Archive for the ‘Child Support’ Category
How NY’s OTDA [social services agency] runs even more fatherhood (and DV) funding through FFFS alternate circuitry
(Post short-link ends “-23A” total wordcount about 6,500, published Jan. 15. 2014. Other than adding this information, I’ve not edited the post since — but may sometime in the future. //LGH May 31, 2020)
From a pre-Thanksgiving draft (and in not much beyond draft shape) I simply want to illustrate how “Follow the money” is almost impossible when it comes to the entrenched systems of Fatherhood, yes, also Domestic Violence prevention categories.
Some things you can’t see without even reading some detailed Administrative Memorandum offering more perks through, as in this example, “Flexible Funds for Family Services.” [FFFS]. I provided about half a post’s worth of intro, so if you want the original (and more picturesque part) please do scroll down at least to the first set of quotes, in tables with a rich brown background. This post relates to the “fatherhood.gov” a.k.a. “the National Responsible Fatherhood Resource Center and an Albany, New York street address on the contact page? and who that relates to. This field and the supposedly contrary field (domestic violence) since 1996 have been funded through the federal government. I did the best I could with formatting and hope the post further enlightens us ALL to (wake up and smell the coffee)….and make a New Year’s Resolution to start better comprehending “government” and how it’s funded. While I’m not the expert, I do have access to some tools which are NOT taught in most schools or reported in the local mainstream media. The tools aren’t to drown anyone with details, but the exhibit certain concepts — and from there, make a more informed decision of where you stand regarding (well, what’s to be done with your future TIME and LIFE). Read the rest of this entry »
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More “Fun with Funds” from California State Manual (see Media/Uploads post) [Publ. 11/14/2013
More “Fun with Funds” from California State Manual (see Media/Uploads post) [Publ. 11/14/2013]. (short-link ends: “-24q”) This title and short-link (and border/font-change) added July 11, 2019) Wordcount, about 20,000: note: I see it contains some tables, i.e., see Title).
SHOW AND TELL RE: FUNDS AND FUNDING. AND, THE SIGNS OF THESE TIMES. WHO WILL BECOME the “TRACKERs, observers, teachers” of these things?
This is another in a series of Show and Tell Posts providing more language (concepts) and tools (links) to “Shine the Light” (some readers will recognize where that phrase comes from) on exactly what my blog motto talks about. Including the money. Others include:
- My Media Uploads/Retrospective — But First, the Context (published 11/11/2013)
- Look and See, Show and Tell (Selected Media/Library Exhibits to this Blog (published 11/11/2013, just now…)
- Who Owns, Operates and Leases the Real Estate [and buildings] in Which Justice is Dispensed? [[make that “from which” justice is dispensed…]]
- There is in the State Treasury a Family Law Trust Fund (published 1/27/2013, about a year ago).
INCIDENTALLY, Blogging and Quoting Protocol:
WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get)! This is packed with information and insight, not to mention exhortation, demonstration, and all that. Originally I just wanted people to see the visual for the listing of those funds..
(By the way– this IS my effort and writing, and if you quote segments of it elsewhere, please include a link and reference “FamilyCourtMatters.wordpress.com” and or (See Gravatar) “investigative blogger “Let’s Get Honest.” Also be aware than when you do so, a lot of formatting codes are going to come along and possibly make it look visually (even) worse, a situation that makes posting neat and clean stuff (including those quotations and the occasional graphic) a real difficulty.
Anything not credited to someone else with quote or link, IS co. me, co. 2013 and for the readers, that’s “Let’s Get Honest,” owner of this blog, til further notice. I do not sign my name for reasons of safety/outstanding legal issues of the underlying court case. Were it not just me, I’d possibly have “ditched it” earlier, but as a parent, I cannot.
Did you come up with this information and put it in context and chronological setting?
So, if you quote — be sure to LINK and CITE (and let me know)!(Thanks!)
The longer ANYONE holds money (before distributing) in either interest-bearing or investment (ROI-producing) accounts before distributing it — depending on their relationship to the tax code — the more profits they have, and the less whoever gave it to them did, UNLESS those who gave also needed write-offs. The people who LEAST need to be giving the MOST upfront and hoping that stewardship is good and services (to handle your distressed neighbors, or self included) are good and timely — are individual workers, not having formed of joined corporations to protect and consolidate their assets. And that’s MOST of America, from what I can tell.
Economically “Out of sight out of mind” is not good balance of power. Unchecked power (and to properly check power, ONE Group of organized people have to have some economic sufficiency AND the time and heart to put into the matter!)
In general I may not say it beautifully, but I know these are the right questions to ask, and things to consider. A journalist who is going to unearth the amount of evidence in individual custody cases that this woman Anne Stevenson has, or about Courthouse Corporations and “The Training” rackets that THIS one has Marv Bryer, is rare. There are many, though not enough, more where they came from (including yours truly) particularly concerned with the courts.
However, ALL people can and should put in some basic, minimal time and learn to EDUCATE THEMSELVES how to look up fund balances, and identify where the money flowing through these family and conciliation courts is coming from, and going to! Their collateral damages affect neighborhoods and present, future and past generation, and there is a clear pattern of goods in motion FROM one sector TOWARDS other sectors. Only looking at the financials, and that movement, will properly identify the sectors. Moreover, it’s a good education of a neglected (except by those in it) field.
IT’S (BEYOND) TIME TO CATCH THE DRIFT, AND DIG FOR THE DETAILS, AND DETERMINE THE DIRECTION IT IS GOING, AND WHETHER THIS IS THE ONE WE (‘the People’) WANT. THIS PROCESS WILL ALSO HELP BETTER DEFINE WHETHER THERE EVEN IF A “the People of these United States” ANY MORE, AND IF SO, WHO THAT REFERS TO.
I hope that in my lifetime more people catch on, strategize a resistance, publicize this information and themselves get organized to disseminate the basics. I’m working on it too, but it’s definitely not a one-woman job, and after this gauntlet lasting years (it was never closed, resolved, or put right. The legal and factual matters remained OFF the table and there has been no consensus. People simply continue to get older IN the abusive relationships and as these things to, the longer you’re in it, the harder it is to get free. Anyone is welcome to help — there’s a Donate Button on the right sidebar. Looks like this:
CALIFORNIA MANUAL OF STATE FUNDS:
- A November 2013 printout of a listing labeled “October 2013″ (Column 2 anyhow) from the California Manual of State Funds; accessed at this site (Col.2) http://www.dof.ca.gov/accounting/uniform_codes_manual/funds/documents/20fundnum.pdf and a related one, for Column1, which (click and see) gives concise, one-page forms explaining which legislation started the fund, where it’s revenues come for and more information.
- Anyone can click on ANY fund# and find out valuable information about where it came from, how it’s allocated, who gets it, which bright idea it was (AB or SB #, i.e., who proposed the legislation to start with, before it became law) and if it’s still valid. If it’s been abolished, that’s listed, and where the balances were going to go IF it (as funds do) got abolished or replaced by some other fund.
- So looking at these lists is a “get-acquainted” process at a minimum, and get a better picture of what’s actually going on, economically and in an organized fashion — with public money.
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Outstanding in their Field. Now, about that Field… (Fatherhood Grantees/Practitioners)
Again, I am only sampling a field that was sent in place decades ago, has major foundations supporting it (one should ask WHY) as well as the many resources of the HHS, and the “yeah, man — right up our alley!” of one too many tax-exempt religious foundations. Or, as you will, faith-based.
TAGGS.hhs.gov on this group (I searched by its EIN# — which is below).
| Recipient Name | City | State | ZIP Code | County | DUNS Number | Sum of Awards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| INST FOR RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD & FAM. REVITALIZATION | WASHINGTON | DC | 20019 | DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA | $ 2,549,350 |
Before we get too far into the economics of this field, I’d like to post a sample of what some of the DYNAMICS of it are about. This 2001 Appeal is interesting because it incorporates how the court responds to evidence of injuring a child on visitation and severe violence (breaking a woman’s sternum and grabbing her by the throat) — that woman being the 2nd wife // stepmother — and because the man in question is on the board of (another — not the above) Fathers’ rights group based in WDC (ACFC). This is one child — a girl, born in 1989 (divorce, 1991, first evidence of post-separation bruising of the girl, ca. 1996) and it covered two states, Michigan and Louisiana. It’s a short-double-spaced read, and I hope you do. Because at least in part — no offence to non-abusive Dads — this is also what the “FR’ movement is about — that FR are FR even when these things happen:
Lauren Hollingsworth v. James Semerad,
Appeal from 3rd Judicial District Court, Parish of Lincoln, Louisiana Trial Court No. 43,428~ Honorable R. Wayne Smith, Judge.
(Dad, see very far below same photo, looks like a very upstanding man):
Similar personnel to the ACFC group (far below) found on this one also: Baskerville, Semerad, Mike McManus (who wants to do away with no-fault divorce), etc. Click on link:
Dads of Michigan Related site, it says (read to see the spheres of influence involved & connection with another WDC organization, “ACFC”):
Rebuilding heterosexual marriage as the social norm is the necessary structural foundation for successful American socioeconomic reconstruction.
Among this testimony we can see both parents being court-ordered to attend a class, one of the (3) experts calling “parental alienation” but the testimony of the others (who felt the child to be credible, and not coached, esp. with the bruises) were concerned. Moreover, it appears that the same father had literally broken the stepmom’s sternum and grabbed her throat’ they were divorcing. he lied under oath about that event and had a new girlfriend to whom apparently the daughter was exposed. It appears that the court’s response is simply to adjust the supervised visitation, not terminate it! This Appeal in question comes fully 10 years after their divorce. Get the picture?
Seriously, it’s a short read and covers many typical issues in family court these days in a case which divorce pre-dated welfare reform but still had the PAS charge…
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How to get No-Holds-Barred HHS Grants Info from TAGGS, and a Few Things to Do With It…
Notes from 2014 Year-end on this October 5, 2012 post:
1. This post has charts and tables in it, run before I had the technical know-how to limit the right-hand-margin.
2. I acknowledge the post is unconscionably long — 17,000 words, including this intro.
3. That said, The TAGGS database does not copy well to wordpress, and is not public-user-friendly. It does not lend to us running flexible reports or sorts, as database ought to, although it’s funded apparently with public dollars. Much later, I learned (this is “as I recall” in a 600++ post blog) the software provider was later taken over by an international (Canada?) based firm, but previous to this had been sued by states or state agencies for failures regarding their performance problems. I have worked with databases before, and know that this level of dysfunction in critical issues would not fly, in small, medium, or very large corporations. It’s so bad, I even started a blog in October 2013 intending to simply print out ALL recipients (unsorted). HHS Giveaways, Government Shutdowns.
HOWEVER, it was my work on grants using this database, and then checking out grantees, which developed my understanding of at least the marriage/fatherhood funding, and what a major problem we have in the country when the average citizens DO NOT understand government fiscal accounting, as we are not intended to. I believe that if we did, there would be a major rebellion over taxation in no way limited to political fringe or other labels, such as “Tea Party.” I encourage people to get involved and get a sense of just who IS getting HHS grants. Run some reports, scan the contents, notice oddities; notice who gets the big ones, or how many 1-time grantees, for example, may get a $50,000 “compassion capital” grant, then (checked at the state registration level) the group gets administratively dissolved, i.e., “take the money and run.” Continuing this practice rewards bad behavior, and allows grants fraud and theft of public money.
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Show Me The Money — and Let’s Eliminate the Child Support System. [Publ. Sept. 9, 2012. HHS Access-Visitation Funds Table at Bottom].
POST TITLE (Title Date Published and ending phrase added during my Review of Sept. 2012 posts, i.e., almost a decade later.//LGH Aug. 5, 2022):
I WANT TO REMIND (EVERYONE) OF WHAT THE RICHARD FINE CASES TAUGHT (OR SHOULD HAVE) ABOUT COUNTIES HAVING SPECIAL FUNDS AND REFUSING TO DISTRIBUTE, OR TALK ABOUT, THE PROFITS FROM THOSE FUNDS. THE “CAFR” MATERIAL ALSO ADDRESSES THIS:
D.A. Fails to Get Suit on Child Support Dismissed
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA / A news summary | The Local Review
/ DEVELOPMENTS IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY
September 30, 1999
LOS ANGELES — A Municipal Court judge on Wednesday allowed a taxpayer lawsuit against the Los Angeles County district attorney’s child support unit to proceed.
Judge S. Patricia Spear did not grant the demurrer sought by county attorneys, which would have ended the lawsuit that seeks to compel the office to release child support money it has collected but says it cannot distribute.
The office has held as much as $25 million in an interest-bearing account, sometimes in violation of state law. But county officials say the amount has been reduced to about $10 million and that they are trying to distribute the funds. The lawsuit, by taxpayer attorney Richard Fine, alleges that the office has no right to hold the money and should return it.
County lawyers were successful in getting an earlier version of the suit dismissed on technical grounds, but Fine amended it to meet the county’s objections and refiled.
“This case and the related suits generated from it are a case text book history of a federal court’s (?) going off the rails and how the US Congress (fucked up) in abdicating its over cite (oversight) duties, in making judges the police of other judges, directly leading to misconduct councils being in outcome only judicial criminal cover-up councils, and citizens have no venue to relief and justice from the Criminal government’s and the crimes of federal court judges.
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HHS — Contracts Awarded 8/30/2012 = $156 million. Just for today, August 30, 2012, that is.
Our relationship to “government” needs to be looked at. Particularly, why so many people put up with it and haven’t figured out something better than putting lawyers and judges in charge of the place, as facilitated by a Congress which has plenty of people who used to be lawyers in it, no doubt.
A glance at this post should clarify that, by and large, we don’t know what the US Government (I mean, “federal”) is doing — although who’s helping fund it? Wake the hell up and start looking up some CAFR‘s – -it’s the worlds largest contractor, and there are these other issues about Jurisdiction which keep cropping up also. You cannot SUE this government, really (11th Amendment) unless it consents to. while we had this Constitution, it appears to me that under Bankruptcy (which the US has never been out of, to date, to my awareness) it no longer applies. If it did, and one engaged in commerce with the USA (which it’s almost impossible not to), you just became a contractor (u.S. Citizen = no unalienable rights) and shareholder in that thing in Washington, D.C.
WOMEN IN PARTICULAR should be cautious about citizenship. A woman in our area called police for help “domestic dispute” which ended up in a vigorous chase, the other day, the guy fled. They didn’t know an toddler was in the car. He was killed in a hail of gunfire, after which it was reported that this was actually a woman’s BROTHER, not the perp, and he had been I think helping her get his niece (her child) away from the aggressor. Now, he’s dead. Did I mention, he’s also Hispanic? (Wikipedia informal list of people, mostly men, some during domestic disputes, killed by officers. It’s a very very long list…)
Or you could go to a divorce, and have a judge over the domestic violence court (long-term presiding) and the judge tell your young self, a mother (about 23 yrs old, this one), to “go work it out” and no restraining order. Finally they were in judge’s chambers, and the judge informed the father (a Marine) he would have to pay child support. The young man (age 29) stepped outside the door, walked back in again, and cold-cocked the mother of his kids, knocking her unconscious immediately on the floor, some black eyes, a broken jaw. He was finally tasered into submission, and THEN the judge believed that the guy was dangerous. That apparently didn’t stop him from assigning shared parenting, though (along with jail and $1million bail). THAT is our country (and it was in 2011 Florida: (see comments for links to the story, another blog “AmericanAmnesia”
MOVIN’ ON . . . .
I mentioned FEDMINE.com to an acquaintance the other day, and have on the blog before. Its access is more timely (and probably far more accurate) than what is given the average person who looks things up on some free site which isn’t even proofread, but is designed for public consumption, like, say, “http://TAGGS.hhs.gov”
It think this figure is worth posting, without too much commentary. Per FEDMINE.com, the top agency obtaining contracts today was — hardly surprising — HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES.
WITHOUT HUMANS THERE WOULD BE NO MONEY TO FUND THESE STUDIES SO WHAT, PRECISELY, ABOUT HUMANS IS SO FASCINATING THAT THIS AMOUNT OF MONEY, ON A GIVEN DAY, WOULD BE DEDICATED TO A BUREAUCRACY STUDYING THEM?
ALSO, SEE HIGHLIGHTS FOR SOME ONES SIGNIFICANT (at least that I’m aware of) in this Family Law Field.
If you see I have linked the company name (other links probably not valid) there may be a brief description if you hover the cursor.
| COMPANY NAME | POSTED TODAY 08/30/2012 |
YTD FOR AGENCY | ||
| 049508120 – WESTAT INCORPORATED | $ 230,376 | $ 9,710,743 | ||
| 019121586 – DELOITTE CONSULTING L.L.P. | $ 1,593,527 | $ 32,298,506 | ||
| 072654999 – VANTAGE HUMAN RESOURCE SERVICES INCORPORATED | $ 511,792 | $ 511,792 | ||
| 091500090 – JOHN SNOW, INCORPORATED (out of all of them, this one actually seems involved in HEALTH. Founded 1978, internationally 106 offices, see “In Memoriam” link) | $ 626,838 | $ 5,654,941 | ||
| 021873740 – HUMAN TECHNOLOGY, INC | $ 511,792 | $ 547,006 | ||
| 009399247 – UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF MARYLAND | $ 85,082 | $ 122,852 | ||
| 623214020 – CONCEPT SYSTEMS INCORPORATED (3796) | $ -4,941 | $ -8,221 | ||
| 947300372 – CLIFTON GUNDERSON LLP | $ -102,382 | $ -102,382 | ||
| 152149191 – MC DONALD WALTER R AND ASSOCIATES INCORPORATED | $ 0 | $ 2,789,442 | ||
825229318 – MCKINSEY&COMPANY, INC. WASHINGTON D.C.
|
$ 631,181 | $ 9,499,045 | ||
| 154308522 – MATHEMATICA POLICY RESEARCH INC | $ 364,999 | $ 14,398,928 | ||
| 088656512 – IMPAQ INTERNATIONAL LLC(founded 2001 by a couple with govt background, Social Science Research, in MD. He’s economist,she’s History/Educ, he used to work for “Abt”) | $ 415,623 | $ 5,197,316 | ||
| 146014373 – ARSERVICES, LTD | $ 650,102 | $ 650,102 | ||
| 183818145 – CAPITAL CONSULTING CORP | $ 64,557 | $ 961,723 | ||
| 197325277 – LEWIN GROUP, INC., THE**(link is to someone from this group presenting at a 2007 AFCC conference. Since 1970, they are Health and Human Services consultant; you can look it up). | $ 630,811 | $ 4,396,810 | ||
| 127687093 – CHILD TRENDS INC | $ 1,011,927 | $ 1,686,523 | ||
| 072648579 – ICF INCORPORATED, L.L.C. {{see below}} | $ 500,000 | $ 13,942,449 | ||
| 622811847 – STRATEGIC HEALTH SOLUTIONS, L.L.C. [woman-owned, Omaha, services Medicare & Medicaid] | $ 3,198,739 | $ 8,861,059 | ||
| 127149784 – HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS, LLC | $ 1,281,472 | $ 3,970,432 | ||
| 929125818 – C2C SOLUTIONS INC | $ 6,323,200 | $ 18,091,004 | ||
| 611835203 – TEYA TECHNOLOGIES, LLC | $ 178,013 | $ 894,928 | ||
| 781844808 – SEAMON CORPORATION | $ 197,200 | $ 885,831 | ||
| 143208069 – FRONTLINE HEALTHCARE WORKERS SAFETY FOUNDATION, LTD | $ 81,697 | $ 245,090 | ||
| 803935261 – PROFESSIONAL TESTING, INC. | $ 363,302 | $ 361,395 | ||
| 136201493 – CONSUMMATE COMPUTER CONSULTANTS SYSTEMS LLC | $ -56,190 | $ 0 | ||
| 929219772 – CONTRACT SUPPORT SOLUTIONS INC. | $ -32,171 | $ 164,690 | ||
| 175291061 – THE KEVRIC COMPANY INC | $ 100,871 | $ 2,428,892 |
(I will kind of color-code by background color. Obviously I am scanning here; the main point is — how little most of us realize, how large is the US Federal Government. See recent posts on CAFR and USA, Inc. & Bankruptcies, etc. If you are not a “scanner” this post will probably drive you crazy…)
Not starting with the largest one in “the Lewin Group,” but it does run close to the subject matter of this blog — the marriage/fatherhood movement through federal funding:
THE LEWIN GROUP
(FROM USASPENDING.GOV — THEY GOT (FROM ABOUT 2000 forward I think on this database):
Ranked by $$, the largest shows up as about $4+million (in 2005), “Marijuana Cultivation Study.” They seem to have plenty in the $2 and $3 million ranges as well. Fairfax, VA -close to the source, right).
$172,544,874
Lewin Group, Insurer-Owned Consulting Firm, Often Cited in Health Reform Debate
By David S. HilzenrathWashington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The political battle over health-care reform is waged largely with numbers, and few number-crunchers have shaped the debate as much as the Lewin Group, a consulting firm whose research has been widely cited by opponents of a public insurance option.To Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House Republican whip, it is “the nonpartisan Lewin Group.” To Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee, it is an “independent research firm.” To Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah), the second-ranking Republican on the pivotal Finance Committee, it is “well known as one of the most nonpartisan groups in the country.”Generally left unsaid amid all the citations is that the Lewin Group is wholly owned by UnitedHealth Group, one of the nation’s largest insurers.
An Evaluability Assessment of Responsible Fatherhood Programs
August 1997
DHHS, Office of the Assistant Secretaryf or Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)
Analysis of site visits to five newly formed responsible fatherhood programs find a series of steps can be taken to improve their viability and evaluability. Program managers can develop core definitions of what constitutes a responsible fatherhood program; conduct process evaluations to define program objectives, activities and best practices; building basic MIS capacity; and stabilizing and enhancing funding.
(This one combines what looks like an HHS? grant to the Lewin group (97FM0122) with an HHS Contract to . . . . combined with a Ford Foundation Grant headed up by Ronald Mincy, wich name is significant (look it up). Lewin were simply the enablers and to make it look (or be) more scientific and respectable. This being only 1997, it shows just how much intention and planning to completely continue expanding “FATHERHOOD” as a field (regardless of results) was made — and this of course depended on major foundations like FORD working with WELFARE money. FYI, Ford Foundation are not the good guys here in the US …)
This gives me a very squirrely feeling (esp. knowing that by 1998 somehow Congress passed a “fatherhood resolution.”)
But on ca. page 110 of this report (link is the title) you see a list of “Experts Consulted” (Two are from Child Trends, the others are also significant). Johns Hopkins involved also. The whole thing makes me a little ill, given the impact of this trend on my life, personally, and my (DAUGHTERS’, not son’s) futures! ! ! I made it pink just for “spite,” given the subject matter is the opposite gender…
***II. Purpose of this Report
The increased interest in programs that promote responsible fatherhood and the limited information currently available on the services provided and effectiveness of these programs has generated interest in the systematic evaluation of responsible fatherhood programs. For this reason, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ford Foundation funded The Lewin Group and Johns Hopkins University to conduct an evaluability assessment of responsible fatherhood programs.
Fatherhood programs and emphasis on male parenting are relatively recent phenomena in the social service sector. Many of the programs currently in place are either very new or, if established, have been experimenting with new interventions or changing the program focus over time to meet the interests and objectives of funders. It is generally the case that fatherhood programs have not adequately documented their performance. This may be because of limited resources, a lack of experience with methods of measuring performance, or simply because the focus of program staff has been on serving fathers rather than proving that methods are effective. While program staff may believe that their activities are helping fathers and resulting in positive impacts on society, others, particularly funders, may be skeptical of evidence of program effectiveness that is limited to anecdotes.
Evaluations of responsible fatherhood programs can serve two important functions:
• provide information to outside agencies and organizations regarding the objectives and the effectiveness of their interventions, which may be used to attract and justify fundingfrom these outside sources; and• provide information to program staff that may be used to modify program design to more efficiently and effectively serve the fathers who use their services.
{{Interesting how “ATTRACT AND JUSTIFY FUNDING” COMES FIRST… AND IT DOESN’T EVEN SAY, HELP THE PROGRAMS REACH THEIR STATED SERVCE, BUT “PROVIDE INFORMATION TO PROGRAM STAFF.”}}
Systematic evaluation of fatherhood program outcomes is crucial to both program design and funding. Conducting rigorous evaluations using standard scientific methods . . .[[will provide continued income for the Lewin Group, the Fatherhood practitioners and organizations, and many other people, not including the children that these program are supposed to help by encouraging and enabling their Daddies to “man up” and support their offspring]]
Some of these groups hang together at times.
the Lewin Group at a 2007 AFCC conference:42. Healthy Marriage Projects: The Influence of Marriage on Child Support Enforcement
The Administration for Children and Families’ top goal in the last few years has been to encourage marriage for unwed low income families through marriage education, community outreach and demonstrations. This panel will discuss the status of Community Healthy Marriage Projects being financed by the Office of Child Support Enforcement, “Building Strong Families” marriage demonstrations being financed by the Administration of Children and Families and the importance of former marriage status or unmarried status on subsequent child support enforcement out- comes.
- Barbara Devaney, Ph.D., Mathematica, Washington, D.C.
- Michael Fishman, Ph.D., Lewin Group, Falls Church, VA
- Hillard Pouncy, Ph.D., Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
- Moderator: David Arnaudo, Office of Child Support Enforcement, Washington, D.C. (a.k.a. HHS/OCSE)
(this presentation for sale — only $15.00)
One reason they may be interested to conference at AFCC — AFCC has judges. Some Family Law judges get to mandate parenting education, etc. Dr. Fishman is now with MEF, and his bio shows a close connection to welfare matters, and HHS. I’m sure the personal connections didn’t hurt either. He has a masters in “organizational psychology” which is probably the way to go if you want a government career these days, and an MPA from USC.. Hardly suprising, the new company is also into (among other things) and is in Alexandria, VA.
Marriage and relationship education
State Policies to Promote Marriage
This report inventories state policies directly focused on promoting or supporting marriage. Using secondary data sources, the authors compiled information across states documenting the presence of marriage-related activities in a variety of areas such as campaigns and commissions; divorce laws and procedures; marriage and relationship preparation and education; tax and transfer policies; marriage support and promotion programs.
- State Policies to Promote Marriage, Karen N. Gardiner, Michael E. Fishman, Plamen Nikolov, Asaph Glosser, and Stephanie Laud. With the assistance of Theodora Ooms, September, 2002
I googled “The Lewin Group, AFCC, Fatherhood” but apparently I’m one of the few people catching on to it, per Google anyhow. One association with the Abstinence Group, “WAIT” (Joneen Krauth — plenty on that on this blog too, I actually looked up their corporate records history in Colorado. What a group — associated with NARME, etc. What a racket, too!): This showed up under “pipl.” The site AAHMI is African American Healthy Marriage Initiative which is, by any other name, HHS… Basically… DNR if this was at Hampton Univ. or where.
The Lewin Group is pleased to share these materials developed for the …Joneen Krauth RN, BSN — NEW. Executive Director of The Abstinence and …[ Speakers List – www.aahmi.net ]
“Reference in this web site to any specific commercial product, process, service, manufacturer, organization, or company does not constitute its endorsement or recommendation by the U.S. Government, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). ACF is not responsible for the contents of any “off-site” web page referenced from this server or from private, third-party, pop-up, or browser-integrated software or applications.”
NOTE: A long while ago, I remember this particular AAHMI and some closely associated nonprofits I was looking up, was one key to understanding just how much the HHS is reaching out with money to set up “mouthpiece” nonprofits or groups (including with key speakers) around the country. I figure HHS at this point is about as criminally-run a US Dept. as HUD is alleged to be, by someone who knows well enough as she used to be near its top.(C.A. Fitts, late 1980/1990s).
[[2016 updated material from LewinGroup.com]]
Viewed at “lewin.com” 4/11/2016 during blog update
(Their “About Us” page, main content):
The Lewin Group is a premier national health care and human services consulting firm. We understand the industry and provide our clients with high-quality products and insightful support.
Why Choose The Lewin Group?
Proven History
We have nearly 50 years’ experience finding answers and solving problems for leading organizations in the public, nonprofit, and private sectors.
Objective Viewpoint
The Lewin Group is committed to independence and integrity in our work. We combine professional expertise with extensive knowledge and a rigorous approach to analyzing and solving problems to deliver value to each of our clients and to the larger community as well.
Real-World Experience
Our strategic and analytical services help clients:
- Improve policy and expand knowledge of health care and human services systems
- Enact, run, and evaluate programs to enhance delivery and financing of health care and human services
- Deal with shifts in health care practice, technology, and regulation
- Optimize performance, quality, coverage, and health outcomes
- Create strategies for institutions, communities, governments, and people to make health care and human services systems more effective
Who We Are
The Lewin Group employs more than 140 consultants drawn from industry, government, academia, and the health professions. Many are national authorities whose strategies for health and human services system improvements come from their personal experience with imperatives for change. The Lewin Group is an Optum company, a wholly owned subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group. We’re editorially independent, but through partnerships with Optum, we can tap into a vast body of data and resources. Optum is an analytics, technology, and consulting services firm that enables better decisions throughout the health system.
The Lewin Group provides its clients with the very best expert and impartial health care and human services policy research and consulting services.
OTHER 2016 observations on The Lewin Group: Street address: 3130 Fairview Park Drive #500, Falls Church, VA — is right near “Acentia, a Maximus Company” which is same street address #800. Maximus, we may remember, contractor to manage child support, Medicaid, other health-care related record-keeping, collections & distributions in a number of states (and at least one other country).
(3130 Fairview Dr #800, Falls Church, VA. Viewed 4/11/2016 during blog update)
Acentia, a MAXIMUS Company, is a premier employer who provides software, information technology, and management solutions that produce successful programs of national significance, while consistently demonstrating a partnership of trust and value to our federal customers and the American taxpayer.
[Holistic Data Analytics….]
“Centers of Excellence” (options: Analytics / Cloud / Mobility)
“Acentia offers a holistic approach to Big Data and Analytics. Traditional analytics can tell you what happened and why, but leading organizations are using predictive analytics to understand what could happen and prescriptive analytics to choose the next best action.”…..
ICF INTERNATIONAL, LLC
(SEE LINK in chart above; Wikipedia gives the history. Started in 1969 by a former Tuskeegee Airman as inner city venture capital, but it changed direction, bought and sold various companies and now is like, LARGE).
| Recipient Name | City | State | ZIP Code | County | DUNS Number | Sum of Awards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I C F, INC | FAIRFAX | VA | 22031-6050 | FAIRFAX | 072648579 | $ 2,477,256 |
| Award Title | Sum of Actions | |||
| 2011 | ACF | I C F, INC | NATIONAL RESOURCE CENTER FOR STRATEGIES TO PROMOTE HEALTHY MARRIAGE | $ 1,500,000 |
(NRCSPHM — what did you think it sood for? 🙂 )
(PJ Media — Dr. Phyllis Chesler writes or wrote on there — was kind enough to print my comments here; the 2nd comment mentions ICF).
I profiled this company before, particularly when TAGGS.hhs.gov decided to bastardize its name on the database. It’s in Fairfax VA with background in Defense, Energy and in 1988 it acquired a division of Kaiser (engineering) and got REALLY large. It’s currently #64 of Forbes top 100 companies, is traded on the NYSE, and etc. HHS hired to to do even more (stuff) to promote marriage, whch is the acronym. ON this blog somewhere, no doubt:
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/news/press/2011/Grantawards2011.html
| ICF Incorporated, LLC (NRCSPHM) | Fairfax |
VA
|
$1,500,000
|
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Who Messed with my Message? DNK, but here’s the rest of it…
Huffington Post does moderate its comments and has been caught censoring some from protective mothers (long ago, it was circulated). I was responding to Ms. Stevenson’s commentary on recent legislation affecting the Americans with Disability Act (2008 revs, which clarified it after previous interpretations so narrowed the act as to exclude many disabled, including the war-disabled by PTSD).
I quoted a piece from Courthouse News (12/2011) which predated some MSM commentary on the Pentagon misdiagnosing veterans with PTSD to avoid paying for help. Thanks a lot, they just survived a warzone and are coming back messed up, but that being messed up wasn’t from war, it was really just a “personality disorder.”
For anyone who’s come out of abuse (the frying pan) and landed in a custody contest (the fire), this sounds REAL familiar. Hopefully my blog here is “off-road” enough no key-logger or anyother stranger will feel the need to play games with it while I put out this message, again, continued from comments section at Huffington Post, re: Corporate Lobbyists waging war on the Disabled
“Comment continued @ blog (http://wp.me/psBXH-14M) I think this is vital information”
(see last post). I was adding a comment to direct to here, and while typing, half the post disappeared (without keyboard contact on my part. That’s PROBABLY what I get for comparing war to domestic violence, and the Pentagon’s handling of vets to the family law systems’ handling of “DV-Vets,” and following up with a recommendation we get the next President to RESCIND the faith-based Executive Orders from 1/29/2001 (first two issued by George Bush in a possibly stolen election) and then posting how six sisters in California are suing CPS and the church which covered up YEARS of sexual abuse by their biological parents.
Some of us have been in this “reporting coverup of abuse by major US institutions” long enough that the hacking thing just happens, and it happens in reference (apparently) to specific topics I also note that the US DODNetwork has been on my site a little more than I’m comfortable with.
The top half was deleted, but there’s the conclusion I come to. Really, the problem is that U.S. Citizens have tolerated too much institutional abuse already, starting with the income tax and private banking, proceeding quickly to destroying the currency and forbidding people to accumulate private gold for (decades), and so forth. Basically wars are about Private Greed anyhow (see the book of James for some pontification (: on that).
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
1A. The Pentagon tried to dump its responsibility to its own vets on others by misdiagnosing PTSD as nonreimbursable PD (personality disorder), meaning someone else has to pay, or they can just stay injured. It did this to over 22,000 vets since 2001…
2A. The family law system (Conciliation Courts) tries to dump its responsibility to citizens on the public at large by habitually misdiagnosing individual crimes (domestic violence, child abuse, stalking, kidnapping, etc.) as relationship, family matters, meaning someone else has to pay, or they can just stay injured. Since at least the mid-1990s it has this down to a system and is spitting out situations that involve crime scene cleanups.
2B. On 1/29/2001, GWBush issued his first two executive orders (http://tinyurl.com/6oozeww, & http://tinyurl.com/7e2dqss) = (yet) more faith-based involvement in: DOE, DOL, HHS & HUD. These were Presidential orders and had to be followed; they also need to be rescinded! Why? See “six sisters sue state officials for missing sex abuse.” http://tinyurl.com/7w93o92
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CA’s New Improved Child Support Services: Core Mission went “MIA,” as did 800,000 of its Records
. . . .courtesy a contractor’s subcontractor, both of them reputable companies . . . . .
The solution for invasion or violation of rights in THIS country was to have been, from the start, stated clearly in the U.S. Constitution — written down for all to see, and then it was up to us to practice THAT model. Not every service model that is cooked up somewhere, and flown in as fast-food to state level by individuals IN the state with memberships in nationwide, PRIVATE, “nonprofit” associations which exist for the profit and proliferation of their membership — whether or not they actually deliver the product.
First of all, it’s from Child to Family to Social Restructuring. The word “Child” is handy for almost any program to be promoted. Once it’s sold (Aw, how wonderful — you love children and want to advocate for them? Sure, where do I sign?):
Take for example, “Child Support Enforcement.”
That entire concept is now “old school” apparently, just the core mission in amid a bunch of evolving (self-) definitions.
In fact, it’s starting to look (in hindsight) more and more like the concept of enforcing child support to actually reduce (versus expand) welfare . . . . . was just an excuse to get too many cooks in the kitchen, add “access/visitation” concepts, keep records of New Hires for all business owners (if possible), garnish wages, incarcerate men or women who can’t pay up (however, men can sometimes “buy” their way out by participating in programs oriented towards men, i.e., Kentucky’s “Turning It Around.”)
By the state’s going plastic (via SDU – Statewide Distribution Units), someone, somewhere has a record of where any parent subscribing to electronic child support cards gets to have recorded what they buy, where, and when — when such people may not have done anything to warrant such intrusions. The act of a single parent needing child support does not a criminal make! Nor does the act of at times or for a time needing welfare. However, the poor exist for a reason, and the powers that be might as well make a little business profit off the proposition, right?
This is from California’s Child Support Services home — a nice diagram to explain what “child support enforcement” actually means. Keep in mind that the concept of child support enforcement is socially a pretty new one (just a few decades old). Notice the core mission is rather equipped by the add-ons….
CORE Mission: Locate Parents; Establish Paternity; Establish Orders; Collect Support
Regarding Child Support Services –they are now “family centered.”
Ready
2 B A
Parent?
Parenting
Violence
Awareness
Health Care
If you click on any of the circles above, it will lead you to some private/public/nonprofit admixture of PR campaign, technical assistance and training, and etc. — all of which generally involves (1) more public funds at some level and (2) tax exemption for whoever “thunk it up.”
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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..]
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 AFCC, AFCC’s agenda, Barbara Babb, Biblical Metaphors (Daniel’s Statue), Child Support, Child SUpport Incentive Grants, Dept of Family Admin, domestic violence, Education, Families Matter, family law, Fatherhood in OCSE grant priorities, Gloria Danziger, HHS influence on Judiciary, high-conflict, Jaycee Dugard, Kids’ Turn, Maryanne Godboldo, mediation, Mixed Metaphors, Parenting Coordination, Phil Garrido, social commentary, Supervised Visitation, therapeutic jurisprudence,Trayvon Martin,UBaltimore School of Law CFCC,Unified Family Courts
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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]]
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)?
….. (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.”
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.
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 SchoolUB 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 CenterFormer 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.
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?
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PAPER
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COTTON
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LEATHER
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FRUIT
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WOOD
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IRON
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WOOL
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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:
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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.
- very, very less, Huh?, yes, with some tinder, no – must be smelted, yes, no unless you have a serious furnace.
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.
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.
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
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)
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….)
PAGE 1, TOPIC 2 — “BUT DON’T WORRY, DADS & AFCC PROFESSIONALS — WE REMEMBERED YOUR AGENDA TOO”*
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.
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.”
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.
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.
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
Pick one: Bread and Circuses — or Justice, and Freedom. Ideally, the latter…
with one comment
“Justice and Freedom” (they’re partners!) are on really the auction block, and without dedication to doing something about this, one will need more Bread and Circuses (probably) to live at peace with one’s conscience — or to avoid acknowledging this.
Technology & Capital & Control of markets will always trump Law. And in this country law doesn’t exist for what we may like to believe it does.
Time to upgrade one’s financial literacy — as well as understanding welfare reform, as well as “give it up” on thinking that dollars = “money.” Dollars are not the only form of money by a long shot. And it’s unacceptable NOT to deal with some of this material after work, before work, or while unemployed, if one is. If our heads are a century behind the definition of a dollar, our behinds will be for sale even sooner.
MY EXPERIENCE WITH FHA-HUD
BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR UNDERSTANDING
TAPEWORM ECONOMICS
By Catherine Austin Fitts
June 2003
***My story began intersecting with C.A. Fitts’ description of HUD mortgage defaults and “narco-dollars” repeatedly — particularly as the HHS has clear connections in some of its policies — like marriage/fatherhood policies, and faith-based ones — to money laundering through the grants system. For example, the other day, attempting to explain this to some Lackawannans (i.e., Pennsylvanians — Lackawanna being the county right next to the infamous “kids for cash” scheme in Luzerne) who felt discovering the religion of a hated GAL was some kind of information breakthrough– I looked another grantee with the words “faith-based” in its name, out of Oceanside, California (North San Diego, I gather)
This along with some in Florida, was one of the first (2002) showing as receiving a “compassion capital fund” startup. And yet its umbrella (associated) “interfaith community services” [at the same street address] was recipient of multi-million$$ federal grants, particularly around housing, and had been the subject of studies (it says) from both Texas (as to faith-based) and Columbia Univ. As I looked at “faith-based community development corporation” one short step (link) showed a related credit union. None of it was adding up, particularly as USAspending.gov said the group got $150K (same exact grant), and Taggs said it only got $75K. Both databases allegedly get their sources FROM HHS — and to boot, this FBCDC had an EIN — but no DUNS# (etc.)The umbrella (my term) nonprofit had been around, it said, since 1979 — incorporated since 1982. It didn’t take very long to start unearthing discrepancies (one day or far less). The next day, I studied more on Industrial Areas Foundation (Saul Alinsky) and found out how religious congregations and this type of programming are like male & female chemical receptors — both groups are hungry for power, immoral about how they get it, and have habitual under-reporting of income and failures to stay incorporated and transparent with the public. It was the match made in heaven…***
This blog here basically represents my study notes over a three-year period of WTF happened to “our” justice system — from the front lines of it. Not to mention WTF happened to “our” money (in the 1900s), and behind all this was the natural concern for HTF this happened to my life, as a mother (not just “parent” but a mother, in this century, in this political context, and as a person, as a member of a geographic and various other communities, and so forth.
I really do believe there’s truth in “Three Cities that Rule the World” (London, the Vatican, and Washington, D.C. — representing wealth, religion and the military/politics).
When the Bible said “The love of money is the root of all evil,” boy, did it tell the truth!
Also, the 10th commandment as “thou shalt not covet” (bastardized by one major religion into two separate commandments to cover for the deletion of the 2nd commandment about making and bowing down to graven images) — boy, did it tell the truth!
A lot of the evil in this world emanates from (1) political, (2) corporate, and (3) religious leadership in my own country, the USA, and most of this evil has been sold as “good” (or helping others). This triangle / “Triad” seems almost everywhere, the chief illusion being that they were ever truly separate. It’s a fine but basically meaningless distinction at this point.
The triangle image crops up everywhere, it seems — but even if it didn’t, those three do represent the major (earthly, at least!) power sources. Political (1) regulates the relationships (who hooks up with whom) between 2 & 3 — and really, this equilateral triangle could go almost any direction, with any angle on top — and have the same effect on the customers — financial devastation, homelessness, eventual death from that, starvation, or resulting riots, and definite eventual slavery along the way. EVERYONE accommodates to it — or is involved in fighting it. There are fewer and fewer DMZ’s left.
(these images sprang from my recent look-ups of HHS grantees with the word “faith-based” in their corporate names. I found out where HHS this millennia (and since welfare reform) intersects HUD (community development block grants) and has morphed. I also found out in this that the root of PICO (who trained one of the take the money and run nonprofits, in Oceanside California) is probably in on some real estate deals and has a board member whose nonprofit is based at a (Catholic) church — and which nonprofit was in effect something of a front for PICO Network recruiting. Don’t expect to follow all that unless you actually do the lookups, or at least read through where I did (bottom of this post). . . . .
That triad historically represents the major themes of a hierarchical society based on a caste system. Anyone NOT in the 1,2, or 3 sector is a client of it, and as such a target market (consumer). This includes the privatized prison industry, you name it.
The collective unconscious myths are crumbling, and people are looking for scapegoats.
Most of us have arranged our lives and made (too easy) a peace, I think, with these myths and are not willing (or possibly not able) to take the time to go through and dismantle, discard, re-organize and rebuild a world view with less cognitive dissonance.
And who has the guts and moral fiber to do this rebuilding without the easy way out — just joining another “church” — whether it be a literal religious-exempt 501(c)3 style (with or without a mortgage) — or the “church” of domestic violence rhetoric, family court psychobabble/cult-of-the-experts rhetoric, or fathers’ rights/family/children’s rights rehtoric, or “I’m holding down a job, therefore I gave at the office, whatsamatta with those people?” rhetoric (which is often internalized and not spoken openly)??
Unfortunately, the more I learn about where we are and how we got there, the more frightening and disturbing it becomes, collectively.
I have now fought the same basic fight, with pretty much the same basic tiresome people, for over 20 years; children have aged out, an elderly parent has died — with scarcely a pause in the hostilities. How does one get free of this without homelessness when one’s own governmental institutions are simply filled with fraud, and based on false theories about what causes poverty and violence (or at least on SELLING false theories about what causes poverty and violence to the public) ???
Like many others, members of (my generation of) my “family of origin” has some serious unresolved childhood issues it chose to work out on my hide, and bequeath to my children’s futures, at their, my, and society’s loss. So I have first-hand acquaintance of when & where the concept of “enlightening” sociopaths to the fact that their abuse is harmful to their children (try that when the adults in question HAVE no children….)
Many things are true — many concepts can hold water — but are not the fundamental, underlying truth surrounding an ongoing problem. Failing to account for the discrepancies and needing to move on, people turn to superstition and myths, and more “cognitive dissonance” — almost anything — to face truths that would cause a radical change in lifestyle anymore. Apparently those 1960s were a phase, now back to business — accumulating “money” (which isn’t accumulating wealth, but people still seem to believe this . . . . .). Similarly, feminism was a phase, now back to business: faith, family, fathers-dominant-model, & apple pie. . . . .we know it ain’t real, but who’s kidding whom? — it sells public policy!
This model of the wheel of abuse — it does reflect a reality, and more than “intimate partner violence” — it reflects the current relationship of the USA to most of its residents:
From Univ. Illinois @ Chicago, “Campus Advocacy Network“*
(*this “Power & Control” wheel is the hallmark of Duluth Abuse Intervention Programs, about which I have plenty on this blog… they are not “the good guys” for sure!)
Noticing a dynamic doesn’t change the dynamic. While the wheel dynamic is helpful, that analogy is not thought through and applied well enough.
Those being hurt, railroaded, or simply spun off into a meaningless, powerless existence in such relationships — need the dynamic to be changed — or, alternately, those on it need to tap a highly superior form of energy & power to stop it, or just jump off it, or to cause that wheel to get stuck in its own rut, digging deeper and deeper. Using language to describe the dynamic does help — it distances oneself intellectually and psychologically, by commandeering a different language than (generally speaking) an abuser attempts to indoctrinate the target with.
When caught up in this situation, we need OFF the wheel. USUALLY it takes more than one person to break out when it’s whirling — or greater force than the centrifugal (etc.) forces.
However this doesn’t significantly change the person for who this wheel is a Grrreeeat and comfortable dynamic and worldview.
What happens next is, the energy of being freed from this abuse is a STRONG force in the freed person and, depending on the amount of damages they have to repair, they will often have the competence for independent and functional decision-making, along the lines often of what kept them alive while dealing with hostile environment (unless it was just luck or tenacity…).
But this is what happens when such a person has children — those children become bounty in a larger and different-players “wheel” of control, and often by virtue of needing welfare initially.
This welfare may come directly from the United States Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Title IV-A, and/or Title IV-D (Child support order) initially. Or it may come from someone outside, or both. But of all things such a family needs, immediately after the kickout — it’s generally TIME and SELF-DETERMINATION. . . . . Which are precisely the things they are least likely to get, as the entire country (as we speak) is itself caught up in another similar “wheel of power and control” based on the financial system, selling off debt, bailing out banks, and supporting an expanding administrative bureaucracy in which not just millions — but, literally Billions and Trillions of $$ are missing. GONE — unaccounted for.
As, we are finding — are children, and young adults, in this same system.
My children went missing for a month. But as law enforcement had deliberately enabled it, and there was legal profit to be made from it, eventually resulting in this blog when I found out WHY, I was on my own handling the shock, distress, trauma — and damage control, both with their school and my clients (work life). My work life never recovered — their (public) school never helped. At all — not an iota, including when I asked them for evidence they had. Nor did churches — anywhere. Why? In some religious worlds, a man and children in the congregation is worth something — prestige, finances, and public image. No matter if Mom is nowhere to be found and the Mom imposter isn’t even married to the guy . . . .
And in family law rhetoric, almost anything is worth SOMEthing in the system — a noncustodial father, a child support arrears, another person brought somehow back onto a dependency system who might have (with justice) stayed off it; more cases in the custody courts justifies they are “flooded” and need to initiate emergency triage procedures (and continue getting federal access/visitation grants which are only used to help the abusive parents, and/or fathers, regain access when access is an issue — not Moms. Trust us, that’s the truth!) — and you name it.
~ ~ ~I just wanted to say this today; I am heavy hearted from another round of the “power and control wheel” with someone who has their foot on my jugular IF my future requires finances, and the same person has had their foot on my jugular regarding access to and information about my immediate relatives. Barring outside intervention by the legal system, it’s up to me to make the critical situations in what to bail on and what to fight for. How’d YOU like to do this when it also included housing?
~ ~ ~So, when I talk about “myths” — the primary myth some of us still held (or in desperation, go through a phase of holding until the next rude awakening) is that government exists in this country to protect any form (whatsoever) of civil or legal rights more than it exists to complete draining the citizens of their blood — and assets — through various federal agencies (HHS & HUD, DOJ, DOE, etc.) — and in order to do this, a caste system must be maintained, as well as secrecy about the basic operations. My experience personally with my own (sick, truly!) family line (which maintains civic respectability, as many batterers also do) — has actually prepared me to reject inappropriate answers and continue mining for information that pulls it together in a reasonable fashion — that satisfies MY appetite for truth, and my awareness of many realities.
There are other whistleblowers more highly placed and financially literate than I have ever been (though improvement is always possible) — and they are also taking retaliation for it.
Of these — recently, I have run across the writings of Catherine Austin Fitts, formerly of FHA, and the daughter of a mother who, she writes, was on the Federal Reserve Board in Philadelphia. I first ran across the concept of “$59 billion missing from HUD” in association with approximately $14 million (collected but not distributed) child support being withheld inappropriately by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, which the attorney Richard Fine (for plaintiff father John Silva) discovered, and filed a case about: “Silva v. Garcetti.”
Fine ended up going to jail for exposing to much and getting disbarred also. He spent 18 months incarcerated. But, Kelly Patricia O’Meara wrote up some of this event — and some of the HUD material, such that when I ran across it again later, I paid closer attention.
There is a place where HUD meets HHS around so-called “low-income people.” (People can have high or low income, but that doesn’t define them as people! However one would never know this from policyspeak).
I have been blogging it over at “Scranton Political Times” for a while (where I also learned a few HTML tricks, as you can see by this post) — and I recommend you read some of those comments. Links at the top of this post. Thanks for reading this far!
“Danielle Ross buh-bye” (Ross being a local GAL). My comments are kind of off-topic; I simply write as I research in response to some of the too-local-focus of the forum. At this point, I don’t think it has high viewership and of the viewership, multiple usernames are probably the same person, i.e. Joe Pilchesky (sign on, and a disclaimer says as much). Joanne Pilchesky is incarcerated, wrongly or rightly, over elder theft somewhere in Pennsylvania and has been for a while; her voice is missed, but at least the forum’s not being used for a personal vendetta by either one, and they’ve tolerated me posting this research.
Comments along this line over there actually represent days of my look-ups and some conclusions. The ‘dunwalke” link is to C.A. Fitts writing. IAF and Saul Alinsky + Church networking + HUD + faith-based funding (HHS grants) = danger!
The four organizations apparently along the “Industrial Areas Foundation” model are listed below:
The FOUR AFFILIATIONS – list of Baptists involved
I knew almost nothing about them before yesterday, but recognized the patterns. It’s like War of the Worlds between the titans of:
Just wanna live and let live? That’s fine, but sooner or later, where are you gonna be living? because real estate and finances are involved.
http://dunwalke.com/gideon/fhalist.htm
HUD & HHS are related, and HUD deals with debt, HHS deals with welfare. Both include lots of people in the courts. Houston, we have a problem…
Centralized government sucks because the gov’t is simply conducting a virtual war on American citizens’ money (not just their families and civil rights etc.).
Chief of Staff to Senator Kit Bond, then Chairman of the Senate subcommittee in charge of HUD appropriations tells Fitts in 2000 that HUD is being run as a “criminal enterprise”.
AMS is the company that installs, owns and operates HUDCAPS, the system credited with missing $59 billion at HUD in fiscal 1999. As of the time that HUD reports undocumentable adjustments of $59 billion, they have paid AMS $206MM
. . .Apparently this $59 billion is helping run private wars of various sorts, i.e., “narco-dollars.” Someone oughter be asking more questions about why the Administration (each Presidential) keeps pushing policies that we already know have missing money and are full of/attracting fraudsters — and why the public “buys” it. Better publicity is needed of this stuff.
I’m not a homeowner, and haven’t been, but what HUD and HHS do affects everyone — including neighborhoods. So I’m working through this material from Catherine Austin Fitts (who, FYI, is from Philadelphia). I hope someone whose eyes stray across this page may also consider what I’m saying — this personwas in a position to know, and it also makes sense with what I DO know about the HHS end of things, in re: the courts & child support, etc. — i.e., welfare-related things.
“The following list describes some of my representative experiences working with FHA, the lead US mortgage insurance agency and regulator, as Assistant Secretary-FHA Commissioner in the first Bush Administration, as the President of Hamilton Securities Group, the lead financial advisor FHA during the Clinton Administration,** and then as a litigant with the US Department of Housing & Urban Development [HUD] and their informant, Ervin & Associates, during the Clinton Administration and the second Bush Administration.
The Godboldo case is yet another example of CPS working in league with the police in order to kidnap children. Godboldo was obviously an excellent mother and not a threat to the police. The fact they sent a tank to her apartment is more evidence that the state will react in a violent knee-jerk fashion when its authority is challenged.
NOTE — this only happened in 2011. Your town is next.
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
July 1, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Posted in 1996 TANF PRWORA (cat. added 11/2011), Bush Influence & Appointees (Cat added 11/2011), Business Enterprise, Child Support, Faith-based grantee scams, HHS & HUD fraud, Lackawanna County PA Corruption Protests, money laundering, Vocabulary Lessons, warfare: strategic
Tagged with Catherine Austin Fitts, Child Support, Financial Warfare, HHS-TAGGS grants database, Narco Dollars for Dummies, Scranton Political Times, social commentary, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..