are involved and judgment is swift, expressing indignation and vindication:

The kingdom that rules the world is characterized as “Babylon,” which was a kingdom, earlier.  And, naturally, as a woman:

REVELATION 18:

9And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, 10Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.

11And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more12The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, 13And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

That is indeed what the traffic is in.   It pretty much describes most areas of commerce, including transport of goods:

(Addressed to the CITY): 14And the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and all things which were dainty and goodly are departed from thee, and thou shalt find them no more at all.15 The merchants of these things, which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing16And saying, Alas, alas, that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! 17For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off18And cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! 19And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. 20Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.

So many enterprises were hooked into the sales that took place in “the city;” but (she) was hell on the apostles and prophets, who were typically exiled, or killed in various gruesome ways, etc. ….there message wasn’t good for business.   (Quite a contrast from some of today’s “apostles and prophets” –see recent post on the bankruptcy of the Crystal Cathedral (Garden Grove, CA) and its founding family’s squabbles with the board, i.e., Robert Schuller et al.  I blogged it over at thefamilycourtmoneymachine.blogspot.com

. . .

 for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived24And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

It takes a caste of slaves to produce certain levels of wealth, and even the best of major constructions (The Hoover Dam, the Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central Station in NY) have been associated with human deaths of workers.  What about the pyramids?   What about the former practice of burying concubines and wives with the death of a ruler?

The lines have to be drawn and crowds have to be kept within their kind, and within their places.  “The great men of the earth” are actually merchants, and there’s no question — is there? — that with slavery and slavehood comes untimely death, too often.  So, look around — where are the deaths happening, where is the blood flowing, and then track the trail of money.  Religion WILL be associated, and it’s not too hard to locate –except perhaps at the very top levels.

Whoever gave what to whom, and how (Adam, Eve, Israel in the Promised Land, whoever ….)   there is no question that there is desire still circulating to rule the world, and that there are layers of collaborators — and the closer to the grants, and wealth (to fly, conference, buy and sell real estate under nonprofit umbrella, even “front groups” to launder the money at times) — the closer to the power, and the deafer the ears become to the cries of those they took the power to (allegedly) help, save, or whatever.

Anyone who’s lived with a certain level of abuse (and knew, by contrast, freedom) knows about this.  Many times, supposedly there is some purpose to all the tyranny — but there never is.  It’s just enforced because they can get away with doing this, and get off on it.  Anything else is pretty much a lie.

WELL, let’s get down to the main show here:

I have been talking, briefly, about the analogy of “The Matrix’ (picked up from someone else who wrote about this) as an artificially created reality which, once you become aware of it, you have to either deal with (mentally, emotionally, psychologically) and determine where to stand regarding it — or take another sedative and go back to sleep.

The Internet is a great, addicting perhaps, but effective way to spread that net; it fishes and sets out bait both.  But, it’s here, and must be dealt with, as a whole lotta money is traveling along that net (being tracked as it goes), and this technology, this tool — like many technological advances — is often used for warfare, to kill.  The question is just, who.

To be read alongside a page added to the other blog:

Three Cities that Rule the World,” Including the Ever-expanding but Centralized DV Field

I’m usually up for concise summaries that make some sense with the reality I’ve been observing.
Regular visitors (there are a few here) know how I feel about the profit/nonprofit caste system — which is a statement on, The Income Tax.
My feelings came in part from watching the nonprofits HHS is funding, from having actually sought help from some of the local ones, and then (later) seen their multi-million funding (their doctrines were a spit in the wind when applied to a single family law judge.  If true, they held no sway in that forum, which is where all souls go (for the most part) who have had both DV AND sons or daughters with the same person.
I’m putting this in to remind us about the medium of exchange we call “money” and how fiat money  and “bona fide” money cannot exist alongside each other, really — because the owners of the fiat money (private bankers) depend on an addicted population for their business.  Free, choice-driven populations and those informed on the situation, would never choose the one that kept their country free over the one that enslaved it, would they?
So lies (deceit, as in ‘Deceived the nations” of Rev. 18) also has to be involved in the “sale” of this solution.   I do look forward to the day when this type of deceit, as well as (while we’re here) I hope the extreme deceit of the people I share DNA with, who have for years been selling abusive “solutions” to the problem of my intent to remain free of them, by working, legally, as I CHOOSE to – also comes out in the wash.  If the Bible is the word of God, it will.  Other than this resurrection and day of judgment thing, I figure it’s a toss-up, but am intending to balance the odds in the favor of the basic truth, while I can.
The book of James also (chapter 5) talks about the behavior of the rich (it’s pretty much throughout the scriptures) and warns the readers about “respect of persons.”  In this worldview, a future Judge is definitely coming; be patient and endure, is the mentality:  Remember Job:  God is just in the long-run.

<< James 5 >>
King James Version

1Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you2Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten. 3Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. 4Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth5Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. 6Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.7Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. 8Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. 9Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned: behold, the judge standeth before the door. 10Take, my brethren, the prophets, who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an example of suffering affliction, and of patience. 11Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

I realize i’ve quoted from two books (James, Revelation) not among the earlier ones; apparently James wasn’t quoted til around 225.A.D.

More references for the curious, here (I haven’t reviewed, just put up one or two):http://www.bible.ca/b-canon-disputed-books.htm and (better narration here)  http://freethought.mbdojo.com/canon.html

At the close of the second century ((ca. 300 A.D. in other words)) the Christian world was divided into a hundred different sects. Irenaeus and others conceived the plan of uniting these sects, or the more orthodox of them, into one great Catholic church, with Rome at the head; for Rome was at this time the largest and most intluential of all the Christian churches. “It is a matter of necessity,” says Irenaeus, “that every church should agree with this church on account of its preeminent authority.” (Heresies, Book 3).

Don’t forget my recent favorite book “A.D. 381
I should pick on Protestants too — at least the link “freethought” brings up the topics.  Atheists know this, but perhaps don’t think about it too much.  They are surrounded by attending Christians who, if they thought too deeply about the canon of the scriptures, would stop attending, I imagine….  And they vote too, so might as well all of us get some concept of it in operation:  The mainstream religions as we see them nowadays are basically spinoffs of empires and workign alongside them.  Before a certain piont in time, they were only “sects” and followers, many of who were persecuted.  Now adays when we see this type of centralization then called “empire” — we could as easily call it empire, or simply, fascism.

Martin Luther

The greatest name in the records of the Protestant church is Martin Luther. He is generally recognized as its founder; he is considered one of the highest authorities on the Bible; he devoted a large portion of his life to its study; he made a translation of it for his people, a work which is accepted as one of the classics of German literature. With Luther the Bible superseded the church as a divine authority.
And yet this greatest of Protestants rejected no less than six of the sixty-six books composing the Protestant Bible.  Luther rejected the book of Esther. He says: “I am such an enemy to the book of Esther that I wish it did not exist.” In his “Bondage of the Will,” he severely criticises the book.He rejected the book of Jonah. He says: “The history of Jonah is so monstrous as to be absolutely incredible.” (Colloquia, Chap. LX., Sec. 10).He rejected Hebrews: “The Epistle to the Hebrews is not by St. Paul; nor, indeed, by any apostle.” (Standing Preface to Luther’s New Testament).He rejected the Epistle of James: “St. James’ Epistle is truly an epistle of straw.” (Preface to Edition of 1524).  He rejected Jude. “The Epistle of Jude,” he says, “allegeth stories and sayings which have no place in Scripture.” (Standing Preface).  He rejected Revelation. He says: “I can discover no trace that it is established by the Holy Spirit.” (Preface to Edition of 1622).
In the gospels, the books Jesus quoted the most were Deuteronomy (the law), Psalms, and Isaiah.  On the day of Pentecost, per Acts, Peter quoted two only psalms and one prophet (?), and then got right onto explaining what they’d just seen and witnessed in that context, and exhorting people to “repent.” No “theology’ was apparently involved at the time.   It was also prophesied (according to John) that the disciples/apostles would be hauled in front of the authorities to give their answer, and to not pre-meditate what they’d be saying, it would be given to them in their hour.
What then, we might legitimately ask, is going on every Sunday morning (and/or evening, or Wednesday evenings) when people congregate to hear someone’s homily or sermon, or inspired display, of what the scriptures mean, that they couldn’t themselves read, deduce, and act on, assuming they were walking in the same spirit?  At least Catholics seem to keep it mass these days short, and give one time to think during the liturgy!!!  One’s eardrums aren’t assaulted…
Or, for a more secular viewpoint yet, how about from Infidels.org on the canon, making reference to Thomas Jefferson (who didn’t believe in the miracles of Jesus and produced a skinny version, “The Jefferson Bible”, I gather):
The Secular Web
Who says “a mature Christian must ask the question that skeptics ask…” (not a short read, but several good questions and points, for example, about “magic books” and who gets to decide which ones they are:

We’d like to hear directly from God about which books constitute his message. As Paul wrote, “Let God be true, but every man a liar.” (Rom. 3:4) But God has not spoken in this way. Instead, is there some special list, authorized by Jesus, or the original apostles, of books that are specially approved? “God says that these books are the Bible,” we’d like to hear. There is no such list.[4] Who, then, decided what books would be in our Bible?

Back in the fourth century, some bishops took a vote on it. Rather, several church councils voted for conflicting lists, the contradictions of which took centuries more to resolve. These votes came after a long period of sorting and choosing by the churches at large, so that the choice was not haphazard; it was, however, arbitrary in many respects. Because of differences over the Apocrypha, there remains no agreement about which books are in the Christian Old Testament.

It’s kind of a moot point, anyhow, when one can simply dial a preacher or (til the Crystal Cathedral had to change its stripes) pull up to a drive in and watch the show.  The more I think about these things, and connect them to lived experience(s), the more I do see the influence of the remains of the Roman empire, working through highly visible buildings and structures in this world.  It’s obviously (though more obviously than actual scripture, Old or New, seems to justify) a male-dominated, heirarchical religion — that’s hardly debatable now, is it?  (or, are ordained priests marrying with the blessing of the Pope since I last tuned in?)
Here are three photos from an article on “The Three Cities” found on the same forum — what do you think they typify?  The female reality, or the male?
Think about it:

Another thing these three city-states have in common are their own obelisks. Obelisks are tall, four-sided shafts of stone which taper at the top in a pyramidal fashion. The obelisk is phallic in its appearance and represents the male penis. It is symbolic of the Egyptian sun god, Ra, and is an ancient symbol of male energy and generation (G) in Freemasonry.

Vatican obelisk: Located in St. Peter’s Square, the Vatican obelisk was moved from Egypt to its current location in 1586. The circle at the base on the obelisk represents the female vagina and thus male/female duality. Also notice the lines extending from the circle, forming a Union Jack as seen on the British flag.

London obelisk (aka Cleopatra’s Needle): Located on the banks of the River Thames, this obelisk was transported to London and erected in 1878 under the reign of Queen Victoria. The obelisk originally stood in the Egyptian city of On, or Heliopolis (the City of the Sun). The Knights Templars’ land extended to this area of the Thames, where the Templars had their own docks. Either side of the obelisk is surrounded by a sphinx, also symbolism dating back to the ancient world.

Washington Obelisk (aka Washington Monument): Standing at 555 feet, the Washington Monument is the tallest obelisk in the world and also the tallest standing structure in Washington DC. The monument’s cornerstone, a 12-ton slab of marble, was donated by the Grand Lodge of Freemasons. Like the Vatican obelisk, the Washington monument too is surrounded by a circle denoting the female. The reflecting pool in front of the monument signifies the ancient Masonic/Kabbalistic dictum, as above/so below.

~ ~ ~ back to that prophecy (statement, anyhow) in the Bible:

 for thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations deceived. 24And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.

LONDON — financial empire
VATICAN — religious empire
D.C.           —  military empire.
(see “pentagon-vatican connection” also).
Revelation 18, above, cursed and looked forward to the fall of the city of Babylon, because of its deception, and its bloodshed involved in the merchandising of all kinds of delicacies, including slaves.  I don’t know when this book was written, but it scarcely seems to be coming from the point of view of a triumphant Christian empire, with real estate, monuments, a well-clothed priesthood, etc., nor does James.  So modern readers (i.e., agnostics, atheists) are hardly neutral, or fair, to place on its author the same hypocrisy we see everywhere today.
Now, we call this “human trafficking” or “child trafficking,”  and my country, this country, the USA, is governmentally involved in two kinds:  Over the counter (that’s CPS and pharmaceutical friends whether Texan or Wolverine (Michigan, both pushing Risperdal) and under the radar, possibly deliberately, for which you can go read about the Jaycee Dugard situation; in fact, she has begun to speak out on television now; the settlement she was paid for California law enforcement screwup was, as I remember, around $29 million.  WHOSE funds paid that?  Because it was “only” around $14 million that Los Angeles was withholding (collected child support, Silva v. Garcetti) from actually reaching intended customers back in the late 1990s.
Texan:

The New Freedom Commission was established by executive order on April 29, 2002.  At a speech in New Mexico that day, Bush said mental health centers and hospitals, homeless shelters, the justice and school systems have contact with individuals suffering from mental disorders but that too many Americans fall through the cracks of the current system and so he created the Commission to ensure “that the cracks are closed.”

On July 22, 2003 the NFC recommended redesigning the mental health system in all fifty states and said in a press release, “Achieving this goal will require … a greater focus on mental health care in institutions such as schools, child welfare programs, and the criminal and juvenile justice systems. The goal is integrated care that can screen, identify, and respond to problems early.”

Despite a nearly 500% increase in mental health drugs being prescribed to children in the previous six years, the NFC recommended a plan of mandatory mental health screening for all public school students and follow-up treatment with drugs when needed.

Wolverine/Michigan-ian:

Those who fight back — confronting illegal home invasions  fraudulently ordered (NOT even legitimately court-ordered) for purposes of kidnapping, for purpose of institutionalizing, for the purpose of then administering dangerous drugs to minor children — can, and will, be treated as felons and stripped of their kids, and months/years of their lives in the fight.  That’s the Michigan reference, above.  Testimony (at the rally) of those on Risperdal:

Posted on 04/08/2011 by Diane Bukowski

Godboldo faces eight felony charges for standing off police armored vehicles, helicopters, and SWAT team members brandishing assault weapons on March 24.  She and her supporters say she was only trying to keep Child Protective Services from forcing a dangerous drug, Risperdal, on her child.

Charges have been dropped, she has her daughter back, but they are considering re-instating.  This story deserves follow-up:  Voice of Detroit did good investigative reporting.  The same CPS worker that did this in 2011 was, in 2010, facing a civil lawsuit for pulling a similar stunt to a related (married) couple, only five (5) children were nabbed and put into three different foster homes for 4o months; the amount of deceit involved is simply stunning.  (Brent family, look it up at “justice4maryanne” site).

>“I want my daughter back TODAY,” Godboldo said from the church’s pulpit. “I’m terrified; I don’t know what is happening to her. If we don’t stand up for our children, we have no future. I am so filled with joy and thankful for your support, Detroit. The only reason I came out of my home was not all those guns out there, not the threats they brought against me, but because of YOU!”

Godboldo’s daughter is currently incarcerated at the Hawthorn Family Center at Northville, despite efforts by other family members to have her released to their custody. Attorneys Allison Folmar and Wanda Evans earlier obtained a temporary restraining order preventing doctors there from putting Arianna back on Risperdal.

Despite a large turn-out of supporters at a Wayne County Juvenile Court custody hearing April 6, and evidence that Arianna may have contracted a sexually-transmitted disease while at Hawthorn, Referee Leslie Graves ruled that the child would remain in state custody

The community rallied, and it seems the family was targeted from a number of angles:  single mother, intelligent and insisting on choice (not “the program”), she homeschooled, she was also African-American and in (I remember seeing, can’t find link) the community was poor.  How dare this community not fork over their kids to the Title IV-driven systems for Rx profits?

One woman [that this mother met in jail for defending her kid] told me what Risperdal did to her. She was kidnapped at 17 and forced into prostitution in Chicago. When she got free and came back home, they put her on that drug. She said she felt dizzy, was hallucinating, and couldn’t function on a day-to-day basis.”

Barbara Ann Polizzi, a critical care nurse from New York, drove 13 hours to the rally with her 17-year-old son Michael to tell a story almost identical to that of Arianna’s. Michael too was forced to take Risperdal.    …

“I felt scared and fearful,” he said. “The medicine gave me shortness of breath and made my heart race. I had to get an inhaler and started on heart medication on top of it. I was not Michael anymore.

He said he was she never never gave up on me.”  (It took 6.5 years, she said):

Godboldo’s niece Ambyr Brooks said that the family has been contacted by people from Australia to Canada, many of whom have been similarly subjected to state abductions of their children and forced medications.

Mother (left), Father (middle),  Michael and mother (far right)

While people like these have to fight — with whatever they got — to keep their kids, another one DID fall between the cracks, in N. California (I also have a page on this — to right), and at least one post; an alert UC Berkeley campus security guard (mother) was alert, and followed up, leading to the YOUNG mother below’s release, along with the two kids.  After 18 years in captivity!

Jaycee Dugard Files Lawsuit Against U.S. Government

PHOTO: After being held captive for 18 years, Jaycee Dugard talks to ABC's Diane Sawyer in her first interview since being discovered and freed.
After being held captive for 18 years, Jaycee Dugard talks to ABC’s Diane Sawyer in her first interview since being discovered and freed. (ABC News)
By   Sept. 22, 2011

Jaycee Dugard is suing the federal government because it twice rejected her requests for private mediation over its alleged failure to properly monitor Phillip Garrido, the man who kidnapped her and held her captive for 18 years.

. . .In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Diane Sawyerearlier this year, Dugard recounted how she overcame the horror of her kidnapping in 1991, her nearly two decade imprisonment in which she gave birth to two children fathered by Garrido, and her healing process since being rescued in 2009.

“There’s a switch that I had to shut off,”

. . . .I said, the US Gov’t was trafficking in children under the radar.  Here’s one:

Garrido was already a convicted kidnapper when he and his wife, Nancy, abducted 11-year-old Dugard as she walked to school from her family’s Tahoe, Calif., home.  He had been sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for kidnapping a woman in 1977. He was released in 1988 and placed on federal parole. In 1999, eight years into his kidnapping and torture of Dugard, he was released from federal parole and thanked by an agent for his “cooperation.

From 1999 to 2009, the state of California was charged with supervising him. At least 60 times, officials from the California Department of Corrections visited the Garrido home and never noticed anything amiss. On at least one visit, an official actually talked to Dugard.

Dugard and her children have already received a settlement from the state of California. Dugard’s attorneys attempted to reach a settlement with the U.S. government through private mediation twice but were denied.

 She said:
Of telling her story, Dugard told Sawyer, “Why not look at it? You know, stare it down until it can’t scare you anymore…I didn’t want there to be any more secrets?I hadn’t done anything wrong. It wasn’t something I did that caused this to happen. And I feel that by putting it all out there, it’s very freeing.”
  (I’m sorry to see that this foundation has taken up with a PAS specialist, in “Transitioning Families”

Rebecca Bailey, PhD – Psy 18732

Transitioning families encompasses the family and individual counseling practice of Rebecca Bailey, Ph.D. as well as her reunification programs, parenting classes and supervised visitation services. Dr. Bailey incorporated her clinical experience with her long-standing interest in animal therapy and the equine-assisted growth and learning programs

Dr. Bailey received her doctoral degree from The Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. Since 1995 she has focused on high conflict familial situations and parent coordination from a developmental perspective. She is former director of the Sonoma Police Departments Youth and family services program and was a therapist educator for programs such as Marin County’s DUI Program. She continues to work with a variety of state and national organizations such as The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

She has served as a Special master and expert witness in cases were parental alienation or estrangement is an issue.

I’m sure that Jaycee Dugard and her mother do not know what this represents, links found on the TF site, and that (as a victim of stranger kidnapping and rape), she wouldn’t approve of the use this theory has been put to, to keep children who have been, at times, raped by their relatives/Dads, back in their custody, and how it FAILS to account for abductions of children by such men, from their mothers, or provide any sort of reunification services for them, either.    I know too many of these situations.    I do not believe that Jaycee and her mother would approve of funding such situations.  I speak as a mother to whom this happened, illegally, permanently (to date) and without real remedy (to date).  My kids’ still don’t know all the truths of their situation, and they most especially don’t know that the stage was set by the works of groups like AFCC and Warshak (and the federal funding, etc.) to make sure this can and does happen.
Men & Dads that need bribes (carrots and sticks) to do the right thing, won’t do the right thing with the bribes anyhow.  They’ll take the bribe (whether it be elimination or reduction of child support arrears, or other rewards, including a sense of control regained over their “ex” // “revenge”) and dump the kids afterwards anyhow — either off with the next wife/woman, or somewhere else.  I know woman who grew up, that experienced this.  Child is sold or farmed out to foster care anyhow, too many times.

“USEFUL LINKS”  (useful for WHAT?)

  • AFCC AFCC is the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts – an interdisciplinary and international association of professionals dedicated to the resolution of family conflict.
  • Dave Ziegler, Ph.D.Beyond Healing, The path to personal contentment after trauma
  • Dr. Richard A. WarshakDr. Warshak is a psychologist and author of Divorce Poison: How To Protect Your Family From Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing, now in its 24th printing, and co-author of the critically acclaimed DVD for children and parents…
  • Parental Alienation Awareness OrganizationBecause most people do not know about PA & HAP until they experience it, the idea of Parental Alienation Awareness Organization was put forth to help raise awareness and provide education about this growing problem of mental and emotional child abuse.
If this person Dr. Bailey wanted to be logical, HONEST & consistent, with her “Transitioning Families” team — she’d treat Mr. Garrido and Nancy Garrido and Jaycee’s daughters (after all, biologically, they were Phil Garrido’s offspring) as the family and get a court order (being a recommending evaluator or parent coordinator and force reunification services on the Garrido/Jaycee’s two daughters — and put Jaycee, the biological and falsely imprisoned, severely abused & sexually assaulted mother on supervised visitation, at her expense until she could learn that “families are forever” meaning, “fathers are forever,” even if they’re temporarily in jail (again) for kidnapping and rape of minors.  This especially seems to apply if one’s family was poor, or one’s skin is a little darker, i.e., Title IV.
But that’s not the way the cookie crumbles while there’s still money in the system — any system —  to be extracted.  Meanwhile, honest people, who helped me during certain years — are paying taxes on the US Debt which is to allegedly provide social services.  I wonder where the millions came from to settle this case — there must have been millions sitting around somewhere.  Interesting.
I wish someone had been around for me to do “reunification services” after the father abandoned OUR kids, failing to tell me when he did so (after having made sure it was a no-contact situation for a long time), and I attempted to regain contact properly and legally.  Instead, I was treated abominably by a local D.A. (though I had written evidence of the abandonment which, like child-stealing, is also a crime) who used sarcasm, ridicule and an attempt to extort more services out of the system — for me.   The man was middle-aged, white, and obviously male, and not on tape.  I left there (another back-burner project) realizing that NO female should ever walk into a room with an investigator, police officer, or district attorney — at least in this area — without the tape recorder on, to keep him or as it may be, them,  in check.  I was foolish to walk in with “only” evidence, and without an advocate — but after xxyy years in the system, there sometimes are no advocates!
Dr. Bailey’s site has rules for Supervised Visitations posted — you should read it.  RULE #1:  “No inappropriate physical contact. Hugging and kissing are okay upon greeting and parting only. This must be acceptable to all parties. No lap sitting.”   RULE #2:  No discussion of molestation allegations, custody or legal situation with the child. If the child brings it us, the parent may acknowledge the topic, but may not respond to the allegation unless the parent wishes to make amends for said action.
ASIDE on seeing the form for Supervised Visitation in association with the JAYC Foundation! 
Reminds me of why Jack Stratton, Ph.D. wrote (1992/1993) is supervised visitation FAIR for children of abusive men?  What does it teach the kids?  (Click on my gravatar logo to read it).     Consider Rule 1 — if the supervised visitation was being applied for the purposes it was sold us under — to prevent molestation ONLY — then that would be one thing.  But, if a child HAS been molested, allegedly, to fail to be allowed to (if young and this would otherwise be appropriate) simply see and hug his or her Mama — if SHE is the one on supervision due to having allowed the child to report, or see a mandatory reporter, or even if the child simply bumped into a mandatory reporter at school or elsewhere — (all situations that have indeed led to mothers being supervised at times, in state after state) — then that’s simply wrong.   I can understand Rule 2, part 1 — but look at the second part of the topic.  This literally means that contact with the non-molesting parent will be closely monitored to make sure a child does NOT report further abuse if it happened.  Both the nonmolesting parent AND the child(ren) must be trained — by this “reunification specialist and via supervised visitation) that any further mention of current abuse, or distress from it (i.e., comfort-seeking with a familiar parent) — will be punished.  The most logical form of punishment would be (for that nonmolesting parent / mother) to have NO visitation whatsoever.
And, here, the fee is $150 per hour.  Remind me to make sure this is no access/visitation subgrantee also …..
They are hurting around this issue over in Scranton, PA.  “Kids for Cash” in neighboring Luzerne is already history . . . Remember Viola Stroud case! (Dutchess County, NY)  Remember Helen O. Page case (Amador County, California).  Now there’s another high-profile case in Connecticut, too; the mother’s parents have put up so far $1 MILLION to help in the case — and are living with THEIR parents, I heard, having mortgaged their own property to help protect their grandson.    It does seem to be a pattern.

ANYHOW . . .  The Three Cities and Fiat Currency . . . .

And one of the most important things in life is to know when someone else is, habitually, lying, and cease doing any kind of business with them until they stop, and permanently, if they cannot stop broadcasting their own lifes based on own perceptions and intent to dominate another person against his or her will, illegally and by fraud.
 This person also posted the article I put on the other post, at link http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=106799.msg648631#msg648631, thread “Empire of the Cities – The Three Cities that Rule The World.”  this is the entire post, dated 5/21/2009….
It has some details about “tallies” and “stocks” you may not know.  Italics (or other font changes) are mine.  I haven’t fact-checked (you can).  But does it start to make some sense, yet?  I’m talking, income tax, federal reserve, for-profit not-for profit distinction (which only the income tax makes possible, really).

The Moneylenders Take Over England

In the 19th century, the Rothchild banking family’s Nathan Rothchild said it well:

“I care not what puppet (sits on) the throne of England to rule the Empire on which the sun never sets. The man who controls Britain’s money supply controls the British empire, and I (when he ran the Bank of England) control the British money supply.”

{{2012 is an election year.  Americans (USA) would do well to keep this in mind also.}}

Centuries early, moneylender power was absent. But after the 1666 Coinage Act, money-issuing authority, once the sole right of kings, was transferred into private hands. “Bankers now had the power to cause inflations and depressions at will by issuing or withholding their gold coins.”

King William III (1672 – 1702), a Dutch aristocrat, financed his war against France by borrowing 1.2 million pounds in gold in a secret transaction with moneylenders, the arrangement being a permanent loan on which debt would be serviced and its principle [“principal”]  never repaid. It came with other strings as well:

— lenders got a charter to establish the Bank of England (in 1694) with monopoly power to issue banknotes as national paper currency;

— it created them out of nothing, with only a fraction of them as reserves;

— loans to the government were to be backed by government IOUs to serve as reserves for creating additional loans to private borrowers; and

— lenders could consolidate the national debt on their government loan to secure payment through people-extracted taxes.

{{sound familiar yet?}}

It was a prescription for huge profits and “substantial political leverage. The Bank’s charter gave the force of law to the ‘fractional reserve’ banking scheme that put control of the country’s money” in private hands. It let the Bank of England create money out of nothing and charge interest for loans to the government and others – the same practice central banks now employ.

{{{“TALLIES”}}

For the next century, banknotes and tallies circulated interchangeably even though they weren’t a compatible means of exchange. Banker money expanded when “credit expanded and contracted when loans were canceled or ‘called,’ producing cycles of ‘tight’ money and depression alternating with ‘easy’ money and inflation.” In contrast, tallies were permanent, stable, fixed money, making banknotes look bad so they had to go.

For another reason as well – because of King William’s disputed throne and fear if he were deposed, moneylenders again might be banned. They used their influence to legalize banknotes as the money of the realm called “funded” debt with tallies referred to as “unfunded,” what historians see as the beginning of a “Financial Revolution.” In the end, “tallies met the same fate as witches – death by fire.”

{{ACTUALLY– SOUNDS LIKE THE REVERSE WAS TRUE.  TALLIES WERE FUNDED, AND THE BANKNOTES, WERE NOT}}

They were money of the people competing with moneylending bankers. After 1834 monetary reform, “tally sticks went up in flames in a huge bonfire started in a House of Lords stove.” Ironically, it got out of control and burned down Westminster Palace and both Houses of Parliament, symbolically ending “an equitable era of trade (by transferring power) from the government to the” central bank.

{{simple explanation:on the terms, and this burning:  terms “tally” “stocks” “broker” (Stockade) and “Exchequer”, Charles Dickens quoted}}

(MY INSERT — more on TALLY STICKS:

Original Wooden Tally Sticks (2)
[England, Westminster, c. 1250-1275]

hickory wood, the larger end cut diagonally, edges roughly squared off leaving traces of bark, each inscribed along one side with the name of the payer and the upper and lower edges cut with notches (“v”-shaped for pounds, broad grooves for shillings, sharp cuts for pence), each piece then split with a knife by cutting diagonally across the thicker end of the reverse side and pulling away a length which would be retained separately by the payer as proof of payment, written in thirteenth-century charter hands. c. 175-200 mm. long (each).

Rare survival of a medieval form of financial record-keeping, the tally stick provides the origin of many words used in modern money markets: stock, foil, stockholder, bank stock, and check. The vast majority were destroyed in the nineteenth century in the fire of the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament.

INTERESTING:

Tallies provide the earliest form of bookkeeping. They were used in England by the Royal Exchequer from about the twelfth century onward. Since the notches for the sums were cut right through both pieces and since no stick splits in an even manner, the method was virtually foolproof against forgery. They were used by the sheriff to collect taxes and to remit them to the king. They were also used by private individuals and institutions, to register debts, record fines, collect rents, enter payments for services rendered, and so forth. By the thirteenth century, the financial market for tallies was sufficiently sophisticated that they could be bought, sold, or discounted. 

“Tallies were … a sophisticated and practical record of numbers. They were more convenient to keep and store than parchments, less complex to make, and no easier to forge…. Of the millions of medieval tallies made, only a few hundred survive.” (Clanchy, p. 96; see also p. 95, n. 28, pl. VIII). In 1724, treasury officials commanded that tallies no longer be used, but it was not until 1834, with the reform acts and the abolition of the office of the Receipt of the Exchequer, that a huge bonfire of the then-obsolete medieval tally sticks was held. Started in a stove stuffed full of sticks in the House of Lords, the fire quickly got out of control, spreading to the paneling, and burning down both the Palace of Westminster and the Houses of Parliament.

In 1911, Sir Hilary Jenkinson knew of only three Exchequer tally sticks in private hands (pp. 292-3, 330, and 350).

The evolution of money technologies originates with the tally stick. From tally stick comes the modern word “stock,” meaning a financial certificate and deriving from the use of the Middle English for the stick. The piece retained by the bank was called the “foil.” The holder of the stock was said to be the “stockholder” and owned “bank stock.” A written certificate presented for remittance and checked against its security later became a “check.”

According to legend, Wall Street was founded in its present location because of the presence there of an enormous chestnut tree, said to be plentiful enough to supply enough tally sticks for the emerging American stock market.

LITERATURE 
Clanchy, M. T. From Memory to Written Record, England 1066-1307, Cambridge, Mass., 1979.

Jenkinson, Hilary C. “Exchequer Tallies,” Archaeologia, second series, 12 (1911), pp. 292 ff.

ONLINE RESOURCES 
Tallies and Technologies, by Dave Birch, Journal of Internet Banking and Commerce
http://www.arraydev.com/commerce/JIBC/9811-11.htm

The Origins of Mathematics
http://www.math.tamu.edu~don.allen/history/origins/origins.html

[[The other source cited is the link, above to definitions]]

forum.prisonplanet. . . cont’d….

Henceforth {{1834ff?}}, private bankers kept government in debt, never demanding the return of principle [“principal”], and profiting by extracting interest, a very lucrative system always paying off “like a slot machine” rigged to benefit its operators. It became the basis for modern central banking, lending its “own notes (printed paper money), which the government swaps for bonds (its promises to pay) and circulates as a national currency.

{{BONDS — hold that thought}}

Government debt is never repaid. It’s continually rolled over and serviced, today with no gold in reserve to back it. Though gone, tallies left their mark. The word “stock” comes from the tally stick. Much of the original Bank of England stock was bought with these sticks. In addition, stock issuance began during the Middle Ages as a way to finance businesses when no interest-bearing loans were allowed.

This is not “archaic” information and irrelevant — it’s VERY current.  I am still digesting — but it makes sense.  Here’s a Brit (I gather) relating the Monarchy’s relationship to the Corporation of London (which holds the crown — the one you’ve seen on TV perhaps, loaned out for state occasions) and correlating to a May, 2011 meeting with the British Prime Minister Cameron with Eurozone personnel, re: ESM (Hey, it’s new term to me….).  I just saw Cameron sitting next to President Obama watching a basketball game, on TV….

He is thinking in terms of the Corporation that holds the (moulah) versus the “State” which is subject to it.  It’s a BIG deal!

That meeting, the ESM and the Crown – why Cameron said NO

( Dec. 2011)

I know that many of you who visit this site have looked deeply into our constitution, and are already aware that our State, the Crown, is not the Monarchy, but the Corporation of London.

The ‘Crown’ is in trust to the Corporation of London, it owns it and has done since Cromwell hocked it in return for unrepayable loans from Dutch Bankers, loans that are still being repaid today, to finance a bankrupt England after the Civil War.
In order that the Crown never left these shores and the transaction remained unknown to a largely starving and extremely volatile population it was to be held in trust in perpetuity by a new body, which eventually became The Corporation of London .

It is this Crown that all State employees swear allegiance to, with the exception of the Royal Navy who give their allegiance to the Queen directly. It is why the Crown is housed in the Tower of London, within the bounds of the City, and only loaned to the Monarch for State occasions.

What these charlies across the Channel are trying to do is the same thing, and largely for the same reasons. The new revised ESM that was suggested on Friday would become thenew State of Europa.

In the same way that the State sits above the British Government, this planned ESM Treaty would be a level oState above the EU and its institutions.

For Further Info — and Reflection

with 3 comments

See also (next-gen blog, at least for me)

The Family Court Franchise System

Blog author in need of redecoration, has set up shop elsewhere.  This doesn’t mean NO more posts over here, but perhaps better organization over there.  I tangled one too many times with the gigantic “quotes” function & disappearing paragraphs here; I like the more flexible fonts available on the other platform.  You probably will too.

Besides which, anyone who hasn’t figured out yet that the family court system IS a franchise system, I feel sincerely sorry for them.  Last attempt to convince you of this? (just a sample)

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Here’s a brief trying to push the hybrid model, more:

In Search of Statutory Authority for Parenting Coordinator Orders in California: Using a Grass- roots, Hybrid Model Without an Enabling Statute, 5 Journal of Child Custody 88 (2008)


Ms. Termini (of Pennsylvania) coordinates the GAL program at Lackawanna County, and Mr. Joe Pilchesky, as part of his public service, this WAS a public service; more people should do it!) posted her receipts to the Scranton Political Times on or about Oct. 3, 2011 as follows (a few months before he was himself thrown off the site by Joanne, who apparently got tired of certain behaviors, including cheating on him, dissing her (with a few threats implied) on the forum, and continuing to operate out of  a home she owned, literally.   No child victims for the local courts in that situation, but they are going to duke it out anyhow).   BUT — here it is, Ms. Termini’s SS# redacted….

Attachments

The hotel stay image, here, 8/22/09 — coincides with a presentation Termini, Harhut & Ross were doing at the National Association of Counsel for Children (“NACC”), only $215.43 for one night.   It’s Danielle Ross (not Termini) who is the NACC member (per their lists, at least).  

And some more:

Attachments

__________________

and some more, for 2011:

For the year 2011

Attachments

__________________

(I sure hope those links continue to function….)

And he summarizes what he did, which doesn’t sound to me like rocket science.  Posted 10/3/2011. Maybe it was rocket science, but somehow, I don’t think so:

All these were, and as of today (2/24/2012) are at Scranton Political Times under the co-parenting thread, which is under the topic “Doherty Deceit”

@@

 I sent a right-to-know letter to Lackawanna County asking for documents regarding Family Court’s Co-Parenting Coordinator, Ann Marie Termini.  I received a response a few days ago, so I’m able to share some information with you.  The RTK letter and the response thereto are posted below.

* I asked for copies of contracts between Termini and the County.  Response: None exist. That’s question 6 in the RTK letter.

* I asked for documents to support what the scope of her duties are as a contractor. Response: None exist.  That’s question 2.

* I asked for documents to support that a lease agreement exists relating to the space she occupies on county property.  Response: None exist.  That’s question 3

* I asked for agreements relating to Termini using utilities, office equipment and furnishings. Response: None exist. That’s question 5

* I asked for copies of any complaints about Termini. Response: None exist. That’s question 8.

* I asked for copies of any court orders directing that Termini is appointed as the Co-Parenting Coordinator.  Response: None exist.  That’s question 9

* I asked for any documents to support the creation of the Co-Parenting Program. Response: None exist. That’s question 10.

* I asked for a copy of any advertising relating to seeking persons to fill the position of Co-Parenting Coordinator. Response: None exist.  That’s question 12

NACC seems like another networking opp for the same sorts of AFCC personnel, only focused around child support and abuse:

32nd National Juvenile and Family Law Conference – Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge, NY

8/19/2009

When: August 19-22, 2009
Where: Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge
333 Adams Street
Brooklyn, New York  11201
United States
Contact: Daniel Trujillo (trujillo.daniel@tchden.org)

>>>Title of Conference is typically modest of these professionals, modeled after the parent organization, AFCC:

STANDING AT THE FOREFRONT:  EFFECTIVE ADVOCACY  IN TODAY’S WORLD

This was the “32nd National Juvenile and Family Law Conference of the National Association of Counsel for Children”

These organizations (at least one who is an affiliate of NACC) sponsored:

Co-SpoNSorS

  • Barry University School of Law

  • Ciccolella Family Law, P.C.

  • Colorado Office of the Child’s Representative

  • Georgia Association of Counsel for Children  (NONprofit group started 8/26/2003, admin. dissolved involuntarily 5/2008 for ‘failure to file,” paid up and reinstated about a year later (4/2009) and now is back and running, though a little late on their 2011 filing also, it says)….would be nice to find an EIN# but the search site re-routes users to a licensure site instead.  Hmm.

  • Legal Aid Society, Juvenile Rights Practice

  • Legal Aid Society, New York City

  • NACC Megan Louise Furth Youth Empowerment Fund

  • Northern California Association of Counsel for Children

(this Co-sponsor of NACC  conference 2009, and NACC affiliate, is actually run out of the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), i.e., from the California Judicial Counsel.  Site shows:

CALIFORNIA *Northern California Association of Counsel for Children (NCACC)

Christopher Wu Phone: 415/865-7721 AOC/ Center for Children, Families and the Courts 455 Golden Gate Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102

Christopher.Wu@jud.ca.gov (this links shows you the OTHER members on that blue-ribbon commission)

Mr. Christopher Wu

Executive Director
California Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care

 Mr. Wu is ALSO “Supervising Attorney” for the CFCC (which to my understanding helps distribute the access/visitation funding that comes to the Judicial Council).  Is this a conflict of interest?
(This CFCC itself is part of a larger partnership — see bottom of page**)

One member (notice affiliations) incl.

CA
Staff Counsel, California Dept. of Social Services, 1975-1977
Deputy Attorney General, State of California, Health, Education, and Welfare Div. 1977-1988
Training Director, Advokids, 2005-present

These “cooperated”:

  • ABA Center on Children and the Law

  • ABA Section of Litigation, Children’s Rights Litigation Committee

  • Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

  • Connecticut Commission on Child Protection

  • First Star

  • National Center for State Courts

  • National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges

  • National Court Appointed Special Advocate Association

  • National Institute for Trial Advocacy

  • Judicial Council of California Center for Families, Children, and the Courts 

**

California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership (Mr. Wu of CFCC and of the Northern California Association of Counsel for Children, which is an affiliate of NACC, and of the Blue Ribbon Commission on Children in Foster Care (and who knows what else, probably ALL run out of the same address) also is linked to here:

(SPEAKING OF ‘INTERLOCKING DIRECTORATES” — WHICH MY “FOR FURTHER INFO” BLOG ALSO DOES — ):

The California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership . . 

is a collaborative group of state agencies, foundations and other nonprofit organizations whose purpose is improving the lives of children and families who are in or are at risk of entering the state’s child welfare system.   Founded in 2006. . . .
“Our public-private
partnership includes
eight partners that
collectively invest
more than $2 billion
in the state’s child
welfare system.”
SOUNDS LIKE IT’S A PAY-TO-PLAY OPERATION…..
Partner organizations and representatives include:
[top]

Advisory CommitteeThe Partnership’s Advisory Committee is made up of nearly 40 diverse organizations that inform and advise the Partnership about its work and priorities.

sometimes I wonder where they are getting all these abused children FROM — and if the money were put into supporting the parents, PERIOD, there wouldn’t be such a need for CPS, welfare, and foster care to start with.  in other words, MOST parents, just ordinary people, are paying these organizations to craft policies that drive their lives, and MOST ordinary wage-earners are NOT forming nonprofits to avoid paying excess taxes — because they can’t, or don’t know how to.
This is how wealth is centralized, and this is who is driving our government.  I suppose I should give the run-of-the-mill crooks a break, after all, they are just following the examples of the wealthy philanthropic elites of the country, which they hope to (obviously) join the ranks of — or possibly have, by now.   (by comparison AFCC is starting to look like Kid Stuff, not that I forgive them their agenda (I’m female….)  . . . .
All they want to do get their piece of the coming utopia, which will likely eliminate the “useless eaters” once their purposes have been served.
Do NOT kid yourself this agenda has changed, whether or not the rank-and-file have picked up on it yet.   Another use of the term occurs HERE:  The question is, what are you going to do about it?

The Drug Story By Morris A. Bealle

“To teach the Rockefeller drug ideology, it is necessary to teach that Nature didn’t know what she was doing when she made the human body. But statistics issued by the Children’s Bureau of the Federal Security Agency show that since the all-out drive of the Drug Trust for drugging, vaccinating and serumizing the human system, the health of the American nation has sharply declined, especially among children. Children are now given ‘shots’ for this and ‘shots’ for that, when the only safeguard known to science is a pure bloodstream, which can be obtained only with clean air and wholesome food. Meaning by natural and inexpensive means. Just what the Drug Trust most objects to.“

This book was written in the late 1940s and is valuable reading in these perilous times. Read about this important book at http://educate-yourself.org/drugstory.html.

I take the drugging issue up a little more in the blog mentioned at the top.  When a woman protecting her child from home invasion is handled with swat team and HELIcopters, over the issue of adverse responses to vaccinations + refusal to continue “Risperdal” after its dangers to her child became obvious (and an M.D. apparently verified), then we are simply in the situation of sitting ducks.
UNFREEZE – CHANGE — REFREEZE” has already happened.  now, we need to apply the same theory and change things — not back — but to a different setup than this ‘partners in change” that see abused children deserving of foster care where they do NOT exist, and fail to see them where they DO exist.  Perhaps if they weren’t spending half their time preparing for conferences, presenting at them, poring over each other’s research (and billing hotel costs to their local counties), this information might have surfaced earlier.  Who knows….
ANYHOW, apparently Ms. Termini DID show up (per brochure) in 2009, Brooklyn — with cohorts a judge and a GAL — and you can search the name in the brochure.

For Scrantonians — To Assert is Fine, but To Prove is Best. Study How Kentucky Got Its 70 Judicial Center Projects, 9 Court Programs (including 11 Divorce Ed. courses so far). You’re Next!

with 8 comments

This post sounds more state-specific than it is.  When pilot programs and model courts are being coordinated with help from outside the state to within any state, there’s little state-specific about the courts taking place these days.  Remember also the influence of federal funding, and the speed of change facilitated by our lovely internet technology (think, approximately 1980s becoming more popularly accessible — but governments (especially military, who of course need great communications and data processing), academia, and lawyers will generally be further ahead than most of the public).

Original Post Published 12/21/2011.  I had occasion to refer to it, and began updating 9/8/2015, in part because the Kentucky State Court had re-arranged its website, creating broken-link-syndrome.   On noticing they, too, unified the court system, and by “Judicial Article” in 1976 created an “AOC” with a Chief Justice (i.e., centralized operations), I immediately remembered the NYS Unified Court System and its “Public/private partnership” with the under-reported “Fund for the City of New York,” (first funded 1968) which was labeled at some point, possibly post-1993, the Center for Court Innovation.

The Center for Court Innovation being often mischaracterized in print, I decided it was time to talk about how the system is set for privatization, and of course, global alignment internationally.  This would be hard to achieve directly and get past most voters — but it’s already been arranged to do it INdirectly, under the lable just improving systems, and helping families, communities, and in the public interest.

Tax-exempt, tax (and privately) funded, and WHERE did your famous legal rights go??  Perhaps a better question to ask is where did the money go, which might help answer the former questions.

I added a substantial section (light-green background) to my 2011 commentary and word-battles (at a few points) with a now-defunct forum in Scranton, PA.  It will become a separate post soon, I hope.  If so, this one will be shortened, with a referral link.  Maybe.  (Catch it while you can…)

🙂


 

Righteous Indignation, Determination to do something, and a Healthy Sarcasm  — admirable, I love it.

Also one has to love anyone who can file enough Right To Knows, get information sufficient to file a CIVIL suit against a FAMILY court racket(eering set of individuals), have (I believe as a result of that and related) suit, the FBI come charging in to haul off evidence (for what purpose, remains to be seen)  and post it for all to see.  And keep posting.  Again, I came here from Kentucky — after I found some dude from this area (Dunmore, PA) getting his product marketed through the Kentucky Family Court System, which has a ridiculous number dof “Divorce Education” programs and one that clearly uses extortion to get Dads in arrears into fatherhood program probably aimed at about 6th grade (maybe tops, 8th) level of intellect.  And that is called a “Court of Justice”!

 Judicial Center Projects **

Since 1998 the Kentucky Court of Justice has completed, authorized or begun construction on 70 new judicial centers.

These new facilities have given Kentucky citizens safe, efficient, cost-effective buildings in which to exercise their legal and constitutional rights

[**Original Post was 12/21/2011; Updates, Link Correction (different background color)  @ 9/8/2015]:

The Courts.ky.gov web pages have changed since this post, and no longer so clearly display the 11 divorce education programs below. More info at.  Notice the AOC was put in place in 1976 by “the Judicial Article.”  Their summary provides no link to that article, or description of who issued it, was there a referendum, did the judges come together in decide, or what.

 Kentucky Administrative Office of the Courts

The Administrative Office of the Courts is the operational arm of the Judicial Branch. The AOC supports court facilities and programs in all 120 counties, with its main campus in Frankfort.

The AOC was established in 1976 as a result of the Judicial Article. The Judicial Article created Kentucky’s unified court system and made the chief justice head of the state court system, also known as the Kentucky Court of Justice.


Read the rest of this entry »

Substance-Poor, Repetition-Rich: Parsing ~ Parent Coordination ~ Rhetoric ~ and some Organizations..(Publ. Dec. 14, 2011, updated (format) Oct. 30, 2017)

with 5 comments

POST TITLE IS: 

Substance-Poor, Repetition-Rich: Parsing ~ Parent Coordination ~ Rhetoric ~ and some Organizations..(Publ. Dec. 14, 2011, updated (format) Oct. 30, 2017) (WordPress-generated, case-sensitive shortlink ends “-WN”

My practice of adding borders and listing the post title with shortlink is more recent.

Currently this post is NOT listed on any Table of Contents (my lists only go as far back as Sept. 2012)…I see that many of the logos will not display, and that this post as written was about 10,000 words long. This update made only because a basic search on the blog for an organization I’m writing about again brought it up. (Update this time is only minimal format changes for easier reading; is not in detail and doesn’t include fixing broken links/missing logos, or more recent information on the organizations referenced).//LGH Oct. 30, 2017.


INTRO:

Overall, I seriously doubt that it’s possible to clean up or straighten up the family law system — at all, and I am utterly serious in saying this.  There is too much incentive for fraud, and too much need to “pay the mortgages” in the courthouses by ordering more services, and too little oversight and tracking of the funding.  There are too many public employees forming nonprofit corporations to franchise for-profit curricula (marriage, parent education, etc.) — in the old NonProfit/ForProfit combo.

There are too few tools in many states to track WHO is repeatedly forming corporations that go belly-up, only to have a partner or other person formerly on one board just go forth and from another one — in another state.   Many of these groups, as my last post showed, are membership organizations — membership is charged, conferences run, and we have some evidence from county payrolls or vouchers from court-connected professionals, that the public is billed to fund attendance at nonprofits whose ONE purpose is to expand their services.  Child support is one of the worst of these, but they come in all flavors.

Despite the bleak outlook — I still report and I am going to finish reporting on this field of Parent Coordination until it is CLEAR what the AFCC professionals’ intent is in establishing this field and, if possible, having it legitimized at the state level by establishing standards, or by mandate.

The Association for Family and Conciliation Courts runs many task forces at a time, as part of its strategic plan to expand (itself) and transform the “old” language of criminal law into more friendly-to-its-practitioners concepts.    One of them which they are taking VERY seriously in promoting — and I take VERY seriously in protesting — is Parenting Coordination.

Parents didn’t ask for this — it’s no grassroots movement, and from what I can tell how it’s been (1) advertised (2) pushed and (3) practiced — there’s no genuine NEED for it either.  For that matter, I see no historical record that parents as a sector (both male and female) asked for the family law system, either.

Why I’m addressing it — again:   

(1) AFCC PROMOTED IT – NOT PARENTS.  NO REAL NEED EXISTED, and SERIOUS ISSUES & OBJECTIONS AS THEY DID.

The LizLibrary lists a page of them, and towards the bottom, some legal opinions, too:  Parenting Coordination:  A Bad Idea

Here’s less than half the list — and so far I agree with ALL of them.  Thank you, Liz (Kates, the FL Family Law attorney, not Richards, of NAFCJ.net)
© 1996-2011 argate.net        frcp:

  • Parenting coordination is an inappropriate delegation of the judicial function
  • Parenting coordination is an impediment to court access
  • Parenting coordination is a denial of due process
  • Parenting coordination violates privacy
  • The parenting coordinator concept encroaches on family liberty interests
  • Parenting coordination represents arbitrary dictate by a person, in denigration of rule of law
  • Parenting coordination is a make-work role newly invented by psychology trade promotion groups
  • No studies indicate parenting coordinators make good decisions
  • No studies indicate parenting coordination improves families’ lives or child wellbeing.
  • Nothing qualifies a stranger to make family decisions for other people
  • Nothing qualifies a mental health professional to interpret a court order or legal document
  • Nothing qualifies a lawyer to play at being an unlicensed, unregulated therapist for hire
  • Nothing qualifies any third party to “fill in the gaps” in someone else’s contract
  • There is no definition of what constitutes a successful parenting coordination
  • Parenting coordination does not, in the long run, alleviate court docket congestion
  • It creates additional issues and leaves the door open for return trips to resolve them
  • Parenting coordination provides a new forum for squabbling over petty disputes
  • Parenting coordination is an additional expense that many can ill afford
  • Parenting coordination enables one parent to spend the other’s funds
  • Parenting coordination is time-consuming and tedious
  • Parenting coordination is not confidential
  • Parenting coordination constitutes continuous government discovery, 4th Amendment
  • Parenting coordination constitutes continuous discovery by each parent into the affairs of the other
  • Parenting coordination can never be “voluntary” because it implements unwanted court orders
  • Parenting coordinators demand that the parties sign “consents” that give up constitutional rights
  • Some have demanded that parties give up the right to go to court, contact police, or involve their lawyers
  • They are hired or appointed under shadow of the threat of court sanctions or loss of custody
  • They are agreed to by parties ignorant of the repercussions, in fear, out of funds, or overwhelmed
  • Parenting coordination does not result in increased family well-being
  • Parenting coordination does not make children happier, healthier, or better adjusted
  • Parenting coordination is not therapy but coercion backed by the state’s police power
  • Parenting coordinators tend to be hostile to, and at odds with attorney-client relationships
  • They align with GALs and other court appointees in a pretext of “focus on the children”
  • They encroach on parental-child relationships and decision-making
  • They undermine the parental authority children require for a sense of security and well-being
  • Instead of at least one authoritative parent, children have no authoritative parent
  • Petty tyrants place a premium on the perception of who is cooperating with them
  • Cooperation with the parenting coordinator is court-ordered and
  • They alone decide if a parent is “cooperating” with them

From the same page, a case “Parenting Coordinator Out of Control” — and I have to note that it’s an appeal from an order at the FL (presumably 20th) Circuit Court Level bearing Judge Hugh Starnes‘ name!

The Hon. Hugh Starnes showed up in yesterday’s post, where I was simply blogging an AFCC judge, and also his nonprofit in FL with the initials AFLP (logo on the post).  I also happen to know he was quite active in FL-AFCC Chapter establishment, which seemed to have the primary agenda of getting parenting coordination passed in Florida.  They have since succeeded, I believe, too.
Like I keep saying — sometime others will acknowledge — parenting coordinators are themselves pushy, and AFCC pushed Parenting Coordination, in fact they are one set of bullies when it comes to getting THEIR priorities into practice, then law – citing it’s already in practice anyhow.
This is primarily what AFCC does.  From the organization’s point of view, this is phrased as “innovative” and “helping” and “problem-solving.”  The problem (sic) is always the recalcitrant parents, and the UNFORTUNATE vestiges of separation of powers (legal/judicial/executive branch) and little details like confidentiality in a lawsuit, and legal restraints.
Here’s a link to Parentcoordination.com’s complaint about the legal limits part – and their plan of PC as an end-run around those limits!   {{It looks like I didn’t post that link, or it wasn’t saved to final… unless it’s shown in the DVLeap 2010 brief.}}

“The Court’s parenting coordinator orders unconsitutionally delegate judicial power and violate due process… The Special Master Order’s requirement that Appellant pay for the parenting coordinators to whom she objects violates law and public policy… The Special Master Order requiring Appellant to waive her medical privilege violates her statutory and constitutional rights to privacy…”

AFCC could care less.  They DEMANDED it and are still finishing up trying to get this mandated in every single United State.

  •  Even the brother of the Marriage Promotion President, the “Family” family, George Bush — as Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, FL (2004) had the sense to object based on sound principles.  A newly formed (probably for this purpose) chapter of AFCC strategized, lobbied, publicized, practiced, and finally managed to ram it through, over his veto.  It only slowed them down slightly.

June 18, 2004   

Ms. Glenda E. Hood Secretary of State Florida Department of State

By the authority vested in me as Governor of Florida, under the provisions of Article III, Section 8, of the Constitution of Florida, I do hereby withhold my approval of and transmit to you with my objections, Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 2640, enacted during the 36th session of the Legislature, convened under the Constitution of 1968, during the Regular Session of 2004, and entitled:

An act relating to Parenting Coordination. . .

Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 2640 authorizes courts to appoint a parenting coordinator when the court finds the parties have not implemented the court-ordered parenting plan, mediation has not been successful, and the court finds the appointment is in the best interest of the children involved.

 

  • He lists 5 objections, two of which clearly recognize that it in effect allows a parent coordinator to function as both judge and jury of parents’ or children’s rights, and one of which is that it fails to protect victims of domestic violence.   I also note from the language that it looks like a Committee (not the general legislature) attempted to have this substitute for an existing Senate Bill. . . . . 

(2) The “Termini/Boyan Factor” —

  • The People fixed on training parent coordinators have a terrible track record when it comes to staying incorporated(I found another one today — Seminars for Advanced Interdisciplinary Family Professionals, or “SAIF.”  Formed in 2006, it’s already behind in its filings, in the state of Indiana. And it appears that, again, a nonprofit/for-profit combo, originating not with litigants, but with the professionals, was set up to give (again) some family law attorneys the right to crow about their own parent coordination training seminars they helped run themselves.  By and large, that seems to be the situation in Indiana — which it seems New Hampshire liked a lot, too. Termini/Boyan are Georgia/Pennsylvania — but same general idea.

(3) The language of “parent coordination” is impoverished and repetitive.

Here’s an example, from a family law attorney, a bona-fide certified one  (although the nonprofit membership she cites all over is anything but “bona-fide” when it comes to filing charitable returns in the home state!)

It’s even from an Amicus Brief (I THINK it got filed, although this isn’t the stamped version). Actually, this is where the title to my post came from:

 

CASE NO. C064475

SUPERIOR COURT CASE NO. 34-3009-80000359

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL FOR THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT

__________________

RANDY RAND, ED.D. Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BOARD OF PSYCHOLOGY, Defendant and Respondent. __________________

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE

ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED FAMILY LAW SPECIALISTS __________________

Face sheet as posted at CaliforniaParentingCoordinator.com (using link from this 12/14/2011 post).

[Three images, inside blue borders, added in 2017 update.  See also their list Table of Authorities].

 

In the statute of authorities for this brief, bearing the name “Leslie Ellen Shear” and “Stephen Temko” (although the certificate of interested parties form bears the name Shear, and is dated 1/27/2011), after the legal and rules of court list, comes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table of Contents from Amicus Brief (source url shown on gray window-frame at top of image).

 

 

 

“Treatises, Law Reviews and Other Authorities” – and on reading it, I see it quotes, among others:

  • The nonprofit ACFLS (which she’s head of Amicus Brief Committee on, or was)
  • AFCC itself (at least twice)
  • A host of people, known to be AFCC professionals anyhow, for those who pay attention — such as Ahrons, Coates, Deutch, Greenberg, Kelly, and who knows about some of the others.  These quotations include those from the AFCC publication, Family Court Review (joint with “Hofstra Univ. School of Law”) and AFCC newsletters, etc.
  • Herself, like 3 times, in:
    • Shear (2008) In Search of Statutory Authority for Parenting Coordinator Orders in California: Using a Grass-roots, Hybrid Model Without an Enabling Statute 5 Journal of Child Custody 88…………………………………………..5, 18, 25  (cited on page 5, 18 & 25).

(I’m also adding this quote in 2017 update, from the Amicus Brief):

ACFLS’s purposes in appearing as amicus are to protect and perfect the parenting coordination service model in California family courts, discuss the implications of the issues raised in this case for the future of parent coordination in California, and address the implications of those issues for other family court appointed neutrals including but not limited to child custody evaluators4, minors’ counsel appointed per Fam. Code §3150 et seq., mediators, therapists, members of collaborative family law teams, and other court appointed or connected quasi-judicial dispute resolution professionals.

In other words, to protect her own kind….

 

Note title — trying to legislate parenting coordination.

Another set of professionals tried to write “Kids Turn” into law around 2002, right? (see my “Kicking Salesmanship Up a Notch post.”) then-Governor Gray Davis (properly!) vetoed even the version of it put out which didn’t overtly say “Kids’ Turn” on its face.

So here’s a sample section of this Amicus:

On page 4, quoting AFCC person Greenberg (whose writing I also ran across) cites who came up with the idea, vaguely characterized as:

In 1994, the concept of parenting coordination was spawned by a concerned group of professionals in California and Colorado who realized that some high conflict families remained chronically mired in conflict and required something different. . . For these families, the traditional tried and true approaches to containing familial conflict such as litigation, mediation, forensics, and therapy had not worked. Thus, the concept of parenting coordination was conceived as a different and needed dispute resolution intervention.

(Tried and True?  [is that really an appropriate phrase for use in an amicus brief?]

Try “Tried and found seriously wanting.”  Don’t believe me?  Look here.  I’ve already mentioned the Seal Beach (CA) massacre enough times, so here’s one fresh off the press — like YESTERDAY, in Florida.  Actually, it seems there’s an acquiescent mother in this one: even after Dad murdered the son, the surviving children (including one witness to that murder) miss their Daddy.  And they shouldn’t even be supervised, but be able to go to events like church, sports, etc.

Sounds like perhaps this is a stepfather (or second family) situation here, judging by age of the children.  And the shooter was a retired police officer!

Dad accused of killing son wants custody rights to surviving kids; judge lets him have unsupervised contact (Orlando, Florida)

POSTED: 5:56 pm EST December 13, 2011
UPDATED: 6:45 pm EST December 13, 2011

ORLANDO, Fla. — A former Orlando police officer accused of killing his son was back in court, arguing for custody rights to his other children. 

Timothy Davis Sr. won a victory of sorts Tuesday when a judge granted him the ability to pick up his younger children from school, including his 9-year-old daughter who authorities said witnessed the killing.

The retired police officer is accused of shooting his son, 22-year-old Timothy Davis Jr., to death at their Apopka home in what he said was self-defense after his son attacked him, injuring his knee in October.

Here’s another involving 3 children, and a custody hearing, plus prior assaults on the child and wife.

Dad managed to get himself shot (to death) after apparently attacking a state trooper.  I do not call this ‘tried and true.”  This was an American military, married in Germany, but the divorce action  appears to be HERE. He also was Marine Corps.

Here’s one from Texas; 40 year old father, who apparently had custody? (or certainly unsupervised visitation), emails nude pictures of his 12 year old daughter.   This man was living with his mother who, thankfully, was honest enough to do something about her pervert son, although somehow the courts weren’t alert to this in custody decisions:

by KHOU.com staff

khou.com
Posted on December 8, 2011 at 8:58 PM

KATY, Texas – A 40-year-old father is facing charges for allegedly distributing nude photos of his 12-year-old daughter online.

According to court documents, the suspect was living with his daughter at his mother’s house in Katy when the offenses occurred.

Investigators said that in August of 2011, the suspect’s mother found emails sent from the suspect’s gmail account that contained nude images of children.   Some of those images were of the suspect’s daughter, the grandmother said.

Sorry to bring up this very unpleasant reality-check, but when in Amicus Brief a parent-coordinator pusher talks about previously tried methods that work — the definition of “works” or “tried and true” apparently / generally just means “tried, sometimes resulting in death, physical or sexual abuse of minors post-separation, or having minor children showing up in child pornography in father’s possession.”  All of these were from December 2011 news articles, only.

Keep these incidents for a point of reference while I quote from p.12, a whole chapter on how parent coordinators have such difficult parents to deal with, “poor them”:

 

III. Parenting Coordinators Work With the Most Difficult Family Court Population – Those Most Prone to Assert Grievances and Challenge Decisionmakers

… cases are usually referred to parenting coordination because they are chronically litigious and difficult to manage.** These parents have often had several attorneys, evaluators, and mediators — professional hopping and shopping is rampant. Their court files are thick with motions, court appearances, and allegations of wrongdoing by the parents.

Coates, Deutsch et al. (2004) Parenting Coordination for High-Conflict Families 42 Fam. Ct. Rev. 246, 252

**Difficult-to manage parents are the bread and butter of the family court.  They are the income producers.  Assigning them to parent coordination is yet one more source of income for the professionals, taken from either the parents, or (looks like there’s some effort to make even broke parents participate in this too — AFCC-CA has a workshop or presentation, on the 2012 hearing on this).

Perhaps the professionals in question should re-think the business of “managing parents” to start with.

So, the opening quote to this chapter is from two long-time AFCC professionals (Coates/Deutsch) in an AFCC publication?, although it’s only 2004, using an AFCC-originated concept and term, “high-conflict families” (although I hear Bill Eddy now says they are high-conflict individuals — see my post on “yet another AFCC wet dream.” and his High-conflict Institute….)

The child custody cases referred to parenting coordinators are the most complex, acrimonious, difficult and demanding cases. Most parents regain their perspective and bearings within two years of separation, and do not need this kind of intensive and ongoing service model. Parents who continue to re- turn to court with enforcement and modification requests after completing co- parenting educational programs,* and after a child custody evaluation are can- didates for parenting coordination,

* perhaps this speaks to the quality of the co-parenting educational programs, more than the parents.

* or perhaps they are pissed at being forced to take co-parenting classes to start with, not mentioning affected if they also have to pay.

Parents who need a PC intervention are typically a special group for whom the passage of time has not reduced the rage and angry behaviors of at least one if not both parents.

A casual dismissal of whether it’s just one — or both — parents here.  We KNOW that many of these cases — not just some — are in fact cases involving danger, abuse, and etc.   These cases do NOT belong in family court at all — but they are there because of greed of professionals, and because of the fatherhood movement (backlash to feminism) that incentivizes and insists that single motherhood is bad for kids.  For that matter, even if Mom remarries happily, it’s still supposedly bad for the world if biological father isn’t in his kids’ life.

In short — Ms. Shear and Mr. Temko (whoever drafted this) — are, with their colleagues — unable to literally distinguish between one parent and another when discussing “parents” in front of others who have some privilege (like a statutory justification) or grant to give them.

BUT — their own handbooks, and some appellate cases already involving parenting coordination, show clearly that they are QUITE able to distinguish one parent from another, and not only do, but literally plan how to, target mothers, specifically, for badmouthing and possible intervention in the form of getting the kids away from her.  (I have two links to parent coordination handbooks on this post, you can check them out.).

The 10–20% of parents who remain in entrenched and high conflict two to three years after separation/divorce are significantly more likely to have severe personality disorders and/or mental illness (Johnston & Roseby, 1997).

You can’t see it here, but on the pdf it shows:  in this quote, we have a triple-layer AFCC site.  I believe Johnston is probably Janet Johnston (AFCC Board, or was).  Kelly, (below) who’s being quoted in the section, if it’s Joan B. Kelly, has been called the “grande dame” of AFCC and mediation promotion in the family law courts.  She runs a Northern California Mediation Center, and obviously publishes too.   And Shear is AFCC.  So — if so — that represents:

AFCC Shear quotes AFCC Kelly quoting AFCC Johnston, as to parent coordination, which is an AFCC idea.  (this is FAR more common than most people — who are less obsessive about looking things up than me — realize.  I have labored through some pretty detailed writings (NYState) where when they ran out of ideas, they simply restated them, and I literally read ALL the footnotes too, most of which were “ibid.”   

Understanding the characteristics of parents with severe borderline, dependent, narcissistic, and antisocial personality disorders, why these parents react so strongly to rejection and loss, how the child is used in attempts to re-stabilize their functioning and punish the other parent, and how personality disorders are exacerbated by stress, conflict and the adversarial system will facilitate more effective work with these difficult clients.

Kelly (2008) Preparing for the Parenting Coordination Role: Training Needs for Mental Health and Legal Professionals 5 Journal of Child Custody 140,149-150

I don’t know how to state this clearly enough.  The difficulty any professional has — who by definition holds an option to quit the profession (which they chose) in dealing with a ‘difficult client” is no comparison with the difficulty of dealing — year after year thanks to policies — with an “ex” who has threatened to kidnap or kill, who has beaten one before, or who may be and/or has molested children, possibly one’s own (dep. on the case) before.   Suppose the shoe was on the other foot?  Again, if professionals don’t like the difficulty they have an option — find another line of work.

But thanks to their insistence on THIS line of work, i.e., at public AND private expense, and explicit danger to the communities — almost no parent — and I’m going to say mother, specifically– can actually get free from real criminals they’ve had children with, even when he’s already in jail.

I know of one case where the person has already done time in an unbelievably severe situation, and this mother/daughter who already went through hell — is being stalked again.  Until she’s safe, I’m not naming names, but once she is/they are, I will – because this case was high-profile and has been in the news.

One point of view is dealing with comfort, and potential burnout, in the performance of one’s duties that have internationally networked, federally-funded, county-judicial-level endorsed, and more — support groups.  The other is of staying alive, housed, and after that, functional and employed at all.

If one continues to read the Amicus, it continues to complain and blame.  The next quote by Shear is of Shear.  Here’s a little further on in the Amicus:

Parenting coordination is a very intrusive model, inserting state authority into the daily family lives of parents and children. With those intrusive powers comes a duty to exercise restraint, discretion and wisdom.

This work often creates the perfect storm. Parenting coordinators struggle to avoid being triangulated into the family’s conflicts.

Well, they triangulated themselves in there to start with, intentionally!   Which shows a lack of:   “restraint, discretion, and wisdom” per se.

From page 18 (“just one more”!) – This chapter complains that California hasn’t legislated parenting coordination by stipulation (i.e., authorizing it by force)  yet:

The only thing that is clear about appointment of parenting coordinators in California is that family courts are without jurisdiction to make them without a stipulation. Moreover, no published case has upheld orders resulting from a stipulated appointment of a parenting coordinator.

The quote from Greenberg in this Amicus acknowledges that professionals in California & Colorado (two hotspots of family law leadership; Center for Policy Research/Jessica Pearson et al. are in Denver) “spawned” the concept.  Or rather, it “was spawned” — we can’t name an individual father, so perhaps it was a sort of psychological gang-rape that produced the idea (just kidding).  Unlike “collaborative law” which actually names a father, “Stu Webb” out of MN. . ..      And that this began in the 1990s.

We are now in 2011.  Perhaps it’s time to admit that it’s a bad idea to start with; if even in California — where AFCC originated — they can’t get it into law!

The text continues — and understanding that I don’t know the underlying case, have not read the entire brief and am not an attorney, I’m to add a comment to the next section:

Of course, courts have no power to modify statutes. Statutes prescribe and proscribe what courts may do.

Damn right they do! On the other hand, has that really slowed down AFCC initiatives, has it?  I think there’s been a track record of resounding success, if getting around constitutional and statutory limits pending changing the statutes to accommodate more income streams to court-connected (or formerly court-connected, like retired judges) professionals… is what’s intended.

The California Constitution (art. VI, § 22) prohibits the delegation of judicial power except for the performance of subordinate judicial duties. A trial court lacks either statutory or inherent power to require the parties to bear the cost of a special master’s services, even where it may have the authority to make the appointment. (People v. Superior Court (Laff) (2001) 25 Cal.4th 703)

The Court of Appeal reversed trial court orders delegating authority over the visitation schedule to a child custody evaluator, requiring one of the parents to participate in psychotherapy and requiring that all future custody mat- ters be heard before the same bench officer in In re Marriage of Matthews (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 811, 816–817 because there was no statutory authority supporting such a delegation.

Just GUESSING here, but perhaps if over a 21-year period (in one state), it’s still being stated that there are Constitutional limits on delegating Judicial power, and three years later the Governor of Florida (Jeb Bush) brings it up in a reason for vetoing a parent coordination stipulation — there just MIGHT be a good reason!   Parent Coordination is hardly an Occupy San Francisco (or anywhere else in California) grassroots protest or demand, is it, either?

We’re third generation fatherhood programs out here, we are also probably at least second-generation post-TANF (1996), post fatherhood (i.e., about 15-16 years since they passed), and perhaps– just perhaps — the last thing this state needs is more ideas originating from this nonprofit and all its collaborators in therapeutic jurisprudence great ideas.

Perhaps — just perhaps — it’s a good thing if constitutional and statutory limits on out-sourcing the judicial function mean something around here, for a change! Be content with what you got so far, as authorized by access/visitation (three categories of potential program fraud enabled) and all the marriage promotion money too, plus lots of the nonprofits — like ACFLS — not even bothering to report into the state Registry of Charitable Trusts (OAG) anyhow!

(REASON 4)

(4)

Moreover  — like most AFCC promotions — the language promoting parent coordination continues to refuse to think or talk in terms of legal rights to INDIVIDUALS as the Declaration of Independence asserted, which helped kickstart the USA, claims they are.   The language of parent coordination is continually pluralized, or group-talk.  It does not, really, acknowledge that a person could be a member of a family (like “parent” “father” or “mother”) and yet really have — and deserve — equal standing as an individual in any matter, before the law.

Here’s an example from ParentCoordinationCentral.com (Termini/Boyan site).  These are the supposed GOALS OF PARENT COORDINATION:

  1. Educate parents regarding the impact of their behaviors on their child(ren)’s development.

    [supports my thesis that AFCC members are often frustrated teachers.  They want to teach EVERYONE, and if people don’t agree, they are clever about figuring out ways to force this, and be paid for it, too.]
  2. Reduce parental conflict through anger management, communication and conflict resolutions skills. 
    [increasing the expense of divorce, treating parents like kids, undermining judicial authority, & due process, and invading one’s privacy sure will “reduce parental conflict”!! . .. And I haven’t even got (this post anyhow) to the training manual which has an openly hostile attitude towards mothers, it’s unbelievable).
  3. Decrease inappropriate parental behaviors to reduce stress for the child.
    [goes with AFCC goal of switching from a legally defined set of prohibited behaviors to an arbitrary, subjective, and personalized version of what is appropriate or inappropriate parental behavior.   Instead, how about just accept the basic definitions in the law, and as to court orders, compliance with them?]
  4. Work with parents in developing a detailed plan for issues such as discipline, decision-making, communication, etc.
     [Good Grief! — Go have your own children, and raise them — well.  Let’s see what fine examples they are, then parents can judge FREELY whether Mr. , Ms. & Mrs. Parent Coordinators are competent to make these plans.  I mean — the concept is ridiculous!  What about various cultures and family values, so long as they are not child abuse, domestic violence, or otherwise illegal?] [Even then it probably wouldn’t be a comparable situation, because the psychologists involved with the court, and AFCC professionals can usually drum up plenty of high-paying business, whereas a lot of the parents they are dealing with probably, by the time they are on the scene, absolutely cannot.]
  5. Create a more relaxed home atmosphere allowing the child to  adjust more effectively with the new family structure.
    [You want to have a more relaxed home atmosphere with children/  Again, go have your own and show it to us.  Then we can, awestruck by your competence – – and if we want to — copy it!]
  6. Collaborate with professionals involved with the family in order to offer coordinated service.
    [that’s closer to the real reason for it — more business referrals to colleagues]
  7. Monitor parental behaviors to ensure that parents are fulfilling their obligations to their child while complying with the  recommendations of the Court.
    [Children need due process, and they need an active, and respected Bill of Rights, for when they grow up.  One purpose of the Bill of Rights was to keep snoops out of one’s private business, so long as that business didn’t ramble over into the criminal arena.   It’s called LIFE, LIBERTY and PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.  How can one pursue anything with the thought police on one’s heels?. . . . .
    Anyone who’s trying to function as a parent coordinator, and talking about children’s needs constantly (to justify it) apparently doesn’t comprehend what long-term dedication to one’s family AND country entails.  It entails respecting its laws.  I have before blogged an SF-area parent coordinator and family law attorney, who posted on his own site that the Constitution needs to be scrapped and rewritten, why revere it like Christians revere their Bible (guess he’s not one, and doesn’t understand how few Christians actually practice what’s in their Bible — or Constitution — to start with…)]
  • The NH “Parent Coordinators” Association of 2009 “FAQs” suggest a benefit is:
  • Q. What are the benefits of Parenting Coordination?

Parenting Coordination offers a much better way of resolving parenting plan issues than returning to court. And the resolution comes much faster than waiting for a court date and then the court decision. The Parenting Coordinator educates the parents about the harm to the children of hostility between parents, mediates issues as they arise, and if the parents are unable to resolve minor issues, makes the decision.

As ever, when selling their services, AFCC professionals see themselves as the mature adults on the scene, and the parents as a “plural,” and refuse to assign responsibility where it’s perhaps due.  They seem to utterly lack curiosity in fact-finding as to that matter.  This is understandable, because they deal in “psychology” more than law– which is the culture of the association.  While two individual parents are often involved, in the marketing prose, it’s always “the parents” v. “the helping professionals”

However, once in the door, and in practice — then they are quick to blame ONE parent, often the mother, and recommend severe intervention, often removing of contact with the children to counter supposed “alienation.”   In other words, they are hypocrites — professing neutrality and to be helping, but planning in advance (in this case) to do harm to one gender — the female, should she as a parent (mother) counter them.

I blogged this earlier, but again (from the same site) — here is their “sample” report from the handbook:

Handbook

A handbook for the purpose and practice of parenting coordination prepared by PCANH.

 Parts of this were credited (fn1 inside) to “Families Moving Forward, Inc.” in Indiana.  This is a nonprofit formed in 2005, EIN# 432074631 with principal listed c/o “Gloria K. Mitchell.”

So of course I looked this person up — she is a Rising Star Super Attorney, member of National Association of Counsel for Children, and works in a four-woman firm.  The nonprofit, however, is categorized as “exempt — earning under $25,000).  website’s “Divorce and Parenting Research Links” is typical, plus a direct link to the Children’s Rights Council” (hover URL).  CRC is pretty big in Indiana…  Six years after passing the bar, Ms. Mitchell was on the Executive Committee of Family Law Section of Indiana Bar Assoc., and chaired it in 2005.   The articles of incorporation show it’s a 501(c)4 (not “3”) and by address its place of business is another law firm in Noblesville, Indiana:  Holt, Fleck & Romini.  If the image (showing org.’s purpose) doesn’t show, it’s viewable for free on the site below.

Entity Name Type Entity Type City / State
FAMILIES MOVING FORWARD, INC. Legal Non-Profit Domestic Corporation INDIANAPOLIS, IN

Gloria K. Mitchell, and the four attorneys in the law firm, 
Though only incorporated in winter (February) 2005, by summer (July) 2005,  Indiana, “Families Moving Forward”** already had a “Parent Coordination Committee” and presented the following report in this context:

Indiana Continuing Legal Education Forum

3rd Annual Family Law Summer Institute

and Family ICO Training Session July 28-29, 2005*

 *Note:  the Nonprofit to present this was incorporated 2/14/2005, in time for this, 3rd Annual Family Law Summer Institute agenda (see link) doesn’t show anything about parent coordination, although certainly it could’ve happened.  Law firm page for Ms. Mitchell notes that she was “Executive Committee of the “Family Law Section” 1994-2005 and its chair in 2004-2005.     So it would make sense that her nonprofit would have a good shot at presenting at that summer institute.
I note that at Ms. Mitchell’s office, one of her associates began as Parent Coordinator in 2006.
Another very smart attorney with stellar credits is Amy Stewart  (valedictorian of her law class) is president of this nonprofit (FMF):  notice also collaborative law emphasis, plus an AFCC affiliation.   In 1999 she had an article published on “Covenant Marriage:  Legislating Family Values”  Good summary of the issues of religiosity in marriage by a UK author, here  Actually, it’s a good summary and a timely read of marriage/divorce, and role of rising religiosity (UK/America) in the mix.
But it was a search for “Families Moving Forward, Inc.” that brought her name up.
Here’s Ms. Stewart’s bio (notice “Collaborative Law”); she works at Bingham McHale, LLP, a large firm with locations in 3 Indiana counties.  She is a partner.

Amy concentrates her practice in matrimonial and family law matters. She was one of the first Indiana attorneys trained  in collaborative law, and she has been instrumental in introducing the approach in Indiana. She has practiced collaborative law since 2007, has attended several conferences of the International Association of Collaborative Professionals,* and has been trained by collaborative law founder Stuart Webb. In addition, Amy also practices traditional litigation.   

*Readers probably may not remember, so I’ll remind us.  the “IACP” is another incarnation, membership association — out of many — formed by AFCC-type professionals, as you can see by the description:

iacp,collaborative law,collaborative practice,collaborative divorce,international academy of collaborative professionals

ACP is the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, an international community of legal, mental health and financial professionals working in concert to create client-centered processes for resolving conflict.

I probably blogged it, too.  I remember looking up the various websites, corporate registrations, etc.   Here’s their About Us/History narrative.  I notice a good chunk of it (after inspiration by “Stu Webb” in MN) took form in the Northern California family court association nonprofit factor, aka the SF Bay Area, including Oakland (East Bay) and other well-known cities:

In May of 1999, the first annual AICP [=American Institute of Collaborative Professionals] networking forum was held in Oakland, California. The following year, a meeting was held in Chicago to discuss the state of Collaborative legal practice across the country. The nearly 50 practitioners who attended this meeting agreed that AICP should serve as the umbrella organization for our rapidly-growing movement. At the same time, they recognized that since Collaborative Practice was also developing exponentially across Canada, the organization needed a broader, more inclusive name and mission. Thus the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals was born in late 2000, officially changing its name in 2001.

The Collaborative Review has been published continuously since May, 1999. The work begun by initial editors Jennifer Jackson and Pauline Tesler. . . 

Jennifer Jackson (FYI, I’ve never met, spoken to, or dealt with her in court) is kind of branded in my mind as having helped start up Kids’ Turn (SF):

FYI — here is another Super Lawyer, high-profile, longstanding success.  Her “about” page lists many accomplishments. Notice which comes first; notice also the variety of terms which are basic to the field:  I’ll bold them:

About Jennifer Jackson

Before becoming a family lawyer in 1985, Jennifer Jackson was an illustrator and photographer, raising three children.

A LITTLE LOCAL COMMENTARY relating to this Super-Productive/Super Attorney and her many Nonprofits:  

I know artists, including photographers and illustrators.  It’s not that easy to make a living at; this speaks of either a good prior divorce settlement, (or not marrying) or some substantial education somewhere along the line, undergrad plus law school.  That’s quite a set of accomplishments, but I don’t think represents an indigence.  See Resume:

  • BA with Honors in 1966, became family lawyer (passed bar?)
  • 1985, with Professor’s Assistanceships (in law school) on child-related and mediation topics.  Maybe I can assume that almost 20 year gap is called “Mom” and “Wife” time.
  • In 1987, she helped found Kids’ Turn and was simultaneously involved in PTA Board at “Campolindo High School” where her kids probably attended.   Campolindo is — well, its site describes it well:

“Located in the hills east of the University of California, Berkeley, Campolindo serves the professionally-oriented and well-educated suburban communities of Moraga and Lafayette. Students, teachers and parents work together to provide a positive climate for learning where mutual respect, trust and esteem are valued. ” . . .”In statewide API (Academic Performance Index) ratings, for the fifth year in a row, both the Acalanes District and Campolindo are ranked in the very top percentiles of all public high schools in California with an API score of 919. Nationally, Campolindo is recognized regularly in Newsweek magazine as one of the “Best High Schools in America”.  The Association of Californa School Administrators honored Campolindo’s Principal, Carol Kitchens, as the Secondary Principal of the Year in 2009

This is my way — as is this demographics piechart** of saying, as fantastic as these achievements are for Ms. Jackson — something had her living (presumably) in Moraga around the time she passed the bar — and that’s a privileged community.   A neighboring one, Orinda, shows has a 2009 median household of $156K, and more than half the town earning that much, and the largest sector earning over $200K.
To get a general feel for housing in the area — this is my tactful way of saying that until the 1960s, some of these communities did not allow African-American housing loans, or greatly restricted them — read this thoughtful summary of Berkeley, including a lot on demographics and migration.
Essentially, people that might work as professors, or other high-paying jobs in SF or Berkeley (or even Oakland) would then leave those urban areas and commute straight past (on highways like as not) the dangerous and darker-skinned areas, right on back to the suburbs.  Just keep this in mind when someone from this area (however s/he got there) is all excited about helping poor kids, single mother or no single mother. And I don’t know specifically that Jennifer Jackson was; although no mention of a husband is made, or the children’s father.
(**scroll down to see race (total African Americans:  166, Hispanic, invisible — they are living elsewhere and working on the lawns and in the retail & domestic sectors no doubt (wikipedia, though, says 7% in 2010) — how few single parent households, and almost NO violent crime).  As of 2010, Moraga had a total population of 16,016 people.  As of the 2000 census, Moraga was the 79th wealthiest place in the US with a population above 10,000.   The median income for a household in the town is $98,080, and the median income for a family is $116,113. Males have a median income of $92,815 versus $51,296 for females.[almost 2:1!!] )

Blending this background of creativity, caring and flexibility with her legal training enhances her practice of family law and expands the options for her clients.

Jennifer believes that a lawyer must be actively involved in her professional community, and that life is about making a difference. Jennifer is one of the founders of Kids’ Turn, a program for separating families begun in San Francisco which has expanded exponentially in size and in quality of service to children and families.

(If you know my blog, you know EXACTLY why and how Kids’ Turn “expanded exponentially in size” — see family law attorneys, evaluators & judges on the board, see access/visitation funds “facilitating” parent education programs. . . . .As to the quality of service?  That’s debatable, but as I haven’t sat through any of the classes — except to note they use the word “parental alienation” a lot in stating benefits, i.e., “reduces parental alienation” type claims.  I’ll withhold judgment on this, as should others who haven’t  !!)

She is one of the founders of the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals and served for eight years as co-editor of its journal, The Collaborative Review. She has had leadership roles in her professional organizations at local, state national and international levels, and is a past president of the Northern California chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.

Within five years of passing the bar, she is serving as a judge pro tem– how common is that? Or this?

Standing Committee on Custody, North: Chair 1988-1990

San Francisco Bar Association

Executive Committee, Family Law Section: Chair, 1992; Member: 1987-present
Fee Arbitration Panel: 1988-1990
Barristers Club, Co-Chair, Family Law Committee: 1988-1990
BASF Delegate to the State Bar Convention: 1989, 1990
Volunteer Legal Services Program Volunteer Attorney: 1986-2000  

[[This is almost another topic — I’ve footnoted it [VLSP* at bottom of post, a section in itself….]

Expert: Temporary Restraining Order Clinic

Jennifer has been given an “AV” rating by Martindale-Hubbell and has been named one of the top 50 female lawyers (“Super Lawyers”) in Northern California in all areas of practice by Law and Politics Publications for the past five years in a row. Jennifer practices alternative dispute resolution exclusively; she has trained extensively in mediation and collaboration, and is committed to keeping clients out of court and at the negotiating table.

The IACP has created Standards for practitioners, trainers and collaborative practice trainings. It has promulgated Ethical Guidelines for Practitioners, and continues to support excellence in collaborative practice through resources, training curriculum, practice tools, mentoring and a comprehensive website, allowing collaborative practitioners to continue our tradition of sharing and learning from one another.

Where we are going…

Today, the IACP has over 4,000 members from twenty four countries around the world. We are dedicated to educating the public about the Collaborative alternative. We are committed to fostering professional excellence in conflict resolution through Collaborative Practice. We invite you to peruse this site to learn more about IACP, our services and initiatives.

Amy is the past-chair of the Family Law Section of the Indianapolis Bar Association (2003) and is president of Families Moving Forward, Inc., a multi-disciplinary non-profit organization devoted to developing healthy approaches to family transitions.. . .[Law Degree summa cum laude Indiana Univ. School of Law, 1999; admitted to IN bar same year, graduate “with high distinction” in 1986. ]

5 years of work and/or law school, and within 4 more years she’s charing the Family Law Section of Indianapolis (that’s one city, not the whole state’s) Bar Assocation.  What a nice nonprofit and what accomplished professionals, and how successful they are.  As such, we should believe what they say, especially as the nonprofit “Families Moving Forward, Inc.” is DEVOTED to a HEALTHY APPROACH to “Family transitions.” (typically called divorces or custody matters).
 ** a name in other states used for purposes such as helping with homelessness, or infants with fetal alcohol syndrome, other issues, here it’s referring to divorce:

FAMILIES MOVING FORWARD, INC., is an interdisciplinary organization of attorneys, mental health providers, accountants, and other professionals committed to improving the process of family transition in Indiana, by reducing conflict and cost, creating healthier outcomes for children, and enhancing the satisfaction of professionals serving families.

(However, notice the articles of incorporation say it’s there to serve the families as well as the professionals serving the families)
This report is on-line at “SAIF” where it probably was presented:

Seminars For Advanced Interdisciplinary Family Professionals


This For-Profit group incorporated as below in Indiana, with the address “9000 KEYSTONE CROSSING, STE 600, INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46240 (which is “HuirasLaw,”  Wm. E. Huiras, although the Registered Agent is another attorney, Robin Brown Neihaus (LinkedIn)

Date Name (Type)
7/27/2006 SEMINARS FOR ADVANCED INTERDISCIPLINARY FAMILY PROFESSIONALS, INC. D/B/A SAIF  (Assumed))
(the entity filed one report in 2008, file notes, it owes 2010/2011 – perhaps IN is only every 2 years).

Segments from the Indiana 2005 Sample PC report (handbook):

The sample report begins with a situation between father and stepfather which was hostile.  Both wanted to coach on Little (10) Joey’s baseball team.

Therapy for both TOGETHER is recommended:

5. Mr. Smith and Mr. Doe should attend counseling sessions together to attempt to resolve their(For example, the mother did not want the father to volunteer on Fridays at school any longer. She maintained that the children were emotional and upset on those mornings and did not want to go to school. The teachers were contacted and reported that the children looked forward to and enjoyed their father’s presence.

AFCC CLAIMS CREDIT FOR HAVING DEVELOPING PARENT COORDINATION:

From their 5-year prospectus:

AFCC Guidelines for Parenting Coordination

In 2003, AFCC President George Czutrin appointed a Task Force to develop Model Standards of Practice for Parenting Coordination, following the first Task Force on Parenting

Coordination that conducted research and published the 2003 Report on Parenting Coordination Implementation Issues. The Task Force determined that the Parenting Coordination process was too new to use the term “Model Standards” and, in May 2005, proposed to the Board of Directors the AFCC Guidelines for Parenting Coordination. The Guidelines passed unanimously and are available on the AFCC Web site at http://www.afccnet.org/resources/standards_practice.asp.

AFCC Parenting Coordination Task Force: Christie Coates, J.D., M.Ed. (Chair), Linda Fieldstone, M.Ed., (Secretary), Barbara Ann Bartlett, J.D., Robin Deutsch, Ph.D., Billie Lee Dunford-Jackson, J.D. , Philip Epstein, Q.C., Barbara Fidler, Ph.D., Jonathan Gould, Ph.D., Hon. William Jones (ret.), Joan Kelly, Ph.D., Matthew J. Sullivan, Ph.D., Robert N. Wistner, J.D

. . . .

The following new publications have been developed since 2002 while dated products were been eliminated:

• Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues

There are scholarly articles galore about this.  One by matthew Sullivan, Ph.D. (and a parent coordinator) uses the phrase repeatedly in the abstract — but to access the article one-time costs $34 and permanently $155.  Needless to say, not many people who have parent coordinators in their lives can afford to read up on it….

“In 1994 the concept of parent coordination was spawned by a concerned group of professionals in California and Colorado who

WHILE PROMOTION EFFORTS TEND TO PHRASE PARENT COORDINATION PASSIVELY (as if a natural development), IN PRIVATE PUBLICATIONS, IT TAKES RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE PROMOTION OF THE FIELD:

AFCC STAYS FOCUSED ON IMPLEMENTING AND PROMOTING PARENT COORDINATION:

And I am going to show you what apparent frauds some of the prime “trainers” are in this field too.     But first, let’s look at the upcoming 2012 conference called:

The New Frontier

Exploring the Challenges and Possibilities of the Changed Landscape for Children and the Courts:

This is an upcoming (Feb. 2012) meeting of the California Chapter of the AFCC.  An entire day is dedicated to a workshop on Parenting Coordination, and a secondary one talks about how to get it in there — even if parents are indigent.

Here are the presenters’ bios (please scroll through).  Some are more than a page, others short.  Notice the types of professionals involved (typical), Judges, Attorneys and Psychologists, Mediators, etc.    Some have been around forever (Joan B. Kelly, Dianna Gould-Saltzmann) others seem newer:

Abbas Hadjian, JD, CFLS

Graduate of Tehran University School of Law and Harvard…

Abbas Hadjian, Esquire devotes a substantial part of his family law practice to educating the Farsi‐speaking community on the comparisons between the American and Iranian legal system and recently published “Divorce in California,” which is written in Farsi. He is an expert on Iranian culture and laws.

(from his website, partial description of an amazing background):

Mr. Hadjian was born, educated and lived in Iran until 1980. Between 1959 and 1968 Mr. Hadjian was a professional journalist in Iran, with positions including editor, writer, reporter, translator and commentator in major Iranian publications and news agencies. His profession a journalist required and helped Mr. Hadjian’s foundational understanding of the Iranian legal, social, economical and political structure. Between 1962 and 1966, Mr. Hadjian attended the School of Law, Political Science and Economics in Tehran University. Among others, he received courses in Iranian Constitution, Civil, Family and Probate law, furthering his understanding of the legal, social, economic and political infrastructure of his native country.

Upon graduation. Mr. Hadjian became a political appointee in the Office of the Governor General, Iranian Southern Ports and Islands (Persian Gulf), where he acted as a ranking civil officer in the region until 1978, the year of the Iranian Revolution. As deputy to the Governor General in social and economic affairs, Mr. Hadjian relied heavily on his legal studies and implemented them in real life situations. In 1975, Harvard University accepted him to the renowned Edward S. Mason Program for Public Development on full scholarship, acknowledging five years of Mr. Hadjian’s services in developing the Persian Gulf region as one year of post-graduate studies. He was awarded a Masters Degree in Public Administration

A related site from “Culture Counts.net” (site has three diverse professionals) has a page about fatherhood, the new normal, which “surprisingly” reminds readers about:

Positive Effects of Father Involvement on Children

  • Children display increased self-confidence.
  • Better able to deal with frustration and other feelings.
  • Higher grade point averages.
  • More likely to mature into compassionate adults.
  • Paternal emotional responses to sons were associated with a 50% decrease in sons’ expressions of sadness and anxiety from preschool to early school age

Positive Effects of Father Involvement on Men

  • Helps men reevaluate their priorities and become more caring human beings who are concerned about future generations.
  • May reduce health-risk behaviors.
  • Decreases psychological distress as emotional involvement with children acts as a buffer against work-related stress.
  • Happiness and increased physical activity.
  • Sense of accomplishment, well-being, and contentment.
  • Men tend to be more involved with extended family and others in the community.
  • Over time, fatherhood increases marital stability.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Here is the rather short blurb of a long-time attorney in California, who in this conference is presenting an all-day workshop on Parenting Coordination:

Leslie Ellen Shear, JD, CFLS, CALS

Ms. Shear is a graduate of UCLA School of Law and admitted to the California Bar in 1976 and maintains her practice in Encino, California. A frequent lecturer in custody matters, she has been involved in a number of high-profile custody cases over the years – most recently, Marriage of LaMusga and Marriage of Seagondollar.

I note she was admitted to the bar fully 20 years before welfare reform and almost as much before VAWA.
These three are going to present on Parenting Coordination — an all-day institute.  It must be important:

9:00am – 5:15pm

All Day Institute (2)

(I2) Inside Parenting Coordination Practice in California: Managing Roles, Responsibilities, and Risks

  • Lyn Greenberg, Ph D
  • Alexandra Leichtner, JD
  • Leslie Ellen Shear, JD, CFLS, CALS
Apparently even indigent people need parent coordination — there’s a workshop on how to get it to them:
  • W1 Establishing a Local Parenting Coordination Program Including Pro Bono PC Services to Indigent FamiliesHonorable Lorna Alksne// Charlene S. Baron, JD, MA // Shirley Ann Higuchi, JD  // Lori Love, Ph D


http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/link/submit-sentence-4.html

III. Parenting Coordinators Work With the Most Difficult Family Court Population – Those Most Prone to Assert Grievances and Challenge Decisionmakers

… cases are usually referred to parenting coordination because they are chronically litigious and difficult to manage. These parents have often had several attorneys, evaluators, and mediators — professional hopping and shopping is rampant. Their court files are thick with motions, court appearances, and allegations of wrongdoing by the parents.
Coates, Deutsch et al. (2004) Parenting Coordination for High-Conflict Fami- lies 42 Fam. Ct. Rev. 246, 252

The child custody cases referred to parenting coordinators are the most complex, acrimonious, difficult and demanding cases. Most parents regain their perspective and bearings within two years of separation, and do not need this kind of intensive and ongoing service model. Parents who continue to return to court with enforcement and modification requests after completing co- parenting educational programs, and after a child custody evaluation are can- didates for parenting coordination,

Parents who need a PC intervention are typically a special group for whom the passage of time has not reduced the rage and angry behaviors of at least one if not both parents. The 10–20% of parents who remain in entrenched and high conflict two to three years after separation/divorce are significantly more likely to have severe personality disorders and/or mental illness (Johnston & Roseby, 1997). Understanding the characteristics of parents with severe borderline, dependent, narcissistic, and antisocial personality disorders, why these parents react so strongly to rejection and loss, how the child is used in attempts to re-stabilize their functioning and punish the other parent, and how personality disorders are exacerbated by stress, conflict and the adversarial system will facilitate more effective work with these difficult clients.

Kelly (2008) Preparing for the Parenting Coordination Role: Training Needs for Mental Health and Legal Professionals 5 Journal of Child Custody 140,149-150

+ + + + = = = + + +  = = =

[VSLP*].  This footnote comes from a fragment of attorney Jennifer Jackson’s resume, which itself came from a bio of another nonprofit, Families Moving Forward, Inc. in Indiana.  I was following up in another nonprofit, “International Association Collaborative Professionals” and I guess you can see about how curious I am about the inter-relationships of various nonprofits.

I looked at the staff.  This one caught my attention — because of the specialties, not him personally:

Chris Emley (in 2011, or at least now on the website.)

Chris is a certified family law specialist and a Fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, with 41 years of experience focusing on child custody litigation.  He has been included in Best Lawyers in America since 1991.  He has helped to govern VLSP since its inception in 1979.  He received the State Bar President’s Pro Bono Service Award in 1983, the Legal Assistance Association of California’s Award of Merit in 1989, and two Awards of Merit from The Bar Association of San Francisco (1977 and 2004).  He was a BASF board member from 1979 through 1981, and chaired the Lawyer Referral Service Committee.  Chris was Vice President of the San Francisco Child Abuse Council, Chairman of the Board of Legal Assistance to the Elderly, and Chairman of the Board of Legal Services for Children, Inc.

There happens to be one pro bono group in the SF Bay area which used to help women leaving violence and eventually in the news (and had I known at the time to check all these 990s, I’d have seen the notation that it specialized in helping NONCustodial, low-income fathers, I’d have realized why this group refused to help so many mothers stuck in the family law system.).   The presence of a Certified Family Law Practitioner on the board of VSLP, with his emphasis being on children’s rights, and without question, children in ANY institutional system these days need help and representation, does make me wonder who is helping with women’s rights when it comes to actual mothers who aren’t in jail for killing their batterers (which have some groups advocating) — but actually dealing with the horrors of year after year in a custody battle with a violent or abusive ex, and doing so without even a grasp of how it works, or who pays its bills.

General Comments:

I don’t see anything in VSLP which remotely deals with the situation, and was able to get no actual help (legal representation of any sort, pro bono) in my case either, not past the initial restraining order, and a perfunctory (and NOT in court) attempt to renew it, which I was told would be a non-issue, it’s often granted automatically!  No one came to court where I, like many, many other “custodial” mothers after leaving abuse, was blindsided by a prior ex parte movement consolidating renewal with a divorce and custody matter, thus shifting the case into the family law system, where it remained, and where the actual topic of ongoing DV was drowned by the type of talk we see in these realms — psychological states, not literal deeds!

The moral is, every program and every nonprofit has its target clientele.  As the target clientele (for keeping in their proper place) in so many federal grants to the states are fathers (when it comes to custody matters), it would make no “sense” for the government to also pay the opposing side, the protective mothers!

[[Interesting program, project of SF Bar: its family law person Chris Emley also on Board of “Legal Services for Children” which (as of 2001) got funding from City & County of SF, SF Dept. of Public Health, and SF Dept. of Children, Youth & Their Families.

Its address seems to be a few doors down from Kids Turn:  1254 Market vs. 1242 Market Street.  “Legal Services for Children” (2010) shows no Chris Emley on the Board, but its main purposes are:  1.  Guardianship for children wanting it; 2.  Helping kids dealing with expulsion and school-related issues; 3.  Immigration. . ..It also represents children in foster care and helps support LGBT youth.  200 Volunteer attorneys gave over $1mil worth of their help.    The group received over $1 mill. of contrib& grants, and gave $65,000 to a DC nonprofit, National Juvenile Defender Center (EIN# 02060456.  On “Foundation Finder” this EIN doesn’t pull up a tax return…..for any year.  Nor does a name search! However from NCCSdataweb, I see that it was incorporated in 2002 (legal services for children, in 1975).  This “National Juvenile Defender Center” interests me:  2002 income, 0.  A 2007 letter from Andrea Weisman, signed DC Dept of Youth Rehab. Services (“DYRS”)  (shares address with a Board member of NJDC, Mark Soler, 2002) expresses the serious problems of Youth in Adult Facilities.  Weisman and Soler (again, board member of the group which got $65K grant from the West-Coast “Legal Services for Children,” which takes funding from various depts. of SF and its city & county) worked together (1999?) on “No Minor Matter:  Children in Maryland’s Jails.”  Weisman notes she got a $1.6mil grant from OJJDP.   ]]

National Juvenile Defender Center:  

2002– income is zero.  By 2009 — they are into Technical Training and Assistance.  And ExDir. Patricia Puritz as only paid director, gets $134K salary) — and have landed over $5 million of grants, and earning $10K from investment income and have some serious program income in 2010 ($119K= almost (but not quite) enough to pay their own Exec. Director:.  Check it out.  So why, in the following year (revenues down to $405K — but probably some leftovers, wanna bet?) did a group in SF just grant them $65,000?  Or was that a sort of tax equalization between them both.  I live in the same state as “Legal Service for Children, Inc.” and we know that our K-12 schools are taking a serious hit?  Why should enough money to feed, clothe and house three families in this area for a year, be given to a nonprofit out of DC that just got $5 million the year before?

http://njdc.info/about_us.php

The National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC) was created in 1999 to respond to the critical need to build the capacity of the juvenile defense bar and to improve access to counsel and quality of representation for children in the justice system. In 2005, the National Juvenile Defender Center separated from the American Bar Association to become an independent organization. NJDC gives juvenile defense attorneys a more permanent capacity to address practice issues, improve advocacy skills, build partnerships, exchange information, and participate in the national debate over juvenile crime.

They operate 9 US Regional Centers; the California one is in SF and among its projects is:

MacArthur Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network (JIDAN)

In 2008, California was selected by the the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as one of four sites in the nation to participate in the foundation’s Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network (JIDAN).  The four JIDAN sites, Massachusetts, Florida, New Jersey and California, join the four MacArthur Models for Change “core” states of Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Washington to form an eight-state network.

The California team is led by the Youth Law Center, and includes members from the Center for Families, Children and the Courts of the California Administrative Office of the Courts; the Loyola Law School Center for Juvenile Law & Policy; the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office; theSan Francisco Public Defender’s Office; the Contra Costa County Public Defender’s Office; andHuman Rights Watch.

The eight-state network is coordinated through the National Juvenile Defender Center (NJDC), and engages juvenile defenders, policymakers, judges and other key stakeholders in designing strategies to improve juvenile indigent defense policy and practice. California was chosen as a result of its demonstrated ability to achieve measurable reform on juvenile indigent defense issues.  California’s JIDAN work will be centered in the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center.

The Exec. Director of this “NJDC.INFO” nonprofit (inc. 2002) was in 2003 appointed by the Governor of Virginia to a Board of Juvenile Justice:

This bio/blurb places Ms. Puritz Professionally, prior to here, she was ABA Juvenile Justice Center, etc.

Much of this relates to the “OJJDP” and the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act.  This is an entirely different category than “Parenting Coordination” through the family law center; it is dealing with things such as the US being the world largest per-capita jailor, that those in jail are disproprotionately minority, that horrible things are happening to youth while in confinement, etc.  By comparison, the “Parent Coordinator” issue seems like kids’ play unless one begins to wonder how many of the youth in detention had parents stuck in the family law system, which definitely cuts down on actual parenting time and focus!

p://www.americanbar.org/groups/child_law/policy/juvenile_justice.html

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

December 14, 2011 at 9:00 pm

Posted in 1996 TANF PRWORA (cat. added 11/2011), AFCC, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Domestic Violence and/or Suicide Threats, Bush Influence & Appointees (Cat added 11/2011), Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Designer Families, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, Lackawanna County PA Corruption Protests, Lethality Indicators - in News, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Parent Education promotion, Parenting Coordination promotion, Psychology & Law = an AFCC tactical lobbying unit, When Police Shoot / Shoot Back, Where's Mom?, Who's Who (bio snapshots)

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An Interlocking Directorate of Associations and Foundations, AFCC forward….[Publ. Dec. 12, 2011]

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This post came up in my own 3/25/2018 blog search for Open Society Foundations.  It wasn’t the top search result but because this post’s contents from 2011 are still so relevant I decided to add some formatting to make for better viewing.

The blog appearance (background color especially, border, and width limits especially) changed years later during an upgrade, so I am adding those formatting changes to this older post for better viewing.  Another habit I also developed later was adding complete post title with “shortlink” to it at the top of posts, and including for clarity, the publication date in the actual title itself. The shortlink is for convenience of blog administrator and anyone else who might be copying a link to the post for use elsewhere under full (or shortened) title.

This is not a complete post review for broken links or images that don’t display (If image was provided by a link to an on-line url, that link has probably changed since.  I now do this differently so it happens less often…//LGH 3/25/2018.

Post formats now (March 2018) look more like this, including full title with link, date published and approximate length typically at or very close to the top:

An Interlocking Directorate of Associations and Foundations, AFCC forward….[Publ. Dec. 12, 2011] about 9,900 words; case-sensitive, WordPress-generated shortlink ends “-WA”

Readers (such as you be) no doubt realize I’m pretty jaundiced about how many associations are simply duplicates of each other, and how many of the same types of associations were, somewhere in their murky origins, related to Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, Children’s Rights Council (or both), associations for mediators, dispute resolution practitioners, and now– (association for) conflict resolution.

(The terms have to be refreshed periodically to reflect the expanding purposes of the same basic set of people).  Parent coordinators obviously fits in here somewhere (it’s an AFCC project) and because it takes money to do all this — and not all money going THROUGH the courts comes FROM the courts — we can see today where a particular foundation played a role in expanding AFCC.

For this post, I’d meant to fill in some of the background for this ACFLS (see yesterday’s post) and relate it to AFCC.  Then I felt it would be appropriate to look at the AFCC tax returns, in general — and next thing you know, in explaning Peter Salem’s $130K salary, I ended up looking more at  — first the AFCC/Peter Salem / Andrew Schepard Hofstra University Connection.

After which a simple look at the elements of the AFCC description of Mr. Salem’s credits revealed a certain award (John M. Hayne) from the “Association for Conflict Resolution.” . . .. Because I read so (damn) much, I picked up that “ACR” is the new “ADR”.  And that organization appears to have been following true AFCC style –issuing awards to people on its own board, and sho ’nuff at least one of them was in trouble with the state for nonfiling of tax returns.  (Kenneth Cloke, below).

And we take a look also at one of the (many) corporations funding the field of “Conflict Resolution” (plus fatherhood promotion), who happen to be SF Bay ARea based — and pack a lot of clout, too — the Hewlitt Foundation.

All in all, I find it fascinating, and like to engage in conversations with — the material.  However, the format of this blog is less than fascinating.  I’m actually very tired of looking at it and dealing with its idiosyncrasies (plus techniques I don’t know yet to how to handle — for example, around issues of pasting information from other sites, and the ever-disappearing paragraph spacing.

SO — FamilyCourtMatters is not about to get a facelift — it’s about to get pre-empted by another blog platform, or simply dropped.  I have a mental deadline of the end of January 2012, just to handle what comes up at the next BMCC conference.

I am much (MUCH) more interested in the “hard sciences,” than social sciences!  The social science shepherds have a pretty limited vocabulary, which is continually elaborated — but not that solid to start with.  This vocabulary and mindset are at odds — at “high-conflict” as it were — with the language of the US Constitution, concepts of freedom of choice, liberty and justice as a process.   They do not deal with the spiritual matters central to humanity, but instead set up more and more demonstration projects to test their theories, forcibly, on others, and at public and corporate expense.

It’s not NATURE:

This is absolutely not true when one begins to examine the sky, the ground, the water, or things with a microscope.  Those things become more fascinating.  The closer I look at these “corporations” and nonprofits, the more they behave similarly — and crooked.   This is also true with the writing — it’s not even good writing, but mostly rhetoric borrowed from each other.  Then, as if to give it more merit, citing each other.  I don’t know when the last individual in the whole field had an original idea.  It’s mostly groupthink.  Where the real creativity comes in is ways to hide the flow of finances among and between the different corporations.

It’s not ART:

It’s also for the most part, not that true when one deals with (the best of) the arts:  music, literature, drama, architecture, dance, etc.  There is enough interest and genuine expression in there for a lifetime of experience, study,and participation.

Even the study of MONEY is more interesting, when viewed as how it circulates and affects others over time, and in different forms  There’s something of a mathematical principle to this.

it uses Technology, but it’s not Technology:

But the Family Courts + Federal Funds + Faith-Based Pooh-Bahs + various Institutes (etc.) are  Basically CROWD CONTROL, Population Management from Afar.  It reminds me of the Nazis discussing what to do with the inferiors, and this comes through in the language also.   The one thing that is NOT taking place in the multiple conferences, and tax-evasion and supposed public benefit operations — is a fair and real engagement with any of the public supposedly benefitted.

Those talking conciliation, conciliation, are actually engaged in a hierarchical manipulation — they wish to rule and change the world, they promise heaven (and demand support to bring it to pass) while delivering — as to the family courts at least, plus the squandering of public funds — hell and in justice.  And I know men and women both will agree on this.

One Promise of “Heaven” as follows, and grandiose aspirations:

NATIONAL PEACEMAKER MUSEUM:

Not to be confused with the B36 Peacemaker Museum in Ft. Worth Texas (a 501(c)3) which concept is about maintaining a balance of powers

National Peacemaker Museum

Mission Statement (Approved June 29, 2009)

The National Peacemaker Museum Constellation will encourage peaceful conflict resolution between human beings in every corner of the world. It will honor those courageous and innovative individuals and institutions who work toward peace rather than conflict, foster harmony amongst humanity rather than division, and embrace the rich tapestry of human difference while building bridges upon our commonalities. The National Peacemaker Museum will challenge, inspire, educate, and enable visitors from around the world to be peacemakers themselves, to contribute as they can to the ability of the human race to solve our problems creatively and collaboratively, and to craft solutions that are fair, compassionate, and wise. National Peacemaker Museum will accomplish this mission through a diverse array of partnerships and outreach techniques, both virtual and tangible, in an ongoing effort to reach the full diversity of humanity, speaking in a way that each listening ear can hear.

The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) is supporting a coalition of organizations to establish a National Peacemaker Museum. In November 2007, ACR Immediate Past President, Marilyn S. McKnight established a Taskforce to launch this effort and appointed Forrest (Woody) Mosten to serve as Chair. This Taskforce recognizes that there is an exciting, vibrant peace community comprised of a diverse array of organizations and individuals. The Taskforce is committed to reaching out to these organizations and individuals and to exploring the possibilities building a coalition comprised of a broad array of partners.

Since its inception, the Task Force has established dialogue with the United States Institute of Peace which is building a Peace Educational Center on the Mall in Washington D.C currently in construction (opening scheduled for 2010-2011) and is exploring funding for on-line exhibits as a first step to a web-based museum as well as regional and traveling exhibits.

The Goals of the National Peacemaker Museum Taskforce (of the organization, Association for Conflict Resolution — see below) shall be to (partial list):

  • Support Development of Model Peace Education Courses, Modules, Writing Contests and Other Public Peace Education Activities
  • Support ACR Conference Keynote or Plenary Program for ACR 2010 ACR Annual Meeting in Chicago. Keynote/Plenary with following workshops would be a call to action and formation of a concrete agenda by the field for increased Public Education on Peacemaking.
  • Identify Potential Partner Organizations
  • Build a Coalition of Museum Partners and Supporters
  • Identify and Cultivate Potential Funding Sources

The Task Force:

Who is on this Task Force?  here’s the list of 23 individuals.  Notice most of the affililations.  Number 23, I ran across below and it turns out while his organization “Mediators Beyond Borders” seems legitimate, his own “Center for Dispute Resolution” — incorporated in California in 1987 (per Secretary of State) has NEVER filed — til threatened in the year about 2011 — its annual returns, either with the state or with the IRS.   When threatened with a hefty fine by the states’ Office of Attorney General/ Charitable Trusts Registry, it appears he forked over a bunch of RRF (state-level returns) stating the organization made absolutely nothing — 0 –  since its inception.  It has no assets or income.

This didn’t stop (Mr. Cloke) from referencing his “Center for Dispute Resolution” all over the place, and having a website up that is advertising, in the year 2011, some expensive trainings he is to be holding through its website registration and contact.  Moreover, in the year 2010, this organization (that’s sponsoring the Peacemakers Museum) ACR gave him an award, in a series of awards since 2001 designed to puff up the groups’ credibility and public image.

Quite frankly, as a “commoner” watching all this, I’m getting real tired of it.  Anyhow, here are the 23 “taskforce” members:

  • Michael Aloi, ACR President
  • Doug Kleine, ACR Executive Director
  • Forrest Mosten, Chair, Task Force
  • Jerome Barrett, Author and ACR Archivist
  • Mark Bramford, Public Policy Mediator
  • Guy and Heidi Burgess, Co-Directors, Colorado Conflict Research Consortium
  • Rita Callahan, ACR Board Member
  • Marci DuPraw, Facilitator and Mediator
  • Katrina Everhart, Museum Consultant
  • Fernaunda Ferguson, ACR Board Member
  • Francisco Laguna, International Legal and Business Mediator
  • David Matz, Professor of Dispute Resolution, University of Massachusetts, Boston
  • Marilyn McKnight, Past President, ACR  (see immediately below here**)
  • Josh Moore, Associate Director, International Education at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin
  • Catherine Morris, Director, Peacemakers Trust, Canada
  • June O’Connor, Professor of Religious Studies, University of California, Riverside
  • Jim Rosenstein,  Immediate Past ACR President
  • Jocylen Wurtzburg, Mediator, Memphis, Tennesee
  • Lela Love, Liaison, ABA Dispute Resolution Section
  • Ronald Supancic, Liaison, International Academy of Collaborative Professionals
  • Andrew Schepard, Liaison, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
  • Ken Cloke, Liaison, Mediators Beyond Borders

**Marilyn McKnight, I just found: (missing image. <==Broken link updated to “Mediators & Staff” submenu March 2018, but the quote is from earlier website)

 

Marilyn S. McKnight, M.A.

Marilyn S. McKnight, M.A., director and co-founder

Marilyn is a mediator, trainer, parent coordinator and author who has practiced exclusively in the field of mediation since 1977 after an extensive career in public social work.

In the early 1980s Marilyn began workshops on mediating divorces where there is domestic violence. She received a Bush Leadership Fellowship Award in 1987. In 1988 Marilyn was elected to the Board of the Academy of Family Mediators where she began work toward the voluntary certification of mediators and later, served as President of the Academy.

{{Timing:  In 1994 the VAWA, Violence Against Women Act, was passed, and around this time it was becoming clear that medation is NOT advisable (due to power imbalance) when there’s been assault and battery, in effect, domestic violence.  IT was fought hard against, and made mandatory in certain areas, as partially enabled by access/visitation grants during welfare reform.  It was identified as a way to get more NONcustodial parenting time — when other means, such as the legal process, or the fact that one parent may have been a criminal, which possibly caused separation — wouldn’t get the same result.  In short, Mediation was viewed and funded as a PAID SOURCE to turn justice into an OUT-COME BASED proceedings, with one party (the custodial parent) not knowing what hit (her) in the proceedings!  It also turned anyone who’d been on TANF and involved in this, into an at-risk for supply social science material for the head of HHS — and what litigants even thinks about checking a federal agency for information on WTF happened to their due process rights, or other Constitutionally provided Bill of Rights!}}

In 1996 she and her partner Steve Erickson were awarded the Distinguished Mediator Award by the Academy for their outstanding contributions to the field of mediation.

Marilyn has been an adjunct professor teaching divorce mediation at the University of Minnesota Graduate School of Social Work, and at the William Mitchell College of Law.

In May 2006 Marilyn was elected to the Board of Directors of the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR)._ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

UPDATE/2018 INSERT: Images of other “Mediators & Staff” at this Minnesota-based organization shows McKnight, Steve Erickson (his daughter?), Solveig Erickson, two other (male) mediators, and an office manager/client services specialists (scheduling and taking calls mentioned) who is a woman:  The font size is uneven in the home page, and Steven McKnight’s (though listed second) has larger font and longer bio blurb. Viewing: Click any image to enlarge, and navigate from one to another with arrows or (I think) another click. This is a four-part “image gallery.”

[[Returning to 2011 post text:]] Apparently the Task Force (above) was her idea too (see description).  A little more:

Articles and Video:

Marilyn McKnight: Belief that Mediation Needs to be Separate from Courts – Video
Marilyn McKnight discusses how court-connected mediators’ first duty is to the court, not the client.

{{Clients go in unawares, believing that their first duty is to the truth — facts of the case, rules of civil procedure pertaining to them, and honesty.  Usually, we are sorely disappointed.  I’ve yet to run across a mother whose custody mediator showed evidence of having even read the case file…. Mine even admitted he didn-t — but still made recommendation to the courts.}}

McKnight, Marilyn: Mediate.com Interview
This is the complete interview with Marilyn McKnight, former President of the Academy of Family Mediators and Association for Conflict Resolution, filmed as part of Mediate.com’s “The Mediators: Views from the Eye of the Storm” Series.

(Interesting;  “a Vibrant Community of Peacemakers.” )

So that’s where this Mother, Woman, and Person is, in my almost 20th years since the first blows started landing on me pregnant, all the way through to fighting the second half of my kids’ minority through this system, only to find, partly through, that almost every group and professional I stood before, hired, or dealt with, has been a liar, and simply perpetuating their own particular job in their own particular system — while this same system destroyed lives and jobs for those it was supposedly helping.

Give me an honest enemy any time than such a system of helpful people and institutes!  I will respect the enemy for honesty in his/her/its position and then engage (and ideally, defeat).  

To go into a family courtroom and confuse what’s supposed to happen in there (you think) with LAW, or that it somehow relates to whether one was a good or not so good parent — is a serious mistake.  These seem far less relevant that which programs the practitioners are jacked up on, these days, and which rhetoric.

I accept there are plenty of cases where mediation — real mediation, not what we see in the family law racket — is important and useful.  But until one recognizes WHO  has been pushing this, and just how much most of their talk is about each other (in glowing terms, complete with awards and honors, and long lists of professional accomplishments), but when it comes to the parents, their clients (without whose distress and troubles, the fields wouldn’t even exist), then the terminology switches (when talking to each other) about “managing difficult parents in the court system” or similar phrases.

Of course it helps the speciality of family law if one of your promoters long ago was a legislator, then a judge (or vice versa) (Pfaff), not to mention sizeable donations in THIS century from the William and Flora Hewitt Foundation to increase membership, as a Five-Year Retrospective of the AFCC claims (2002-2007 years).

FIVE-YEAR REPORT

Bear in mind this report is now 4 years old, and if it’s news to you, you are seriously behind whassup in the courts.  Don’t feel bad, most people follow the mainstream and the veteran reporters on the AFCC are most definitely not welcome in mainstream — unless they collaborate.  Which of course would likely compromise the message, and has (cf. Battered Women’s Justice Project et al.)
Association of Family & Conciliation Courts WI 2005 $929,894 990 17 95-2597407
Association of Family & Conciliation Courts WI 2004 $636,483 990 17 95-2597407
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts WI 2010 $2,192,367 990 28 95-2597407
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts WI 2009 $1,720,844 990 27 95-2597407
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts WI 2008 $1,743,428 990 26 95-2597407
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts WI 2007 $1,403,917 990 25 95-2597407
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts WI 2006 $1,158,339 990 20 95-2597407
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts WI 2003 $467,421 990 16 95-2597407
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts AZ 2005 $19,149.31 990EZ 9 86-0578107

 

2018 UPDATES/INSERT: A search on the bottom row above’s EIN# 86-0578107 shows this is the Arizona Chapter of AFCC (AZAFCC.org), with last three tax returns showing its very small size.  This happens to have been over time, however, a very active chapter (it seems) and with its proximity to California, well, interesting.  For example Philip Stahl (formerly of Northern California and well known for his promotion of “parental alienation” remedies — i.e., standard AFCC purposes) at some point had moved to Arizona.  I DNK where he presently is, but probably still an active member):

Total results: 3Search Again.

(Below:  exact same search results, but in image form (I provided copy & paste above table so interactive links could be clicked on) as it shows in actual search results.  The database provider changed its color scheme years ago, but because I’d already manually (boilerplate copied into each example) maintained the above color scheme to represent Form 990 tables in this blog (which now has 769 posts and over 50 pages!) as opposed to charity registration (California) tables which have similarly light-blue, gray, white colors, I maintained the color scheme from earlier…). (Back in 2011 I obviously didn’t know how to “paint” background colors into tables).

Search of EIN# associated with AZAFCC.org, done 3-25-2018 by blog author LGH

Don’t let the small size of top row (FYE2016) mislead you.  It still received $73K revenues, claims to have spent over $111K on “Other expenses” (mostly conferences), despite having only 3 independent board members (all unpaid, and some of the with the title “Hon.,” i.e., likely judges), and “0” employees, it (a) left page III (which is not optional to leave blank) blank — except to say “Program Services” this year — none.  However, under “functional expenses” page, it listed a grant of $1,500, which should be reported on that Part III (page 2).  Under “Board Members” section, despite only three independently voting, it said “see additional table” thus keeping the existence of judges (and current AFCC — parent organization — President? Annette Burns) further away from the top of the tax return (i.e., less visible) and not on any IRS form, pre-printed or electronic. (click any image to enlarge.  I annotated but did not “caption” the next three from AZAFCC.org.

I should probably blog this in a current year; have other posts since (use “SEARCH function on the blog to find, enter the word “AFCC chapters” to find) have more detail on these chapters than I listed here in just December 2011.//LGH 3/25/2018

[Back to Dec. 2011 texts, and referring to the table above showing the same organization name but different EIN#s in that columne, not the one on Arizona I just provided].



(from the Foundation Center.  I always wonder why some years don’t show in chrono order, does it relate to when the organization filed?)

Something was prospering:   2003__$467K;

2004 __$636K

2005___$929K

2006___$1158K 9 ($1.158 mil)

2007_ _ _ $1.403 mil;

2008___  $1.743 mil, …2010____$2.192 mil, and so forth.  And that’s income that IS reported…..

Tidbits from the tax returns (one really should browse some of these — very informative).  For year 2007:  Two of the Board members are judges.   The Exec Director Peter Salem makes $130K.

  • $790,306 = Program service revenue, including government fees and contracts
  • $512,473 = Membership fees.
  • $65K = dividend interest from securities;

Under Parts VII & VIII, Analysis of income-producing activities, &  Relationship of Activities to the Accomplishment of Exempt Purposes 

  • (lines 93a, 93B, 93C & 94 on the tax return)
  1.  REVENUE FROM THE SALE OF PUBLICATIONS ON DIVORCE, SEPERATION AND FAMILY DISPUTE RESOLUTION  ($74,970)
  2. REGISTRATION FEES TO ATTEND CONFERENCES AND TRAINING SEMINARS TO SHARE IDEAS ON RESOLUTION OF FAMILY DISPUTES AND TRAININGS TO ASSIST CURRENT PROFESSIONALS  ($703,976)
  3. MISCELLANEOUS FEES AND CHARGES FOR SHIPPING AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS  ($11.400)
  4. MEMBER DUES RECEIVED IN EXCHANGE FOR DISCOUNTS ON CONFERENCE REGISTRATION, MEMBER NEWSLETTERS AND OTHER MEMBER BENEFITS ($512,473)

Judges on the board (that year) included the Hons. William Fee *(IN), Emile Kruzick (Ontario, Canada), Hugh Starnes (FL), and Graham Mullane (Australia, ret. 2008, now consulting) — all listed at the WI address, although, not their home courts.

INDIANA AFCC 2007 Board Member Judge Wm. Fee — Positioning:

*The Hon Wm. C. Fee happens to currently chair the Domestic Relations Committee of the Indiana Judiciary.  “The Domestic Relations Committee is working on revisions to Indiana’s Child Support Guidelines. They previously completed a Domestic Relations Benchbook and child-centered Parenting Time guidelines. They also established recommended standards for countywide domestic relations ADR plans.”  Let’s hope (?) He kept his AFCC agenda and motivations (to help families resolve disputes by selling them — or other government entitities — products & services) separate from the oath of office, which I presume has something to do with uphold and preserving the state constitution.  As AFCC has openly stated its intent is to change the language of criminal law, there would seem to be a built-in conflict of interest.  But I have noticed that when money, and children, are involved, concerns about conflict of interest tend to go out the window.

 For a glimpse at types of inbound grants to courts, see “Grant Programs Administered by State Court Administration and the Indiana Judicial Center

FLORIDA AFCC Board Member 2007 Judge Hugh Starnes — 2010, 2011:

Judge Starnes (among many other things, such as forming a nonprofit group Association of Family Law Professionals with local lawyer, and being infamously involved in Foreclosure Rocket Dockets, where some judgments were signed before the hearings, and so many hearings scheduled in one day that it was foregone that they’d not all be heard: ” More Perverse Procedures in Ft. Myers”  This article talks about over-scheduling of dockets, fully knowing they won’t all be tried, in a “total lakc of respect for the parties and their lawyers . . .  These judges have elevated their own desire to clear the dockets a bove all else…Judge Starnes likes to talk about how the foreclosure crisis has forced courts to employe procedures like this. ” (but only his county does it){{Same reasoning — and results — used in the family law arena also.}}    “

LEE COUNTY (FL)— For the past few years, Lee County’s busiest court docket has also been the most notorious in the state.  Dubbed the ‘rocket docket’, the county’s foreclosure track cruises through several hundred cases daily, many ending in judgments for the lender and the subsequent scheduling of a foreclosure sale.

In the process, critics say, the docket tramples basic rules of civil procedure and due process. They point to the speed with which judges move cases along, and the emphasis on an expedited trial or summary judgment versus discovery.  “It’s just a lack of, I don’t know, respect for the defendant by the court,” Naples attorney Todd Allen said.

 Bear with me — this article (cited by Stopa — but I don’t see from where) tells how a clever attorney tried to get a judge to commit to a verbal statement — by the head judge — that they don’t follow FL rules of civil procedure.  The opposing side OK’d the draft, too.  As it turned out, the head judge didn’t sign it — but Judge Starnes did!

His case turned heads last year after a clever order drafted by Allen made local news and several foreclosure blogs. Frustrated when Lee (Lee County, FL) Senior Judge James Thompson rejected a motion in December to toss what Allen considered a flawed affidavit by a bank employee, the attorney drafted the resulting order to explicitly state what he says Thompson told him — that Lee County does not comply with Florida Rules of Civil Procedure.  The attorney for lender HSBC signed off on the draft, Allen said, and it went to Thompson’s office.

“I knew one of two things was going to happen,” Allen said. “Either he was going to read it and sign it, which is bad because it means it was policy, or he wasn’t going to read it and sign it, which is even worse.”  Instead, the other senior judge on the docket, Hugh E. Starnes, signed the order.  “Blown away,” is how Allen described his reaction.

(further anecdotal shows the traffic there.  In family law hearings (those that aren’t ex parte) a custody decision could be switched in 20 minutes or less; the child goes to the other household, stamped, ordered. signed & sealed.  THat is not justice, and the other parent (til broke or defeated in spirit not just in the issue at hand) is going to come back for another attempt at it — that’s another reason the dockets get crowded!)

Around 11:40 a.m., Starnes completed the docket, more than 100 cases by his count. With another 104 slated for the afternoon session and little time for lunch, he postponed Shinneman’s trial.  “I’ve got to object,” Allen protested. “That’s completely prejudicing my client.”  “I understand,” Starnes replied.

Here’s another nonprofit this Judge was involved with, which a mother in a custody battle from Florida (not Linda Marie Sacks — not her line of approach!)  asked me to research:  (link provided, image updated, by text search + memory of having been asked to look this up, plus specific participating professionals (Judge Starnes, Shelly Finman, etc.) I know it’s the same one.  (2011 post originally had a large blank image here, and no link):

http://aflpnetwork.com/history/

Association of Family Law Professionals website (viewed 3/25/2018)

History of the above group:

“We are Judges, lawyers, mental health and financial professionals, Judicial Assistants and Court staff members, mediators, school counselors, educators, and other professionals working to help families through the maze of marital and family law matters.”

YES — and many of you are already public employees.  So why form more nonprofits than AFCC — which already meets this definition — to do your jobs?  Did the families ask your help in navigating the custody maze (your groups helped create by trying to put psychology on a par with law)?

Well, the motive was obviously helping and public service:

  1. A committee formed {{spontaneously?}} in the mid-1980’s with a diverse membership, co-chaired by Mary Robinson, Solomon Agin and (Family attorney) Shelly Finman, tasked {{by whom?}} with determining whether or not our community was in need of Court sponsored mediationAfter 2 years of regular morning meetings at the old Snack House Restaurant at the Collier Arcade, it was decided we did.  {{ANY OTHER COMMUNITY MEMBERS INVOLVED?}} However, there was no budget.  Therefore, with the support of a “shoe string” budget from the office of Court Administration (Doug Wilkinson) and Judge Hugh Starnes, we began training volunteer mediators at the HRS offices in the evenings.
  1. A committee, called the “cooperation committee” consisting of Judge Lynn Gerald, Judge Starnes, Steve Helgemo, George Kluttz, Gail Markham, and Shelly Finman met at the Veranda Restaurant in the mid to late 80’s, discussing ways to change some of the adversarial methods, resulting in local orders and posturing the Bench and Bar with non-adversarial, more conciliatory methods of practicing in Court

Gee golly ding, gosh darn, gee whiz — where did they get THAT radical concept from (and how long were the members also AFCC members??)  etc.

(One can search Starnes & Finman @ Florida’s sunbiz.org — I did  — for more info.  Probably blogged it here somewhere, too.  Groups like RESTORATIVE JUVENILE JUSTICE PROJECT, INC. (never got an EIN, dissolved for failure to file), the family law association in question (shelly finman shows on earliest on-line report, 1995).  Clearly restorative justice is an ongoing field, to be countered, however, with awareness of places like Luzerne County, PA in which kickbacks were involved, violation of due process extreme, and finally some judges caught in RICO over the matter, — or 2008 Congressional Oversight of the HEAD of the OJJDP (Flores) because of grants-steering to faith-based professionals.   In this context, forming a nonprofit to get a grant is like — pretty much what they do.

Or, in the case (TBA _- I haven’t checked all 50 states, only some of the states in which they are advertising trainings..) institutes, like “Cooperative Parenting Institute” etc. simply post the website references, with glorious self-referential credits & titles,  and skip the incorporating part entirely, which would require filing tax returns somewhere along the way, and conceivably letting the public look at them, without the subpoena, FOIA and all that.

RE:  Peter Salem – the Hofstra Connection:

2007 Exec Director of AFCC  — Peter Salem, and his ($130K) = $10,00+/month salary in that capacity:

He has many accomplishments, including teaching mediation at a law school — but he is not an attorney; he has an M.A.   Lets review this again:  the head of the AFCC is not an attorney, his specialty is NOT law.

Before I go into this too much, let’s look at the “Hofstra Connection” which I feel too few people notice, when it comes to AFCC.  Of course, most people complaining about problems with family law   – – –    – – – –    – – –    are so busy with that narrative they completely ignore the existence of organizations where the people running it plan their Standard Operating Procedure.  In otherwords, they completely ignore the AFCC as well.

However, when I found out it was publishing most of the materials in local courthouses (self-help centers, etc.), not to mention that as an organization, it began in a corrupt manner, and many of its members continue in that corruption — I got fairly more interested!

Hofstra University in NY has a School of Law and as of 2001, it also has a CCFL, similar idea to UBaltimore’s School of Law “CFCC” (which I blogged):

The Center for Children, Families and the Law was established in 2001 in response to the urgent need for more effective representation for children and families in crisis.

Its unique interdisciplinary program of education, community service and research is designed to encourage professionals from law and mental health to work together for the benefit of children and families involved in the legal system.The Center’s training program is one of the most comprehensive child and family advocacy curricula offered in the United States. Its interdisciplinary approach is designed to better prepare a new generation of legal and mental health professionals to promote appropriate and effective justice in both the juvenile and family court systems. The Center’s community service programs provide direct assistance to New York area children and families in need and serve as models for states across the country.

To carry out its mission, the Center partners with the University’s Department of Psychology, and health and human service agencies and law associations, including the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC), the American Bar Association (ABA), the National Institute for Trial Advocacy (NITA), and the New York Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children.

AFCC cannot be considered a “law association,” given its membership and its stated intent to change the language of criminal law into a more “therapeutic” framework.  But where does Peter Salem & AFCC fit in?  Which came first — the (AFCC) chicken, or the (Family Court Review joint-published with AFCC) the egg?

Welcome

Family Court Review (FCR) is a peer-reviewed, quarterly journal published under the auspices of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC)Family Court Review is an international, interdisciplinary family law journal — a forum for the exchange of ideas, programs, research, legislation, case law and reforms. The journal’s editorial staff, under the direction of Faculty Editor-in-Chief Andrew Schepard*, is based at the Law School. Its fundamental premise is that productive discussion of family law is facilitated by a dialogue between the judiciary, lawyers, mediators, mental health and social services communities. AFCC is an interdisciplinary, international association of judges, counselors, evaluators, mediators, attorneys and others concerned with the constructive resolution of family conflict.

Schepard, Parent Education Promoter, AFCC-approved.

Professor Schepard is a founder and project director for Parent Education and Custody Effectiveness (P.E.A.C.E.), an interdisciplinary, court-affiliated education program for parents to help them reduce the difficulties their children experience during divorce and separation. P.E.A.C.E. has produced an award-winning video for parents, and has been recognized by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts for its “ongoing contribution to improving the lives of parents and children.

He and Mr. Salem are on an AFCC Task Force together.

After all, if one wishes to entirely develop and steer the field of family law, one must definitely get to the education of family lawyers.   One cannot change practices from the outcome end only; obviously one has to get a the new, fresh-faced graduating class of attorneys, in fact get to them before they graduate and are faced with the bedrock of experience, which  may counter some of that theory before it’s solidifies.

Well, so does this group:  from the AFCC site:

Task Forces and Initiatives   Family Law Education Reform Project  (“FLER”)

Co-sponsored by the Hofstra Law School 
Center for Children, Families and the Law

Andrew Schepard, J.D., Co-Chair  
Andrew Schepard

Peter Salem, M.A., Co-Chair
Peter Salem

Project Information:  Family Law Education Reform Project Final Report (PDF)

They work together.  Apparently he joined AFCC as staff in 1994; two founders (Meyer Elkin, 1994 and Stanley Cohen 1995) died around this time.  It seems Mr. Salem was working in Wisconsin in the same fields.  This summary from AFCC History seems so relevant.  In maroon font:

1993—AFCC’s 30th Anniversary

AFCC celebrated its 30th Anniversary in New Orleans in May 1993.  The conference theme and opening night videotape, “The Economic Impact of Divorce,” provided an opportunity for more than 700 delegates to look at the big-picture impact of divorce and celebrate the largest conference attendance to date. 

In 1993, the association received a major grant from the Hewlett Foundation that enabled AFCC to add additional staff and absorb some of the work of AFCC’s many hard-working volunteer members.  In 1994, Peter Salem joined the AFCC staff to become AFCC’s associate director. Conference planning was centralized in the administrative office and AFCC began to offer additional training and consulting services. 

Database records from usual sources don’t go back that far.  But obviously the Hewlett Foundation has some similar interests in family matters.  Their history page can be read; sons managed it until 1981, In 1974 that they hired an executive director, and this gives a scope of the influence (like, having the President of the University of California as President of the Foundation, etc.) (section here in BLUE)

http://www.hewlett.org/about-the-william-and-flora-hewlett-foundation/william-and-flora-hewlett-and-the-hewlett-foundation

By the time Roger Heyns retired in 1992, the Foundation’s assets had increased more than thirtyfold – to more than $800 million, and the Hewlett Foundation was highly respected for its work in the fields of conflict resolution, education, environment, performing arts, and population, and was a key source of funding to a host of institutions that provide vital services to disadvantaged Bay Area communities.

In 1993, former University of California President David P. Gardner succeeded Roger Heyns as president of the Foundation, and served for six years, during which time the Foundation’s assets increased to more than $2 billion, and annual grantmaking rose from $35 million in 1993 to $84 million in 1998

Sooner or later we all have to ‘fess up to (admit, to ourselves and each other) how great an influence foundations (personal corporate wealth transferred into foundations) have upon this country and what its government and nongovernment programs and culture looks like.


This foundation was interested in conflict resolution and helped develop it as a field, and (in AFCC’s 5 year retrospective, 2002-2007, below, it acknowledged their help.  Sounds like they got in on the last round of Hewlit Foundation grants in this field):

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation played a major role in developing and supporting the conflict resolution field for nearly two decades. During that time, the field grew and matured and achieved considerable acceptance and self-sufficiency across various areas of practice. While recognizing the continuing value of conflict resolution and peacemaking in the United States and internationally, the Foundation decided to wind down its support for this area and to deploy its resources to other pressing social issues. The Conflict Resolution Program made its final grants in 2004

They are also big on promoting and enabling fatherhood involvement, as is AFCC also:

Responsible Fatherhood and Male Involvement. The Foundation supported programs that enabled fathers to participate actively in the emotional and financial support {{CHILD SUPPORT, got it?}} of the family and that promote adult male involvement in teh lives of children and youth from father-absent environments.

Someone has to deal with the domestic violence issue sooner or later.  This organization did so by funding Family Violence Prevention Fund (already deep into fatherhood as a tool to prevent violence, sure, that’ll work) and funded a report on preventing teen violence, with phraseology like this:

Other gaps must be closed as well. More attention and resources should be focused on men, on the low-income communities that have disproportionate experience with abuse, on promoting economic independence, and on ending the exclusive reliance on punitive responses such as incarceration, which is intolerable to many communities of color and immigrant communities.

With characteristic “modesty” FVPF introduces its 2003 report:

Foreword

The Family Violence Prevention Fund is proud to issue this unprecedented Report, which provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of the status of domestic violence prevention efforts. This Report does more than examine our nation’s considerable progress in understanding and stopping domestic violence. It takes a close look at what strategies have and have not worked, identi- fying the most promising approaches and making recommendations for how to expend energies and allocate resources in years ahead.

(I just searched.  There is zero mention of family law, custody, visitation, fatherhood barely, and/or access visitation, even though many teens have children, as mothers or fathers.   The word   “fatherhood” (incl. programs) shows up 5 times, and it’s somehow suggested that Child Support Enforcement is a means to provide opportunities and incentives for DV prevention. (p. 19).  I have already blogged on this group (see “About this Blog”), but as I have been living and working in the same general area, am more aware than most of just how much they are (deliberately) ignoring; actually the more people drop like flies in the immediate neighborhood (and often this is around the divorce issue or a custody battle), the better it looks for justifying more grants of this sort. )

Back to AFCC describing itself:

Second World Congress on Family Law and the Rights of Children and Youth 

In 1997, AFCC partnered with Australia’s World Congress, Inc. to host the Second World Congress on Family Law and the Rights of Children and Youth.  Chaired by AFCC’s first non-North American president, Hon. Alastair Nicholson, Chief Justice of the Family Court of Australia, the three-year planning effort involved hundreds of AFCC volunteers and culminated with more than 1,500 delegates from more than 50 countries participating in the five-day extravaganza.  The lengthy list of luminaries included First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, who served as honorary chairperson; renowned pediatrician Dr. T. Barry Brazelton; San Francisco Mayor Hon. Willie Brown; Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta; and former U.S. Congresswoman Hon. Patricia Schroeder.

By 1998, mediation had established itself as a professional field of practice. 

NO field of practice establishes itself.  Fields of practice have people promoting them, through membership associations (very often) which then solicit funding.  As I showed above, the Hewlitt Foundation was one promoter of “conflict resolution” (which includes mediation) as a field of practice and takes credit for it.   This is so typical of AFCC prose — they like to claim that some field established itself, like the flowers come out in spring, just naturally.  There’s nothing further from the truth!!

Executive Director
Peter Salem, M.A.

Peter Salem has served as Executive Director since 2002 and was Associate Director from 1994-2002.

I’m guessing he didn’t join AFCC and immediately become Executive Director; i.e., the involvement is longstanding (1994-2011 is 17 years), and either he has influence it, or its agenda and operations– including emphasis on mediation — are in agreement with his life’s work.

He taught mediation at Marquette University Law School for ten years and served as mediator and director of Mediation and Family Court Services in Rock County, Wisconsin. Mr. Salem is a former president of the Wisconsin Association for Mediators and is co-editor of Divorce Mediation: Models, Techniques and Applications. He has provided training and technical assistance to family court service agencies throughout the United States since 1990. {{Probably also for free. . …}}

He is author of numerous articles and videos on mediation, domestic violence and divorce. He received the [[1]] John M. Haynes Distinguished Mediator Award presented by the Association for Conflict Resolution** [[2]] in 2008 and received a William T. Grant Foundation Distinguished Fellows award in 2009. He holds an M.A. in Communication and Mediation Management from Emerson College in Boston [[3]] and a B.A. in Political Science from McGill University in Montreal.  [[4]]

I decided to look these up.  Fnotes in order in text, but below, out of order, they are filed in chrono order, i.e., undergraduate comes before graduate references.  The biggest “find” is the (ridiculous) Association for Conflict Resolution.  I’ll back up the “ridiculous” under that footnote.  I have found that when AFCC (and related organizations) begin to pile on the titles and awards, well-earned though they may be, it pays to look up who’s awarding what, to see if it has some significance.  Most people know awards like Nobel Price, Fullbright or Rhodes Scholarship, etc. — but as almost every new nonprofit in the courts (schools, etc.) mediation fields tries to pump up its credibility by setting up awards, they need more scrutiny.

[[4]] McGill (see link) is more wide-ranging; it’s undergraduates (now) are 417 women/164 men).  Apparently Mr. Salem is from Canada? which may explain AFCC’s large Canadian component?  Looks like a well-respected university, with a variety of programs, but my point is, Mr. Salem’s interest was political science, i.e., interest in how society works and potentially changing it.  See next degree:

[[3]] Emerson College in Boston:

Emerson College, located in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, is the nation’s premiere institution in higher education devoted to communication and the arts in a liberal arts context.

Emerson is internationally recognized in its fields of specialization, which are communication studies; marketing communication; journalism; communication sciences and disorders; visual and media arts; the performing arts; and writing, literature and publishing.

I don’t see any legal, or any really “hard sciences” study — here’s the list of science course minors for “communication sciences” majors.

Here’s a typical “Political Communication” UNDERgraduate coursework (understanding it must have changed over time, I wonder what year Peter Salem got his M.A. in….):

A major in Leadership, Politics, and Social Advocacy will prepare you for such careers as communication advisor, press secretary, governmental relations officer, nonprofit leader, and cultural affairs advocate, among many others. The program’s core curriculum balances the theory and the practical skills necessary for effective, ethical communication in a changing and complex media environment.

And GRADUATE coursework:

Communication Management

The Master of Arts in Communication Management provides students with the knowledge, theory, and skills necessary to design and execute strategic, integrated communication plans for public and private organizations. In addition to honing your speaking, writing, listening, and negotiating skills, you will develop expertise in web-based communication and learn how to adapt to and utilize new media to the advantage of your future employers or clients. The program is divided into two academic tracks:

  • Human Resources & Employee Communication
  • Public Relations & Stakeholder Communication

Our graduates have achieved professional success in a variety of industries including pharmaceuticals, political communication, event planning, travel and tourism, public advocacy, health care, among many others.

And this is the current Emerson graduate program director’s background, with degrees from Texas and North Carolina, heavily into social science, and mediation.

[[1]] John M. Haynes Distinguished Mediator Award :

The John M. Haynes Distinguished Mediator Award is presented annually to a prominent and internationally recognized leader in mediation who demonstrates personal and professional commitment to finding mediation solutions to conflict while balancing therapeutic and legal perspectives. John M. Haynes was a pioneer in the field of family mediation, a respected author and practitioner, an international trainer, and the first president of the Academy of Family Mediators.

(sigh).  Mediation, having a problem with “conflict” and trying to balance therapy (outcome based, analysis = psychology, pathological emphasis) with law (process based, with reference to written standards voted into law by citizens in various states, to protect them from EXACTLY what happens when institutionalizing and labeling/medicating are used to oppress and control unruly reformers or those who challenge the status quo, i.e., Archipelago.  In short, these characteristics basically define AFCC to start with.)

The list of recipients speaks loudly, lots of them are simply AFCC hotshots:

  • 2011: Christine Coates, J.D.  [[AFCC]]
  • 2010: Kenneth Cloke  [[Santa Monica, Center for Dispute Resolution, Pepperdine, you name it]]  SEE ~**~, I looked this one up
Why should this one get an award when the state of California OAG/Trusts had to chase him down over zero income, or filings,  for the past 24 years?  After they threatened him with $800 fine and more, he responded. …. Yet the nonprofit website is still advertising some very pricey trainings!  ($200, $1,000, etc.)
  • 2009: Robert D. Benjamin  [[Currently in Portland.  Pepperdine.  Mediation etc. since 1979, and he practiced law.  Columnist and advanced practitioner in ACR]]
  • 2008: Peter Salem   [[AFCC]]
  • 2007: Jim Melamed, J.D.  [[Oregon Mediation Center, which he founded in 1983, he is CEO of “Mediate.com,” ADR, etc.  See “history” at N2N, here — shows they borrowed the idea from SF, and eventually got funding]]
  • 2006: Arnie Shienvold, Ph.D.  [[AFCC.  Scranton, PA parents had this name on posters recently protesting family court corruption.  I blogged it recently, see tags]]
  • 2005: Nina R. Meierding, MS., J.D.  [[FT private mediation since 1986, former family law attorney, Certificate in Dispute Resolution from Pepperdine (like others on the list) and — get this — yet another who is per mediate.com now, past board member of ACR!
  • 2004: Zena D. Zumeta, J.D.  [[From Michigan, since 1981, ADR, and get this — she gets the award from ACR and “She is currently on the Association for Conflict Resolution’s Membership Committee, and sat on the Advisory Council to its Family Section.”  Works from a Dispute Resolution Center (one of several in state) that takes business from courts, gov’t, social service etc., and has two judges on its advisory board and is a trainer]]
  • 2003: Barbara Landau, Ph.D., LL.B., LL.M.  [[Worked in Toronto Court, has a business, ADR, Mediator, Trainer, etc.  “Dr. Barbara Landau’s company “Cooperative Solutions” continues to expand. Please see information below on our two Associates, Daryl Landau, and Mary-Anne Popescu.”]]
  • 2002: Donald T. Saposnek, Ph.D.  {{since 1983, appears to have made a good living off the family courts as mediator & trainer, typical}}
  • 2001: Larry S. Fong, Ph.D. (2005 AFCC conference on Solving the Family Court Puzzle shows him as President of the ACR, and Canadian, another conference in 2011 on Advanced Mediation Issues — when one parent is Gay))

DIVERSION:  A Nonprofit around since 1987, high-profile speaker, zero income reported?

~**~ re:  Kenneth Cloke, Center for Dispute Resolution  (How many more fit this description?  It was Calif, so I looked it up quickly.  “Center for Dispute Resolution” search brought up 5 corporations, only 2 of which were active.  This one, b. 1987, was active.  Its title includes the word “foundation.”  I hopped over and looked up the charity and found it hadn’t been filing IRS forms and its Dissolution is “Pending” — an usual situation.  EIN# 546565246

(FYI, Santa Monica is within Los Angeles County)

After a particularly stern letter from the OAG (Kamala Harris, Jan. 2011), Kenneth writes in response:

This is a request to obtain a dissolution waiver and to dissolve a California nonprofit corporation, the Center for Dispute Resolution Foundation, #C1583109.

The corporation was never operational, and neither raised, received or spent any money at any time. There are no assets to be distributed. There are no financial statements, and the corporation never had any income or assets since incorporating.

If you have any questions or 1 need to do anything further, please contact me at. . .

I just looked up the address at the bottom of the letterhead — which is “Kenneth Cloke Law Offices.”   His DisputeResolutionCenter claims to be very much up and operating (perhaps it’s just not getting any takers, any customers?)  It lists Training for FALL 2011:

http://www.kennethcloke.com/training.htm

 

Kenneth Cloke will conduct a four day training for beginning, intermediate and advanced mediators who are interested in improving their conflict resolution skills. Please see the printable course description, registration form and book list here.

Classes begin at 9 am and end at 4:30 pm
Classes are held at the Center for Dispute Resolution, 2411 18th St., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Phone: (310) 399-4426 
| FAX (310) 399-5906 

Each participant will receive a Mediation Certificate on completion of the training, along with a Training Manual that includes basic forms that are useful in starting a mediation practice.

Cost is $250.00 per class or $1000.00 for the series.
Click here to print the Registration Form with Course Description and Book List

For a group that began with several people on the board in 1987, that’s quite an accomplishment!! to earn absolutely nothing while having such a fine website.  Kind of reminds me of the Termini/Boyan combo — only it looks like they actually had some takers.

What does it say about ACR to give this person its 2010 award?  Yet in January 2011, the OAG got on their case.  Perhaps the award is what drew its attention — who knows?  Note:  this 2009 speaker engagement as co-founder of “Mediators Beyond Borders” lists the above outfit first in his credits.  I wonder how many of the other fantastic credits below check out.  Either he is doing that all — and earning no money at it, so not filing taxes– or he’s doing all those things, making a living and too busy to comply with state charitable registration laws, while promoting himself and his work & books.

Join us as Kenneth Cloke discusses his most recent publication titled “Conflict Revolution: Mediating Evil, War, Injustice and Terrorism.”

Wednesday, March 11, 2009
12:00 PM
Public Affairs Room 2355
Los Angeles, CA 90095

As Director of the Center for Dispute Revolution, Kenneth Cloke has served as a mediator, arbitrator, attorney, coach, consultant and trainer.

Mediators Beyond Borders incorporated in PA in Oct. 2006, per Corporations search:

Name Name Type
Mediators Beyond Borders International Current Name
MEDIATORS WITHOUT BORDERS Prior Name
Mediators Beyond Borders Prior Name

Non-Profit (Non Stock) – Domestic – Information
Entity Number: 3686096
Status: Active
Entity Creation Date: 10/19/2006
State of Business.: PA

ORGANIZATION NAME

STATE

YEAR

TOTAL ASSETS

FORM

PAGES

EIN

Mediators Beyond Borders PA 2009 $40,949 990EZ 18 20-5716275
Mediators Beyond Borders PA 2008 $38,013 990EZ 30 20-5716275
Mediators Beyond Borders PA 2007 $13,946 990EZ 16 20-5716275

Robert A. Creo (attorney) (hover cursor over link for a sample) seems the professional heavy-lifter in this relationship, and business is registered out of his law offices. MBB International has a project to rehabilitate child soldiers of Liberia. . . .   Creo and associate McKay operate “Mastermediators.com” and of course a Master Mediator Institute to go with it, much of which deals with training.  It says, he has an ability to “create, organize and lead” ADR organizations (which seems obvious).  Mediators Beyond Borders and Master Mediators Institute both show his office address, i.e., he’s operating a number of nonprofits out of his own offiice:

About MMI

A belief that conflict resolution requires an integrated knowledge of law, neuroscience, neurobiology, psychology, economics, communications and other disciplines led to the creation of the Master Mediator Institute. MMI offers Immersion Courses to allow mediators, advocates and other professionals to connect with leading scientists and academics to explore cutting edge knowledge about the mind, the brain and the science of decision making.

The website looks great (both websites); better than average and easy to negotiate, and professional in design and color.  MMI has only been around for two and a half years; it was incorporated in 6/2009.  I wonder what nonprofit is next!






The Master Mediator Institute 3889281 Non-Profit (Non Stock) Active 6/22/2009
R

Colleague Monique MacKay (I found through linkedin) shows up in Virginia — so the corresponding LLC to the nonprofit is in a different state and was incorporated the same month, 6/3/2009.  So let’s say they had a plan up front, and the websites plus testimonials show it as (unlike Mr. Cloke’s) a going concern:

The Master Mediators LLC

SCC ID: S2941864
Business Entity Type: Limited Liability Company
Jurisdiction of Formation: VA
Date of Formation/Registration: 6/3/2009
Status: Active

He seems less interested in family law, which means I’m less interested in this case, other than what it says about the Association for Conflict Resolution.

[[3]]Association for Conflict Resolution:

**”Association for Conflict Resolution” is an expansion of, &/or where “Alternate Dispute Resolution” went, linguistically.  That’s a planned language shift, necessary because periodically people start to catch up faster with what groups named after the prior AFCC-linguistic-labels have actually been doing.  Including with their money.

The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) is a professional organization enhancing the practice and public understanding of conflict resolution.

We are the nation’s largest professional association for mediators, arbitrators, educators and other conflict resolution practitioners. ACR works in a wide range of settings throughout the United States and around the world. . . .Our multicultural and multidisciplinary organization offers a broad umbrella under which all forms of dispute resolution practice find a home.

This group maintains a “special interest section” called ADR, which reads the typical fashion and like AFCC, and the ADR groups, seeks to promote their own interests and profession, including to judges and legislators:

ACR Court Section

The Court Section provides information and best practice information for resolution of court disputes ranging from small claims to family.

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of this section is to foster and facilitate the development and implementation of quality court-annexed ADR programs throughout the country and to provide support to all individuals interested and involved in Court ADR programs such as Court ADR administrators, judges and dispute resolution practitioners working in a court setting by providing a forum that addresses issues concerning court-annexed ADR programs through information sharing, networking, identification of resources, development of model practices, and training programs.

Kind of a run-on, redundant sentence, much?  But of course let’s focus on COURT-annexed programs, because this is guaranteed income.  if not from the parents themselves (etc.) — from a federal program.  MUCH better chance of selling this as in the public’s interest.  But in reality – -it’s in the profession’s interest.

OBJECTIVES

  • To promote the development of court-annexed dispute resolution programs around the country, at all levels of court.
  • To serve as a clearinghouse of relevant information and resources for court administrators, dispute resolution practitioners, and judges.
  • To assist in educating the public, attorneys, judges, legislators and other constituencies about the value of court-annexed dispute resolution programs.
  • To provide a venue for communication and networking opportunities [[AWAY FROM THE PARTIES MOST AFFECTED BY THE PRACTICE!!]] among court ADR administrators, dispute resolution practitioners and judges.
  • To identify policy issues important to court-annexed programs and provide guidance/best practices with respect to those issues.

This organization wants to feed information direct to judges.  They want to be a “clearinghouse.”  They want to facilitate the communication with judges. Flattery will probably facilitate the process, accordingly AFCC’s Peter Salem gets a 2008 award from this group.   AFCC (which already does this – -not to mention has plenty of judges IN it and some running it, too) then proudly adds another credit to it’s director’s cap, which is a win-win situation for those involved.

The ACR “Family Mediation” special interest section looks all up and running, and has  avery detailed, neatly tabbed, web presence with the same types of activities the AFCC does — publication, training, conferences, budget, member committees, plus facebook page, etc.   And Marketing Mediation Training

So — let’s go to Virginia and look up the corporationSo — let’s go to Virginia and look up the corporation (it lists a virginia address).  OK, here we go:

SCC ID Business Entity Name Entity Type Entity Status
05660642 ASSOCIATION FOR CONFLICT RESOLUTION – VIRGINIACHAPTER, THE Corporation Terminated

(none with just the name alone — vs. “Virginia Chapter” — shows up.  Last registered agent, 2007.  Don’t see any filing history(i.e., annual reports) beyond the initial filing, and there are no “efiling” transactions registered.

The Association for Conflict Resolution -Virginia Chapter

SCC ID: 05660642
Business Entity Type: Corporation
Jurisdiction of Formation: VA
Date of Formation/Registration: 10/11/2001
Status: Terminated

A 990-finder (i.e., nationwide search for a nonprofit) search shows it in several states, as well as the same EIN in two states and name, in more than two.

Association for Conflict Resolution VA 2009 $336,780 990 51 23-7251385
Association for Conflict Resolution DC 2008 $503,647 990 21 23-7251385

same name, different states and separate EIN#s:

Association for Conflict Resolution TX 2008 $0 990ER 5 20-2124912
Association for Conflict Resolution MA 2007 $24,629 990EZ 13 04-3465101
Assoc…

After click on dropdown option just above orange section, more fields (like EIN#) and ZIP now display [“990 Finder Widget This (pretty precisely) dates URL redirect by FoundationCenter to Diff’t User Interface….]WHY IT MATTERS: Names are so often wrong on this database! Use EIN#, although occasionally even a filing entity will get it wrong by a # also.

New look and URL, click on dropdown just above orange section for more fields (like EIN#)!! [“990 Finder Widget This (pretty precisely) dates URL redirect by FoundationCenter to Diff’t User Interface. Must use DropDown menu to access other options (such as EIN#)]

{{2018 UPDATE:  NOTICE THE DIFFERENT EIN#s.  THIS TIME, I HADN’T CAUGHT UP TO JUST HOW OFTEN THE DATABASE  PROVIDER (nonprofit now called simply “Foundation Center”) search results get entity names wrong.  I don’t know how these odd results continue to show so often, and whether it’s a matter of software, or human error/data entry (unlikely…).  A letter should be written them; I just haven’t yet. (See nearby added images with orange-background captions):User interface field for this now looks different and to get to the (more accurate) EIN# searches requires use of a drop-down (“more fields”) indicator. Name search ONLY on this website can’t be trusted.  (“990finder.foundationcenter.org” which I’ve used for years, currently redirects to their new site..)Tbe Virginia one, above, “ACR EMBRACES AND ACKNOWLEDGES THE FULL SPECTRUM OF PEACEFUL CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND RECOGNIZES THE VALUE OF CROSS-DISCIPLINARY AND CROSS-CULTURAL CONNECTIONS TO ENHANCE CONFLICT CHOICES UNIVERSALLY.”(and with  just a few grants, over  700 volunteers, and 13 employees, has over $1 million of revenues yearly. Executive Director Douglas M. Kleine (address WDC) gets $95K salary (moderate) and I think — but don’t know without more checking– this is him, too:  Worked in HUD, Train the trainer activities, Virginia Legislature Congressional Agency (staff positions), plus Democratic Precinct caption.   Expert nonprofit management experience, highly placed.Here we go — the ACR wants to erect a National Peacemaker Museum and nominated Family Law Collaborative Professional Woody Mosten (who?) to chair that taskforce.  Maybe Futures without Violence (ca. 2010 formerly family violence prevention fund) was simply competing with this group for THE most grandiose, pretentious and let’s not forget, nonprofit,noble purpose around — and so practical, too!

Mission Statement (Approved June 29, 2009)

The National Peacemaker Museum Constellation will encourage peaceful conflict resolution between human beings in every corner of the world. It will honor those courageous and innovative individuals and institutions who work toward peace rather than conflict, foster harmony amongst humanity rather than division, and embrace the rich tapestry of human difference while building bridges upon our commonalities. The National Peacemaker Museum will challenge, inspire, educate, and enable visitors from around the world to be peacemakers themselves, to contribute as they can to the ability of the human race to solve our problems creatively and collaboratively, and to craft solutions that are fair, compassionate, and wise. National Peacemaker Museum will accomplish this mission through a diverse array of partnerships and outreach techniques, both virtual and tangible, in an ongoing effort to reach the full diversity of humanity, speaking in a way that each listening ear can hear.

The Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) is supporting a coalition of organizations to establish a National Peacemaker Museum. In November 2007, ACR Immediate Past President, Marilyn S. McKnight established a Taskforce to launch this effort and appointed Forrest (Woody) Mosten to serve as Chair.

🙂  Just felt we should get a picture of some of the influence that our AFCC Board Member Judges (the US ones) wield, and some local feedback.

So what is this membership trade nonprofit private nonprofit group AFCC — with many of its influential members holding public office, like judgeships and county-level work such as custody evaluators, mediators, and of course Parenting Coordinators,  doing with this income?  . . . .

Besides inventing new terms and providing an on-going membership role model for how to form lots ‘n lots of nonprofits, while on public payroll or getting referral business from the courts, and lobbying legistors to do things like running Justice Initiatives to “Change the Culture of Custody“** (Pennsylvania) and trying to get states to mandate parenting coordination appointment — lots of it.  In Pennsylvania, they are Initiating, but I guess here, they are describing the “New Frontier” as if it just developed and showed up all by its wild-west lonesome, see 2012 AFCC-California Conference images for: “The New Frontier:  Exploring the Possibilities and Challenges of the Changed Landscape for Children and the Courts“***

[[**in which the AFCC is only directly cited a few times, but “parenting coordination” 14 times, “parent education” 10 times, “high-conflict” (with hyphen) 4 times, “high conflict” (no hyphen) 11 times, “dispute resolution” 63 times, a plug for a parent education “Kids First,” (used in 8 PA counties at the time, and already likely part of an FBI of investigation financial abuse in billing & multiple service referrals  by a GAL in one of those counties) and the first person mentioned in the “Chairman’s Introduction” just happens to be (now) President-elect of AFCC]] 

[[***Gee, who changed it?]][[check out item 12, presenter.  Same individual from ACFLS — yesterday– who declared that a few hours on-line would qualify someone to write a great appellate brief about domestic violence, and maybe even save a client’s life.  Tell that to Michelle Fournier’s son  when he grows up, without her.  Tell that to the relatives of the 7 other people that died as collateral damage in her “custody dispute” this past fall.  On the other hand, when the boy grows up, maybe he could do a speech on what such violence is like OFF-line….]]

Well, read on, to see some of the strategic planning from 2002-2007:

FIVE-YEAR REPORT

{{This is most of the first page of the report, for reference:}}

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report chronicles the development of AFCC for the fiscal years 2002-03 through 2006-07, the first five years of the current administration. It addresses AFCC initiatives and special projects, organization- al development, membership, conferences, resource development, publications, administration and finance, Web site, technology and collaborating organizations. Comparative data and narrative are offered to provide historical context.

AFCC Initiatives and Special Projects

Between 2002 and 2007, AFCC initiatives and special projects played a growing role in the day to day activities of the association. Eight special projects were initiated between 2002 and 2007, funded through a mix of contracts, small grants, the operating budgets of AFCC and its collaborating organizations and participating individuals and organizations.

(1) Connecticut Family Civil Intake Assessment Screen (2) Guidelines for Parenting Coordination (3) Court Services Task Force (4) Model Standards of Practice for Child Custody Evaluation (5) Family Law Education Reform (FLER) Project

(6) Educator’s Guide to Working with Separated and Divorcing Parents

(7) Domestic Violence and Family Courts Project (8) Developing Nations Libraries Project

The Family Law Education Reform Project and Domestic Violence and Family Court Project were anchored by the first two AFCC-sponsored conferences at the Johnson Foundation’s prestigious Wingspread Conference Center.

Organizational Development

AFCC completed three major projects in the area of organizational development:

• • •

A five-year strategic plan An organizational effectiveness project, funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Identity branding

And from a little further in the report:

Web Site and Technology

• Redesigned Web site to enhance usability and member benefits.

Google grant increased average monthly Web visits from 16,500 to 42,700.

• The bi-monthly AFCC eNEWS debuted in February 2006 and now has more than 10,000 subscribers.

• Parenting Coordination Network (group email) implemented.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

And so on, and so forth. . .

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

December 12, 2011 at 9:29 pm

Posted in AFCC, Bush Influence & Appointees (Cat added 11/2011), Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, CRC Childrens Rights Council, Designer Families, Funding Fathers - literally, History of Family Court, Lackawanna County PA Corruption Protests, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Parenting Coordination promotion, PhDs in Psychology-Psychiatry etc (& AFCC), Psychology & Law = an AFCC tactical lobbying unit

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Certifiably Irregular Behavior among Certified Specialist Associations, and other Dispensers of Training…

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Warning:

Warning: This article contains language that some will find offensive, but that others will find refreshingly honest.*

(*cite, and this quote again, below)

INSPIRATION FOR THIS POST:

WAS THE “ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED FAMILY LAW PROFESSIONALS.”

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C1955108 12/04/1995 ACTIVE ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED FAMILY LAW   SPECIALISTS, INC. LYNN MARIE PFEIFER

NOT JUST THE CONCEPT OF CERTIFYING A FAMILY LAW PROFESSIONAL TO START WITH, BUT THE CONCEPT OF A CERTIFIED SET OF ASSOCIATES THAT SEEM BELIEVE PSYCHOLOGY IS SCIENCE, AND CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR, ISN’T, WHICH INCLUDES A CRIMINAL DEGREE OF PROFIT FROM PROMOTING SPREADING THIS “COGNITIVE DISSONANCE” AMONG OTHERS, WHILE QUITE CONSCIOUS OF THE PROFIT IN SO DOING.

First, the public face — clearly this is a hot shot, and professionally alert group:

See?

Welcome, from the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists in California, an independent association of California attorneys who specialize in family law.

ACFLS was formed in 1980 following certification of the first group of Family Law Specialists under the “pilot” program, now a permanent program of the State Bar. ACFLS monitors administration by the State Bar of the specialization program, legislation and court rules, develops and promotes Family Law practice skills, and provides advanced educational programs for the bar, judiciary and public.

In the 28 years of ACFLS’ existence, membership has grown to 490 of the approximately 982 California Certified Family Law Specialists, 50% of those certified by the California State Bar Association. . . .

This means one’s chances of hiring an ACFLS member in California is approximately 1 out of 2; 50%. I wonder who certifies the other 50% of family law specialists?

Membership in ACFLS requires Certification by the Board of Legal Specialization of the State Bar of California, and payment of the annual dues. Members receive all ACFLS Newsletters, notices of meetings, are eligible to participate in ACFLS activities (including seminars at reduced cost), and are listed in the ACFLS Referral and Membership Directory published each year and on our web site: www.acfls.org.

It is the Mission of ACFLS to promote and preserve the Family Law Specialty. * * * To that end, the Association seeks to:

  1. Advance the knowledge of Family Law Specialists;
  2. Monitor legislation and proposals affecting the field of family law;
  3. Promote and encourage ethical practice among members of the bar and their clients; and
  4. Promote the specialty to the public and the family law bar.

**notice nothing is mentioned about the best interests of the children.   

They have monthly meetings and occasional regional conferences.  Attorneys know how to through nice conferences, and I’m sure these do too.  For qualifications (of membership) notice:

Because couples who split up also must deal with custody of their children, family law practitioners must also understand child development and other topics touching on emotional and psychological concerns of families.  Part of the certification requirement involves psychological and counseling education.

(which can get written off where? and is provided by whom?)

There is a link for attorneys on Domestic Violence issues — the website intro claims to have “culled the best.”  After the disclaimer, the site says:

Domestic Violence Sites on the Worldwide Web

By Leslie Ellen Shear

Any search engine will turn up thousands of Domestic Violence sites on the internet. I spent many hours culling some of the best. These web sites represent many different perspectives and resources on domestic violence. **(Please note that sites appear, disappear, change or move to new locations regularly. If the link doesn’t work, try searching for a key word or phrase from the description.

** OK, let me review this.  ON a page by an association of lawyers addressing lawyers whose work likely influences where children will live after domestic violence has been reported, Leslie Ellen Shear’ believes that a few hours on the web will sufficiently inform her to post a resource for — lawyers? (Some of who are abusers, or have been victims of this too, no doubt).  This was put up when?  A clear look at the link shows that she’s basically posted parts of references beginning with the letter “A” (with one or two exceptions).   Many links, yes, are inactive, or domain name has been sold.

Every web page needs a list of benefits to readers from plowing through it, right?  So the one on Domestic Violence for Attorneys from this great group, has 20 bulleted points (unprioritized and some of them ridiculous) — of which point# 17 reads “keep your client alive,” thankfully at least one or two higher priorities than “write a great appellate brief,”  and — naturally — right next to an ALMOST acknowledgement that some serious risk is involved, “prepare a competent defense to false or inflated allegations”  See?

  • Keep a client alive.
  • Prepare a competent defense to false or inflated allegations.
  • Write a great appellate brief.

fourth DV link is:

Access to Visitation Grant  (which redirects to the AOC courtsite, and a persistent person might be able to locate the information on this program).

It’s important, yes, to know about this grant program,which has profited some attorneys of fathers saying “false allegations,” and which, on the other hand, has made it possible for some children to be murdered through its premises, and financial incentives to ensure noncustodial parent contact, even if that noncustodial FATHER is in jail, and also supervised visitation (a tool useful in silencing mothers who report abuse, by forcing them to pay to see their kids).  Yes, I believe that any family law specialist, being psychologically trained in child development, should know about this grant system — but it belongs under “endorsing” domestic violence.

Other than that, what’s with this one?

A.P.A.R.T.  The website reads “parentalabductions.org”  the Banner reads “Wives’ Tales’ and it’s simply about single-parenting tips.

A big deal is made about the ACFLS role in the (if you’re from a custody case in California, this should ring a bell) Elkins Family Law Task Force.  I was a standby witness to how little value on actual parental feedback was desired during this task force; read who was on it, and concluded that a task for is a task force is a task force.  Parents are not considered “stakeholders” and a mothers’ group was contacted after the fathers’ group had already been heard.  One could show up and speak for maybe a minute in public, or submit comments on-line (which is not anonymous) while engaged in an active case.   However, their nicely laid-out newsletter goes into great detail on the AFCLS response to the Task Force Recommendations.  Predictably, which includes this:

(paragraph 1, to set the tone — and the time here, 2009):

ACFLS’s Board of Directors unanimously adopted the group’s Family Law Reform Committee’s Comments on the Elkins Family Law Task Force Draft Recommen­dations. The action came on December 5, 2009 at the last meeting of the 2009 Board of Directors, chaired by 2009 President Joseph J. Bell.

(many ACFLS members were on this task force, as it says):

Since the formation of the Elkins Family Law Task Force, ACFLS has been proactive in contributing to the develop- ment of recommendations for reform of California’s family courts. Diane Wasznicky (2010 ACFLS President-Elect) chairs the Family Law Reform committee. Members are David Borges (Ex-Officio Director, Central Coast), Sharon Bryan (former Past President), Vivian Holley (Director at Large, North), Frieda Gordon (Director at Large, South), Michelene Insalaco (Director-Elect, North), Lynette Berg Robe (Legislative Coordinator) and Leslie Ellen Shear  {{WHOSE suggested Domestic Violence links on the ACFLS site I just reviewed; unbelievable that an adult would take the intro — or the set of links — seriously.  It shouldn’t pass a 12th grade essay standard, or even 10th!}}

On page 16, they get down to recommending co-parenting education (can’t miss that, can we?):

Parties to contested custody disputes should receive education about parenting plans and co-parenting. Every county should offer the following FCS services in contested custody- visitation cases:

1. Confidential mediation of custody disputes–including cases in which there is no family law action pending.**

**not to get boringly monotonous, but there’s potential for double-billing around access/vistation grants, county-appointed & paid mediators, and possibly even charging non-indigent parents for this.  Of course it should be offered in every county.  That’s standard AFCC (who are a mediator-promoting group if anyone is….). . … And it’s also been shown repeatedly that domestic violence advocates — earlier, when the word “grassroots” meant something — FOUGHT AGAINST forcing mediation on DV victims.  See Barbara J. Hart writings from the 1990s on this.  Having been through that gauntlet — I have to agree.  There aren’t enough options once a crooked mediator (or a lying one) (or one breaking rules of court) gets that recommendation in.

The next paragraph is utterly ridiculous, as applied in real situations:

2. Same-day emergency screenings for high risk cases.

3. Prompt,brief assessments with recommendations for cases or issues that are not resolved in mediation.

MAYBE this would be tenable IF FIRST — all cases involving abuse and violence were completely removed from the family law jurisdiction, and either handled in criminal court — where they belong, and should be PROSECUTED, after which assuming the abuse really did take place, there should be NO joint legal custody, no overnight visitations, and there should be prompt prosecution of any and ALL violations of court orders by the offending parent, in the criminal venue, not the civil and not the “family.”

This is not going to happen — because this family law exists primarily to defuse and derail people seeking to protect children, or themselves, from physical molestation, violence, threats, and severe destruction that by a stranger would likely lead to jail time.

I had my children stolen and held truant during an UNsupervised visitation — after I’d requested this and been turned down (being female) because “there’s no money” for it (meaning, in our parents).  years later, absent my kids, I learn about the A/V grants stream (and that one of my judges was on the Kids Turn board, too).  Now that it was clear to their father that he was above the law, but could attempt to throw it at me, I had to go again to the same mediator — or not get in front of a judge to get the kids back, knowing that police wouldn’t either.  Basically, nobody gives a damn if a potential program fund could be called into play somehow.

In the subsequent YEAR, after first permanently eliminating child support for our kids (My income was trashed, and his current obligations ceased — within 30 days, and no action on arrears for over a year, and the arrears was significant to the family), the court managed to recommend counseling for the children (both of who said they weren’t interested), which was a friend of a friend of one of the parties who stole them.  Then a court-appointed attorney was called in after yet more noncompliance by the father and complete cessation of visitation, holiday times together, and even phone calls — add a little stalking in there — and we’ve got some serious situations at hand.  This attorney’s apparent role (other than getting paid) was to finish putting the nail in the coffin of my ability to get legal protection in any form, or retain a relationship with my children, having asked the court to state its reasons for switching custody and having that question first mocked, then derailed (never answered).

In other words, zero legal or factual basis was ever stated for switching custody, and I was not given an opportunity in court to cross-examine the father on his allegations, to counter them in writing, and being in a state of shock a few months later, unable to speak (in pro per — what else?) in the matter, my kids lost their mother and all I had to offer them, and had been.  Shortly after, they lost their father too (it happens) in the household, meaning not one legal safeguard to their lives (or mine) existed.

In situations like this — and believe me, they are common — no one needs a damn co-parenting education class.  Co-parenting and joint custody have often been tried.  People who separate from abuse are trying before separation to co-parent with criminal behavior.  So why let them out, then force them back in just to please the court and someone who couldn’t get business in a free, competitive market otherwise?

(I’m sure you feel my heat in the matter . . . . ) ACFLS newsletter continues:

In other words, after co-parenting education, the parties in each contested custody-visitation case should go on to confidential parenting plan mediation. Where the parties fail to resolve all or some issues, they should move on to a brief assessment and recommendations by a different FCS staff member before the matter is adjudicated. Same-day screen- ing should be available for emergencies – such as safety or abduction risk issues.

Waiting times for appointments for mediation and brief assessments need to be very short – the long delays at this stage of custody cases are damaging to children and destabilizing to families.

(hypocrites!  The long delays free up more grants, and justify not disbursing collected child support, too.  Long delays are what the courts feed off!)

Mediators are not engaged in a systematic process of gathering and assessing data for the purposes of making recommendations. Either they compromise mediation or their recommendations are an afterthought. Mediating parents behave differently when they think their bargaining will influence a recommendation.. . .

and of course, market expansion into downloadable modules assembled by existing family court nonprofits is desirable:

It may be helpful for the Center for Families, Children and the Courts to develop a uniform curriculum for the co- parenting education programs, and to make on line classes available. Many parents cannot afford childcare or time off work for these programs. Others are out of state or out of the country. It would be helpful to offer these programs in many languages. The programs could also have various modules addressing children of different ages, long-distance parenting and relocation issues, domestic violence and child abuse, and special needs children. * * *

If domestic violence and child abuse issues impact on “Parenting!” can be handled in downloadable curricula, then why is California paying ONE nonprofit contracting out of Sacramento over $6 million a year for all kinds of counseling and interventions for victims of child abuse, trauma, and for sex addicts, drunks, and victims of crimes?  See Terra Nova Counseling (meaning — see their tax returns and charitable registry page, which shows this).

I wonder what Marcia Fay might have to say about that one.

(* * *In case you didn’t get it, that was the ACFLS’ plug for more Kids Turn stuff, since Gov. Gray Davis vetoed legislating this a few years earlier, which I blogged in “Kicking Salesmanship Up a Notch” post.  It’s interesting how many visitors to this site are following “Let’s Get Honest about Kids’ Turn and Judges’ Profits” yet still miss the follow up post there…

OK — so I added this intro on 12/8/2011 before posting what I wrote probably last week:

Here’s where the proof hits the proselytizing:

Statement:  ACFLS was formed in 1980

Actuality:

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C1955108 12/04/1995 ACTIVE ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED FAMILY LAW   SPECIALISTS, INC. LYNN MARIE PFEIFER

It’s the same group.  Here’s a nice letterhead, with board members all along the left side, of ACFLS wish to get involved (i guess) with a certain marriage case:   http://www.acfls.org/uploads/files/ACFLS_ltr_to_JaffeClemens-4.pdf, “In re marriage of Valli” (August, 2011).  They are writing to rally to (addressees) who had some objections to writing by (see above) Leslie Ellen Shear who is head of the Amicus Brief Committee of this wonderful group).

OK, so now I’m really curious how anyone with a legal mind could’ve in their right minds put up that webpage suggesting that a few hours on-line (apparently going alphabetically on “Abuse” and not getting past the letter “A”) would qualify someone to write a great appellate brief, protect innocents against false allegations of domestic violence, (above that,) draft a supervised visitation plan, educate one’s experts — and “oh, yeah, I better include this for appearance’ sake”) “Save your client’s life.”

This is a section of what turns out to be a Super Attorney’s Bio, the same person, from the site with url “custodymatters.com

Selected as One of Los Angeles Magazine L.A.’s SuperLawyers (2004-2011)

PRACTICE EMPHASIS

Family Law Trial Court Proceedings

Representation and consultation in complex child custody, complex parentage and assisted reproduction, interstate and international jurisdiction (including Hague Abduction Convention and UCCJEA) cases.

Representation of children in family court by court appointment.

Consensual Dispute Resolution

Trained in mediation, parenting plan coordination (child custody special master), collaborative family law.

 Why doesn’t this next part surprise me — at all?
  • Association of Certified Family Law Specialists (ACFLS). Current Past President; President 2010; various board positions including Newsletter Editor, Technology Coordinator and Secretary from 1997). Author of many ACFLS amicus curiae briefs, current co-chair of Amicus Committee.
  • Editorial Board and contributor, Journal of Child Custody, published by Taylor and Francis.
  • Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC),** Past Board Member, California Chapter, director at large, co-chair 2001 Statewide Conference, steering committee 2003 Statewide Conference, frequent speaker at state and international conferences. Contributor to Family Court Review.
** File under “walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, certain things (like evidence of DV) roll right off its back, probably is a duck”
  • Fellow, International Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers.
  • Faculty member, 1981 Vallambrosa Retreat: Mediation of Child Custody and Visitation Disputes (trained statewide court staff mediators for California Courts following enactment of mandatory custody mediation legislation)
Which probably explains (i live in California) why my mediator, under such auspicious culture of mandated mediation and calling serious issues “disputes” — consistently ignored court-order-breaking and otherwise felony behavior by the father of my children, and countless others.  He was employed over the span of my entire case, and when I requested a less biased one (post-abduction) none was available, so it was either forget seeing your kids again (while they were MIA) or go to this dude, again.
ANYHOW — I just showed you — this group incorporated in 1995.  That means that unless they had some other corporate identity, their own website has falsified the record by FIFTEEN YEARS, aka, lied.    And the head of the Amicus Brief Committee of ACFLS, Ms. Shear — is considered by her colleagues a Super Attorney (does this mean, excellent and articulate liar? Wouldn’t be the first one I know (which comment I put in for said attorney), and by me, a person who doesn’t know squat about domestic violence, but considers such knowledge good enough to advise attorneys on it on-line.  Another Super Attorney (Jennifer Jackson) out of SF area came up, apparently, with the concept for kids turn and helped a family law judge set it up, too, in the late 1980s)

Is this personal (except the one I said I know?) — NO.  But I see what product they are putting out regarding situations I’ve lived and know others who have also lived.  Obviously, it’s a matter of viewpoint!   This is why (a long time ago) i contrasted the court’s opinion of a judge I didn’t even know (The Hon. Slabach) with the “Silenced Mamas” (see poormagazine.com) feedback on the same judge.  (That’s how I habitually get in trouble on this blog, but that’s what blogs are for, i.e., airing differing points of view).

How about we go take a look at their registration as a nonprofit — after all this is a membership organization set up by people already working in, and sometimes FOR the courts, and messing with other people’s custody matters through Amicus Briefs (remind me to read  in re:  Valli and what the ACFLS objected to, in said letter I linked to above).

(AFCC & proud of it on Ms. Shear’s website):  work includes:

Ohmer v. Superior Court (1983, 2nd District) 148 Cal.App.3d 661 Child custody evaluations, due process. Validity of former Los Angeles Superior Court policy barring custody litigants from cross-examining child custody investigators, and prohibiting custody litigants from obtaining and presenting evidence of investigator’s lack of mental health education and training. Affirmed. (Appellant)

That sounds like an interesting one…  Here (2008) is more evidence of pushing Parenting Coordination.  Like my post says, these people are pretty pushy:

In Search of Statutory Authority for Parenting Coordinator Orders in California: Using a Grass- roots, Hybrid Model Without an Enabling Statute, 5 Journal of Child Custody 88 (2008)

A few years into a custody dispute, and most mothers couldn’t afford to keep current with this journal, if they even know enough to do so, in their own best interests of knowing what they’re up against…  This is recent, cited all over, and I recommend MOMS read it!  Obviously it’s not displayed in proper format below — see that link.  Randy Rand v. Board of Psychology and the other attorney involved in the brief is Stephen Temko from San Diego.

CASE NO. C064475 SUPERIOR COURT CASE NO. 34-3009-80000359

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL FOR THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA THIRD APPELLATE DISTRICT

__________________

RANDY RAND, ED.D. Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BOARD OF PSYCHOLOGY, Defendant and Respondent. __________________

BRIEF OF AMICUS CURIAE ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED FAMILY LAW SPECIALISTS __________________

LESLIE ELLEN SHEAR, CFLS,* CALS* SBN 72623 16133 Ventura Boulevard, Floor 7 Encino, CA 91436-2403

Telephone: 818-501-3691 Facsimile: 818-501-3692 lescfls@earthlink.net

STEPHEN TEMKO, CFLS,* CALS* SBN 67785 1620 Fifth Avenue, Suite 800 San Diego, CA 92101-2792 Telephone: 858-274-3538 Facsimile: 619-238-0851

Attorneys for Amicus *State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization

Curiae ACFLS

Paragraph from the amicus brief shows that FIRST parenting coordinators are appointed, then a clamor to legitimize it occurs.  Sounds (at first look) like the amicus wants only professionals already licensed somewhere else in on the show — but in classic “we want to have our cake and eat it too behavior), they don’t want those professional boards to have disciplinary power (What, are there some NON-AFCC or CRC powerhouses on any of those associations?) because ‘parenting coordination’ is quasi judicial and the best entity to discipline them would be — like, the family court that appointed them (sure, THAT”S a bias-free basis for some real ethical accountability! )  SO we’d best read this one all of it — and I do mean “we.”

“California has failed to adopt legislation and court rules governing parenting coordination despite the growing use of these service models in our family courts.** This leaves parents, parenting coordinators, courts, and licensing boards without clear directives about what practices are required or prohibited.”

**perhaps even California, in heart, agrees with Gov Jeb Bush of Florida’s (2004) objections to the practice of parenting coordination.  I know I sure do!  I read that PCANH handbook, apparentl lifted from Indiana practice?  (nice touch throwing the word “parents” in that sentence about “lacking clear directives!” as if that was the concern!

(the site I chose to post the link from was Matthew Sullivan, Ph.D.’s site called (appropriately) “californiaparentingcoordinator.com”  (got the message yet?) and says of him:

Matthew Sullivan, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist (California Lic. # PSY10214) in private practice in Palo Alto, California, who specializes in forensic** child and family psychology. He has been in private practice in Palo Alto for 20 years, specializing in Forensic Family psychology.

He is a pioneer in the field of Parenting Coordination, which he helped develop in Santa Clara County more than 15 years ago,*** and has led the development of Parenting Coordination across the U.S. He is one of the most experienced Parent Coordinators (called Special Master in California) in the country. Some of the other roles he serves for families going through divorce include:

 **Child psychologists are frustrated child psychiatrists, some of who are probably frustrated MD’s.  They love to throw around the word “forensic” to lend credibility.
***Since he helped develop the field, he might want to rethink posting Ms. Shear’s amicus which states the field basically emerged.
{{Like most AFCC material does when describing some program AFCC has devised and wants legislated & mandated for VERY potentially high-conflict case (i.e., cases where someone — possibly a mediator trained b the sam people — made a really bad custody recommendation, which was enacted, and is having consequences, such as the other parent protesting it.  Voila! !  We have high-conflict, so we get to do parent coordinators, and maybe even some federal grant streams, too!)}}

OK, now that the very active ACFLS cannot ? show its origination, as claimed, in 1980 as a legitimate California corporation, but rather it was incorporated in 1995 (at least the one with “, Inc.” after its name is the only one I could find on SOS site) here’s the Charitable Registration:

From the California Office of Attorney General (Charitable Registry Search Site) — YES !  ACFLS DOES exist and at first glance, it’s charitable status is labeled “Current”:
Organization Name Registration Number Record Type Registration Status City State Registration Type Record Type
ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED FAMILY LAW SPECIALISTS, INC. EX548531 Charity Exempt – Active SAN RAFAEL CA Charity Registration Charity
1
which is odd – because if one the looks inside — no EIN# has been assigned yet, it has never filed any IRS or RRF reports (annual requirement for CA nonprofits and for corporations too, for that matter).  Allegedly, per this record, their charitable status was issued in 1990 (10 years after they claim they started, and 5 years before the Secretary of State admitted that they did). (or perhaps this is just the boilerplate charitable registry BLANK format?).
They have NO EIN# and apparently ever bothered to register — NO founding documents are viewable – and obviously if the association is charging its (ATTORNEY) members any dues, they aren’t producing (all 490 members, all those nice monthly meetings and annual regional conferences involving hotels, golf, etc.) any income worht reporting? And though they are actually selling stuff from their blog — they aren’t producing program service revenue enough to require reporting to the IRS?
Yes — and I have some land under the Brooklyn Bridge I wish to sell, also.
Full Name: ASSOCIATION OF CERTIFIED FAMILY LAW SPECIALISTS, INC. FEIN:
Type: Mutual Benefit Corporate or Organization Number: 1955108
Registration Number: EX548531
Record Type: Charity Registration Type: Charity Registration
Issue Date: 12/31/1990 Renewal Due Date: 5/15/1991
Registration Status: Exempt – Active Date This Status:
Date of Last Renewal:
Address Information
Address Line 1: 15 CORRILLO DRIVE Phone:
Address Line 2:
Address Line 3:
Address Line 4: SAN RAFAEL CA 94903
Annual Renewal Information
Related Documents
No Related Documents
Prerequisite Information
No Prerequisite Information

Look it up yourself — here’s the link for the search fields.  Just type in the organization name, or whatever part of it fits:

CHECKING with  my trusty 990-finder, I find out that there IS an EIN# and income — but apparently not one of the Attorney General’s Office seems to have noticed, even though we can hardly say that the Attorney General’s Office is unfamiliar with the family law field.  After all, former Attorney General Bill Lockyer had a wife (about half his age?) from the L.A. area working as Exec. Dir. of the Alameda County Family Justice Law Center, annointed by a republican gov. in 2006, and this leadership was ceded to another family law professional.  San Francisco just went through a crisis and multiple courtroom shutdowns.  I feel it safe to say that PROBABLY the head of the criminal justice system in California — which is supposed to protect taxpayers from financial scam artists — knows about this organization, and that it ain’t reporting to them.   (or, they aren’t posting what it did).

What is a reasonably logical person to assume but that the OAG’s office is getting a cut on the undocumented funds, at the expense of Californians Right To KNow, Fair Political Practices (it would seem) transparency — and our state’s budget!

ORGANIZATION NAME

STATE

YEAR

TOTAL ASSETS

FORM

PAGES

EIN

Association of Certified Family Law Specialists CA 2009 $107,507 990 17 94-3238376
Association of Certified Family Law Specialists CA 2008 $122,073 990 20 94-3238376
Association of Certified Family Law Specialists CA 2007 $158,102 990 19 94-3238376
Association of Certified Family Law Specialists CA 2006 $142,503 990 20 94-3238376
Association of Certified Family Law Specialists CA 2005 $93,608 990 16 94-3238376
Association of Certified Family Law Specialists CA 2004 $127,804 990 15 94-3238376
Association of Certified Family Law Specialists CA 2003 $76,425 990 16 94-3238376
Association of Certified Family Law Specialists CA 2002 $65,302 990 17 94-3238376

2009 IRS reads (probably like the rest) program purpose — why it’s tax exempt and for “PUBLIC” benefit:

“To Promote and Preserve the Family Law Speciality”

There are 20 people on the board of directors, NONE takes any money for this.  How charitable!

Educational Seminars revenue $138K; Membership dues:  $130K.

They are going to HAVE to lie, steal, and cheat to keep promoting this BS — especially with Ms. Shear in charge of education professionals on how to ignore signs of imminent lethality with a few hours of on-line research.  (too busy writing Amicus for other people’s custody disputes, I guess).  California just this past fall had an 8-person massacre after a father given 56% custody was angry he didn’t get 100% fast enough.  An AFCC professional was on his case at the time of his 2007 divorce.  4 years later, Mom dead and 7 other people also.  “Typical Divorce Case” says the family law professional, when interviewed on this.  This followed hard on the heels of an Attorney General employee having her own child (gave birth around age 44, it seemed) abducted and murdered in a murder-suicide by the father.  We also have families going homeless around custody cases (i know some) and in general, it’s one _ _ _ _ ing disgrace.

SO is this organization retaining any credibility and quite frankly, even during the economic crisis (like this arm of teh courts didn’t contribute to it?) it also reflects on the credibility of the Attorney General’s Office as well — at least as to Charitable Trusts.  I am thankful they seem to be getting on some organizations, but I sure can’t figure out how they determine who to let slide — and who to nail.  Unless, that is, there is some money greasing the decsisions — which I think is not an unfair speculation, although of course (at this point) it IS speculation, I admit.

Readers have any other speculations — or hard data — on why the ACFLS is held to ZERO standard within its state of origin, while pompously throwing its weight around, and citing itself as if this is a reputable organization serving the public by promoting and preserving the practice of family law — and pushing parenting coordinators on us — even as the FBI rushes into jurisdiction in Pennsylvania to investigate a racketeering type of setup (possibly) involving one of the parent coordinator trainers!   

Now that I have that off my chest, what’s below is related setups that I’d planned to accompany this one, in particular.

I don’t know how much more evidence – at this point — anyone would need that just because an organization has been around, and has good PR, doesn’t mean it’s legitimate.  Or that the AFCC in particular, has a membership PRONE to forming nonprofits (membership associations especially) and engaging in tax-evasion and tax-reporting-evasion within their local states.

Cf.  Ann Marie Termini lists “Cooperative Parenting Institute” on her linkedin Profile and wherever else possible; so presumably does Susan Boyan, still (out of Georgia).   So what state does it exist in, again?  The parents in Scranton, PA deserve an answer, pending the FBI decision whether to finish their investigation — or shelve it — regarding some of the practices in Lackawanna County (which, FYI, is geographically right next to the infamous Luzerne County and in the state of the Penn State Sandusky scandal, with potential involvement of the charity “The Second Mile.”

I want to let these Preserve and Promote the Family Law Profession People in on a secret — apparently to them, it’s obvious to others:

  • MOST parents are not abusive, and care about their kids more than you do.
  • And if you were’t heating up the conflict (while insisting that your presence is actually intended to help dissipate conflict), probably more of those ids would be alive today — and those abusive parents could’ve been prosecuted as criminals BEFORE the offed their kids, their exes, bystanders, and occasionally a responding police officer.
  • And most mothers reporting abuse by the Dads, or kids reporting — are not lying.  They do not need “responsible motherhood” programs to behave as responsible mothers, even under the extreme conditions put upon them by institutions, advocacy groups (who don’t reveal their own funding comes from welfare diversionary programs, when dealing with mothers forced onto welfare somehow), etc.
  • There is an innate biological bond, particularly when mothers get to also nurse their kids and give birth to them, even in some pretty hostile environments.
  • And the profession that out of two parents, one who complies with court orders, and the other who doesn’t, or one with a criminal record — or criminal behaviors in evidence — and the other NOT — you are actually more concerned about the kids because you talk about “family” while she talks about SAFETY — is offensive.

+ + + + + + +

I have a question.  In fact, several questions:

Have you, has a family member or friend, been operated on recently?  Was your doctor officially vetted by the hospital, and is his or her degree valid?

Is the institution from which your doctor graduated, or was, it a real institution?

When they are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, UCBerkeley, Stanford, etc. — there aren’t that many questions whether or not the schools actually exist, and are “accredited,” for what it’s worth (and it is worth something, as to colleges!).  The only question becomes, did your particular professional actually go there, and has the school not, to date, disowned or otherwise dishonorably discharged them.

Generally, we expect more of Medical Doctors, although this is sometimes not delivered.  See “California prison doctors get millions while not working“, Associated Press article posted 11/29/2011.  Who wants to actually think about a government paying anyone over $226K per year to sort mail while figuring out whether this person was mal-practicing or not?  Not a thought good for the average digestive system, or blood pressure, probably….

At least 30 physicians and mental health professionals collected an estimated $8.7 million since 2006 as they went through a lengthy appeals process to determine whether they should be fired or reinstated, the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/vOJLlY ) reported Monday. The newspaper cited records from a court-ordered receiver now in charge of the state prison system.

Doctors who were alleged by colleagues to have committed negligence or misconduct — in some cases involving patient deaths — received their full six-figure salaries, even though they were not allowed to treat prisoners. Some did menial work [like, sorting mail…]

Sounds like a lose-lose proposition to me, either the original system, or attempting to “clean up” the systems.

But what is it about the fields of family law and psychologists that attracts people who LOVE to form nonprofit, trade-promoting, dues-paying (membership) associations which:

  • don’t even file tax returns, especially with the state they are registered in, after getting tax-exempt status?  or, alternately
  • don’t file period, and/or
  • cite each others names proudly on websites and on biographies in long strings of apparent officialdom before ording one parent into a situation doomed to bankruptcy, another child to go live with a molester he or she has already reported on, extort fathers into starting a custody battle they didn’t want — or, if they are in arrears somehow — into participating in some ridiculous (psychoeducational) program, typically in 6 to 10 sessions that someone pays for,  no one would otherwise take if there were an alternate choice besides going back to jail?[FN1]  Before adjusting upward or compromising downward child support for a noncustodial parent without notifying the custodial one of the discussion (or programssssssszzsss, plural) that led to this backroom deal?  and/or
  • hold conferences to figure out how to expand their profession, which profession exists at all over public distress and at public expense, i.e,. those who practice are already on state (judges) or county (county commissioners, family law commissioners, child support commissioners — and ANYONE among the support structure of the entire local child support agency, including attorneys, directors, specialists, clerks, data entry people (presumably) and office staff for derailing parents who want a direct answer about their own case.  This also includes court transcriptionists, court clerks, etc.
  •  Bill attendance at these conference, and travel to/from them (wherever possible) to their current employer, usually a county or county-level court  [FN2])
How is it that people who graduated from an institute that gave a degree to an imaginary cat can actually be practing and making custody recommendations for young children?  This literally is true, and a lot more than one thinks.  Surely Dr. Doyne must be a qualified professional (WHAT profession was it, again?) because he got a degree from this place.  However at least one man (see Request to file Amicus Brief in Tadros v. Doyne) decided to challenge (see Tadros v. Doyne; in fact this link summarizes and actually shows the “Specialty Diplomate” and how both the person who issued it, and the court, are retaliating against this M.D. for reporting it!  Many mothers and fathers know already about the “Zoe the Cat” fiasco, but still the custody mill (and other association-certification-mills) continue, one of which I found recently, hence today’s post.)  How can one be silent in the face of material like this?
(1). . .
for $350 dollars, Robert O’Block, who honored a Specialty Diplomate to a house  cat named Zoe (which states on the certificate Zoe has a PhD), and who also granted a Specialty Diplomate to Custody Evaluator Stephen Doyne, is threatening to sue the co-founders of California Coalition for Families and Children (CCFC) with a defamation lawsuit seeking penalties of 1,000,000 Dollars. Robert O’Block is seeking to shutdown The Public Court for exposing the truth about the “cat credentialed?”

If Dr. Tadros and CCFC do not keep quiet or “shut down” public exposure about Zoe the Cat getting a PhD and Diploma, they will be sued for this huge sum of money?

To the solid fact that Zoe the Cat is Dr. Tadros’s best witness, he is left with no other choice than to pursue the timely filing against Robert O’Block’s owner of the ACFE, who according to Professor carol Henderson issued a house Cat with “Diplomate (and Phd)” certificate, (read below) with the filing of Tadros MD vs. American College of Forensic Examiners International (ACFEI), dated January 10, 2011…

(2) . . .Well, here, from, the News Article on Doctor Doyne, but “thepubliccourt.com” is informative*

Custody Evaluator’s Credentials Questioned In Lawsuit

Dr. Stephen Doyne Has Been Involved In 3,000 To 4,000 San Diego Custody Cases

Lauren Reynolds
10News I-Team Reporter
POSTED: 7:10 pm PDT July 7, 2009
SAN DIEGO — Dr. Stephen Doyne, PhD, is widely used in the San Diego Family Court as a custody evaluator. His job is to advise the court on where children of divorce should live, which parent is more fit. The evaluations can be costly, both in emotion and dollars. Clients told the 10 News I-Team they paid Doyne between $5,000 and $30,000.  (That’s per evaluation — do the math)
“A child custody evaluator has tremendous power and influence,” said Marc Angelucci. He’s an attorney representing Dr. Emad Tadros in a civil lawsuit against Dr. Doyne alleging fraud and negligence. . . .
Dr. Doyne is one of a dozen custody evaluators repeatedly used by San Diego Family Court. The court had no response to the allegations against Dr. Doyne. The court also clarified that it does not verify the professional licenses or the resumes of the custody evaluators.

Apparently, per this article, he also falsely claimed to be an adjunct professor at UCSD (University of California, San Diego).  Reminds me of this Sandra Brown, M.A. (Liberty University) I was looking up recently, and her “IRHPE” (Institute for Relational Harm and Pathology Education”), not to mention the “Relationship Training Institute,” also (coincidentally) at San Diego where she was listed as a Guest Lecturer (to my recall), this RTI being a business which takes business from the courts, also.  Speaking of which, …

The “Relationship Training Institute” (EIN# 470942805), which you can (and should) look up on the California Attorney General’s site (http://ag.ca.gov/charities/, and select “Registry” on left side) where charitable organizations are required to register and then file ANNUALLY, and where one can look up their EIN#s) — registered here in 2006 (File issued date) and from the IRS, evidently it’s clear it showed assets of $1.5K and Revenue of $90K in 2005, and by 2010, assets of $13,569 & revenue of $271K.  In 2011, their assets went down by over $4K, but their revenue went up to $291K — and finally, in August 2011, the OAG decided to slap them on the wrist (who knows why), with a letter saying, you didn’t file your fee.

However, in the section where EVERY charity required to register under state law is to file 3 things (that I know of) (two of which the public should be able to look at, right here):  (1) a State return (RRF), (2) a copy of their IRS 990 return which the OAG can upload, and (3) a ‘Schedule B”* which lists their contributors’ names and addresses.  This is also to come with (4) an annual fee, which varies by size of the group.

(*which public doesn’t see, but the OAG, whose purpose here is to prevent Californians from being scammed by tax-exempt organizations and false fundraisers, i.e., professionally organized thieves, public financial predators, and money launderers, etc.  SPeaking of which, did I mention that a previous attorney general (Bill Lockyer) had his (3rd) wife installed, on pay from the DAs office, as the CEO of the “Alameda County Family Justice Center” — an idea from San Diego City Attorney’s Office  Casey Gwinn plus the DV Council, Gael Strack, J.D. (as I recall) — which, somehow in the process of hiring the first CEO, got the slated salary moved from $65K to $90K, and the appointment process of which looks a little slimy (thank you, investigator Steve White, aka boatbrain or similar quirky username).  Nevertheless, we hope and expect the OAG to keep a lid on these things for our (public’s) sake.   They even went after the San Diego based Kid’s Turn for its charitable status, right? 

Organizations larger than the RTI have been noticed by the same OAG for failing to file fees and schedule B of contributors. The far larger Futures Without Violence (formerly, like until 2010, Family Violence Prevention Fund, EIN# 943110973) received one notice in 2010:

1. The $225 renewal fee was not received. Please send a check in that amount, payable to “Attorney General’s Registry of Charitable Trusts”.

and another, August 2011, under separate cover, in stern terms, this time writing reflecting the corporation’s name change:

RE: IRS Form 990, Schedule B, Schedule of Contributors

We have received the IRS Form 990, 990-EZ or 990-PF submitted by the above-named organization for filing with the Registry of Charitable Trusts (Registry) for the fiscal year ending 12/31/10. The filing is incomplete because the copy of Schedule B, Schedule of Contributors, does not include the names and addresses of contributors.

The copy of the IRS Form 990, 990-EZ or 990-PF, including all attachments, filed with the Registry must be identical to the document filed by the organization with the Internal Revenue Service. The Registry retains Schedule B as a confidential record for IRS Form 990 and 990-EZ filers.

Within 30 days of the date of this letter, please submit a complete copy of Schedule B, Schedule of

Contributors, for the fiscal year noted above, as filed with the Internal Revenue Service

Futures Without Violence, now ensconced at the San Francisco Praesidio (a high-profile address to locals and international visitors), does big business:  In 2010, per information the California OAG apparently gets from the IRS (as opposed to the organization), it reads:

Fiscal Begin: 01-JAN-10
Fiscal End: 31-DEC-10
Total Assets: $36,603,585.00
Gross Annual Revenue: $17,118,149.00
RRF Received: 14-JUN-11
Returned Date:
990 Attached: Y
Status: Rejected

I would ask too.  2010 is an increase in ASSETS of roughly $5.5 (million) and in INCOME of $10.5 million.  As Dolly Parton quipped once (possibly in a movie), “it takes a lot of money to look like this!”    Yet FVPF has been fairly regular in filing — up til 2008, anyhow.   Its primary program purpose, as of the last available 990, reads:

Significant activities: TO PIONEER NEW STRATEGIES TO END VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN AT HOME AND ABROAD.

“FUTURES WITHOUT VIOLENCE” SETS ITS EYES “Abroad”

And well it might — having continued to ignore a steady stream of violence against women, and children (including some that results in deaths, a relentless litany, the background to their wonderful conferences and PR campaigns, and training institutes about “Fatherhood” as  tool practitioners can wield against family violence.  Sure, OK.  So, MOTHERS lveaing abusive relationships safely (and this group helped get VAWA enacted in 1994), still can’t — because of family court in USA is trending towards sharia law, at least in its “logic” and priorities.

Speaking of “Going Abroad”. . . .literally and allegorically

(I warned you at the top of this post…we are going to talk about defecation, and allegorically, why some nonprofits constantly need to shift localities, names and WHERE they are p*ssing on people’s due process rights, and covering up evidence of this in the family law system, lest they step on the wrong local toes, or bite the han)

The phrase “going abroad” in previous times meant going to take a whizz outside the camp, or home, where one eats and sleeps, so as not to pollute it.  When encased in a wood shelter over a large pit, with or without a porcelain chair, this progressed to the “Outhouses,” topic of many comedies and eventually we progressed to indoor plumbing, which can then get backed up and require a plumber to fix.   The practice of sitting UP to do this, I gather another Western creation, has helped create health problems too, per some.

I’m late reporting this – as it seems November 19th was “World Toilet Day” according to an article, “What would you Do without a Loo?” and another historical discussion points out that civilization and the development of sanitation go together; Rome, for example, could not ignore the problem.

The Medieval Ages (plus emergence of Fundamentalist RC theories related to original sin, and the nobility of suffering, including if necessary in filth, had their impact).  I hope you scan that — it’s a quick read.   “The massive deaths by reason of the plagues had some people rethinking hygiene” (year 1210) . . .”Since the 1820s there have been no fundamental changes.” (parallel — when was the last time any change in what to do about death-causing domestic violence actually surfaced, i.e., that wasn’t “treatment, intervention, publication, and training”?)

Meanwhile, it’s just as healthy not to use “the throne.”  In Fact, Bill Gates is working on re-inventing the toilet (how did my thinking go here?  It’s easy — the phrase “going abroad” — and I believe it’s necessary to use symbols and one systems of meaning to understand another, although if one gets STUCK in a symbol system (i.e., DV as a sickness, conflict as bad, professionals as actually helpful, etc.) the society and its process of observation, labeling, and logic (reasoning) can get, well, “constipated.”  So, I have a little fun connecting the absurdly different (a highly respected organization with an annual revenue of around $36 million and lofty claims to basic human functions that MUST be needed, and if not heeded with sanitation (and sense) can wipe out a civilization, i.e., plague.   Or, for example, we are told that the early settlers in the US didn’t wash in the ocean, and didn’t dig for clams or catch much fish — yet certainly that would’ve fed them and cleansed them.

Bill Gates Seeks to Reinvent the Toilet

Analysis by Nic Halverson
Tue Aug 16, 2011 09:11 AM ET

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently launched a “Reinvent the Toilet” competition and have already awarded $3 million to researchers at eight universities to redesign the porcelain throne. The challenge? Develop an economical toilet that is doesn’t need to be connected to a sewer system, or to any water or electricity grid.

Healthcare Districts, Associations of Healthcare Districts and their Watchdogs:

This blog is not about water, healthcare, or for that matter school boards.  However it IS about use of taxes.  I got derailed into matters of “Water” simply by comparing one Domestic Violence Funds proposition that we (taxpayers) collectively support its $36million plans to create Futures Without Violence Abroad to the practice of pissing outside one’s home area, which of course (how my mind works sometimes) got me on just how complex it becomes when people are crowded together so closely that there IS no backyard to go piss in, at least not for years on end, and thus the community pools its funds to elect people to take care of their shit (literally).  I believe that assaults and violence could (generically speaking) be lumped in that category, as the (stuff) of overcrowding and too many people codependent on others to protect them, feed them, educate their young (handle their money), regulate their parenting practices (?) and in general, nurse them from womb to tomb.   Perhaps that model is a little over-rated, as this example I hope proves.

SUPPOSE BILL GATES DEVELOPS SUCH A TOILET THAT COULD BE USED IN URBAN AREAS TOO?  HOW MANY OF THE PEOPLE AND GROUPS BELOW WOULD BE OUT OF A JOB?

AND WHAT WAS THAT ABOUT THE ROMAN EMPIRE’S FALL HAVING SOMETHING TO DO WITH LEAD IN THE PIPES? ….

I mean, why the chair portion?   Consider how complicated it gets; from a travel article:

 How to Use a Squat Toilet (Frank Burres in Worldhum, 9/25/06)

“Warning: This article contains language that some will find offensive, but that others will find refreshingly honest”

Background: Squatting is an ancient practice, but knowledge of it has recently been lost in the West. The flush toilet wasn’t even invented until 1596. And toilet paper didn’t become popular until the 1900s. According to the Toilet Paper Encyclopedia, pre-TP, humans used corn cobs, Sears Roebuck catalogs, mussel shells, newspaper, leaves, sand, hayballs, gompf sticks and the end of old anchor cables on ships. Ouch!

But the good folks at the TPE seem blissfully unaware that most of the world’s people still use neither toilet paper, nor western sit-down crappers. Nor do they use corn cobs, gompf sticks or anchor cables. Because, while most of us in North America and Europe sit, people on just about every other continent squat, using water and their left hand. In much of Africa and Asia you can be hard-pressed to find anything else besides the squatter.

Beginning Squatting: I called Doug Lansky, a traveler and travel writer who knows the hardships of squatting. “It’s difficult,” said Lansky, who edited a book called, There’s No Toilet Paper on the Road Less Traveled.

I wish Bill Gates well in his exploration of alternates to the water systems that make the economy go whirr and hum, some of which so reduce people’s self-reliance (and thinking about the basics of life) that they willingly allow commissions associations, agencies and task forces to try and keep up with the agencies (and commissions) to take their hard-earned (or, easily earned) income (taxes) and, such that they need a “Local Agency Formation Commission”  (I kid you not) to study whether to dissolve another agency — which no longer has a hospital, but is still collecting funds.  I cannot find this particular agency (maybe it’s been dissolved?) as a corporation or trust anywhere in the state — and the attorney which was hired to determine whether to dissolve the nonexisting entity — who was in 2010 head of an Association of (such) Agencies — which does not exist as either a corporation or charity in California, meaning, if anyone is getting paid for this association of (unregistered entitites),  it’s not reporting to the public without a FOIA request, WTF (that’s an acronym for an expletive) it’s doing, financially.

Association of California Healthcare Districts — and where is this “Mt. Diablo Healthcare District to start with?  I don’t know (I don’t see it registered as nonprofit or corporation), but here comes a news reporter to inform us that the attorney hired to decide whether to dissolve it doesn’t follow the rules either.  So rules were changed accomodate his inability to handle a $5,000 services cap.  Weird:

Mt. Diablo Health Care District lawyer billed beyond board limit

By Lisa Vorderbrueggen
Contra Costa Times

Posted: 11/28/2011 04:15:57 PM PST

An outside attorney hired to help save an imperiled Contra Costa public health district billed the agency nearly three times more than what was authorized.**

Heavily censored invoices obtained through the California Public Records Act show Sacramento lawyer Ralph Ferguson billed the district for 52.3 hours totaling $14,000 in September and October. The district capped his pay at $5,000 when it hired him.

It’s the latest development in the increasing scrutiny of the Mt. Diablo Health Care District, an agency that lost its hospital 15 years ago but has continued to collect and spend hundreds of thousands of tax dollars. Roughly 200,000 residents in Concord, Martinez, Clyde, Pacheco and portions of Lafayette and Pleasant Hill live in the district.

It hired Ferguson three months ago as its liaison with the Contra Costa Local Agency Formation Commission, which is studying whether to dissolve the agency.

**Note:   He’s an attorney.  So this surprises us, why?  Same reporter, earlier this month (11/5/2011), in “Riding in to Rescue a Flailing Agency

The lawyer behind the strategy to rescue the ailing Mt. Diablo Health Care District will be remembered as a visionary or an opportunist.

Ralph Ferguson, the former chief of the Association of California Healthcare Districts and Mt. Diablo’s new attorney, believes the embattled public agency could model itself after the successful Beach Cities or Camarillo health care districts.

By way of background, a regulatory agency could dissolve the taxpayer-funded Central Contra Costa health care district. It has been criticized by four grand juries and others for its failure to do little more than pay its overhead and keep up the health insurance for a current and a former board member.**

Like Mt. Diablo, two Southern California districts no longer operate hospitals.

**perhaps this is what many agencies are for to start with?  Remember the Phoebe Factoids and the problems with Georgia’s chain of nonprofit hospitals, that stiffed uninsured parents and kept huge profits offshore?  Then apparently had enough clout to personally threaten the family of two men reporting on this?

This Commission to control Agencies and “Special Districts” really does exist, and has authority and a staff.  This authority seems to relate largely to taxes, incorporation, annexing or detaching land to one city or another, and things that relate to things we need — like water, schooling, healthcare, and such.  Authority:

▪ Annex land to cities or special districts,

▪ Detach land from cities or special districts,

▪ Consolidate two or more cities or two or more special districts,

Form new special districts and incorporate new cities,

Dissolve special districts and disincorporate cities, — WOW.  And the commission has six people. Only.

▪ Merge cities and special districts,

▪ Allow cities or special districts to provide services outside of their boundaries.

I hope that the term “SPECIAL DISTRICT” is required, by law, to be taught in all K-12 Special Unified School Districts so that, as adults, they can know who helps determine what low-income jobs  global marketplace their education is preparing most of them for, which will increase their odds of becoming part of the welfare caseload (or target in a drive-by- shooting) they will be able to work at, decrease their odds of giving those who know what a special district is — and how to obtain control over it — and cities.  After all, their JOBS provide tax income for these people to hire pricey lawyers to investigate waste of their own taxes. . .

I don’t know any individual that has the time to write “FOIA’s” (Freedom Of Information Act letters, requesting, obviously, information) – for every entity that is affecting that indivual’s personal, well, — Freedom.  Do you?

So JUST PERHAPS if a Bill Gates and friends can figure out that the rest of the west never needed the white throne, either (toilets) — we might be able to figure, as much of the non-Western, Pre-AFCC world, in fact Pre-1913 world  — how to live life without a parenting class. And that would put enough administrative and bureaucratic educators, and real estate, out of work to make OCCUPY THIS look like a children’s birthday party.

Why?  Because once people develop the habit of thinking, non-drug-induced, about HOW their world is run, the habit is catching, and many more taken-for-granteds will topple.

Put that next to a recent news article with the title “Agency in hot water over fees.”  This turns out not to actually be attorney-exaggarated fees on a Health Care District, not about water — however this one, “An End to Padded Water Bills  (Metropolitan Times, Los Angeles, 2009) IS.  This 2010 notice by “Californians Aware” on ” Subject: Notice of Strict Enforcement Concerning Certain Common Brown Act Violations is addressed to people at four different associations involved in basic business of — living — in California.  It is from another association, “Californians Aware” — the Center for Public Forum Rights.”

  • League of California Cities
  • Association of California Water Agencies
  • California School Boards Association
  • California State Association of Counties, and
  • Association of California Healthcare Districts, Ralph Ferguson, Executive Director (see next)
ACHD
In a very well-fleshed-out-website, the group’s (or lack of a better word reflecting their tax & incorporation status)  mission is stated:  “The Association of California Healthcare Districts serves and advances the diverse needs of all California Healthcare Districts through advocacy, education and member driven services. “

The “Association of California Healthcare Districts, INC.” is “Not Registered” as a California Charity (or corporation, that I can see) and “Ralph Ferguson” is the attorney in question mention as overbilling (etc.) in the article “Agency in hot water over fees” I linked to, above.  Go figure!

Organization Name Registration Number Record Type Registration Status City State Registration Type Record Type
ASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA HEALTHCARE DISTRICTS, INC. Charity Not Registered RANCHO CORDOVA CA Charity Registration Charity
1

The Secretary of State Site shows zero listing for the same Association.  IN fact, when I searched on only the words “healthcare District” there only 3 local ones showed, one o whose corporate status had been suspended.  If so, why a need for an Association of Healthcare Districts to start with?  Either have them — and force them to expose their corporate status– or don’t have them, at all, and quit playing games with the public.  I believe (?) the word “District” here means a region of people/residents who can be sold on the idea of accepting a tax to support, er, “Healthcare.”

Which of course, have been the topic of some scandal as to use.

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C1993854 11/05/1996 ACTIVE BEAR VALLEY COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE DISTRICT FOUNDATION HELEN WALSH
C2439485 03/11/2004 SUSPENDED HEALTHCARE DISTRICT INSURANCE AND MARKETING SERVICES, INC. JAMES L. BEYERS
C2858426 02/21/2006 ACTIVE THE CLOVERDALE HEALTHCARE DISTRICT FOUNDATION JAMES F DEMARTINI

While the phrase “healthcare district” on a charitable registry search produces zero results, which leads me to speculate that this multiple field search site does not have the ability to search phrases in the middle of the group’s name – unlike other states’ corporate searches.  For such a large state, California has a lousy corporation search website!

So I looked up “Bear Valley Community” on the OAG (Charity) site and find SIX charities (and one raffle) beginning with those three phrases.  TWO of the sex are not registered, but our 1996 one (above) is.  One of the “not registered” charities is “Bear Valley Community Hospital.”  If I lived in Bear Valley, California — I’d get on this quick.  The BVHC District tax return of 2002 lists $13K of government funding, of 2004, $26 of public (but no government) and apparently the charitable registration didn’t start until 2006.  Since I’m a nice person, I”ll list what Bear Valley Community anythings are still around (the church — active as a charity — is no longer active as a corporation, but they began in 1946.  Besides (see row one, below).

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C1137770 03/24/1983 ACTIVE BEAR VALLEY CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL ENRICHMENT, A RELIGIOUS SCIENCE COMMUNITY CAROLYN DAWLEY
C0208456 08/02/1946 SUSPENDED BEAR VALLEY COMMUNITY CHURCH DONALD FOOR
C2233852 05/08/2000 SUSPENDED BEAR VALLEY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION TERRY WOODROW
C1993854 11/05/1996 ACTIVE BEAR VALLEY COMMUNITY HEALTHCARE DISTRICT FOUNDATION HELEN WALSH
C1287435 09/30/1985 ACTIVE BEAR VALLEY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL AUXILIARY DOROTHEA SCHWAIGER
C0306083 07/07/1955 DISSOLVED BEAR VALLEY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL FUND, INC.
C1604740 01/19/1988 SUSPENDED BEAR VALLEY COMMUNITY HOSPITAL, INC. VI COLUNGA
C0482507 12/16/1964 ACTIVE BEAR VALLEY COMMUNITY NURSERY SCHOOL AMY PREY
C3189110 01/30/2009 ACTIVE BEAR VALLEY SPRINGS COMMUNITY RECREATION FACILITIES FOUNDATION MARGARET WANGLER
C1764347 05/30/1995 ACTIVE BIG BEAR VALLEY COMMUNITY ARTS THEATER SOCIETY KAREN SARGENT RACHELS
1 2

Bear Valley appears to be a Ski Resort area.  Cloverdale has a multitude of corporations, this is only a sample.  Notice the “Status” column:

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C0978805 03/28/1980 SUSPENDED CLOVERDALE BOOSTERS ASSOCIATION, INC. DONALD SATO
C0175845 06/02/1938 SUSPENDED CLOVERDALE BRIDGE CLUB
C0412712 04/18/1961 ACTIVE CLOVERDALE CABANA CLUB NOE LONGORIA
C1602586 12/18/1987 ACTIVE CLOVERDALE CABINETS, INC. ARNOLD M. HAUG
C3098377 05/05/2008 ACTIVE CLOVERDALE CANINE ALLIANCE, INC. MICHAEL P CAMPBELL
C1235613 01/11/1984 SURRENDER CLOVERDALE CASTINGS INC. C T CORPORATION SYSTEM
C0576616 07/31/1969 SUSPENDED CLOVERDALE CB-ERS
C0767052 04/02/1976 SUSPENDED CLOVERDALE CHAPTER #2430 OF AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF RETIRED PERSONS, INC. DIANA TREANKLE
C0772429 06/24/1976 DISSOLVED CLOVERDALE CHILDREN’S CENTER, INCORPORATED
C1934975 05/15/1995 SUSPENDED CLOVERDALE CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP JACK REGO

Cloverdale is in Sonoma County (California Coast, wine country) and in 2010 had a population of 8,618 in 2010, and is in California’s 1st Congressional District (FYI)

Cloverdale is located in the northern portion of Sonoma County, and is the farthest city north in the San Francisco Bay Area, about 85 miles (135 km) north of San FranciscoU.S. 101 runs through the town, as does State Route 128.

The city has a total area of 2.6 square miles (6.7 km2), all of it land.

Cloverdale is located in the Wine Country, being part of the Alexander Valley AVA.

(Thank you, Wikipedia) 

That’s a whole lotta business for a population of 8,000….

Californians Aware:  The Center for Public Forum Rights (who warned the above 4 association heads (at least one of who is an attorney) to mind their legal compliance on the Brown Act as to closed-door meetings) registered as a corporation in 2004, which indicates they filed articles of incorporation and paid a fee, and have a board of directors of at least one person.  THey probably even have a bank account.

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C2646702 04/16/2004 ACTIVE CALIFORNIANS AWARE: THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC FORUM RIGHTS EMILY KATHLEEN FRANCKE

They even dutifully filed with the IRS for years 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007, with a VERY modest budget (under $50K) and then stopped filing, meaning as of 8/23/2010, they are Delinquent as a charity.  However, their letter to the 4 association heads was written in November, 2010.  They do not appear to ever have sent anything to the OAG at all (either IRS return or RRF):

ull Name: CALIFORNIANS AWARE: THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC FORUM RIGHTS FEIN: 201008855
Type: Public Benefit Corporate or Organization Number: 2646702
Registration Number: 125817
Record Type: Charity Registration Type: Charity Registration
Issue Date: 12/31/2006 Renewal Due Date: 5/14/2008
Registration Status: Delinquent Date This Status: 8/23/2010

They apparently lost a leader very recently, but are still collecting donations — possibly illegally — from their website, not that this would put them in different company than groups they are reporting on, who financially I’m sure leave this group in the dust.  The foundation number shows no (none whatever) returns under this EIN# above, but the California OAG has information from somewhere that is posted.  Then again, neither does the “Association of California Healthcare Districts” show its face — at all under this name, on the foundation finder.  How could it, without even an EIN# to go on?

Notice: The IRS has announced processing errors on electronically filed Forms 990 for filing years 2007-2009. Learn more»

Search criteria: ( Name: association of california healthcare districts State: CA )
0 matching documents retrieved (0 displayed)

Be that as that may, their board of directors is scheduled to meet this week, December 2, 2011.

The Brown Act in California deals with closed-door meetings on actions of public interest.

Perhaps in this case, the term applies.  Futures WIthout Violence has outgrown its britches, and I will not cease reporting on this.

(They’d better go abroad, because word is getting out — principally from me, that I can see — is that media campaigns don’t result in character transformations, and failing to report on the family court scams, and DV organization sell-outs is still getting families killed.  Last one — in the same general locality as this group — is a recent headline — a San Jose Policeman and his wife, apparent murder-suicide, and they have two teenagers. (Not sure about this incident, it looks almost staged from the reporting, and the word “apparently” shows up a lot.  I also note it was a second marriage (or, he had a stepson).  San Jose is not too far from San Francisco, however in the Bay Area there are drive-by-shootings hitting young people (recently a one-year old child) and in more than one neighborhood.  I believe that a $36 million annual revenue, even after subtracting several salaries over $100 million and Esta Soler’s of over $200 million (per year) should demand — not just suggest — some proof of effectiveness before getting one more cent — and this every five years at a minimum.  FVPF (FVW) claims to have begun in 1980.  If the Washington, D.C. corporations search bears this out, then it did — but in SF at least, it only began in 1989, meaning, a company that (now) specializes in media based campaigns and trainings, has been lying in its own self-descriptions.  1980 v. 1989 = nine years’ difference in reporting incorporation is not a minor issue, and I hope my suspicions on that one prove wrong.

Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C2583174 05/17/2004 ACTIVE RELATIONSHIP TRAINING INSTITUTE DAVID B WEXLER

 Surely Relationship Training Institute (which falls under this category) also has to — but not one RRF or IRS hyperlink has been uploaded to the public website for it) while – there is not one single RFI filing from 2006 – 2011.   And the OAG somehow, hasn’t commented on this, and the charitable status remains labeled “Current.”  I figure this means someone is receiving money somewhere, and the “slap you on your wrist” letter may have indicated said someones wasn’t paid their (kickback, or payoff) this time.  Whether this is instinct, speculation, or error will not be known until other facts are known.

I certainly don’t buy that no one in the criminal branch of California Government (with the Attorney General being the top) knows about this group, for one, on their “About Us” page (including the “Guest Faculty list with Sandra Brown, M.A. (Christian “Liberty University” with on-line degree programs) and no known bachelor’s degree, plus CEO of her group whose corporate and charitable (if any) identity isn’t know either), not to mention  “Brian Erickson, Esq., San Diego City Attorney’s Office )(do a FOIA, get the payroll and reimbursements!), says:

The Relationship Training Institute is approved by the San Diego County Probation Department to provide clinical training for all authorized county domestic violence treatment programs for court-ordered offenders.

and it (RTI) is running certification programs for “Domestic Violence Providers,” probably receiving some help (whether as direct or subgrantee) from an OVW STOP program grant:

The STOP Program: Understanding & Treating Domestic Violence
40-HOUR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TREATMENT PROVIDER CERTIFICATION COURSE

May 3,4,5 & 11,12, 2012

 Domestic violence is not a crime, but a disease that can be treated.  Sounds like the AFCC plan to transform language is indeed working….)

So, it just seems odd that this group doing quite a bit of business with the California legal and judicial systems (cf.  “court-ordered” “Probation”) has somehow escaped the OAG’s radar as to filing its annual statewide returns. Unlike many sites, I don’t see any claim of when they started (“ask me no questions, I will tell you no lies”), but from the registration site it’s been fully 4 years, from the Secretary of state site (above), fully let’s say 6 (allowing for the 2011 year to end) of its not doing anything.  Does this make you go hmmm? in context?  (it should).

I think I know “what is it” about this — it’s simply that the profits from these practice are pretty hard to profile (trace).

I’ve heard it said (NOYB where) that a psychiatrist is a would-be physician, in other words, the field has a bit of an inferiority complex, even though they can indeed prescribe medications.  And psychologists are would-be psychiatrists, there is a professional jealousy, hierarchy and wish for glory.  I think the evidence supports this characterization, don’t you?  They like to pronounce, but without enough trade promotion, who’s going to give a hoot about what they say?

When psychologists begin to rule a nation – which FYI has already happened — it’s just about gone.  Not much difference from when religion does, which I think is my point in the ridiculous term “faith-based” with which we are now drenched in the field of social service, thanks to President Bush, President Clinton, and a while back (like 1994), Congress slipping up and letting a single HHS grant go to jumpstart the National Fatherhood Initiative, which story EVERy parent (male or female) should know in detail.  This now has morphed and multiplied to HHS funding groups with six-letter acronyms (and only one vowell, or none) like:

NRFCBI

GOFBCI

NCJFCJ

or 5-letter ones such as I’m going to profile today

ACFLS (“Inc.”)

Respectively, “National Responsible Fatherhood Capacity Building Initiative” (translation, more HHS funds and a Certfication College), Governor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (this is in Ohio; translations — grabs more HHS money, in the form of TANF funds, for starters), National Center for Family and Juvenile Court Judges (HHS and DOJ supported, in Reno, NV), and the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists (as opposed to what kind of Family Law Specialists?) based in California.

Here’s a glimpse at the purpose and method of the “NRFCBI” — think Wade Horn, Don Eberly, Don Blankenhorn, Institute for American Values (another nonprofit), etc.  Thanks to the web and well-trained trainers fo trainers (and not a few on the Congressional Legislative Task forces of NFI, see its site), one can simultaneously be meeting behind closed doors with a new Governor or head of the Social Rehabilitation Services for an entire state — and be training others, and get a whole dang lot of this soaking up public funds to do it.

About NRFCBI

In partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Family Assistance,National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) has designed the National Responsible Fatherhood Capacity-Building Initiative (NRFCBI) to aid grassroots and community-based organizations through a series of capacity-building grants.

These grants will empower community-based organizations by:

  • developing each recipient’s organizational infrastructure
  • enhancing its leadership; introducing sub-awardees to new programming recommendations, and
  • improving each awardee’s connections in the community-at-large

Ultimately, the NRFCBI aims to strategically improve sub-awardees’ capacity to provide services to local fathers and families.**

The NRFCBI was developed with funds and support from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Family Assistance. Each awardee receives a one-time $25,000 award to strengthen fathers and families in communities throughout the United States.

** local mothers — including those dealing with said fathers, to their risk — can go jump in a lake.  Particularly if they hope to actually get the access visitation local sub-grantee, which allegedly is for noncustodial parents (not exclusively men) when there are problems with — access and visitation.

What — really, when you examine it, IS this National Responsible Fatherhood Capacity-Building Initiative?  If you had to explain it to an alien, new to earth, new to the financial system, barely understanding the Internet, and someone who thinks instead in more concrete (versus “virtual” wordy) terms — what would you say?

Let’s try:

And most of these are “nonprofits,” which of itself means ??

Think about it:  Tax-Exempt = an IRS Perk that lets others pick up the “Social Services” 

Tax-exempt status implies (this isn’t actually true, but the theory goes) one is providing a legitimate public service, so this group should be exempt from the indentured service the people they serve (theoretically), that actually results things the public can use — cars, food, steel, paved roads, clothes — things that wage-earners labor at for their business employer, some of which the public actually needs (like homes to live in).  (I omitted the public school system in their intentionally).

Most of my close look at family law fields comes down to the same point:

The presence of the IRS and the accumulation of wealth, per capita (unless people know or figure out how to become tax-exempt or work under the table, which we know happens) — has enabled more inflated programs, initiatives, institutes, centers and for that matter has simply centralized wealth in the wrong hands — in the hands of people with global aspirations, historic to their family (Bush) and associations (Project for a New American Century, Family Research Center, etc.).  Billionaires and millionaires with apparently time on their hands (boredom – “let’s go find someone else to abuse,” and “play dominoes with countries”) and worlds to change, or as it may be starve into oblivion, attack without cause (Iraq), colonize — although supposedly the USA was “independent” of the empire on which the Sun never set, or simply blow off the face of the globe.

No wonder at the individual and family level, such societies have trouble with so many people who do this at the local and family level.  Perhaps it’s the “trickle-down” effect.  The wealth didn’t trickle down, but after enough decades of abuse and deprivation of rights, angry crowds assemble, without sufficient outlets, and they explode — or go home and kick the wife.  Or husband.  Or child.

One guy in France recently, just murdered his three-year-old son in a washing machine, allegedly for misbehavior (he was THREE!) at pre-school.  He was 33.  The mother, of seven (age 25), tried to cover for him.  The neighbors knew of prior abuse in fact the five-year old sister of the three-year old knew, and reported (probably at the same time).  I cannot pardon this mother for lying — but I sure do wonder what conditions had her marrying at age 19 (married to get away from abuse at home) and having one child a year, approximately, with the bastard.  Now the surviving six are going to be in foster care.  I sure hope THAT Grandma won’t put up a fight for custody, after no reporting in time to save her grandson’s life.

I cannot give an answer articles like this (as a mother, I tried), but I sure did notice that the AMERICAN article, reporting on this — had 89 comments, and the summary made no mention of where was the mother.  Only 1 in 10 comments (about 8-9 maximum) even mentioned the mother which (to me, not having read all the links) for all I know was not in the picture.  She wasn’t in the reporter’s picture.  Those who mentioned the mother verbally crucified her along with the Dad.  Others debated contraception and abortion.  A Dad or two got on to say, hey, c’mon, we’re not all bad!  And I couldn’t do a 1500 word response, because more than 1500 word circumstances led to this situation.

What good did the preschool do?  Did it have any concept of abuse going on of a little kid at home, or were traumatized, or acting-out little kids so normal to them, or shut-down emotionally ones — who knows?  Perhaps — barring families like this — preschool just isn’t an appropriate place for three-year olds; maybe they need to be taken care of by the Moms, not by the state, or parochial schools, or daycare centers.   Maybe if there weren’t such a push for early childhood systems (YES< I know this was France, not the USA, but think about it), there’d be more money for other social services — like FOOD — to help support even married or cohabiting mothers while they take care of their children.

What really bothers me was a comment from a woman in Atlanta, Georgia — “don’t they have children’s services in France?”

Don’t they have awake citizens in Georgia?  So many problem situations lead back to there, including people who began in GEorgia and now are so problemmatic in (Scranton), PA area that some parents who began reporting, and getting payment records from one of the dynamic duo of parent coordinators (Boyan, Termini — Boyan was the Georgia connection, but both are among professionals recommended — from Kentucky Courts — in:

  1. Active Parenting Publishers

    www.activeparenting.com/

    Active Parenting programs are built to help educators create successful parent  Active Parenting Publishers has provided award-winning, video-based parenting classes for helping professionals since 1983. Kennesaw, GA 30144-7808 

These professionals (on that roster and others), one of them was so “helpful” that between her, a local judge and a local GAL, apparently, the FBI went and raided the courthouse, walking out with evidence — before a man who’d filed a lawsuit against inappropriate use of public funds could complete the lawsuit.  The thread is here:

http://scrantonpoliticaltimes.activeboard.com/t45346544/family-courts-co-parenting-coordinator-ann-marie-termini-vs-/?page=4

These parents and activists banded together on a forum, and have posted things such as a questionable professional’s contracts, payment vouchers, and made connections, for example (one post) Oct. 4th, from user “Toss Ross” (meaning — see below) — noticed (from the payments posted, presumably):

Is this just a coincidence or was there a natural huge spike in Termini’s income with the county?

January of 2008 is $2,320.00 total for her services.

January of 2009 is $3,220.00

January of 2010 is $4,110.00

January of 2011 is a huge increase to $7,050.00

Isn’t 2008 when Chet started appointing cases like crazy to Ross?

And all of a sudden Termini sees over 300% increase in business since Ross got all those case?  Did Termini get all of Ross’ cases.  Wow, if that’s the case Termini sure got lucky.

Coincidence?  I think not Mr. Fed.  I think not.

How about LiBassi? Did he get lucky, too?  Thank you, Mr. P.  What a treasure of information. I hope the investigators note the luck and the coincidences.

Ross is the GAL, and Termini the Parenting Coordinator.  He noticed a payment spike in 2008.  Well (coincidence?) in Georgia in 2008 a Boyan-Termini Business lost its incorporation status (National Association of Parent Coordinators), etc.

not here (note:  “0 comments”)

FBI searches Lackawanna County (Pennsylvania) court administrator’s office

BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK (STAFF WRITER)
Published: November 15, 2011

FBI agents executed a search warrant on Lackawanna County Court Administrator Ron Mackay’s office Monday afternoon as part of an investigation into a program that provides lawyers for children in family court cases.

Mackay declined to answer questions about the visit and answered “no” when asked if he would provide Times-Shamrock newspapers a copy of the search warrant.

The visit lasted less than an hour. . .

A source familiar with the visit told the newspaper the search warrant was related to the county’s guardian ad litem system.

The FBI has been investigating the county’s guardian ad litem system, which is in the hands of one lawyer, attorney Danielle Ross. The county court sometimes appoints a guardian ad litem to represent the interests of children in family court disputes between parents, often in cases of divorce or when custody is at stake.

Late last month, agents served subpoenas at the county courthouse and administration building as part of their investigation. In September, a federal grand jury subpoena ordered County Controller Ken McDowell to produce all bills, invoices, receipts and statements for every case assigned to Ross.

Read more: http://citizensvoice.com/news/fbi-searches-lackawanna-county-court-administrator-s-office-1.1232501#ixzz1fzQiFd1s

As we have been talking about groups which are not filing consistently with the State (of California, mostly) for their Charitable Returns — or not doing so correctly — while doing sometimes (Futures without Violence) mega-business within the state — it seems appropriate to remind us about the strange financial relationship between KIDS TURN (SF) and the SFTC:

As below:

Record
Date Document Doc Type E/R Name
Show Name Detail Show APN Detail 12/14/2010 J099605-00 NOTICE LIEN R KIDS TURN
Show Name Detail Show APN Detail 12/14/2010 J098917-00 NOTICE LIEN R KIDS TURN
Show Name Detail Show APN Detail 12/11/2009 I887047-00 NOTICE LIEN R KIDS TURN
Show Name Detail Show APN Detail 01/27/2004 H647258-00 NOTICE LIEN R KIDS TUR

 

 

You can see the four dates.  Every single one of them shows that “SFTC” actually has a LIEN on Kids Turn, meaning (apparently) that at some point in time, the nonprofit Kids Turn RECEIVED some money (or other thing that would be due back) from the SF Courts.  They now owe this to the courts, creating a Recorded Lien (?).    This has happened in 2004, 2009 and twice in one day in 2010, generally around the end or beginning of a year (Dec/January).  Was this for tax reporting purposes as well?
A BIG — very big — stink was made in California about Judges — who are to be paid by the state — receiving payment from the states, and not counties.  Legislation was passed to retroactively immunize the state of California’s Judges from prosecution for this (after Richard Fine casework) let the entire judicial system have to be shutdown.  Then they got back to disbarring the honest man, and throwing him in jail improperly, not to mention somewhere in there cutting off his legitimately earned fees as an attorney.  We should review this from time to time as a reminder of JUST who one is dealing with in the august legislators and judicial authorities of the state with the largest court system in the country, and which is looked to as a model.  I fear that Big Brother in this case has been setting a lousy example, and I cannot hold common Californians responsible for having high-conflict families, either, or being “flawed,” problemmatic, or most recently, having multiple personality problems troubling the court professionals (Bill Eddy High Conflict Institute language, etc.) as we are so often described in AFCC conferences.
KT was founded and “board-ed” as we know by judges, attorneys, and supported by foundations, donations, and of course some of the attorneys and judges on the board at times no doubt also contributed to Kids’ Turn) — which is a parent education model that tried to get iits name — SPECIFICALLY — written into California Law as THE standard, and which model has been followed in other states.
OK, let’s do a hypothetical situation here.  Again, I’m speculating — which so far, is not seditious, it’s simply expressive and cogitational.  I do not believe this is prohibited activity (other than we’ve already discerned that reporting criminal activity against one’s self or one’s kids, including kidnapping, assault, battery, molestation, stalking or other threats — is a self-defeating in the family law forum.   The ROI is just not worth it!  You will be labled and ordered into parenting services, and have another court professional assigned to your high-conflict-parent self.
But let’s just suppose:   At any given time (given the rotating board membership of Kids’ Turn), let’s suppose that a presiding judge, commissioner, or other person is ALSO involved in litigation on a specific case, and a parent, or a parent’s business, makes a nice fat donation to Kids’ Turn at the time.  Money is clearly changing hands between this group and the courts (not to mention, it also showed up as a nonprofit vendor in the City and County of SF 2007, 2008 & 2009) — wouldn’t that compromise the integrity of any ruling?
And because the general public doesn’t have access to the list of contributors in any timely fashion (the OAG does), unless the ruling judges were scrupulously honest (something they don’t exactly have a reputation for) how could any parent wishing to check impartiality, once aware of this particular financial relationship, protect his or her custody case?  Without access to the information.  As we can see below — (I think it was San Francisco) one of the groups had had its corporate license suspended, but now is reinstated (after I reported….):
Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C1657442 12/29/1989 ACTIVE KID’S TURN CLAIRE BARNES
C1970774 06/05/1996 ACTIVE KID’S TURN, SAN DIEGO JAMES REYNOLDS DAVIS
Here’s the previous version, as I blogged Aug 31, 2011 in “Chasing Down Charitable & Corporate Registrations for (more) Court-Connected Nonprofits”:
Entity Number Date Filed Status Entity Name Agent for Service of Process
C1657442 12/29/1989 SUSPENDED KID’S TURN CLAIRE BARNES
C1970774 06/05/1996 ACTIVE KID’S TURN, SAN DIEGO JAMES REYNOLDS DAVIS

 

Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania (which is working on also passing a Faith-based initiative; I hope the bill stalls in suspended animation) civil rules of procedure were amended to specify REQUIRED use of “Kids First” (a fictitious name registered to Chet Muklewicz) a Kids’ Turn knockoff (same idea, same setup basically, different name); only this time, some of the locals caught on, reported, and in comes the FBI.  Believe me, I’ll teach them everything I know in the noble effort.  These are some seriously “high-conflict” parents (they have a serious conflict with court corruption) and may they never settle down, at least in that regard.

The forum was even shut down inappropriately without notice to the moderators, but the resulting suit pulled in the ACLU and up they went again

 

TIt’s self-evident that (given how simple it is to incorporate) the average “consumer” (litigant or “client” of any Family Court Services setup — even if they become aware of their local professionals’ addicition to forming nonprofits, & related for-profits marketing what the nonprofit sells, and memership associations to sell franchise opportunities for the same — while taking public funds as county employees, or contractors (etc.) — there is no way to keep up.

Nor should we have to — or be forced to spend the valuable ours of our lives as parents — or anyone else — tracking down crooked behavior on behalf of our own government that can’t (or doesn’t) keep up with it!

 

Just as certain parties wish to legislate their pet parent education (or abstinence education, for that matter) into mandated status — I believe that anyone who disagrees with this better think about how to get some legislating that starts with “JUST SAY NO!” to allowing ANY court employees or County employees staffing the courts, to form, be employed by, or be on the boards of, ANY nonprofit to which the court, jails, or county — will defer business.

The kazillions of diversionary programs presume that the US population has simply become unmanageable, riotous, incapable of monitoring themselves, dangerously volatile, horrible to children (universally, judging by how popular the foster care and adoption industries are) and in general incompetent idiots incapable of managing themselves or their neighborhoods.

 

I do not share this view.  Yeah, it applies often enough — but I have a problem with the parties stating this so often having been the ones riding herd for decade after decade anyhow — so this should be taken into account.  Starting with the public education system.  Talk about handing over one’s children to the current Administration the moment they go through the doors, and/or metal detectors.   No sir!   This is an institution that doesn’t handle competition very well, and the more centralized it gets, the less freedom the US has, and we’re pretty far down the fascist road already (referring to centralizing control and setting policy without going through Congress).  The more it fails, the more money it demands to compensate.

Taken as a whole, it is quite similar to the family court system, which people universally like to say is “broken” –but it seems to be working according to plan from what I can tell.  It’s the PLAN I have issues with — and which needs to be changed, if it cannot be tolerated by the public any longer.

 

 

Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up

December 8, 2011 at 8:32 pm

Posted in AFCC, Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Lackawanna County PA Corruption Protests, Mandatory Mediation, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Parent Education promotion, Parent Education promotion, Parenting Coordination promotion, Psychology & Law = an AFCC tactical lobbying unit, Vocabulary Lessons, Who's Who (bio snapshots)

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WIth Them in Spirit Tomorrow — Pennsylvania Parents Protest Apparent Court Cronyism (12/2/2011, Lackawanna County)

with one comment

 

This information is on a public forum, so I took the liberty of copying it here — from a thread from “Scranton Political Times” “Doherty Deceit Forum

It’s a quick post, but covers topics I’ve been blogging for a long time:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

PRESS RELEASE SENT OUT AT NOON TODAY

Second Lackawanna County Family Court Kids 4Kash Protest Set For December 2, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Scranton, Pa

The second in a series of demonstrations in what The Protesters have labeled The Lackawanna County KIDS 4 KASH Corruption Scheme will begin at 9am this Friday in front of the Family Court Building at 200 Adams Avenue. The protesters, many of whom are family court litigants, are in disbelief and outraged that President Judge Thomas Munley has not taken any action against the Court Appointed Guardian ad Litem, Attorney Danielle Ross. Unbelievably, Ross who is currently under investigation by the FBI and the Administrative Office of the Pennsylvania Court (AOPC) is still being assigned new cases every week.

{{WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF PARENTS SIMPLY REFUSED TO PARTICIPATE?  REFUSED TO PAY? AND THE JUDGE THEN TRIED TO INCARCERATE? }}

Their investigation of Ms. Ross was set in motion when a parent named Bruce Levine contacted Detective Michelle Mancuso from the Lackawanna County District Attorneys Office about discrepancies he found on Ross invoices for the services she claimed she provided as Guardian. As fate would have it, right about the same time, a thread directed against Ross called Kids 4 Kash was started by political activist Joseph Pilchesky on his contentious website, http://www.dohertydeceit.com. Fundamental to Pilchesky’s website is The First Amendment Right to Freedom of Speech.

The site encourages antagonistic dialogue about current local and global issues that is often times abrasive. Users that post comments on topics typically remain anonymous; therefore, it provides a safe venue for other parents and litigants to share their family court horror stories and eventually their identities with one another. Several of those parents that connected with each other on the website began to turn over Ross’ invoices to the authorities, which eventually lead to the involvement of the United States Attorney General’s Office.

The FBI began their investigation with a subpoena requesting all documents involving each and every case to which Attorney Ross was appointed and a Grand Jury was convened. In days to follow, many additional subpoenas were served upon court employees including the Lackawanna Count Court Administrator, Ron MacKay. When federal agents showed up at MacKay’s office located inside the county’s main Courthouse, he was sequestered and forced to remain in the hallway while agents searched his office. After about an hour, the agents left the Court Administrator’s Office with several boxes of documents.

It is unknown at this time what the FBI confiscated from MacKay’s office. As to why they raided his office, those close to the case strongly believe that the scope of the federal investigation has broadened well beyond the alleged fraudulent billing practices of Attorney Ross. Rumors of case steering and monetary kickbacks are out there.

The status of the AOPC investigation into the Guardian ad Litem Program, as well as Home Evaluation and supervised visitation payments, is unclear at this time despite the fact that on November 2, 2011, AOPC Attorney, Michael Daley, stated in open court that it would be available two weeks ago. To date, a RTK letter that was sent to the Court requesting the report has gone unanswered. Reliable sources within Family Court speculate that there are at least two plausible reasons for the delay. On one hand, there are many who are convinced that the AOPC investigation amounts to little more than a smoke screen used to give the Court a few months to cover its tracks and get its act together. While others believe that public pressure has forced AOPC investigator, Joseph Mittleman, to hold off on finalizing the report. He states that the AOPC is obligated to look into alleged acts of attorney misconduct as well as to conducting interviews with alleged victims of Family Court corruption.

Protests will be held every Friday starting at 9am in front of Family Court. The goal is to bring forth public awareness and gain support in the effort to expose what appears to be a moneymaking racket devised by the members of the Judiciary and several Child Custody/Divorce Professionals who do business with Family Court. The individuals with whom the Court most frequently Orders Family Court litigants to consult are Guardians Danielle Ross and Brenda Kobal, Lackawanna County’s sole co-parenting coordinator, Anne Marie Termini, Kids First presenter, Chet Muklewicz, Court mediator, AnthonyLibassi, Psychologists Drs. Ronald Refice and Arnold Shivenhold, and various child visitation supervisors affiliated with the Scranton Counseling Center.

The Parties who have been forced by Order of the Court to see these providers, attend numerous appointments, whether they need to or not, and pay enormous fees (if they are not declared indigent) have a lot of unanswered questions. Until those questions are answered, the only logical conclusion is that the Court and these providers are unjustly enriching themselves not only with the millions of Federal and State Grant dollars allocated for indigent Lackawanna County Children and Families but also money from private-pay litigants.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

“SHIVENHOLD” I’m fairly sure means “SCHIENVOLD”  who is AFCC leadership:

 

Here’s one filing in which Mr. Shienvold was called as Expert Witness for the Father, who wants primary physical custody of the children, and after the mother submitted to custody reports preceding a “Custody Trial” the mother then, of course, had to make special motions to actually read what was reported about her, and apparently planned to call him up and interview or cross-examine him.  The father then protest — aw heck, look at it yourself.

 

http://www.courts.state.pa.us/OpPosting/Superior/out/a29038_05.pdf  (his name is apparently mis-spelled here, too).

 

I have already posted on the forum that Mr. Scheinvold is a primary player in the Pennsylvania Commission for Justice Initiatives, and a key AFCC person, as was at least one of their judges, and that Harhut, Termini, and (was it Ross?) were presenting in Brooklyn, 2009 together at an “NACC” association meeting on matters related to Guardianship and Domestic Violence.

 

He is ALSO the “President-Elect” of AFCC, meaning his influence will be upon more parents than just those in this area.  I hope they figure this out quickly in time for the next generation of children, that an international association with a checkered history is helping run the courthouses, but right now, most don’t seem too interested in this, they are scrambling to survive, and have not looked up to the horizons.  In other words, for control to operate freely, it’s connections to other control must remain subterranean.  AFCC is hardly “subterranean” when it’s publishing statewide model custody evaluation standards, inventing new fields of practice faster than the previous ones can be caught and complained about (Parenting Coordination) and with personnel (over 3,000 membership) including, for example, at least a few on the California Judicial Council Administrative Office of the Courts.

[AFCC]

President Elect 
Arnold T. Shienvold, Ph.D.
Harrisburg, PA

Arnold Shienvold is the founding partner of Riegler, Shienvold & Associates. Dr. Shienvold received his Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Alabama and has specialized in dealing with high-conflict families since he began his practice in 1980. Dr. Shienvold is a member of the American Psychological Association and is a fellow of the Pennsylvania Psychological Association where he also serves on the custody evaluation task force. Dr. Shienvold is a past president of the Academy of Family Mediators and a past president of the Association for Conflict Resolution. He is also a member of the Pennsylvania Council of Mediators.

The PA Adminsitrative Office of the Courts and FBI are supposedly investigating the Lackawanna County parents’ complaints, so I hope they take it upon themselves to figure out — quickly — who the Pennsylvania Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) is comprised of, paid by, and answerable to.

 

  1. [PDF]

    Commission for Justice Initiatives in Pennsylvania Changing the 

    www15.brinkster.com/ncfcpgh/Report.pdf

    File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
    Arnold Shienvold, Ph.D., brought great understanding of the dynamics of separation, ….. 3 Site visit by Judy Shopp April 5, 2006; Dr. Arnold Sheinvold provides 

    You’ve visited this page 5 times. Last visit: 11/30/11

I don’t know that these parents have yet accepted that a State-Level “commission for Justice Initiatives” report (2007) called “Changing the Culture of Custody” with Mr. Shienvold listed front and center as a consultant actually relates to problems they are having at the county level

 

Arnold Shienvold, Ph.D.


Dr. Shienvold is the founding partner of Riegler • Shienvold and Associates.

Education
Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Alabama. He specialized in child clinical psychology and completed his internship at the Ohio State University Hospital.

Area of Emphasis
Dr. Shienvold has specialized in dealing with high conflict families since he began his practice. He is recognized locally and nationally as an expert in the areas of custody evaluations and family mediation. In addition to his direct clinical practice in those areas, Dr. Shienvold has consulted to public and private agencies, taught and lectured at a multitude of professional conferences and schools and published papers on these topics. Dr. Shienvold continues to see individuals and couples in therapy and he has an active forensic practice. Additionally, Dr. Shienvold has served as a professional facilitator for group meetings.

 

 

Yep.  High-conflict families.  Here’s a website I found in Australia (where AFCC has active membership, FYI) which calls “High Conflict” what it is, if I may quote them.  As an added bonus, I stuck two or three comments on this post, which is a year old now.  I hope that by the time 2012 is halfpast, the people in Scranton area will figure out (accept) what they are dealing with in the Unified Family Courts per se — which is an expense-paid (by txpayers) largely immune from responsibility, self-referring, self-propagating multiple income stream and often tax-exempt cash machine for paid membership of  about 5 different organizations (all playing at monitoring each other, instead of, more commonly, referring each other and providing business referrals to make them look  more expert than they really are.  If “expert” means, learning a business-specific jargon,  and to have a greater conscience about one’s cohorts than one’s clients — then a 12 year old, for example, has already learned to speak his or her own cultural language among peers, and probably knows as much about bullying, gangs, exclusion and arbitrary standards for who is IN and who is OUT.

In order for this field to continue until each generation of Family Court professionals retires (and eventually some will die of old age, though many of the originals are still collecting royalties, probably through Kids’First type operations nationwide), it MUST continue the lie (that’s  L.I.E.) that adult parents are by and large to be treated like misbehaving children, or punished until they play along.

This has been going on SO LONG that what they are studying and conferencing about now is basically a contaminated sample (of people and personalities).  In addition to the many factors of society contributing to any parent’s “psychological profile,” is probably such things as motherless children, children in foster care because there’s an incentive to put them there, kids who run away from abuse because there was no other safe option (they do not all turn out as well as Alanna Krause of Northern California, whose father, once he got custody, sent her away at age 13 to some kind of reform camp), and a series of protective mothers who feel it necessary to flee the US, or the state — although they, too, are quite likely to be hunted down and incarcerated.

 

10 Reasons The Family Court is Not Just About Conflict

1. Family Violence is often referred as “High Conflict”, “Entrenched Conflict” to mask the severity of the situation.

Mentioned in the latest report on Family Violence in Family Courts, high conflict has often been a tool to diminish support for victims within the media and inside the courts andwritten judgments.
For Instance, a judge referred to death threats, property damage and stalking towards the mother as, “High Conflict”:

 

 

Here’s a 3-page outline from a 2007 Texas Meeting of the AAML ( a group which initials anyone with a family law case should look up themselves!)

DEALING WITH CLIENTS WHICH ARE TOO HARD TO LOVE

The presenters gratefully acknowledge the work of Arnold T. Sheinvold, Ph.D. Dr. Sheinvold is the managing partner of Riegler, Shienvold & Associates, a comprehensive psychological practice in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The materials in this presentation were developed and presented by Dr. Sheinvold {{that’s SHIENVOLD}} at the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers’ 2007 Midyear Meeting. The presenters appreciate Dr. Sheinvold’s generosity in sharing his materials with the Texas family law community.

(and lists the personality types — borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial, etc.)

 

Here’s a 2006 article (abstract, I guess) from the FAMILY COURT REVIEW — which is a publication jointly published by AFCC & Hofstra Univ. in New York, listing this psychologists among others the parents are protesting, a number of AFCC personnel, including Philip Stahl, Ph.D. which virtually guarantees there will be (more) conversation about parental alienation (one of Dr. Stahl’s favorite topics), etc.

  1. Task Force for Model Standards of Practice for Child Custody Evaluation,

  2. David A. Martindale Reporter,
  3. Lorraine Martin,
  4. William G. Austin Task Force Co-chairs,
  5. Leslie Drozd,
  6. Dianna Gould-Saltman,
  7. H. D. Kirkpatrick,
  8. Kathryn Kuehnle,
  9. Debra Kulak,
  10. Denise McColley,
  11. Arnold Sheinvold, {{per his website it’s “SHIENVOLD”}}
  12. Jeffrey Siegel,
  13. Philip M. Stahl

Article first published online: 7 DEC 2006

DOI: 10.1111/j.1744-1617.2007.129_3.x

Issue

Family Court Review

Family Court Review

Volume 45, Issue 1, pages 70–91, January 2007

Additional Information(Show All)

 _ _ _ _ _ _ _

 

Ronald Refice

 

A Bit About How It’s Done”  (familycourtmatters Sept. 2011 post)

Here’s one of my former posts showing people samples of how to look things up — corporations, associations, just stay persistent!

Today’s Post is “all over the place” but provides a sampler of how — with as clumsy tools as various states give, the habit of searching for corporations and people who incorporate them, and then comparing boards of directors, whether they actually file tax returns or not, and whether while the press is all about justice, children, and helping resolve conflicts, a view at the nonprofit characterization many times simply categorizes the group as “Board of Trade” “Business Promotion” — which is what it is.

 

Too bad Thomas Szasz professor took up with a cult that’s been literally booted out of a country, the Church of Scientology — but think about what’s being said here:

Thomas Stephen Szasz (play/ˈsɑːs/sahss; born April 15, 1920) is a psychiatrist and academic. Since 1990[1] he has been Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Center in SyracuseNew York. He is a well-known social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, and of the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as of scientism. His books The Myth of Mental Illness (1960) and The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement (1970) set out some of the arguments with which he is most associated.

 

I wonder how the book compares to Phyllis Chesler’s “Women & Madness”

 

His views on special treatment follow from classical liberal roots which are based on the principles that each person has the right to bodily and mental self-ownership and the right to be free from violence from others, although he criticized the “Free World” as well as the communist states for their use of psychiatry and “drogophobia”. He believes that suicide {{!??!}}, the practice of medicine, use and sale of drugs and sexual relations should be private, contractual, and outside of state jurisdiction.

In 1973, the American Humanist Association named him Humanist of the Year and in 1979 he was honored with an honorary doctorate[2] at Universidad Francisco Marroquín.

 

Who wants a CONFLICT-FREE SOCIETY?  Is this some sort of death-wish, or a wish for a sedated society?  Or a managed society, as opposed to one where leadership is not shut down (because most leaders are going to cause some conflict; in fact some of the most significant leaders around — Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Nelson Mandela, Lincoln, John F. Kennedy,  and others –  (may I say Jesus Christ in this context?) — end up getting assassinated — yet their work lives on.  Most particularly, Gandhi was assassinated, but through NONViolent protest and understanding the economic system, helped get the British Empire out of India.     Maybe all of us should re-read his “moment of truth”  and get to ours, quicker, building upon what others before have actually learned — and not continually recreating from scratch as if the world has no history.

These groups are causing the conflict themselves by a number of habits:

  • It appears to be greed, dishonesty (chronic, though I can’t say all) and wishing to turn our justice system into their personal ATM and Rx-dispensary.  Psychologists can’t force-medicate people (I think), so the next best option is to become a Parent Coordinator adn get off on wrecking kids lives based on the fact that one of their parents disagrees with the other, and ignoring the fact that this might be because one is genuinely dangerous (or simply an _ _ _ hole hell-bent on punishing the other).
  • Using federal grants to assist one side of the party — and this is the fatherhood movement, sorry you honest Dads — to tip the scales.
  • Building courthouses when the rest of the country needs LESS micromanagement, not more of this kind.
Any one seeking to control language seeks to eliminate the First Amendment (typically for gain) and do so through a propaganda-driven war on the unaware.   AFCC has admitted it seeks to control language.  The associated groups do not respect the basic concept of due process — which requires no conflict of interest.

Go, Lackawanna!

I hope that protesters, besides correcting the spelling of “SHIENVOLD” (for credibility reasons), also feel free to search my site reporting on LibassiMediation being built by revising rules of court, into the custody modification form, my comparison of KIDS FIRST to KIDS TURN (California)*

And come to realize that a fifth column of psychologists, psychiatrists (adult, child, whatever) and mental health experts is basically a “Family Court Archipelago.” Even physicists have to examine their fundamental assumptions from time to time (cf. Newton, Galileo, and the recently publicized “String Theory”) not the least by at least examining evidence.  in this field — ONE NEVER HAS TO; It’s just about become THE primary field of the US Government (world’s largest contractor, and debtor) — and there are no right answers.   There is only a caste system:  Paid Expert v. Humble Subject matter).

 

 

 

*which is virtually a training ground for the California Family Court personnel (almost everyone has been on its boards, not to mention a person who was “most-wanted” or close to it as a Tax Evador — Halsey Minor (I think he’s on the Board too), plus the defenders of the high priestess of Satan against the High Priest (LaVey, and I”m using the terms loosely), operating at the time out of the same address were, it seems, Kids Turn was operating (2nd floor, 1242 market Street) and I posted that link also.

 

THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS, from ARACHNOID.COM/Psychology

with thanks to its author for presenting another outlook on the “experts” causing the trouble above.

The evidence-based revolution in psychology.

Copyright © 2011, Paul Lutus

For decades there has been increasing evidence that psychologists can’t reliably diagnose or treat mental illnesses, or mental illnesses aren’t objective illnesses as that term is understood, or that psychology has no testable scientific content. Psychologists’ reaction to this long-term trend has been to add more human behaviors to the “mental illness” category, in order not to lose more ground to medicine.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)5, what many call the “Bible” of psychology and its single most important guide to practice, shows this trend clearly — each new edition contains more conditions thought to merit the label “mental illness.” Here is a count of “mental illnesses” included in the DSM by year:*

Year Number of mental illnesses
1952 112
1968 163
1980 224
1987 253
1994 374

Obviously this trend might reflect an increase in our understanding of mental illness, and there might really be hundreds of legitimate mental illnesses. But let’s take a closer look at some conditions listed in the current DSM, conditions thought to require intervention by a mental health professional:

  • Stuttering
  • Spelling Disorder
  • Written Expression Disorder
  • Mathematics Disorder
  • Caffeine Intoxication/Withdrawal
  • Nicotine use/Withdrawal
  • Sibling Rivalry Disorder
  • Phase of Life Problem

Hmm. It seems if you don’t like your older brother, or can’t spell or do math very well, you aren’t just growing up, you’re suffering from a mental illness and need help from a professional. But I favor another explanation — as time passed and psychiatrists and psychologists realized they couldn’t reliably diagnose or cure real mental illnesses, they decided to repurpose themselves as academic tutors, babysitters and hired friends for wealthy patrons.*** For this strategy to work, the DSM needed to include ordinary states of being that could only justify the help of a teacher or sympathetic friend. In other words, in rewriting their profession’s guidebook, for self-serving reasons psychologists deliberately blurred the distinction between everyday problems and mental illness.

**For an account of the struggle to include just a few women in the review board, see “Backlash:  America’s Undeclared War on Women.”  For a bonus, you can also read in this book (probably available at low cost or used, or library) a chapter on Robert Bly and Warren Farrell — after he recanted his prior feminism (Warren Farrell these days wants to start a White House Council on Men and Boys, I heard).  It’s pretty funny.
*** Actually, the statement in blue may be a rational explanation for AFCC’s origins.  They quickly realized that the wealthiest patron around was the United States Government (i.e. those who fund it).  One of its founders was a prison psychologist.  Other hotshots in this in this AFCC association come from (or still work in) psychiatric hospitals.  COmbined with the wonderful reputation the legal field has for ethics and honesty (:  (:, it sounds like a dynamic duo to me:  Psychology plus lawyers, plus judges, most of who probably used to be lawyers anyhow.
profit (apart from sheer conniving and greed, the joy of “getting away with it” and being somewhat close to the top of society, without actually having to do more than rehash the catechism yearly in slightly different terms, and assign outreach coordinators and “evangelists” to connect up with people already ensconced in the judicial and psychological professions, etc.)
ONE FINAL NOTE — ACESTUDY.org
Long-term trauma and abuse (“Adverse Childhood Events”) is going to have an impact on growing children.  As such, abusing children would become literally profitable.  StoppingCourt-Ordered Abuse of Children might be contrary to the purpose of the courts from the start, which was to ensure psychologists increasing respectability, whether earned or not earned.
I don’t want to dismiss anyone’s Ph.D. lightly.  But with a Ph.D. there comes a responsibility to make sure it’s not just the same thing, Piled Higher and Deeper.  And in this particular field, it had very little foundational depth to start with.
This can be seen in the tendency to pompous declarations and mutual self-admiration among many of the associations, and in some cases (I doubt in Dr. Shienvold’s) far too many false credentials.
(That’s all I have time for on this post.)