Archive for the ‘Designer Families’ Category
Grandparent Visitation, Father/mother visitation — 2 links
Here are two links, one showing (in considerable detail) that, whether father or mother has visitation issues, the bottom line is, at least one parent’s $$ bottom line is going to drop — as evaluators, therapists, case managers, and mental health professionals are called into make their expert opinions known.
This first link discusses a case where the father first brought up parental alienation, asked for an immediate custody switch on that basis, and called upon the powers that be — including the (now deceased) Richard Gardner, M.D. — whose theme song and swan song was parental alienation.
This time, Gardner did NOT support the father, which obviously upset him. A special case manager (a former judge) resigned after being threatened by the father, and so forth. Sooner or later, the final of 3 children aged out of this childhood, or almost.
(1) Kansas Opinions | Finding Aids: Case Name » Supreme Court or Court of Appeals | Docket Number | Release Date |
No. 93,450
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF KANSAS
In the Matter of the Marriage of
JANET BOULEY, f/k/a KIMBRELL,
Appellee,
and
WILLIAM DAVID KIMBRELL,
Appellant.
[[LINK TO:]] SYLLABUS BY THE COURT
This is just a sampling. If you’re familiar with how some of these cases go (where there is some money in the family), you’ll recognize a few patterns, namely, that no matter what, SOMEONE is going to be in therapy, generally both parents AND the children. SOMETIMES I think this need for therapy is directly generated by the court procedures, not the parents….
Also note (last sentence of expcerpt here), that the father does make some good points, regarding questionable reliance on expert opinion, and due process. He is RIGHT about this. However, let us all note who started bringing on the experts to discredit his wife….
I think this link is appropriate in that this is AFCC Conference month (one of many), which I have blogged on earlier. This is a sampling of some experts that might get involved. Remember what the JohnnyPumphandle post (Marv Bryer overview) reminds us: the court respects those opinions more than sworn facts or statements under penalty of perjury from non-experts who may be more familiar with the facts of the case. That’s the nature of the beast. Excuse me, system.
In July 2001, David moved to modify the 1996 divorce decree and for an emergency change of placement for Dylan and Evan. In his motion, David asked that he be given residential custody of Dylan and Evan, that the trial court order strict supervision of Janet’s contact with the boys, and that the trial court order a psychological evaluation of Janet, Dylan, and Evan to determine whether Janet was alienating the children from him. David maintained that Janet had “commenced a program and concerted effort to alienate the three children” from him and that she had interfered with his visitations and the parenting time and visitation schedule. At David’s request, these motions were dismissed in March 2002.
For summer 2001, the parties agreed to a split parenting arrangement where the children would essentially spend alternating weeks with each parent. In addition, the parties agreed to participate in psychological evaluations and testing. The agreed parenting plan was to continue until psychological evaluations and reports were completed.
Upon agreement by the parties, the trial court appointed Susan Vorhees, Ph.D., to conduct evaluation and testing of the parties and their minor children.
Who is Dr. Vorhees? Well, here’s a Google result:
{NOTE: I didn’t read of any accusations of abuse or Domestic Violence in the case at hand in this link, .i.e., the parents of Dylan, Anna, and Evan… I am simply curious about Dr. Vorhees…as the trial court recommended her to evaluate}:
Quoting Dr. Vorhees: (NOTE: court syllabus spells last name “vorhees”. This summary below is from Shawnee, KS area…)
Put another way, people minimize boys as victims of sexual assault when the perpetrator is an older woman, said Susan Voorhees, a doctor of clinical psychology whose patients include child victims. People smirk when word gets out an underage boy had sex with an older woman.
“Everyone has their fantasies,” Voorhees said, as in, ” ‘It would have been nice to have had some older woman teach me the ways of the world.”
n sentencing Liskey to probation, Shawnee County District Court Judge Jan Leuenberger said there was no evidence the victim suffered in the relationship. The judge also said the youth is “dealing with the situation fine,” and concerns by his parents that he might “crash” in the next four to six years are “speculative.”
“Sexual abuse haIs lifelong implications for the mental health of both victims and their families,” Voorhees said in a letter dated Sept. 14 to Chief Judge Nancy Parrish to express her “grave concern” about the Liskey sentencing.
“I’ve never heard in my 30 years working with sexual abuse victims of a victim doing fine,” Voorhees said. Noting Liskey was psychologically evaluated, Voorhees questioned why the judge didn’t seek evaluation of the boy.
Boys don’t just fly right through the aftermath of abuse, Voorhees and Stultz-Lindsay said.
“The impact may not hit him until he is able to move away from the relationship,” Voorhees said.
“These boys feel like they’re in love with their perpetrator,” Stultz-Lindsay said.
Often the perpetrator is a member of the family or someone trusted by the family, and for the child, the abuser “may be one of the kindest people in their lives.” In the Liskey case, there was a double whammy because she was a paraprofessional in the victim’s gifted education program at Robinson Middle School and the best friend of the boy’s mother, Voorhees said.
“It’s not the face of evil,” the psychologist said of abusers. “It’s the actions of evil.”
It is to bad the judge did not see it that way.
BACK TO THE KANSAS CASE, LINK (1)….
Although David later moved for a protective order to prohibit the dissemination of Dr. Vorhees’ proposed report, the trial court ordered that Dr. Vorhees’ evaluation be provided to the court. Dr. Vorhees’ report, which was filed in December 2002, indicated that David was alienated from his children due to his own behavior. According to Dr. Vorhees, “[David] is alienated from them by his own inability to accept that they and their mother are independent individuals, that they need and want a relationship with both parents, and that he cannot be in control of either of these relationships.” Dr. Vorhees indicated that David’s alienation from the children could be resolved by David trying to accept his children for who they are and by listening to his children.
The trial court, on its own motion, appointed retired District Court Judge James Buchele as the case manager in January 2002. The trial court’s decision in this case indicates that the parties had been voluntarily working with Judge Buchele since October 2001. Judge Buchele recommended in January 2002 that the children reside with Janet and that David’s parenting time be “as approved by the Case Manager or as ordered by the Court.” David moved for review of these recommendations and also for an order for family therapy and other relief.
In February 2002, Judge Buchele made additional recommendations, including that Dylan and Evan be with David on Wednesdays after school until 8 p.m. and on alternating Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Judge Buchele again made recommendations in March 2002. Judge Buchele recommended that David spend a week during spring break with Evan and that the parties participate in family counseling with Michael Lubbers, Ph.D. At that time, Dylan and Evan were seeing Dale Barnum, Ph.D., and Janet and David were each working with a mental health professional. David objected to both the February 2002 and March 2002 recommendations.
Brief search on Michael Lubbers, Ph.D. shows that a Michael Lubbers got his Ph.D. in 2005-2006 year from the
January 16, 2001 – SRS Secretary Schalansky appoints Dale Barnum, for 20 years area director in Garden City, as new director of Rehabilitation Services.
Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS) Secretary Janet Schalansky today announced the appointment of Dale Barnum as state director of Rehabilitation Services, effective February 4, 2001.Mr. Barnum has been the area director of the SRS Garden City office for the last 20 years, where he was responsible for program and resource management in the 25-county area. He oversaw a $10 million administrative budget and all SRS programs in the Garden City area, including services for children and families, adult services, rehabilitation services, child support enforcement, medical services, and economic and employment support services.
On June 12, 2002, Judge Buchele submitted his report and recommendations and also responded to David’s objections. In his report, Judge Buchele addressed David’s allegations that Janet had alienated Dylan and Evan. Judge Buchele’s opinion was that Dylan’s and Evan’s alienation from David was caused by David’s own conduct. Nevertheless, Judge Buchele was encouraged by the fact that David had spoken with Dr. Barnum and had agreed to work on a new approach to communicating with Evan.
In his report, Judge Buchele recommended modification of the existing parenting plan. Judge Buchele expanded David’s parenting time with Evan, setting forth specific times that Evan would spend with David. Judge Buchele’s recommendations assumed there would be some change in the status quo. Judge Buchele recommended that David’s parenting time with Dylan be “as they may agree.”
After David and Janet separately filed objections to Judge Buchele’s recommendations, Judge Buchele issued a supplemental report on June 27, 2002. Judge Buchele indicated that the brief attempt to expand David’s parenting time with Evan had been disastrous. Judge Buchele concluded that the problems in this case could not be resolved by additional time being spent between Evan and his father. Judge Buchele recommended that Evan be with David on Wednesdays from 4 to 8 p.m. and for one 24-hour period every weekend. Both David and Janet objected to Judge Buchele’s June 27, 2002, supplemental report and recommendations.
In November 2002, upon David’s motion, the trial court appointed Dr. Richard Gardner, M.D., to conduct a parental alienation syndrome (PAS) evaluation of the family. [[FOLKS< this is 2002!! Still going on!!]] The trial court terminated its order for counseling with Dr. Lubbers but ordered Dylan and Evan to continue therapy with Dr. Barnum. Moreover, the trial court ordered that the contact between Evan and David continue under the current arrangement and that the contact between Dylan and David be as Dylan desired.
Dr. Gardner completed the PAS evaluation and filed a written report in January 2003. Dr. Gardner found no evidence that the children were suffering from PAS or that Janet was a PAS alienator. Instead, Dr. Gardner indicated that the primary source of the children’s alienation from David was David’s own psychiatric problems, especially his obsessive-compulsive personality disorder and paranoid trends.
[[In which we see that this diagnosing one’s spouse in order to get even is a two-edged sword. Names can be called either way… And will… Name-calling by experts are far more damaging to the situation than names called by mere parents, or children…]]
Dr. Gardner recommended that Janet continue to have primary parenting time with Dylan and Evan, that Janet have primary legal custody, and that the court rescind the order requiring Dylan and Evan to participate in therapy. Dr. Gardner indicated that the family could be helped with appropriate treatment given to David, Dylan, and Evan, but that such treatment should be on a voluntary basis.
[[UNDETERRED…]] In September 2003, David moved for the appointment of another case manager, for an order for the parties and children to participate in therapy, and for an order enforcing the joint decision making required under the parties’ joint custody agreement. Attached to David’s motion were letters from Nancy Hughes, Ph.D., LSCSW, who had conducted an adoption home study with David and his [[his NEW??]] wife, and from John Spiridigliozzi, Ph.D., a licensed psychologist who had been working with David for approximately 3 years. [[FYI: Spiridigliozzi appears to work with people with addictions…]] Both Dr. Hughes and Dr. Spiridigliozzi recommended the appointment of a case manager.
Obviously, both of them are working with David, not Nancy….
Moreover, Dr. Hughes indicated that she had read some of the file that David had compiled in this case and that it did not fit with her impression of David.
How comforting that expert professionals are brought in to give their “impressions.”
In November 2003, the trial court appointed William F. Ebert, III, as special master, whose duties included recommending therapy for the parties and their children as well as preparing findings of fact and conclusions of law for the trial court to review if the parties could not agree on child-rearing decisions or therapy.
Now who is William F. Ebert, III? Any relationship to THIS one? (I do see an attorney in the Topeka, KS area…) (THIS one is in Nebraska, and I note, no “III,” AND there are a lot of William Eberts around. Kind of makes you wonder, though…)
William F. Ebert, appellant, v. Nebraska Department
of Correctional Services et al., appellees.Ebert v. Nebraska Dept. of Corr. Servs.,
11 Neb. App. 553Filed February 11, 2003. No. A-01-906.
INTRODUCTION William F. Ebert was sentenced in July 1997 to serve 10 years on each of three convictions of second degree forgery and being a habitual criminal. Ebert brought a declaratory judgment action in the district court for Lancaster County against the Department of Correctional Services (DCS); Harold W. Clarke, the director of DCS; and Ronald Riethmuller, the records manager of DCS (collectively the defendants), alleging that his sentences were improperly calculated in that he had not been given good time credit. The trial court found that the defendants were entitled to summary judgment, based on statutory language mandating a minimum 10-year sentence on a habitual criminal conviction. The trial court further found that DCS was entitled to sovereign immunity and that the parties sued in their official capacities were entitled to immunity from Ebert’s request to compel them to credit him with good time. For the following reasons, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
Ebert was originally sentenced on March 26, 1996, to a term of 4 to 6 years’ imprisonment. The nature of Ebert’s original offense is not clear from the record in the present case. On July 1, 1997, Ebert received sentences of 10 years’ imprisonment on each of three separate convictions of second degree forgery and being a habitual criminal. The offenses for which Ebert received these sentences occurred in January and February 1996. These sentences were to run concurrently with one another but consecutively to Ebert’s previous sentence. Ebert has not received any good time credit toward the service of his 1997 sentences.
Ebert filed a petition on December 28, 2000, initiating an action under the Uniform Declaratory Judgment Act, see Neb. Rev. Stat. § 25-21,149 et seq. (Reissue 1995 & Cum. Supp. 2002), to determine his rights and legal interests in relation to the calculation of his 1997 sentences.
Phil Lewis Medal of Distinction |
|
1995 |
J. Nick Badgerow, Martin W. Bauer, Patricia Macke Dick, William F. Ebert III, Hon. Jerry G. Elliott, and Carol G. Green |
After meeting with the parties, reviewing the court file, which included the reports issued by the various professionals, reviewing email communication, contacting individuals identified by the parties, and discussing the case with the parties’ attorneys, the special master issued his written report in January 2004. In an order issued in February 2004, the trial court adopted the following proposed conclusions of law of the special master:
“1. If David Kimbrell genuinely desires to re-establish meaningful relationships with his children, it will be necessary for him to participate in individual therapy with a therapist who is knowledgeable about parental alienation syndrome and knowledgeable about parents who are emotionally abusive, especially those with significant psychiatric problems.
“2. If the individual therapy process with David is successful (i.e. if David can be helped to . . . appreciate . . . how he has contributed to the damaged relationships with his children and helped to understand how to modify his expectations and behavior accordingly) then the door should be opened to including Evan and/or Dylan in the therapy process, if they choose to participate (as per Dr. Gardner’s recommendations, §6, Pages 117, 118, Gardner Report).”
David moved for reconsideration of the trial court’s decision or, alternatively, to modify its previous orders. In his motion, David requested specific orders relating to the following: parenting time and visitation, exchanging information regarding the children, counseling, and terminating the special master’s appointment. In his motion, David argued that there could not be a therapy precondition to his contact with his children. In addition, David argued that the special master’s report was unreliable because it was factually flawed, placed undue reliance on questionable expert opinions, and did not comport with due process.
If so, those are legitimate complaints and concerns. How can one have justice with factual flaws, undue reliance on questionable expert opinions, and violation of due process? On the other hand, it does seem that he started that ball rolling to start with.
In a memorandum decision filed in September 2004, the trial court granted in part and denied in part David’s motion. The trial court concluded:
“1. Based upon the case history, recommendations filed with the court, and the lack of any success with court-ordered therapy, the court will not order any of the parties in this case to participate in therapy. However, the court concurs with the special master’s recommendation that Respondent participate in therapy to attempt to gain some insight into his relationship with his biological children and that any of his children participate in that therapy as they would like.
“2. Dylan, DOB 09/05/86, is now eighteen. His parenting time is no longer under the jurisdiction of this court.
This one above, I actually read in detail, fine print and all. I wish I’d been a fly on the wall on the case in point. While readers are told of the various professionals involved, one wonders whether abuse was or was not, given the degree of control, and bittter anger. s might do well to go through the case (as I did some months ago on the Oconto, Wisconsin case, listing the staggering amount of “players” involved).
(2)
NEWMAN-13-1-A2-PV 3/15/2004 9:55 AM
(PUBLIC INTEREST LAW JOURNAL…)
The second link (I confess — a referral) is a lengthy discussion about using the assumption of a model, functioning family as the basis for families going through the family law system, when in fact these are typically NOT the functional ones. It comes from Boston University, and deals with the Troxel case. I have only glanced at this link, not read it.
GRANDPARENT VISITATION CLAIMS:
ASSESSING THE MULTIPLE HARMS OF LITIGATION TO FAMILIES AND CHILDREN
“In fairness, how much confrontation and litigation should a child be expected to bear?”
1
[[Or a parent, particularly a single custodial parent…]] [[note: the quote below is a little scrambled — technical cut & paste issues on my part — but gives an idea of the issues raised. ]
I
NTRODUCTION
Family law has made significant progress in the last several decades by gradually discarding two models of “family” for legal decision making purposes: the “conventional” family and the “well-functioning” family. In constitutional terms, the conventional family’s monopoly on legal rights loosened considerably in 1972 when the Supreme Court, in Stanley v. Illinois, to maintain custody of his “illegitimate” children when the children’s mother died. be unfit and made his children wards of the state. In subsequent years, a wide array of state decisions conferred family recognition and benefits, in varying degrees, upon families headed by single mothers, gay and lesbian couples, unmarried cohabitants, and others who failed to fit the conventional mold. In Stanley, The Court stuck down an Illinois law that presumed the unwed father to5Grandparent visitation laws, the subject of this article, provide an example of the law’s ill-advised use of the model of well-functioning family relationships
visitation with a child “at any time” if visits would “serve the best interest of the child.” In Troxel, the Supreme Court confronted one of the most sweeping visitation15 Tommie Granville and Brad Troxel lived together and had two children.16They separated in 1991, and two years later Brad committed suicide. Tommie allowed Brad’s parents to continue seeing the children following the suicide, but five months later she decided to adjust the visitation schedule, limiting the Troxels to one visit per month. Tommie for increased visitation, pursuing their claim through six and a half years of litigation to the United States Supreme Court.
17 At first,18 Two months afterward, the Troxels sued19The case generated six opinions from the Supreme Court. Despite the controversial nature of the substantive due process doctrine, a clear majority of the justices agreed that parents possess a due process liberty right to the care, custody, and control of their own children. Scalia would deny the existence of such a right. Washington statute, as applied, violated the mother’s constitutional rights. justice, David Souter, would have gone further and declared the statute unconstitutional on its face, effectively making the plurality opinion the operative constitutional ruling. parents’ fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children resolved the case. existence of the right to parent.20 From the opinions, it appears that only Justice21 A four-justice plurality found the22 A fifth23 Justice Thomas agreed that the Court’s recognition of24 Justices Stevens and Kennedy, though dissenting, also acknowledged the25
The plurality started its analysis by noting that the conventional family is only one of many modern family forms. “While many children may have two married parents and grandparents who visit regularly, many other children are raised in single-parent households.”26
According to cited census figures, some four million children reside in the household of grandparents, and a substantial minority ofgrandparents act in a parental role, assisting single parents in performing the“everyday tasks of child rearing.”27
The opinion also made clear that it would not rely upon an idealized version offamily relationships:In an ideal world, parents might always seek to cultivate the bonds betweengrandparents and their grandchildren. Needless to say, however, our world is
far from perfect, and in it the decision whether such an intergenerational
relationship would be beneficial in any specific case is for the parent to make
in the first instance.
28
Tactfully, but unfortunately, the justices did not identify the realities thatcontradict the classic stereotype of the well-functioning grandparent in the familylife of children. A more realistic picture of these grandparent visitation caseswould have emerged had the opinion acknowledged some of the ways in which
stereotypes involving grandparents sometimes fail. A mention, for example, of
situations in which grandparents are not doting, loving and helpful, but abusive,
demeaning, controlling, meddlesome or belligerent, would have placed these cases
in a more realistic light. In fact, the cases in the nation’s family courts regularly
feature such untraditional grandparents.
29 The only hint of such realities in the
Troxel“recognition of an independent third-party interest in a child can place a substantialburden on the traditional parent-child relationship.”plurality opinion is a possible inference from the Court’s observation that30
Again, my main purpose is to provide the two links, and a little commentary for those who are interested in the topic, and a sampling (as ever) of who ARE some of those professionals involved here (although, this time, I didn’t get much background on that…)
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The Hidden Price Tag of Child Support….
Women: Beg, borrow, don’t sleep (we did this when kids were little, and if you have also lived with domestic violence, many of you already know how not to have a sound night’s sleep), figure SOMETHING out.
“Beware Greeks” (or government employees) bearing “gifts.”
There is NO such thing as a “free lunch.”
But if you are living in poverty, as many single mothers are for various reasons, and you enlist the support of your local government by applying for TANF or Medicaid, the Child Support Division will GET YOU (LMAO) so that they can collect from the absent parent. The government got tired of supporting single mothers so they figured out (many years ago) that they should get reimbursed by the absent parent….
which was when the absent parent decided “he” wanted shared/50-50/equal parenting/custody (in recent years).
Well said. That’s not QUITE how it developed, Randi, but I’m posting your warning / opinion link below, because women deserve to know up front.
Nonprofits need warm bodies as clients. Nonprofits that take funding from the federal system (through states, through counties, sometimes through courts) actually RECRUIT fathers — in various institutions, and offer them help to abate child support arrears in exchange for more custodial time with their kids. This is a win-win situation for most people — except the kids, and the parents of those kids. Why? Because the mothers are told one thing, and the fathers another. Then, naturally, we are labeled for having indignation, including at that.
The word “noncustodial parent” is code for “father.” If you haven’t figured this out yet, don’t blame me!
The child support system is incredibly opaque to mothers, so many times. Easy in, hard to get out. For example, I haven’t seen my own children for far too long, they have not been in my “custody.” The normal, average, street understanding of the word “custody” has to do with either a sheriff that just took a criminal or someone off the street into “custody,” or — in these fields, which parent has the child. Or, do child protective services, or foster parents receive, I guess “custody.”
NORMAL WORDS HAVE DIFFERENT MEANINGS IN THE CHILD SUPPORT SYSTEM.
But this system calls parents who are OWED money “custodial” in its electronic calculations, regardless of where any children live. For example, if I want to go check on how much my ex has not paid me on the outstanding arrears he had before he (or someone helping him) figured out a way to at least stop child support from accruing — take the kids — I must still sign in under “custodial” parent field in this statewide distribution system.
IS IT IN EFFECT CHILD RENTAL? OR IS IT NOT?
Then they repeatedly assert (falsely) that it’s NOT about children for time (i.e., children’s time for SALE, essentially. Consider the message this sends growing young ladies….and what a “healthy” marriage message it is…). However, in calculating who owes what, time IS a factor.
And if you can follow that, you should be able to graduate from at least calculus, let alone be able to add, subtract, multiply, and project what direction income is heading, and where.
NO, she is right. Child Support is a misnomer.
There is NO “free lunch,” no matter what you are told on the posters.
My involvement:
I, too, after a decade of abuse, really relished the reliability — for just a few months — of actual predictable income, welfare level plus Food Stamps — that I could actually spend, and determine how to use for my (then young) children’s needs.
It was just a single stair-step out of the abuse. I was off it almost immediately, and with him out of the house, and then one move, I had my act together.
Then, WHAM! You have no idea how THREATENING it is to certain powers to actually be a self-supporting, good, single mother. Of for an ex-batterer to have actual proof that, once he was out of the home, the home was doing better (even if he was not out of the children’s lives). Either way, you are cutting in on someone else’s business.
Besides, poverty of any sort is your own fault, right?
RESULTS?
What I paid for thinking that someone helping us AFTER and OUT of abuse was actually altruistic, and didn’t have an ulterior motive:
I paid with the custody of my children, the viability of my profession, and was eventually forced BACK onto Food stamps, only years older, with a further broken job history (broken by years in family court answering ridiculous allegations that a single phone call — or a single examination of probably less than 3 pages of paper evidence proving the allegations false — would have easily proved baseless). Both parents — neither who could afford this — alternately hired an attorney; me, to defend from custody action, he to stop my second attempt to reinstate a restraining order.
I have news for you. Restraining orders are hard to get once you’ve been in family court. The police tend to defer to that venue; their job is tough enough already.
Wade Horn (below) was eventually “outed” and as I recall, had to resign, but the programs he initiated remain. The OCSE (Office of Child Support Enforcement) is basically a fatherhood and healthy marriage programs recruiting center.
In my own case, once the kids were switched, the child support agency went deaf, dumb and blind. They couldn’t get a document served. I couldn’t get a response until I talked to someone who knew someone who knew someone, after which it turned over, lumbering in sleep, and started to act.
N ot nearly so swift as the father and friends, who had a VERY fast learning curve as to the system (or some help navigating it, apparently). While it was thinking about thinking about moving, our situation heated up, especially around the frequent exchanges.
After the snatch, a significant arrears was retroactively abated, reduced by a significant portion, and payments almost eliminated. The almost-eliminated payments didn’t come in regularly, anyhow, and my rights to enforce contempt, hard enough to start with, were snipped.
So, while this child support organization (locally) goes on TV crowing about their successes, I keep my doggie-bag handy at the time, for spit-up (gag reflex). Besides, the OCSE, and Fatherhood AND . .. DV agencies are basically in (bed, may I say?) together in some of these matters. At least they are conferencing together….
So, DO NOT GO FOR CHILD SUPPORT AGENCY — IT”S A TRAP! IT’s A SINKHOLE! For further documentation, see http://www.NAFCJ.net, among others. (Disclaimer: Obviously this is opinion, and not legal advice! Am I your counselor? No…. I’m a blogger….)
Thank you, Randi James, for saying this better (and in better fonts) than I could.
Here’s an older post of hers citing the 2005 open letter from CA NOW to investigate Fatherhood Funding and citing their 2002 family court report.
Randi asks (or Helen Grieco does, read for yourself) who is going to audit those funds?
Then Ms. James (Randijames) comments — what’s happened since then?]
I’ll tell you what I think happened: NOW’s agenda changed. They are active, but not as active in this venue. STILL, the work remains on-line, at least I think so…
Thursday DHHS, Responsible Fatherhood, the Family Court: Your Tax Dollars Being Wasted On an Illegal Hype
August 2, 2005
California Member of Congress, California National Organization for Women (CA NOW) is respectfully requesting that you join the call for a federal investigation, by the U.S. Government Reform Committee, into the operations of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration of Children and Families’ Access/Visitation and “Responsible Fatherhood” programs, including those operating in California.
CA NOW believes that these fatherhood programs misuse funds, do not account for their spending nor evaluation of their programming, and encourage illegal court practices that result in harm to women’s safety and well-being. We believe that fathers’ child support arrears are frequently abated by these groups, in violation of the Bradley amendment.
We also believe that Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Administration of Children and Families, has a conflict of interest serving in this capacity, and operates from a dangerous political ideology that actively favors fathers’ rights and seeks to minimize mothers’.
CA NOW believes an investigation would expose serious system failure and fraud in these fatherhood programs. They are funded with federal money intended for resolving parental disputes, but instead give legal representation to fathers, which often results in high conflict litigation against perfectly fit mothers. CA NOW believes many fathers use these resources in order to avoid paying child support, and that many batterers do so in order to continue to abuse and manipulate their spouses and children through financially draining and emotionally devastating litigation, that often stretches on for years and years.
Fatherhood programs operate on the false premise that there is a “crisis in fatherlessness,” which is contradicted by Census data. CA NOW asked HHS, and the National Fatherhood Initiative (the most cited program on the HHS website) to justify this claim of crisis, and to date have not received an answer from them.
{{Comment: This is like asking a pimp to stop collecting wages from the fees of his “stable.” Or ASKING a crack addict to stop. There’s a high off that power!
{{I am starting another page, and plan to post some of the $$ quoted (at least on HHS own’ site). NFI is again receiving funding, although initially they were more in the breeding (of programs like themselves) business. Chronologically: 1994 — NFI formed. Then its key player goes to key position within HHS. Then he’s out, but the programs remain. The work is done, and ongoing. I just haven’t figured out how to upload spreadsheets yet.}}
We believe the entire premise for the programming is erroneous, and that mothers and their children are suffering harm from the consequences of such a focus. Through political connection, legal trainings, and funding diversions, these fatherhood programs emphasize false syndromes, such as Parental Alienation Syndrome as a technique to remove children from their mothers. Fatherhood groups train court appointed minors’ attorneys, mediators and evaluators to discriminate against mothers, and create a vacuous draining of mothers of funding, faith in the system, and ability to fight to protect their children.
{{And where Joe Public, or Jane Doe are taken in is credulity. “SURELY, no one would do that; that’s outrageous. This is a JUSTICE system, right? Everyone “knows” that mothers have an advantage in custody trials…” ((oh???))}}
Tell that to the mother in Victorville who lost a 9-month old infant on court-ordered visitation, and her attempts to get safety dismissed because a judge affirmed she was making it up. This is now the new “model” in too many families, and it’s GREAT business all round — for certain professions — except for the families and kids who have to pick up around this, and society, who picks up the tab..}}
These are primary caregiving mothers. Single mothers whose children’s fathers come back after years without contact, and demand and receive full or partial custody. Mothers are losing custody to their abusers, to men who have abused or neglected their children, and men with criminal backgrounds.
Often fathers are awarded custody based on frivolous justifications, such as insufficient cooperation with the father, while documented evidence of domestic violence and abuse, even sexual abuse, goes ignored.
In 2002 California NOW analyzed 300 complaints from California mothers who believed family courts ignored laws, procedures and evidence in their cases. We used this analysis as the basis of our report, the CA NOW Family Court Report 2002.
{{Read it, or be uninformed. Find out which BANK morphed into which BANK funding the AFCC. Same BANK is in charge — at least in this state — of the statewide child distribution system, as far as I can tell. That’s reassuring…}}
The report shows that in these particular cases, where women had lost custody of their children, there was a high correlation between grounded evidence of child abuse by the father and the mother losing custody. 86% could prove that their children’s father had a history of domestic violence, child abuse, or a criminal record. In many cases, illegal maneuvers, such as the labeling of mothers with false syndromes, as well as the use of ex parte hearings, and biased and unqualified extra-judicial personnel, were used to remove children from their primary care-giving mothers, thus violating the woman’s parental rights and injuring the child(ren) by loss of contact with their non-offending mother.
Other professional comprehensive studies show similar results, including the Wellesley Women’s Center Battered Women’s Testimony Project, and sociologist Amy Neustein, PhD and attorney Michael Lesher’s book, Madness to Mutiny: Why Mothers Are Running from the Family Courts—and What Can Be Done About It. In addition, CA NOW believes that Wade Horn, current Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services, has a major conflict of interest in his role overseeing such programs, given his past affiliation as president of the National Fatherhood Initiative.
Horn, as President of National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI), promoted (in collaboration with fathers rights groups) during 1999 and 2000, “Fathers Count” legislation, which would have mandated $10,000,000 in total annual funding to fathers organizations. According to the legislative language, only NFI and the leading fathers’ rights group, Children’s Rights Council, would have qualified for the grants. The bill passed the Congress, but was stalled by the Senate Finance Committee. In March 2001, NFI received a $500,000 non-competitive grant, shortly after Horn became “Acting” HHS Assistant Secretary ( February 2001), while he was still NFI President (not resigning until July 2001). This grant was authorized by a December 2000 Congressional “ear-mark” inserted in an appropriations bill after the “Fathers Count” bill failed to pass the Senate Finance Committee.
NFI refuses to disclose how this money was used. Also, Horn conceals he has on-going conflicts-of-interest with NFI and the implementation of the fatherhood programs.
California NOW has HHS evaluation reports that show that the “Responsible Fatherhood” program is used for unauthorized practices such as soliciting fathers through the child support system with offers of abatements on their child support arrears (in violation of the Bradley Amendment) and free attorneys for their custody litigation. Some litigating mothers have provided us with county payment records that show the attorney of the litigating farther was paid from these programs. These unauthorized practices are so common that flyers soliciting fathers into ‘litigation assistance’ groups have been found displayed in county court buildings, while some state court web sites display links to their fatherhood programs. This practice violates the mission of the judicial system, as it provides special litigation assistance to one-side of a legal dispute.
While being funded by federal money, these court-based fatherhood services do not admit non- custodial mothers into their programs. (In fact, a search of the HHS website includes 286 references to “motherhood” and 824 references to “fatherhood.”)
California NOW has copies of internal HHS e- mail showing Wade Horn’s staff have obstructed investigations of mothers’ complaints about the Responsible Fatherhood and related programs.
California NOW is asking for you to join the call for a thorough investigation by the Government Reform Committee into the fatherhood programs—including those in California– and HHS Assistant Secretary, Wade Horn’s conflict of interest in these programs.
We implore you to support the Government Reform Committee’s investigations–already now underway–by contacting the staff investigator and urging that California be included in the investigation. The staff director is David Marin, phone number 202-225-5074, address c/o Government Reform Committee, 2157 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515. Thank you for your time and immediate attention to this matter.
For Justice, Helen Grieco
Executive Director California National Organization for Women (CA NOW) _____
(Randi James writes):
This was 2005. What came of this? Where is NOW, now? See below this post for other posts of mine on topics that are covered in this letter.
Here’s another one of her posts, and if you don’t like the blunt truth in blunt language, go be politically correct and euphemistic elsewhere, but realize this is a mutual bottom line we are talking about here.
If you want to know what a WAR is like, remember to talk to the Veterans of it, not just the Congressional people who authorized the war, and sent other people’s kids (or their own) off to it!
A recent NYT featured books written from the front lines about war. Well, these blogs are “from the front lines” on these issues. We are RIGHT about the Child Support farce, and mothers would do well to take heed to it.
The other thing that may happen — and happened to some of us — is that when a father is actually pursued for money, a very important status symbol to men in this culture, and most cultures — a number of reactions may happen, only ONE of which is going for custody of children he previously cared little about.
Anoither version of the same type of struggle is worse, and if you are familiar with the Hans Reiser case in Lafayette, California, his wife NINA disappeared on a court-ordered exchange of their young children.
It was high-profile, he was convicted with killing her before a body was shown up, and then plea-bargained his sentence down by saving the police time and showing where she was buried.
Not so frequently reported about, on that case, was that at this time, he had a $10,000 child support arrears, and had been arrested with thousands of dollars cash on his person.
DECENT fathers understand that children need money to survive, but when feelings are involved, and the “reptilian” part of the brain is active — and when the environment (in the gender wars in the courts) is favorable towards this, and not reason and common sense — things can go seriously haywire. The loser is ALWAYS going to be the kids, FIRST, and thereafter, society.
JUST DON’T DO IT!
Again, that’s not legal advice, that’s my opinion.
As Ms. James says:
I Don’t Want Child Support
Dear Reader,
I don’t want the shit (child support) either. In fact, many of us mothers, at this point, would gladly retract the child support in exchange for the ability to raise our children without interference from our abusers. Legal auction.
(AND that IS what’s in the fine print…That’s what’s at stake!
Consider your situation, I’m writing this half jokingly, but 100% seriously.
Well, that’s not always practical, but the point remains….
Stop presenting children to be fleeced, along with yourself, if at ALL possible. Don’t say you weren’t warned!
(Formatting difficulties below…)
OMB REPORT DESCRIBING ACCESS VISITATION FUNDS — PROGRAM PARTICIPANT SURVEY (This one, 2008):
State Child Access Program Survey:Instructions
Purpose
The purpose of this survey is to provide information to Congress on the progress of services provided under the Child Access and Visitation Grant, the goal of which is to “…support and facilitate a noncustodial parents’ access to and visitation with their children.”
Survey Components
TheThe state is:… responsible for summarizing much of the data provided by its grantees and reflecting this information in the “State Agency Program Survey” part of the form. The state is also responsible for making sure that local service providers or grantees complete the “Local Service Provider Survey” part of the form. In the instance a state transfers its child access grant funds to another state agency (e.g., Office of the Courts) who, in turn, issues grants to local courts and/or community-based organizations, {{this could be called (??) “Separation of Powers” (Legal, Judicial, Executive, right? Yeah, sure. It ALSO is, “separation of church and state.” Yeah, sure.*** }} the state must ensure that these “sub-grantees” complete the “Local Service Provider Survey.”
State Child Access Program Survey is comprised of two-parts: 1) the State Agency Program Survey; and 2) the Local Service Provider Survey. “State Child Access Program Survey” to OCSE by REQUIRED OUTCOME
#1. Increased NCP parenting time with children. (NCP = non custodial parent):
DEFINITION of Required Outcome:
“An increase in the number of hours, days, weekends, and/or holidays as compared to parenting time prior to the provision of access and visitation services.”
AND THERE YOU HAVE IT: OUT-COME BASED JUDICIAL PROCESS. Of course, this doesn’t exactly mean equality of “DUE PROCESS.” They are kind of at the opposite ends of the spectrum, right? How is one to “increase parenting time” if the facts just don’t support the wisdom of this? LIke CPS says Daddy was waterboarding, or Mommy was doing something incorrect too, or so forth? Well, a judge examining facts/law couldn’t, but a mediator sure could. Someone NOT subject to cross-examination, due process, and particularly if immune for prosecution for slander, bias, etc. — that would be a lot harder to deal with, for the shocked parent that wondered “what happened? What part of this don’t you “GET”??” Well, the part that parent didn’t GET is what went on behind closed doors with ONE parent, but not the other, at federal expense. THAT’s what tipped the scale….
In addition, Section D: Local Service Provider Worksheet was developed to assist service providers in compiling information on clients served. The “Case Reference/Identification Number” can be the same “case” number used by a service provider at client intake. It must be emphasized, however, that personal social security numbers are not to be used since this would be a breach of client confidentiality.
SOURCE (and better viewed on the PDF):
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/forms/omb-0970-0204.pdf
Here’s the FEDERAL GRANTSWIRE description, in part:
Program
93.597 Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs
Federal Agency
Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Office: Administration for Children and FamiliesAuthorization
Social Security Act, Title IV, Part D, Section 469B, Public Law 104-193.
Program Number
93.597
Last Known Status
Active
Objectives
To enable States to create programs which support and facilitate access and visitation by non-custodial parents with their children. {{of course “support and facilitate” in practice typically may include the reality of “mandatory…” No meet the “required outcome” of the court process — more NCP time with the kid = may compromise next year’s funding. ….}}
Activities may {{??}} include mediation, counseling, education, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement and development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements.
(WOW — sounds like a list of the professions represented in large part by the AFCC…) (What a coincidence….)
Eligibility Requirements
Applicant Eligibility
All States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and Guam.
Beneficiary Eligibility
Custodial and non-custodial parents and children.
My total loss of custody, and other mothers’, was a definite “beneficiary” of these types of services. I suppose…
Credentials/Documentation
The Governors have designated a single State agency to represent the State in carrying out this responsibility. OMB Circular No. A-87 applies to this program.
(Formatting loophole — this info is from the OMB reporting requirements, prior link):
Last, the state is responsible for submitting the
November 30th of each year that the survey is authorized.
The local service provider is: …responsible for completing the “Local Service Provider Survey” for clients served and submitting this information to the state who, in turn, will submit it to OCSE . A new feature of the survey (see Section D: Local Service Provider Worksheet) requires that grantees report on the following:
{{Typical of our government: Grammar off – it doesn’t even agree in number: “a noncustodial parents’ “(is that singular or plural? I think singular was intended by “a” but parents’ is definitely plural. Maybe we can figure it out in context.. let’s read on… )..”access to and visitation with their children.” (Was the NCP a singular or a plural person? Maybe it was plural, because it’s access to “their” children.”
And we wonder why our kids have deficit attention disorder? And need remedial reading? The government can’t even pay attention to number (singular/plural?) for a complete sentence…) Or, maybe there was a sperm donor, so “NCP” — which we know means Dads anyhow — MAY refer to more than one NCP per child. Well, you go figure it out….)}}
{{Now as to the hypocrisy — I already posted on why I don’t copyedit around here, so MY ____ is covered in that regard, I hope.}}
As part of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, states are required to monitor, evaluate, and report on programs funded through this grant program in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary.
My personal recommendation is that we citizens get out our GUIDESTAR free registrations, and do this ourselves. After all, whose dollars are they? Whose country IS this?
A final rule delineating the program data reporting requirements was published by the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement in the Federal Register (64 FR 15132) on March 30, 1999, and specifies the collection of data as follows:
“Section 303.109(c) REPORTING. The state must:
(1) Report a detailed description of each program funded, providing the following information as appropriate: service providers and administrators, service area (rural/urban), population served (income, race, marital status), program goals, application or referral process (including referral sources), voluntary or mandatory nature of the programs, types of activities and length and features of a completed program; and
(2) Report data including: the number of applicants/referrals for each program, the total number of participating individuals, and the number of persons who have completed program requirements by authorized activities (mediation—voluntary and mandatory, counseling, education, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement—
including monitoring, supervision and neutral drop-off and pickup) and development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements.”
Let’s look at this funding in, say, California, Florida, NY, and Texas — typically among the largest states in grants searches.
Trend
2000 $9,800,000 2001 $9,800,000 2002 $19,543,038 2003 $9,643,505 2004 $10,000,000 2005 $10,000,000 2006 $0 2007 $10,000,000 2008 $10,000,000 2009 $7,141,989 2010 $10,000,000
93.601: Child Support Enforcement and Demo Projects HERE:
Trend
2000 $0 2001 $0 2002 $0 2003 $0 2004 $0 2005 $0 2006 $0 2007 $1,556,856 2008 $1,295,662 2009 $1,051,645 2010 $0
OK, something new coming down the pike, obviously…
And 93.563, Child Support Enforcement:
Federal dollars: $31,546,418,240
Total number of recipients: 157
Total number of transactions: 85,611
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(Yet another) Court-enabled infanticide on court-ordered visitation
You want to know why I call the DV Restraining order process “certifiably insane?” Whether granted, or NOT granted? Here’s why.
-
Local News in Victorville, CA
Pinon Hills man plans murder of infant son, suicide on Facebook
Comments 55 | Recommend 8
February 01, 2010 11:19 PMIn a chilling letter posted on Facebook for anyone to see, Stephen Garcia, 25, of Pinon Hills appears to detail how he planned his suicide and the murder of his 9-month-old son.
…..
Thinking that it is going to help us is grasping at straws. Instead, make a safety plan.
However, this mother had a choice of possibly going to jail for contempt if she decided to disobey a court order that overrode her mother’s instincts.
“I led everyone on my side of the family to believe I wouldn’t of done this because I did not want them to know…” the letter reads. “I had been thinking about doing this for months.”
In other words, the guy was deceitful, deceiving even his own family. However, the mother of his son, who apparently knew him more “intimately” saw the danger, and tried to stop it. She tried with the usual tools that women in this position are given: Seek a restraining order.
She didn’t even GET one, because there had been no prior criminal record.. Therefore, he could not have possibly been a danger. Sure…
The post may help San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Homicide investigators piece together what led to the Sunday morning tragedy, when Garcia took his infant son during a court-ordered visitation, drove to a dirt road in Twin Peaks and ended both of their lives.
In the letter posted to his Facebook profile, Garcia claimed the deaths were an attempt to save his son from a difficult life — and to punish the baby’s mother, Katie Tagle, for refusing to come back to him.
“Our deaths are a lot for her,” the post continues. “It will have to suffice as her punishment. But that is not the reason I did it. It was the only way we could be happy without Katie. I did this out of love for our son, to protect him and myself.”
Saved letters, text messages and massive files containing e-mails and other correspondence give a glimpse into Garcia’s obsession, cursing Tagle and her family in some posts and asking her to return to him in others.
Court documents tell more of the story, with Tagle filing a request for a domestic violence restraining order on Dec. 11, 2009. On Jan. 12 that order was denied, as it was found Garcia was not a “threat to petitioner or the minor child.”
A search of his criminal record showed no history of domestic violence, battery or similar offenses in San Bernardino County. However, in one of a slew of other online letters attributed to Garcia, it states, “I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for hitting you. I’m sorry I made the wrong choices.”
On Jan. 17, shortly after the final visit with Judge David Mazurek, Garcia joined a Facebook group called “Organ Donor.”
In the days leading up to the murder-suicide, Garcia posted a half-dozen videos and dozens of photos of Wyatt with cryptic captions such as, “Please, it’s not too late.”
On his MySpace page, his mood over the last week was listed as “tested,” “bummed” and “scared,” with “one more day :(” his final post.
Hours before officials got a call Saturday night that Wyatt was missing and Garcia had threatened to kill him, he made his final online post: “We love you all.”
The suicide note was posted on Garcia’s Facebook profile Sunday, about eight hours after Hesperia Sheriff’s deputies found the bodies in Garcia’s car. It appears Garcia left directions for someone to post the letter and make it public for everyone to see.
The lengthy post also reads as a will, with directions for how to distribute his possessions and personal notes to family members and friends. It also states that Garcia left a signed letter in his truck, confessing to the killings and explaining why he did them.
Though Garcia mentions using a gun, investigators have not released information on how he killed Wyatt and himself, stating only that they both died from “traumatic injuries.”
Anyone who may have information about this case is asked to call Detective Ryan Ford or Sgt. Frank Montanez at the Sheriff’s Homicide Detail at (909) 387-3589 or call WeTip at (800) 78-CRIME.Brooke Edwards and Natasha Lindstrom contributed to this report.
Beatriz E. Valenzuela may be reached at 951-6276 or at BValenzuela@VVDailyPress.com.
Here’s the SFGate Report on this:
SoCal man mentioned son’s killing on Facebook
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
(02-02) 09:04 PST HESPERIA, Calif. (AP) —
A newspaper says a San Bernardino County man who killed his 9-month-old son and himself left a Facebook message saying he did it out of love.Sheriff’s officials say 25-year-old Stephen Garcia of Pinon Hills was on a court-ordered visit with his son Sunday when he drove to a dirt road in Twin Peaks, killed the boy and committed suicide.
The Daily Press in Victorville says Garcia left a message on his Facebook profile about eight hours after his body was found. The note, apparently posted on his behalf by someone else, says Garcia had been thinking of the crime for months and wanted to punish the baby’s mother for leaving him.
Garcia says the deaths are the only way he and his son can be happy without her and says he did it out of love to protect the boy.
Information from: Daily Press, www.vvdailypress.com (the first article, above).
He did it for “love.” Some kind of love….
Here’s a fellow-blogger’s reaction.
And a site worth spending time on. . . .
See the heartbreaking MySpace page that belongs to the father and the bizzare RIP on it.
Judge J. David Mazurek needs to held accountable on this, and charged as an accomplice in this murder. This needs to happen to every judge that allows abusers to take children, and then hurt or murder them. Maybe then judges will start taking domestic violence seriously. Thanks to the father’s rights advocates and their “false allegations” drivel, they have turned America’s judges into a bunch of pussies who absolutely have no clue. Just get the child to the father….doesn’t matter if he is violent or not. It is time to stop listening to the mantra from these groups and start taking these violent guys seriously, and start putting judges in prison that don’t.
We Moms are NOT de-sensitized to this insane callousness to who lives, or who’s going to die. But if a Mom goes to jail in protest, what good is that to her children? If she doesn’t go, then the risk goes to the children. And/or her, and/or innocent bystanders, in some cases.
THIS overentitled, disillusioned, and unable to have a vital purpose in life other than punishing the mother of his child (how perverted is THAT?) was only 25. Bet he attended a public school system, possibly in this great state. Did he do college too? If so, to what point? Whether or not, there is clearly an attitude problem, a spiritual problem, and a moral problem. I don’t think the millions upon millions (literally) going to the California Healthy Marriage Coalition are going to stop troubles this entrenched. This guy was narcissistic, period. And to a point, he was a product of a system that encourages — and does not DIScourage — this. It’s a system where women have to fight uphill to get away from ground zero in their own lives.
I wonder how well we (well, people) are also reading characters before having babies. Makes you think, right?
BUT: Apparently the courts are, and clearly the judges are callous. Or, they are bound by the requirement to keep an ongoing stream of unwilling clients to their cronies. Excuse me, colleagues.
Well, no, I don’t think the judges are not clueless, and they are not pussies, I believe. They just don’t care! Why? What’s at stake if they do? . . . . An entire system.
A bribe perverts justice. I’m not accusing this particular judge of taking a bribe, but the court docket below tells clearly that they passed the buck to family court because there were custody and visitation orders. That’s how it goes.
And family court was SET UP from the start, at least per some sites (CANOW.org family law page, NAFCJ.net, and some others) to be abuser-friendly, and father-friendly (despite allegations to the contrary).
It was just business as usual. And if you want “business as usual” to change, friends, you have to change who is paying for the “business as usual,” and in the bottom line, this is the taxpayers. The Dept. of HHS in combo with some DOJ (Office of Violence Against Women) sources are conferencing together, educating together, declaring together, but the ONE thing they are NOT doing is confronting t he mandated mediation or custody evaluation where there’s conflict. And that “required outcome” model of the court process.
The judge is not going to be charged as an accomplice to murder. With luck, and persistence, he MIGHT be held accountable if this becomes a pattern. The people most highly motivated to do this are probably already victims of the court system, and are still in the process of trying to stay housed, alive, and their kids alive also.
However, what we MIGHT do for the next batch of innocent young mothers who show up thinking that family court is something you can walk into, and then also walk OUT of with a restraining order, is warn them…
HERE’s the Docket:
12/11/2009 – She requests ex parte DV restraining order.
12/15/2009 8:29 AM DEPT. M3 EX-PARTE MOTION RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – Minutes Pre-D Complete
WOW, lots of “Tagles” in this jurisdiction. This appears to be Katie Tagle in a previous relationship, or another Katie Tagle. In this one, she was charged with domestic violence.
Either way, the KNEE-JERK reaction of the court is to:
1. Consolidate with a family law (dissolution, I guess case).
2. Make a really STUPID order as to where violence has been alleged. THIS one has a daughter, “Dakota” and they are to alternate every other DAY, and — of course — go to mediation, or else.
Here: 2007 DOCKET, different couple (or at least, father)….
Action: (Choose)04/04/2007 – EX-PARTE HEARING RE:TEMPORAR…04/03/2007 – EX-PARTE HEARING RE:TEMPORAR…
EX-PARTE HEARING RE:TEMPORARY ORDERS (DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION)REQUEST FILED BY RICARDO TAGLE JR
04/03/2007 – 8:29 AM DEPT. M2
| BERT L SWIFT PRESIDING. |
| CLERK: PEGGY JIMENEZ |
| REPORTER: GARY RAGLE |
| – |
| PLAINTIFF RICARDO TAGLE JR PRESENT |
| DEFENDANT KATIE MARIE TAGLE PRESENT |
| – |
| PROCEEDINGS: |
| DECLARATION RE: 4 HOUR NOTICE FILED. |
| WITNESS — RICARDO TAGLE JR IS SWORN AND EXAMINED. |
| WITNESS — KATIE TAGLE IS SWORN AND EXAMINED. |
| EX-PARTE HEARING IS HELD. |
| CASE CONSOLIDATED WITH CASE(S) MFL010729 MASTER FILE MFL010729 |
| – |
| {{NOTE: THis “consolidation” is where the issue of the DV gets basically lost, and is intentional. It happened to me. … This consolidation action violates due process for at least one of the parties, but is routine…}}HEARINGS: |
| CURRENT HEARING CONTINUED TO 04/04/07 AT 08:29 IN DEPARTMENT M3. |
| – |
| TEMPORARY CUSTODY ORDERS: PARTIES STIPULATE TO |
| SHARE CUSTODY OF DAKOTA TAGLE ON AN ALTERNATING |
| BASIS BEGINNING 04/01/07 EVERY OTHER DAY UNTIL |
| FURTHER ARRANGEMENTS ARE MADE. WEDNESDAYS DAKOTA |
| IS TO BE PICKED UP BY FATHER FROM DAYCARE UNTIL |
| 04/18/07. IF IT IS MOTHERS DAY FOR EXCHANGE IT |
| IS TO BE MADE AFTER MOTHER GETS OFF WORK. |
| THESE ORDERS ARE TEMPORARY UNTIL FURTHER ORDER |
| OF THE COURT. THINK: IF violence truly occurred, the Court just buried discussion of it, and made SURE that the child IS going to be in the full, unmonitored (not that I’m thinking monitoring makes a difference) custody of the abusive parent. |
| – |
| THE PARTIES ARE ORDERED TO REPORT ON 04/11/07, AT 08:00 TO FAMILY COURT SERVICES AND TO COOPERATE FULLY WITH THE FAMILY COURT SERVICES COUNSELORS DURING ALL STAGES OF THE MEDIATION/EVALUATION {{Do you GET this yet? The racket is going through mediation and evaluation and counseling. Yes, I said “racket.” See “Access/Visitation funding” which was thinly veiled way to get more fathers (although it says “noncustodial PARENTS, in practice, and even the language frequently slips into saying, FATHERS) more time with their children. I have blogged on this earlier..} |
| PROCESS. CUSTODIAL PARENT(S) SHALL MAKE CHILDREN AVAILABLE AT ALL TIMES REQUESTED BY COUNSELOR. |
| PARTIES ARE ORDERED TO ATTEND ORIENTATION ON |
| 04/09/07 AT 3PM. |
| ACTION – COMPLETE |
| === MINUTE ORDER END === |
| ==MINUTE ORDER CHANGED OR CORRECTED BY P MARTIN; CHANGES MADE ARE AS FOLLOWS: TO CHANGE TO ORIENTATION == |
It might be that she filed for divorce, and he quickly filed for DV. I don’t know without further research.
Here’s the minutes of the order, the next day. As you can see, the court called the DV “mutual combat” (Sure, right….) and ordered them to a “Strengthening Families Class.”
Here it is. We are talking, now 2 YEARS (almost) before another infant son died:
EX-PARTE HEARING RE:TEMPORARY ORDERS (DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION)REQUEST FILED BY RICARDO TAGLE JR (==link here)
04/04/2007 – 8:29 AM DEPT. M3
| BERT L SWIFT PRESIDING. | |||||||||||||||||
| CLERK: PEGGY JIMENEZ | |||||||||||||||||
| REPORTER: GARY RAGLE | |||||||||||||||||
| – | |||||||||||||||||
| PLAINTIFF RICARDO TAGLE JR PRESENT | |||||||||||||||||
| DEFENDANT KATIE MARIE TAGLE PRESENT | |||||||||||||||||
| – | |||||||||||||||||
| PROCEEDINGS: | |||||||||||||||||
| WITNESS — RICARDO TAGLE IS SWORN AND EXAMINED. | |||||||||||||||||
| WITNESS — KATIE TAGLE IS SWORN AND EXAMINED. | |||||||||||||||||
| WITNESS — SOMMER MERCER IS SWORN AND EXAMINED. | |||||||||||||||||
| WITNESS — CARLOS TAGLE IS SWORN AND EXAMINED. | |||||||||||||||||
| WITNESS — MARIA BROWN IS SWORN AND EXAMINED. | |||||||||||||||||
| EX-PARTE HEARING IS HELD. | |||||||||||||||||
EX PARTE ORDERS GRANTED AS FOLLOWS:
|
|||||||||||||||||
| COURT FINDS MUTUAL COMBAT AND ORDERS PERSONAL | |||||||||||||||||
| CONDUCT ORDERS AGAINST EACH PARTY. | |||||||||||||||||
| THE RESTRAINED PERSON MUST NOT DO THE FOLLOWING THINGS TO THE PROTECTED PERSON OR PEOPLE: | |||||||||||||||||
| HARASS, ATTACK, STRIKE, THREATEN, ASSAULT (SEXUALLY OR OTHERWISE), HIT, FOLLOW, STALK, MOLEST, DESTROY PERSONAL PROPERTY, DISTURB THE PEACE, KEEP UNDER SURVEILLANCE, OR BLOCK MOVEMENTS. | |||||||||||||||||
| – | |||||||||||||||||
| THESE ARE NON-CLETS ORDERS. | |||||||||||||||||
| – | |||||||||||||||||
| PARTIES ARE ORDERED TO ATTEND THE STRENGTHENING | |||||||||||||||||
| FAMILIES PROGRAM AT THE NEXT START CYCLE. | |||||||||||||||||
| – | |||||||||||||||||
| HEARINGS: | |||||||||||||||||
| ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SET FOR 08:30 AT M4 IN DEPARTMENT | |||||||||||||||||
| PETITIONER TO PREPARE ORDER AFTER HEARING. | |||||||||||||||||
| ACTION – COMPLETE | |||||||||||||||||
| === MINUTE ORDER END === |
There are “Strengthening Families” programs across the nation. A search found one from San Bernadino, UTAH (not this case, obviously), but this is probably typical of how it’s organized and got started:
(see original link, above for visuals. This is, naturally, an “Evidence-based” practice. The evidence in the Tagle case, out of San Bernadino, CAL is still that something ain’t getting that job done. …. No matter, the court-ordered parenting classes continue…)
The Strengthening Families Program (SFP) is a parenting and family skills training program that consists of 14 consecutive weekly skill-building sessions. Parents and children work separately in training sessions and then participate together in a session practicing the skills they learned earlier. Two booster sessions are used at 6 months to 1 year after the primary course. Children’s skills training sessions concentrate on setting goals, dealing with stress and emotions, communication skills, responsible behavior, and how to deal with peer pressure. Topics in the parental section include setting rules, nurturing, monitoring compliance, and applying appropriate discipline.
SFP was developed and tested in 1983 with 6- to 12-year-old children of parents in substance abuse treatment. Since then, culturally modified versions and age-adapted versions (for 3- to 5-, 10- to 14-, and 13- to 17-year-olds) with new manuals have been evaluated and found effective for families with diverse backgrounds: African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, American Indian, Australian, and Canadian.
| Goal / Mission | The goals of this program are to improve parenting skills and children’s behaviors and decrease conduct disorders; to improve children’s social competencies; and to improve family attachment, harmony, communication, and organization. |
| Results / Accomplishments | SFP has been evaluated at least 18 times on Federal grants and at least 150 times on State grants by independent evaluators. {{I question HOW independent…}}The original National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) study involved a true pretest, posttest, and follow-up experimental design with random assignment of families to one of four experimental groups: 1) parent training only, 2) parent training plus children’s skills training, 3) the complete SFP including the family component, and 4) no treatment besides substance abuse treatment for parents.
SFP was then culturally adapted and evaluated with five Center for Substance Abuse Prevention High-Risk Youth Program grants by independent evaluators using statistical control group designs that involved quasi-experimental, pretest, posttest, and 6-, 12-, 18-, and 24-month follow-ups. Recently, SFP was compared with a popular school-based aggression prevention program (I Can Problem Solve) and found highly effective (effect sizes = .45 to 1.38), employing a true experimental pretest–posttest, 12-month, and 24-month follow-up design in two Utah school districts. A NIDA four-group randomized clinical trial with about 800 primarily African-American families in the Washington, DC, area also found good results. |
| Categories | Social Environment / Family Structure Social Environment / Children’s Social Environment |
WHICH (to me) JUST GOES TO PROVE, THERE’S NO “FREE” LUNCH. YOU GO TO A NONPROFIT (POSSIBLY FUNDED B Y THE US GOV’T OR A STATE, OR BOTH) OR THE GOV’T (VIA AN AGENCY) FOR HELP — OR FOR THAT MATTER, ENROLL A CHILD IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL FOR EDUCATION– AND YOUR CHILDREN, AND PROBABLY YOU, will, (read my lips), will BE “AT RISK” of becoming the subject of a demonstration, or randomized trial of some behavioral management theory.
in this case, Ms. Tagle went to a judge seeking protection for her (new) infant son, and lost. Again, I do not know that this is the same Tagle. Possibly, possibly not. Different man, though. Last names not changed. Was this a rebound relationship?
Oh yes, the 2009 docket, in reverse chronologic order. No dissolution in this one:
- Case FAMMS900840 – KATIE TAGLE -N- STEPHEN GARCIA
Viewed Date Action Text Disposition Image
01/26/2010 FEE PAYMENT Not Applicable
01/26/2010 FEE PAYMENT Not Applicable
01/12/2010 9:00 AM DEPT. M3 OSC RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FILED BY KATIE TAGLE – Minutes Pre-D Complete
01/11/2010 ANDREW H. LUND IS REMOVED AS ATTORNEY FOR STEPHEN GARCIA, AND PRO/PER IS ADDED AS ATTORNEY OF RECORD. Not Applicable
01/08/2010 PROOF OF SERVICE OF SUPP DECL BY KATIE TAGLE BY MAIL ON 01/07/10 AS TO ATTORNEY ANDREW LUND, FILED. Not Applicable
01/08/2010 DECLARATION OF KATIE M TAGLE FILED Not Applicable
01/05/2010 PROOF OF SERVICE OF ANSWER TO TRO/IE BY MAIL ON 01/05/10 AS TO KATIE TAGLE, FILED. Not Applicable
01/05/2010 INCOME AND EXPENSE DECLARATION FILED BY STEPHEN GARCIA Not Applicable
01/05/2010 ANSWER TO TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER FILED BY STEPHEN GARCIA, PARTY REPRESENTED BY ANDREW H. LUND. Not Applicable
12/15/2009 8:29 AM DEPT. M3 EX-PARTE MOTION RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE – Minutes Pre-D Complete
12/11/2009 CERTIFICATE OF ASSIGNMENT RECEIVED. Not Applicable
12/11/2009 EX PARTE RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FILED BY KATIE TAGLE
12/11/2009 REQUEST FOR ORDER DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PREVENTION Not Applicable
12/11/2009 REQUEST AND PARTY INFORMATION ENTERED.(DV) Not Applicable
Case FAMMS900840 – KATIE TAGLE -N- STEPHEN GARCIA
Action: (Choose)02/01/2010 – ORDER FOR TRANSCRIPT02/01/2010 – ORDER FOR TRANSCRIPT01/26/2010 – FEE PAYMENT01/26/2010 – FEE PAYMENT01/12/2010 – OSC RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FI…12/15/2009 – EX-PARTE MOTION RE: DOMESTIC…
EX-PARTE MOTION RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
12/15/2009 – 8:29 AM DEPT. M3
DEBRA HARRIS PRESIDING. CLERK: KIMBERLEY HATCH COURT REPORTER GARY RAGLE GARY RAGLE – PETITIONER KATIE TAGLE PRESENT RESPONDENT STEPHEN GARCIA PRESENT SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY LORI SMITH FOR ANDREW EUND FOR RESPONDENT. – PROCEEDINGS: OSC/MOTION HELD. BOTH PARTIES ARE SWORN AND EXAMINED. DECLARATION REGARDING EXPARTE NOTICE FILED. EX-PARTE HEARING IS HELD. EX PARTE ORDERS DENIED. – HEARINGS: OSC RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FILED BY KATIE TAGLE IS SET FOR 01/12/10AT 09:00 IN DEPARTMENT M3. ACTION – COMPLETE === MINUTE ORDER END ===
For those unfamiliar with the process, let me narrate:
- She asks for ex parte protection (12/11/09) which starts a process, and gives the respondent time to go get an attorney, which he does. The request for protection stands, it’s just not ex parte — a requirement which is for safety purposes, because of potential for retaliation.
- 12/15/09 the OSC for EX PARTE (immediate, without telling the other party) protection is apparently denied and the request for protection is continued to 01/11/10. NOTE: Christmas seasons, holiday seasons, can be very dangerous for the parties when there’s been a breakup; as it highlights “family” and a family is breaking apart…
- On 01/05/10 the man, who by now has an attorney (WONDER WHO PAID FOR HIM… ACCESS / Vistation FUNDING?), Mr. Lund, and files an answer.
- The parties exchange income and expense reports (if family law is going to make some money off this, it’s important to know which side has the money…. If not, they’ll be sent quickly through mediation, not evaluations….).
- On 01/07-08/10 the woman files and serves (by mail) a supplemental declaration to the man’s attorney, properly (Proof of service).
- On 01/11/10, the man’s attorney QUITS. (not enough money in it for him? Or, the case has already been, basically, decided).
- On 01/12/10, the OCS for a normal domestic violence protection order occurs, as follows:
OSC RE: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE FILED BY KATIE TAGLE
01/12/2010 – 9:00 AM DEPT. M3
| J. DAVID MAZUREK PRESIDING. |
| CLERK: KIMBERLEY HATCH |
| COURT REPORTER JENNIFER BARNAKIAN POLAND JENNIFER BARNAKIAN POLAND |
| – |
| PETITIONER KATIE TAGLE PRESENT |
| RESPONDENT STEPHEN GARCIA PRESENT |
| – |
| PROCEEDINGS: |
| OSC/MOTION HELD. |
| BOTH PARTIES ARE SWORN AND EXAMINED. |
| COURT FINDS THERE IS A PENDING PROCEEDING IN |
| THE VICTORVILLE COURT THAT IS SUBJECT TO CUSTODY |
| AND VISITATION ORDERS. |
| – |
| COURT FINDS THERE IS NOT THREAT TO PETITIONER |
| OR THE MINOR CHILD. |
| THE OSC IS DENIED. |
| – |
| ORAL MOTION FOR ATTORNEY FEES BY RESPONDENT IS |
| DENIED. |
| – |
| BOTH PARTIES ARE REMINDED BY THE COURT OF THEIR |
| FAMILY COURT SERVICES APPOINTMENT FOR THEIR |
| VICTORVILLE CASE. |
| COMPLAINT STAGE AT DISPOSITION – OTHER DISMISSAL BEFORE HEARING (FL) |
| DISPOSITION OTHER DISMISSAL BEFORE HEARING (FL) |
| COURT ORDERS ENTIRE ACTION DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE. REASON: REQUEST DENIED.. |
| ACTION – COMPLETE |
| === MINUTE ORDER END === |
- This (civil, I presume) venue tosses the ball back to the FAMILY law venue, and reminds them to be good little girls and boys, and go to Family Court Services.
- 01/26/2010 (LAST week, folks), something regarding fees is filed.
- 01/30/2010 — Father kills son on court-ordered visitation, and then himself. (NOT ON DOCKET).
- 01/31/2010 — Sheriff’s Dept. reports to press (see top of post):
01-31, 18:38 PST HESPERIA, Calif. (AP) —
Authorities in San Bernardino County say a 25-year-old father and his 9-month-old son have died in what investigators believe is a murder-suicide. A sheriff’s news release says deputies found Stephen Garcia and son Wyatt Garcia dead in a vehicle on a rural dirt road in the Twin Peaks area early Sunday.
The release says the Hesperia Sheriff’s Station had received a report Saturday night that Garcia took his son during a court-ordered visitation and threatened to kill the child and himself. The department did not say how the pair died, only that they “sustained traumatic injuries.” The county coroner will conduct an autopsy on both father and son this week.
Stephen Garcia was from the Pinon (pin-YONE) Hills area and his son was from Yucca Valley.
- 02/01/2010 Someone requests a Court Transcript.
I had not meant to spend so long on this case, After all, EVERY WEEK, even in my own Golden State, it seems someone ground up by this system, dies. If not a child also. I can’t keep up.
But it does illustrate the futility of (I think– make your own decision, and this is NOT legal advice) seeking a civil restraining order, versus criminal, versus, better yet, some kind of safety plan. Then again, for women with kids leaving abuse in the family law, there does not appear to be any safety. Congressmen (Danny Davis was active in a case) will help fathers haul kids back from overseas (China, Brazil, come to mind recently), but good luck getting yours back from your own state, or a next door state.
And again, a word to the wse — not that it’s an excuse — but cool it on the rebound relationships, if this was one.
AND — whoever posted on Facebook, and whoever SAW what was posted on facebook (i.e., a cry to have his threats taken seriously, as they should’ve been), YOU are responsible if you knew this couple, and did nothing. Sorry, but you are.
AND all of us need to get on the stick about this family law system. The AFCC and all their experts that PROFIT from these situations leading to, basically, more deaths, is convening in February — this month. Do research, people! It’s not rocket science, just an investment of time!
I think that if marriage, and relationships are continuing to be this dangerous to have, and leave, it is a testament to the strength of testosterone (and other hormones) that people continue to engage in sex, let alone ongoing relationships. Good grief!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A task force or a committee is not going to stop this stuff. A good audit, ongoing, by someone with courage (and other source of income) MIGHT make a dent….
Wish I had time to say more, but I don’t.
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Haiti, Idaho, 33 traumatized kids, 10 arrested Baptists and ChurchThink
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I am going to start posting this, I think, at the top of every post:
https://commerce.guidestar.org/GuideStar/newaccount.aspx
Know thyself, and Know Thy Nonprofits (including churches). ONE way to know someone is to take a look at their books. I mean Income, Expense, Assets & Liabilities, and request proof of who got which services.
Register for FREE with Guidestar, and start looking things up. That’s what the 2 men from Albany, GA did in the nonprofit hospital scam…
Do a local audit. After all, if you pay taxes, aren’t those YOUR taxes? And if a tax-exempt organization is tax-exempt and NOT providing whatever actually qualifies them for tax-exempt status (presumably a healthy does of altruism and concern for the common good, or picking up some of what the government can’t cover itself….) (say WHAT is government for, again? Health? and Human Services ??? Linguistic transformations, etc….).
and
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OK, not one of my best post titles, but who could resist this article?
‘Right Thing’ or Recklessness?
Arrests of Baptists stir debate about trafficking
By Frank Bajak and Paisley Dodds
Associated Press Posted: 01/31/2010 08:39:52 PM PST Updated: 01/31/2010 10:34:56 PM PSTPORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Ten U.S. Baptists arrested trying to take 33 children out of earthquake-shattered Haiti say they were just trying to do the right thing, applying Christian principles to save Haitian children.
Prime Minister Max Bellerive said Sunday he was outraged by the group’s “illegal trafficking of children” in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling.
One thing I’ve noticed about people intent on grabbing children is a total insensitivity to their former culture or values, let alone parentage…
But the hard reality on the ground in this desperately poor country — especially after the catastrophic Jan. 12 quake — is that some parents openly attest to their willingness to part with their children if it will mean a better life.
It was a sentiment expressed by all but one of some 20 Haitian parents interviewed at a tent camp Sunday that teemed with children whose toys were hewed from garbage. {{“hewed”? Isn’t that what you do to trees?}}
“Some parents I know have already given their children to foreigners,” said Adonis Helman, 44. “I’ve been thinking how I will choose which one I may give — probably my youngest.”
Haiti’s overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the quake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold.
Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, they could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them. Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child.
The orphanage where the children were later taken said at least some of the kids have living parents, who were apparently told that the children were going on an extended holiday from the post-quake misery.
The church group’s own mission statement said it planned to spend only hours in the devastated capital, quickly identifying children without immediate families and busing them to a rented hotel in the Dominican Republic without bothering to get permission from the Haitian government.
Whatever its intentions, other child welfare organizations in Haiti called the plan reckless.
The church members, most from Idaho, said they were only trying to rescue abandoned and traumatized children.
IDAHO has a family court system. There are certainly traumatized children being manufactured over there — why not practice this form of “love” locally, or have CPS and other agencies already marked out this territory? There are battered mothers on the verge of poverty and homelessness there. Were they simply in need of kids without going through the approval process? Or is the Bill of Rights over here getting in the way?
“In this chaos the government is in right now, we were just trying to do the right thing,” the group’s spokeswoman, Laura Silsby, said at Haiti’s judicial police headquarters, where she and others were taken after their arrest Friday night trying to cross the border into the Dominican Republic in a bus.
Silsby, 40, admitted she had not obtained the proper Haitian documents for the children, whose names were written on pink tape on their shirts.
Dang those pesky laws. The “right thing” in this case was obviously to ignore them, or be totally unconscious that such restraints might exist, and be appropriate.
The children, ages 2 months to 12 years old, were taken to an orphanage run by Austrian-based SOS Children’s Villages, where spokesman George Willeit said they arrived “very hungry, very thirsty.”
WERE taken, or HAD been taken? Did the church go to this orphanage to get some abandoned traumatized kids? Or were they taken here after the Haiti-fleeing church folk were caught?
A 2- to 3-month old baby was dehydrated and had to be hospitalized, he said. An orphanage worker held and caressed another, older baby, who was feverish and looked disoriented.
“One (8-year-old) girl was crying, and saying, ‘I am not an orphan. I still have my parents.’ And she thought she was going on a summer camp or a boarding school or something like that,” Willeit said.
The orphanage was working to reunite the children with their families, joining a concerted effort by the Haitian government, the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other nongovernment organizations.
In Idaho, the Rev. Clint Henry denied that his Central Valley Baptist Church had anything to do with child trafficking and said he didn’t believe such reports. He urged his tearful congregation to pray to God to “help them as they seek to resist the accusations of Satan and the lies that he would want them to believe and the fears that he would want to plant into their heart.”
{{pls. note on my blogroll link to copyright use…}}
And there, my friends, you have a typical church reaction to being confronted on violations of laws by its members. It wasn’t the members’ illegal activities that count, but Satan that motivated whoever reported them.
That US/THEM mentality is the breeding ground for gangs as much as other areas. Add to it the herd mentality, and people with needy children in the emotional portion of their thinking, and voila — an overseas trip comes together.
I promised in an earlier blog I’d make up for having failed to offend ALL groups, so this is part of my delivery.
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Miscellaneous programs in Idaho (Taggs.hhs.gov. These were REALLY random selections of CFDA programs I thought some of those church folk might want to get involved in, some of which refer to adoptions…
Number of rows returned: 40
Rows 1 through 40 displayed.
Records Searched: 161306
| Award Number | Award Title | OPDIV | Program Office | Sum of Actions |
| 1001ID1407 | FY 2010 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE | ACF | CB | $ 3,149,636 |
| SM059054 | MADISON CARES | SAMHSA | CMHS | $ 996,964 |
| 90RG0083 | REFUGEE MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT | ACF | ORR | $ 200,000 |
| 0901IDAIPP | FY 2009 ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENT PROGRAM | ACF | CB | $ 356,800 |
| 0901IDCJA1 | 2009 CJA | ACF | CB | $ 130,414 |
| 90RX0090 | REFUGEE PREVENTIVE HEALTH | ACF | ORR | $ 128,085 |
| 09PAIDFPSS | 2009 | ACF | CB | $ 38,214 |
| 09PCIDFPSS | 2009 | ACF | CB | $ 23,032 |
| 0901IDCA01 | 2009 NCCAN | ACF | CB | $ 178,963 |
| 0901IDFPSS | 2009 | ACF | CB | $ 1,217,307 |
| 90RU0163 | UNANTICIPATED ARRIVIALS | ACF | ORR | $ 451,468 |
| 0911IDFPCV | 2009 FPSSCV | ACF | CB | $ 36,142 |
| 0901ID1407 | FY 2009 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE | ACF | CB | $ 5,207,087 |
| 0801IDCJA1 | 2008 CJA | ACF | CB | $ 130,413 |
| 08PAIDFPSS | 2008 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 38,432 |
| 0801IDAIPP | FY 2008 ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENT PROGRAM | ACF | CB | $ 72,000 |
| 08PCIDFPSS | 2008 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 23,164 |
| 0811IDFPCV | 2008 FPSSCV | ACF | CB | $ 18,717 |
| 0801IDCA01 | 2008 NCCAN | ACF | CB | $ 174,928 |
| 0801IDFPSS | 2008 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 1,260,832 |
| 0801ID1407 | FY 2008 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE | ACF | CB | $ 4,468,573 |
| 10YO0052 | STREET OUTREACH PROGRAM | ACF | FYSB | $ 150,000 |
| 90CU0011 | IMPROVING POSITIVE OUTCOMES FOR CHILDREN THROUGH FAMILY DRUG COURT | ACF | CB | $ 2,575,000 |
| 0701IDCJA1 | 2007 CJA | ACF | CB | $ 124,244 |
| 90ZI0068 | REFUGEE MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT | ACF | ORR | $ 603,054 |
| 0701IDAIPP | FY 2007 ADOPTION INCENTIVE PAYMENT PROGRAM | ACF | CB | $ 68,000 |
| 90RL0137 | SERVICES TO OLDER REFUGEES | ACF | ORR | $ 435,183 |
| 90ZR0004 | REFUGEE AGRICULTURAL PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM | ACF | ORR | $ 303,582 |
| 90RT0123 | TARGETED ASSISTANCE | ACF | ORR | $ 633,376 |
| 90RG0062 | REFUGEE MICROENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT PROJECT | ACF | ORR | $ 760,000 |
| 90ZE0092 | REFUGEE SCHOOL IMPACT | ACF | ORR | $ 660,000 |
| 90RX0186 | REFUGEE PREVENTIVE HEALTH | ACF | ORR | $ 240,000 |
| 07PCIDFPSS | 2007 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 25,188 |
| 0701ID00FP | 2007 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 1,336,795 |
| 0701IDAEGP | 2007 AEGP | ACF | FYSB | $ 208,264 |
| H21MC07735 | TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY IMPLEMENTATION | HRSA | MCHB | $ 568,600 |
| 0701ID01FP | 2007 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 41,791 |
| 0701IDCA01 | 2007 NCCAN | ACF | CB | $ 171,365 |
| 0701ID1407 | FY 2007 ADOPTION ASSISTANCE | ACF | CB | $ 3,792,023 |
| 0301ID00FP | 2003 PSSF | ACF | CB | $ 1,067,762 |
C’ouer D’alene city blogspot (in Idaho) has this on Child Abduction Prevention:
Although the Coeur d’Alene Police Department receives very few cases of child abduction, the correct response and investigation of missing or abducted children remain a high priority for the department. Last year, Chief Wayne Longo spearheaded up-to-date training in Amber Alert for all members of the police department. Idaho State Police and Kootenai County Central Dispatch have been vital in offering and providing such training in the use of the statewide Amber Alert system. This training initiative has assisted officers in responding quickly and appropriately to these types of cases.
In the fall of 2007, Chief Longo attended a two-day workshop in Alexandria, Virginia, hosted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC, a non-profit entity supported by corporate sponsorships and grants, paid for all expenses associated with the training.
The executive-level training has a focus on a standardized law enforcement response and policies nation wide in child abduction cases. NCMEC also offered additional information and resources such as “Team Adam” to local law enforcement agencies.
Team Adam is a deployment of retired police officers specifically trained in child abduction who respond to a community and assist local law enforcement in the case of an abducted child.. . .
In 2005, Chief Longo was part of a multi-agency team that investigated the devastating Groene case that sent shock waves through North Idaho and the nation. In the past year, the FBI requested that he travel around the nation with other commanders involved in this investigation to share the lessons learned from that difficult case with other law enforcement leaders. FBI Special Agent Mike Genecko, Major Travis Chaney of the KCSD, FBI Supervisor Don Robinson, and assistant US Attorneys have accompanied him. The FBI has paid the expenses associated with all of the trips. Important lessons learned in Idaho are shared with our counterparts around the nation to assist other jurisdictions with best practices and ideas. The concept of cooperation and the Unified/Incident command system (Chief Longo refers to it as the “Blurring of the Patch”) are strongly emphasized.
“Our children are our most precious resource and it is the goal of the men and women of the Coeur d’Alene Police Department to provide the highest level of protection and service to our community,” Chief Longo stated. “This investigation [Groene] has forever changed all who were involved. The response by our community was unbelievable and continues to this day.”
The Coeur d’Alene Police Department encourages citizens to report any suspicious activity or information regarding a child abduction case. For more information on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, please visit their website at http://www.missingkids.com.
Posted by Victoria Bruno at 8:49 AM
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Lessons from Luzerne County, PA:
Despite Red Flags About Judges, a Kickback Scheme Flourished
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — Things were different in the Luzerne County juvenile courtroom, and everyone knew it. Proceedings on average took less than two minutes. Detention center workers were told in advance how many juveniles to expect at the end of each day — even before hearings to determine their innocence or guilt. Lawyers told families not to bother hiring them. They would not be allowed to speak anyway.
The 56-foot yacht in Jupiter, Fla., used by the two judges.
“The judge’s whim is all that mattered in that courtroom,” said Marsha Levick, the legal director of the Juvenile Law Center, a child advocacy organization in Philadelphia, which began raising concerns about the court to state authorities in 1999. “The law was basically irrelevant.”
Last month, the law caught up with Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., 58, who ran that juvenile court for 12 years, and Judge Michael T. Conahan, 56, a colleague on the county’s Court of Common Pleas.
In what authorities are calling the biggest legal scandal in state history, the two judges pleaded guilty to tax evasion and wire fraud in a scheme that involved sending thousands of juveniles to two private detention centers in exchange for $2.6 million in kickbacks.
WHY WON’T CHURCHES START INVESTIGATING THIS TYPE OF ACTIVITY, FROM THE TOP TO THE BOTTOM? THEY CERTAINLY HAVE AUDITORS IN THEIR MIDST… AND AN AUDIT CAN STOP SOME THINGS, LIKE — CHILD-TRAFFICKING…. AND UN NECESSARY INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF U.S. CHILDREN!
On Thursday, the State Supreme Court ordered that the records be cleaned for hundreds of the 2,500 or so juveniles sentenced by Judge Ciavarella, and in the coming weeks, the two judges will be sentenced, under a plea agreement, to more than seven years in prison.
While the scandal continues to ripple nationally as legal experts debate whether juvenile courts have sufficient oversight, here in Luzerne County people are grappling with more immediate questions: How did two native sons, elected twice to the bench to protect children and serve justice, decide to do the opposite? And why did no one stop them?
Old Friends Hatch a Plan
It all started in June 2000 with a simple business proposition, according to the judges’ indictment and more than 40 interviews with courtroom workers, authorities and others.
Robert J. Powell, a wealthy personal-injury lawyer from Hazleton, Pa., and longtime friend of Judge Conahan, wanted to know how he might get a contract to build a private detention center. Judge Ciavarella thought he could help.
The two men agreed to meet and, according to prosecutors, somewhere in that conversation a plan was hatched that courthouse workers and county officials would later describe as a “freight train without brakes.”
First, Judge Ciavarella put Mr. Powell in touch with a developer who also happened to be an old friend, Robert K. Mericle, to start work on finding a site. Then, in January 2002 — the month Judge Conahan became president judge, giving him control of the courthouse budget — he signed a secret deal with Mr. Powell, agreeing that the court would pay $1.3 million in annual rent, on top of the tens of millions of dollars that the county and the state would pay to house the delinquent juveniles. And by the end of that year, Judge Conahan had gotten rid of the competition by eliminating financing for the county detention center.
“They were unstoppable,” said Judge Chester B. Muroski, who sent a letter to county commissioners raising concerns about detention costs, only to be transferred days later to another court by Judge Conahan. “I knew something was wrong, but they silenced all dissent.”
Other dissenters were also steamrolled.
When the county controller, Steve Flood, leaked a state audit that described the state’s lease of the center as a “bad deal,” the center’s owner filed a “trade secrets” lawsuit against Mr. Flood, and Judge Conahan sealed the suit to limit other documents’ getting out. His decision was later overturned.
“Everyone began to assume that the judges had some vested interest in the private center because they were pushing it so doggedly,” one courthouse worker said. Virtually all former colleagues and courthouse workers would not allowed themselves to be identified because the federal investigation into the kickback scheme was ongoing and they feared for their jobs if they alienated former allies of the judges.
Mr. Powell has not been charged. His lawyer said that the judges had coerced him into paying the kickbacks and that he was cooperating with investigators.
The few officials who had concerns at the time say their hands were tied. Probation officers say they suspected that something was amiss but were overruled every time they requested lighter sentences or for sentences to be served at home. County commissioners were the only ones authorized to sign contracts for detention centers. But by eliminating money for the county center, Judge Conahan left them little alternative but to sign on to the deal for the private facility. . .
Stop the carpetbagging!
Prime Minister Max Bellerive said Sunday he was outraged by the group’s “illegal trafficking of children” in a country long afflicted by the scourge and by foreign meddling….
Haiti’s overwhelmed government has halted all adoptions unless they were in motion before the quake amid fears that parentless or lost children are more vulnerable than ever to being seized and sold.
Without proper documents and concerted efforts to track down their parents, they could be forever separated from family members able and willing to care for them. Bellerive’s personal authorization is now required for the departure of any child
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Alternate Takes on Abstinence-Only Education
I felt we needed a comic break. Or course, good satire often hits close to home.
I also felt that I should take a break from mocking Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage Education.
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Salon.com News | Third columnist caught with hand in the Bush till
Jan 27, 2005 … Salon has confirmed that Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated … to help promote Bush’s No Child Left Behind program to minority audiences. … help push proposals, according to a report Thursday in USA Today. … hired by HHS to implement the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative, …
www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/01/27/mcmanus/print.html
(2 of 4)
You should also read THIS site to better understand WHY HHS “just happens” to be so happily forcing happily ever after or else down our throats. And we are paying for it, too!
http://old.mediatransparency.org/personprofile.php?personID=89
(3 & 4)
Propaganda of The Police State -Bush Orders an End to Hiring …
www.infowars.com/…/propaganda_bush_orders_end_hiring_columnists.htm
Writer Backing Bush Plan Had Gotten Federal Contract …
http://www.washingtonpost.com › Politics › Bush Administration – Similar
WELL, OK, here’s part of that 4th site:
. . . Gallagher received an additional $20,000 from the Bush administration in 2002 and 2003 for writing a report, titled “Can Government Strengthen Marriage?”, for a private organization called the National Fatherhood Initiative. That report, published last year, was funded by a Justice Department grant, said NFI spokesman Vincent DiCaro. Gallagher said she was “aware vaguely” that her work was federally funded. {{?? ???}} {{Kind of like being “vaguely aware” of who the father of one’s baby might be?}}In columns, television appearances and interviews with such newspapers as The Washington Post, Gallagher last year defended Bush’s proposal for a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage.
And these same folks are still up and running strong. Did I mention that Wade Horn, as I THINK, I recall, is among those highly involved in the origins of the AFCC?
Wade Horn, HHS assistant secretary for children and families, said his division hired Gallagher as “a well-known national expert,” along with other specialists in the field, to help devise the president’s healthy marriage initiative. “It’s not unusual in the federal government to do that,” he said.
The essay Gallagher drafted appeared under Horn’s byline — with the headline “Closing the Marriage Gap” — and ran in Crisis magazine, which promotes humanism rooted in Catholic Church teachings. Horn said most of the brochures written by Gallagher — such as “The Top Ten Reasons Marriage Matters” — were not used as the program evolved.
“I don’t see any comparison between what has been alleged with Armstrong Williams and what we did with Maggie Gallagher,” said Horn, .who founded the National Fatherhood Initiative before entering government.
Although this is a fast “intro,” some of this info shows the IN-BREEDING involved in these programs and who promotes them. In other words, those sites are worth studying in more depth. What we probably need nationally is a few more Wynona Wards to work on the abuse of — power — and money — in these matters. Or, a lot more Erin Brockoviches.
But enough of that on Marriage, Fatherhood, etc.. . . . It’s getting “old.”
Accordingly this post is going after “Abstinence Education” instead.
The whole concept of continuous funding on almost ANYTHING pertaining to marriage, sex, fatherhood (motherhood), let alone how to balance a checkbook — from a federal government which has Congressional members like “Hot Mike Duvall,” and a country whose governors include both former Presidents AND Governors who can’t keep their pants zipped or their own marriages together. I mean, where does one start? Bill Clinton? John F. Kennedy? FDR?
And so what if they could? Are they moral in other areas of life also?
That said, I think that we should expect of our leaders TOTAL ethics in these two primary categories: Money and Sex. In their personal lives.
The government has NO business in my pocketbook except for the most nominal of functions of government, and it absoLUTEly should stay out of my pants, or skirts, and of my kids’, too. Good grief.
Again, let me go “religious” on this one (before quoting the next site, which is going to do its own take on religious conservatives) and quote the Bible, Romans, and all that.
Note: If I have inadvertently missed offending a particular group in this post, I will try to catch up next one. The “PC” gene is crawling up the back of my brain here.
Also please maintain a healthy perspective and realize that 2,000 years, gender, religion and culture separate me from this quote! On the other hand, I think it nails the hypocrisy thing just fine…
Romans 2: (the hyperlinks are to which Greek word it comes from….)
17 Behold thou art called a Jew {{See Below at **}} and restest in the law and makest thy boast of God {{**}} 18 And knowest his will and approvest the things that are more excellent being instructed out of the law 19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind a light of them which are in darkness 20 An instructor of the foolish a teacher of babes which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law 21 Thou therefore which teachest another teachest thou not thyself thou that preachest a man should not steal dost thou steal 22 Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery dost thou commit adultery thou that abhorrest idols dost thou commit sacrilege 23 Thou that makest thy boast of the law through breaking the law dishonourest thou God 24 For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you as it is written
{{**case in point, where this reads “Jew,” we might as well read, here, “mental health expert” or “licensed marriage and family therapist” or almost any other functional description which carries with it the ATTITUDE that adults who can’t get along are somehow now children that need to be taught.
In our country, legally, adulthood is at age 18 or 21. For some women, this is suddenly reversed when marrying the wrong person. For BOTH divorcing parents who weren’t smart and savvy enough to work it out apart from this system entirely, (in which case wouldn’t they have been smart and savvy enough to stay together), suddenly they are become as little kids needing instruction from Der Vaterland….}}
This quote from Romans 2, written by the apostle Paul (“Saul”) is already volatile enough — other portions of his writings have been used (AB-used?) to justify plenty of violence towards women, and Romans 1 would of course offend anyone in favor of same-sex, well, sex.
Anyhow, I’m not this author, who was beheaded in a Roman Prison about 2000 years ago; he paid for insulting the wrong people in power already.
I’m just me. I’m female, Christian, a domestic violence SURVIVOR, and have enough respect that have finally figured out to steer clear of church buildings and those who frequent them. Except for a good concert or so, when I’m able or in the mood.
The best of us on a good day have some hypocrisy, and are not thoroughly honest. However, is it REALLY necessary to take — forcibly, through the IRS — wages from employees, funnel them through the Feds, and then force-feed back, focusing on LOW-income populations who can’t get around this (gee, how’d they become so low-income to start with? Possibly through this system?), things like parental education, how NOT to leave a marriage, how to have a double standard of behavior based on gender, and how, when, and with whom to have sex — when the people preaching this aren’t UNIFORMLY systematically faithful to their smart, typically intelligent if not trophy, and such wives that helped them get elected, gave them children, and so forth? ???
I mean, if there weren’t all this preaching, it’d be one thing. But when there is, then I’d rather see a sermon than hear one. ANYHOW, back to this:
“Abstinence Education /
George Bush”
Abstinence Education – Let’s talk about sex
Abstinence-only education is founded upon the assumption that giving teenagers complete and accurate information about sex is dangerous. This foundation of George W. Bush’s abstinence agenda goes a long way in explaining the Republican animosity towards education in general. In abstinence-only education we see that Bush and his Republican supporters believe that knowledge is dangerous, and should be kept from people as much as possible.
What George W. Bush never mentions is that the alternative to abstinence-only education is not some kind of hippy free love seminar in public schools. The medical community and responsible educational organizations promote an alternative called abstinence-plus. You won’t hear conservatives talking about this approach because it makes a lot of sense, and it’s easier for conservatives to sell abstinence-only programs when they’re able to keep parents frightened about unrestrained adolescent promiscuity.
Abstinence-plus includes a strong component of information about the reasons that abstaining from sex can be an extremely wise choice for teenagers. The difference is that abstinence-plus does more than just tell teenagers not to have sex. Abstinence-plus programs also provide access to full and accurate information about sex, so that students can make intelligent decisions about having sex instead of remaining in the dark until it’s too late. It’s essential for public schools to provide students with complete sex education because if students don’t get their education at school, they’ll search for accurate information elsewhere.
In a shocking display of naivete, George W. Bush and his Republican supporters suggest that teenagers would have sex less if only public schools did not let them know that sex exists. They ignore the fact that almost all American teenagers are skilled users of the Internet, which has plenty of information, both accurate and inaccurate. It’s the job of public schools to cut through the clutter of publicly available information, and provide an accurate presentation of it for their students. When George W. Bush insists that American public schools only be allowed to teach students about the reasons people should not have sex, he is performing a monumentally perverse act of academic censorship. That not only fails teenagers’ need for serious honesty about sex, it fails their need for an example of democratic principles in action.
All other points aside, George W. Bush’s anti-education agenda is a dangerous idea because research shows that abstinence-only education just doesn’t work. Not too surprisingly, researchers have found that when teenagers sign pledge forms in front of their parents, promising not to have sex, they’re not really very likely to follow through. In fact, students who sign pledge forms as a part of sexual abstinence training are just as likely to have premarital sex as other students! The same is true of the students in abstinence-only programs in general. Full sexual education, on the other hand, has been shown not to act as an encouragement for students to have sex, and is shown to provide students protection from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases better than abstinence-only education does. The Bush Administration knows that abstinence-only education does not work at decreasing adolescent sexual behaviors, and actually increases students’ risk of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancy.
That’s why George W. Bush ordered that all behavioral standards for evaluating the success of abstinence-only educational programs be eliminated. He didn’t want to the government to gather information that he knew would show abstinence-only education to be a complete failure.
The ultimate irony is that George W. Bush is pushing abstinence-only education at the same time that he is pushing for governmental programs to be performed by religious organizations.
Talk about total confusion! I’ve looked at the grant system, and Catholic Charities is prominent in many of these programs.
So, Bush’s plan includes promotion of taxpayer funding of abstinence-only programs by, among other groups, the Catholic Church. Given the scandal in the Catholic Church about long term and pervasive sexual assault of children by priests, this plan seems not only doomed to failure, but actually quite dangerous. After all, the Catholic Church, like other major religious institutions, appears to have been unable to convince its own leaders to stop having sex with children.
How, then, are we supposed to believe that the Catholic Church is deserving of government grants in order to teach teenagers not to have sex with each other?
Easy: We are to “Take it on Faith.” . . . . . .
Abstinence-only Education | Union of Concerned Scientists
http://www.ucsusa.org › Scientific Integrity › Abuses of Science – Cached – Similar
Well, on to more worthy endeavors, I was just having some fun here.
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Warning: ALL of you just got Outsourced!
Apologies in advance if this post is a little ill-tempered. So was I, at the time.
The need for the most human of functions in life is rapidly becoming obsolescent. We are becoming, I fear, a patriarchal society modeled on the Queen Bee and hive mentality. Assets are collected centrally, larvae (adjust term for biological precision) nursed, and workers sent out to collect more, for more of the same.
Those with too much drive, individuality, and just dang eccentricity will be dumped, and not allowed to breed. Or if they do, not keep their own. Or, if they do manage to keep their own for a few years, they will be forced to break that “unnatural” parental bond and be coached on REAL parenting from, I suspect, people who haven’t gone through the most challenging aspects of it — like: poverty, exposure to racism, sexism, and the familycourtism(s).
This is only half in jest. And in order to express this, I may have to incorporate some scatalogical terminology. Otherwise, it just doesn’t make sense…
I am trying to think of some sphere of human activity — character-formation that has NOT become a market niche. That I could engage in, PRIVATELY, without being told by some expert how to do it better.
Certainly no one could state that the basic human functions of eating, copulating, and (sometimes, sometimes not) a product of the second, parenting are not now major market niches. Similarly, communicating, and making basic decisions relating to, say, their own lives….
Decisionmaking has been outsourced in the courts, obviously, to those more expert in (well, the facts and the law) than the general peasantry.
Face it, you’re either expert, or you’re not. The key to determining whether a person is a true expert, or not, is language.
If they use simple, declarative prose with concrete active verbs and nouns, they don’t know what they are talking about, obviously.
If they use passive tense, and speak in terms so ridiculously vague no one could prove or disprove a single fact regarding (whatever the subject matter is), t hey are “one of us” and should be given more power over more people (and said people’s money, children, and futures).
If they behave in a generally moral fashion without being educated, forced, bribed or threatened in order to do so, they are living in an alternate economic system, and should be quarantined, or otherwise silenced, and prevented from propagating more of their kind.
If they show signs of independent THINKING, ditto.
============
How did I come to this jaundiced opinion? Well, on my way to this particular internet access, I am confronted coming and going with signs encouraging the (unwary) to open a child support case. A beautiful photo of a young, light-skinned black girl tenderly holding a growing plant claims that it’s quick, easy, and free to open a child support case. Please do so.
NOTHING, friends, in life is truly free except life itself from (so far) sperm & egg when it comes to humans. You may squeak out a little privacy between him and her (initially), but institutionally, there are sperm banks and egg donors, too. THOSE are not free.
TurboCourt has fostered a collaboration between the California courts and the Department of Child Support Services
07/01/2008TurboCourt has also fostered a collaboration between the California courts and the Department of Child Support Services where Domestic Relations court filers are directly linked to the Child Support application allowing them to immediately request IV-D services. And the data from TurboCourt’s Family Law application is transferred to the Child Support application, speeding up the process.
Not in the fine print: http://fatherhood.gov/
Now, the logo changes to a profile of one adult male holding a child (boy’s?) hand, and the motto to “Take Time to Be A Dad today!” (I couldn’t copy it, but you can go look….).
The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC) is funded by the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Family Assistance’s (OFA) and supports efforts to assist States and communities to promote and support Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage.
Primarily a tool for professionals operating Responsible Fatherhood programs, the NRFC provides access to print and electronic publications, timely information on fatherhood issues, and targeted resources that support OFA-funded Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage grantees. The NRFC Web site also provides essential information for other audiences interested in fatherhood issues.
http://fatherhood.gov/documents/promisingpracticesreport.pdf
If you THINK you understand government, read this and think again. . . . . There is NOTHING that can’t be sold, taught, marketed, and summarized in a slick brochure paid for by (your donations and/or taxes).
Target population? Anyone that has a problem with practically anything relating to human life (raising children, personal relations) or supporting it (low-income families especially welcome for subject matter, or those in prison, or under other distresses — possibly from the same institutional sources that are now going to illuminate and fix the problems that “emerged” during the passage through some other institution(s).
Seriously now, I printed this one out and read it….
INITIAL SALES PITCH: We love your CHILDREN and we want to make sure they are SUPPORTED. (aren’t we nice?).
ACTUAL INTENT: We need CHILDREN to participate in RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD PROGRAMS as run (substantially) through the OCSE (Office of Child Support Enforcement):
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cse/
On the bar to left of this page is one called “Access Visitation.” Click on it:
The motto on THIS page is “Giving Hope and Support to America’s Children.”
[[Doesn’t that sound noble enough? It had BETTER, when it involves wage garnishment, possible incarceration for contempt of orders (but never mind, Big Brother will contact you in prison to teach you how to be a better man, or woman, and give you FREE legal help to get back with your children, possibly even job training… and that child support payment which –in typical ‘rational’ system manner, continues to accumulate while you’re IN prison — reduced, therefore helping you, if not the kids, experience “success” and “support.”]]
Whoever wrote this cannot have been on the requesting help in the form of CHILD SUPPORT end of a custody battle, and attempting to get a consistently straight, honest response out of this agency.
If I had ONE piece of valuable advice for women leaving a battering relationship, which I well know usually includes economic abuse as well (else we’d LEAVE, right?) it is — Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT entangle yourself in this system. Figure out SOME other way.
Here’s from that Access/Visitation page:
Overview
With an annual appropriation of $10 million, 54 States (*including the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands) have been able to provide access and visitation services to over a half million non-custodial parents (NCPs) and their families since the program became operational in 1997! In FY 2006, States contracted with over 300 court and/or community- and faith-based, non-profit service providers for the delivery of access and visitation services to NCPs and their families.
I. Enabling Legislation
The “Grants to States for Access and Visitation” Program (42 U.S.C. 669b) was authorized by Congress through passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.
Goal: “..to enable States to establish and administer programs to support and facilitate non-custodial parents’ access to and visitation of their children…”
II. Allowable Services
According to the statute, States are permitted to use grant funds to develop programs and provide services such as:
- Mediation
- Development of parenting plans
- Education
- Counseling
- Visitation enforcement (including monitored and supervised visitation, and neutral drop-off and pick-up)
Development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements.
Mothers attempting to leave abusive relationships with kids intact, FORGET THIS ROUTE! Do anything (legal) to avoid the emotional and fiscal prostitution of Y OUR soul, time, and potential loss of your children (and money) in the long run anyway. Put extraordinary and superhuman effort in UP Front.
Think about it: If he was going to pay willingly because of the goodness in his heart and concern for the kids, he would, without being forced, or bribed to with more time with the kids.
How hypocritcal — the same theory that is to teach “morality” (relationship counseling) and so forth, is doing it in the form of a bribe, and not because it’s just the right thing to do. Go figure.
MEANWHILE, on the outside (for the custodial parent, often a MOM), SHE is repeatedly told, there is NO connection between payments and visitation, and if she withholds visitation on teh basis of the person simply won’t pay support (No, I do NOT recommend this either), SHE could be jailed for custodial interference. But on the INSIDE (and out of her hearing) he gets free legal help and reduced support assignments for moving a few steps in the direction of payment, i.e., we got here a serious double standard, and dishonesty.
And this is who is telling us how to raise kids and be better parents?
Caveat Emptor and Beware unsolicited helpers bearing ridiculous, vague, and ( unenforceable) promises. Get enough help to get out and then develop good boundaries and if possible a cash flow system.
Keep your self away from that agency. Think about it: Why are they soliciting parents with cute fuzzy pictures in high commute areas?
Why don’t they instead go to the soup lines and ask the mamas and papas what’s up? That’s where to find at least SOME people that truly need some help (if divorced) with child support payments. . . . .
Add this to the Moral Reconation Therapy — which was first tested on female inmates, then males, then I guess trademarked, bundled, and marketed. Beginning with a truly “captive” audience.
To “get” this first read the history of it, and then the variations. A sense of humor will be required.
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Thrusting Abstinence Education on an Unwary Public: the Bush Push Exposed.
BUT there’s a little satisfaction in making up ridiculous post titles. If you can’t stop it, mock it, take its pants down and show it in all the ridiculous posture it takes — apart from the hearings in the actual courtrooms… This marriage promotion movement needs to be disrobed.
Here’s a post I slapped together in September 2009. It’s not politically correct, I’m sure.
For a reminder:
The State of the (Marital) Unions in California gets a Governmental Boost (while social services of other kinds, get cut):
THIS FEDERAL REGISTER NOTICE OF AVAILALBILITY OF FUNDS (2004) GOT SNAPPED UP BY AT LEAST ONE MAJOR RECIPIENT. RECOMMEND WE REVIEW.
ACF Programs Funding the Healthy Marriage Resource Center: (It tells you how many diff’t Program offices (or, subdivions if ACF if I have the term wrong) fund this.. There are several, including this one: CHild SUpport agency (“OCSE”)
OCSE also funds demonstration projects that seek to integrate supports for healthy marriages and family formation into the existing array of child support enforcement activities. Statutory Authority: Section 452(j) of the Social Security Act. {{For somen leaving violence, this is kind of like building the boat after the ship sank…}}
Recipient: California Healthy Marriages Coalition Address: 1045 PASSIFLORA AVE
LEUCADIA, CA 92024-2215Country Name: United States of America County Name: SAN DIEGO DHHS Region: 9 Type: Other Social Services Organization Class: Non-Profit Private Non-Government Organizations Award Actions
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAward Code Agency Action Issue
DateAmount This
Action2010 90FE0104 4 02 ACF 03-10-2010 $ 0 2010 90FE0104 5 00 ACF 09-24-2010 $ 2,400,000 Fiscal Year 2010 Total: $ 2,400,000
You got to watch those ones that start small, then reproduce….This one did.
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAward Code Agency Action Issue
DateAmount This
Action2005 90EJ0064 1 0 ACF 09-13-2005 $ 583,475 Fiscal Year 2005 Total: $ 583,475
Total of all awards:
$ 12,525,555
For a sample of what some of that Grant 90FE104 is going to, see this PDF (a typical Executive Summary);
In googling the term California Healthy Marriages Coalition, Priority area 1 (and this grant#) I find the oNLY references to it are at their site, and my blog. I find that unusual……
I searched this 60-page pdf for the word “domestic violence” (as is my “wont”) and found ONE occurrence only. Again, this is summarizing (and titled):
THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA’S UNIONS: MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE IN THE GOLDEN STATE:
THE RESEARCH TEAM
Compiled by:
Sophia Gomez, Gomez Research
Developed and Edited by:
K. Jason Krafsky, California Healthy Marriages Coalition Dennis Stoica, California Healthy Marriages Coalition Patty Howell, California Healthy Marriages Coalition
Consultation by:
Dawn Wilson, Wilson Research Consulting
ABOUT CALIFORNIA HEALTHY MARRIAGES COALITION
The California Healthy Marriages Coalition (CHMC) is a pioneering non-profit organization that works throughout California to improve the well-being of children by strengthening the relationship of parents through Marriage Education and Relationship Skills classes.
In 2006, CHMC received a five-year, $11.9 Million grant from Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (HHS/ACF), the largest grant ever awarded by HHS/ACF in support of Healthy Marriages.
Through this funding, CHMC partners with a network of 23 faith- and community-based organizations (FBCOs) throughout California. Each of CHMC’s funded partner organizations is a coalition consisting of many other FBCOs through which they deliver Marriage Education and Relationship Skills classes, enabling CHMC to reach California’s diverse population by traversing the key demographic dimensions of geography, ethnic/cultural differences, and agency-type FBCOs.
As a result of these efforts, CHMC expects to see a decline in the marriage/divorce ratio, a reduction in child abuse, domestic violence, poverty, criminal behavior, and an improvement in physical, emotional, and mental health.
Funding for this project was provided by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Grant: 90FE0104. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.
Little in this has changed — it’s expanded, and spread — like the flu….
For the heck of it, I looked up McManus (last name only) under the TAGGS database, and found 65 grants funded, many of them apparently to doctors, some in overlapping fields of study. I have no idea of the relationships, but just found this interesting. After all, we abstinent folk have to direct our excess creative (sic) energies somewhere, right?
I figure we must, at some level, be a society of dogs and masters, because it seems the USA can be divided up into Trainers, and Trainees, and whatever portion of the middle class (such as remains) that has found purpose and solvency and managed to keep their own kiddos and in-laws off the marriage savers healthy starts social improvement group radar. Get this:
Explore space, explore the seas, develop nanotechnology; what is there left (as market niche) but to market the training of the human psyche (and reporting on it, as well). Is there nothing that a click, a grant, and an curriculum cannot solve? This is also how the field of “fatherhood” or “violence against women” is also turning out. Get a grant and train the trainers, develop a software presence and run conferences.
EXCERPT FROM THEIR BIO (on the Marriage Savers site) shows they do indeed have some medical offspring in the family:
Media: Their work has attracted national media coverage,
(YEP, see that “hand in the till” article, above)….
most recently a profile of a Community Marriage Policy in suburban Portland Oregon on ABC World News with Charles Gibson on October 22, 2007. The Coral Ridge Hour broadcast an 11 minute segment about Marriage Savers on Father’s Day, 2005. The CBS Early Show broadcast a story June 2004 on Mike and Harriet mentoring their 50th couple. Focus on the Family interviewed them May 21, 2004. A Washington Post Magazine cover story Feb. 29, 2004 featured Mike and Harriet mentoring a Nigerian couple. They work has been reported on NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight, and CBS “48 Hours”. He’s appeared on MS-NBC, Fox, BBC, CBC, Oprah, The O’Reilly Factor. TIME, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and hundreds of local papers have reported on their work.
Family: Mike and Harriet have been married 42 years and have three married sons and six grandchildren. Their sons are all achievers. Adam McManus hosts a daily radio talk show 3 hours a day in San Antonio, TX. John McManus was the staff director of the Ways & Means Health Subcommittee which added drug benefits to Medicare; he now runs The McManus Group, providing consulting and lobbying for the American Medical Association, various drug companies and equipment manufacturers. Tim McManus is CEO of a hospital in Gulfport, MS.
Does kind of make the following list a little interesting, I think:
| Fiscal Year | OPDIV | Grantee Name | City | State | Award Number | Award Title | CFDA Number | CFDA Program Name | Award Action Type | Principal Investigator | Sum of Actions |
| 2009 | IHS | SOUTH CENTRAL FOUNDATION | ANCHORAGE | AK | D279400023 | INJURY PREVENTION PART II | 93284 | Injury Prevention Program for American Indians and Alaskan Natives: Cooperative Agreements | OTHER REVISION | KELLY MCMANUS | $- 18 |
| 2009 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRANCISCO | SAN FRANCISCO | CA | R01DA026065 | RESOLVING MICRORNA TARGETS | 93701 | Trans-NIH Recovery Act Research Support | NEW | MICHAEL T MCMANUS | $ 379,138 |
| 2009 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRANCISCO | SAN FRANCISCO | CA | R01GM080783 | NEW FRONTIERS FOR SMALL RNA THERAPIES | 93859 | Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biological Chemistry Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | MICHAEL T MCMANUS | $ 293,550 |
| 2009 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CTR AT SAN ANTONIO | SAN ANTONIO | TX | T32HL007446 | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | Heart and Vascular Diseases Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 368,737 |
| 2009 | SAMHSA | ROCKWOOD SCHOOL DISTRICT R-6 | EUREKA | MO | SP015642 | ROCKWOOD R-VI SCHOOL DISTRICT | 93276 | Drug-Free Communities Support Program Grants | NEW | KENNETH D MCMANUS | $ 124,999 |
| 2008 | ACF | YOUTH & FAMILY SERVICES, INC | SKOWHEGAN | ME | 90CY2239 | BASIC CENTER | 93623 | Basic Center Grant | NEW | LORA WILFORD MCMANUS | $ 15,476 |
| 2008 | CDC | HARVARD UNIVERSITY, SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH | BOSTON | MA | R36DD000365 | SOCIAL DETERMINANTS FOR EARLY INTERVENTION PARTICIPATION AND EFFICACY | 93061 | Innovations in Applied Public Health Research | NEW | BETH M MCMANUS | $ 29,157 |
| 2008 | FDA | VA ST DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH | RICHMOND | VA | R13FD003593 | VIRGINIA FOOD PROTECTION TASK FORCE CONFERENCE | 93103 | Food and Drug Administration_Research | NEW | CATHERINE MCMANUS | $ 5,000 |
| 2008 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRANCISCO | SAN FRANCISCO | CA | R01GM080783 | NEW FRONTIERS FOR SMALL RNA THERAPIES | 93859 | Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biological Chemistry Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | MICHAEL T MCMANUS | $ 293,075 |
| 2008 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CTR AT SAN ANTONIO | SAN ANTONIO | TX | T32HL007446 | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | Heart and Vascular Diseases Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 349,472 |
| 2007 | ACF | HELP – New Mexico, Inc. | ALBUQUERQUE | NM | 90EI0456 | NEW MEXICO PROJECT TO BUILD ASSETS FOR RISING OUT OF POVERTY | 93602 | Assets for Independence Demonstration Program | NEW | RITA GARCIA-MCMANUS | $ 1,000,000 |
| 2007 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRANCISCO | SAN FRANCISCO | CA | R01GM080783 | NEW FRONTIERS FOR SMALL RNA THERAPIES | 93859 | Pharmacology, Physiology, and Biological Chemistry Research | NEW | MICHAEL T MCMANUS | $ 292,125 |
| 2007 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRANCISCO | SAN FRANCISCO | CA | R03DA022201 | THE EPIGENETICS OF SMALL RNAS IN THE MAMMALIAN BRAIN | 93279 | Drug Abuse and Addiction Research Programs | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | MICHAEL T MCMANUS | $ 149,615 |
| 2007 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CTR AT SAN ANTONIO | SAN ANTONIO | TX | T32HL007446 | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | Heart and Vascular Diseases Research | COMPETING CONTINUATION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 337,679 |
| 2006 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPLEMENT ( + OR – ) (DISCRETIONARY OR BLOCK AWARDS) | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 0 |
| 2006 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | EXTENSION WITH OR WITHOUT FUNDS | PATRICIA -. MCMANUS | $ 150,000 |
| 2006 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 750,000 |
| 2006 | HRSA | THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY | PHILADELPHIA | PA | D58HP05138 | RESIDENCY TRAINING IN PRIMARY CARE | 93884 | Grants for Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICK R. MCMANUS MD | $ 125,619 |
| 2006 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN FRANCISCO | SAN FRANCISCO | CA | R03DA022201 | THE EPIGENETICS OF SMALL RNAS IN THE MAMMALIAN BRAIN | 93279 | Drug Abuse and Addiction Research Programs | NEW | MICHAEL T MCMANUS | $ 153,583 |
| 2005 | ACF | WOMEN OF COLOR AIDS COUNCIL, INC | BOSTON | MA | 90IJ0181 | COMPASSION CAPITAL FUND (CCF) TARGETED CAPACITY BUILDING (HOMELESS) | 93009 | Compassion Capital Fund | NEW | KAREN MCMANUS | $ 50,000 |
| 2005 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPLEMENT ( + OR – ) (DISCRETIONARY OR BLOCK AWARDS) | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $- 10,667 |
| 2005 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 900,000 |
| 2005 | HRSA | THOMAS JEFFERSON UNIVERSITY | PHILADELPHIA | PA | D58HP05138 | RESIDENCY TRAINING IN PRIMARY CARE | 93884 | Grants for Training in Primary Care Medicine and Dentistry | NEW | PATRICK R. MCMANUS | $ 150,184 |
| 2005 | IHS | SOUTH CENTRAL FOUNDATION | ANCHORAGE | AK | D279400023 | INJURY PREVENTION PART II | 93284 | Injury Prevention Program for American Indians and Alaskan Natives: Cooperative Agreements | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | KELLY MCMANUS | $ 15,000 |
| 2004 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 814,374 |
| 2004 | IHS | ANCHORAGE | AK | INJURY PREVENTION PART II | NONE | NEW | KELLY MCMANUS | ||||
| 2004 | NIH | SAN ANTONIO | TX | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 231,979 | |||
| 2004 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CTR AT SAN ANTONIO | SAN ANTONIO | TX | T32HL007446 | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | Heart and Vascular Diseases Research | SUPPLEMENT FOR EXPANSION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 41,450 |
| 2003 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 751,000 |
| 2003 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H78MC00020 | IMPROVING WOMENS HEALTH THROUGH SCREENING AND INTERVENTION FOR DEPRESSION DURING | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 175,000 |
| 2003 | IHS | SOUTH CENTRAL FOUNDATION | ANCHORAGE | AK | H1HB100037 | WELLNESS CAMP FOR ALASKA NATIVE CHILDREN | 93933 | Demonstration Projects for Indian Health | NEW | KELLY MCMANUS | $ 60,000 |
| 2003 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CTR AT SAN ANTONIO | SAN ANTONIO | TX | T32HL007446 | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | Heart and Vascular Diseases Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 237,241 |
| 2002 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPLEMENT ( + OR – ) (DISCRETIONARY OR BLOCK AWARDS) | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 225,000 |
| 2002 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 675,000 |
| 2002 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H78MC00020 | IMPROVING WOMENS HEALTH THROUGH SCREENING AND INTERVENTION FOR DEPRESSION DURING | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 175,000 |
| 2002 | NIH | ANVIL INFORMATICS INC | BURLINGTON | MA | R43CA094429 | VERY HIGH DIMENSIONAL VISUAL MINING OF THE NCI DATASET | 93393 | Cancer Cause and Prevention Research | NEW | MICHAEL J MCMANUS | $ 99,225 |
| 2002 | NIH | ANVIL INFORMATICS INC | BURLINGTON | MA | R43CA096179 | CLUSTER COMPARISON METHODS & THE NCI EXPRESSION DATASET | 93395 | Cancer Treatment Research | NEW | MICHAEL J MCMANUS | $ 98,438 |
| 2002 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CTR AT SAN ANTONIO | SAN ANTONIO | TX | T32HL007446 | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | Heart and Vascular Diseases Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 214,392 |
| 2001 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H49MC00061 | ELIMINATING DESPARITIES | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NEW | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 900,000 |
| 2001 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H78MC00020 | IMPROVING WOMENS HEALTH THROUGH SCREENING AND INTERVENTION FOR DEPRESSION DURING | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NEW | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 175,000 |
| 2001 | NIH | SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE | LA JOLLA | CA | R29CA075238 | TRANSFORMATION SPECIFIC SIGNALING MEDIATED BY VERBS | 93393 | Cancer Cause and Prevention Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | MICHAEL J MCMANUS | $ 133,700 |
| 2001 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CTR AT SAN ANTONIO | SAN ANTONIO | TX | T32HL007446 | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | Heart and Vascular Diseases Research | COMPETING CONTINUATION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 207,981 |
| 2001 | SAMHSA | WOMEN OF COLOR AIDS COUNCIL, INC | BOSTON | MA | SP08892 | PREVENTION FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN & HISPANIC/LATINA WOMEN | 93230 | Consolidated Knowledge Development and Application (KD&A) Program | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | KAREN MCMANUS | $ 249,000 |
| 2000 | CDC | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | CCU518156 | COMMUNITY COALITION DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES | 93939 | HIV Prevention Activities_Non-Governmental Organization Based | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS, RN, PHD | $ 185,000 |
| 2000 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H96MC00042 | MILWAUKEE HEALTHY BEGINNINGS PROJECT | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPLEMENT ( + OR – ) (DISCRETIONARY OR BLOCK AWARDS) | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 65,900 |
| 2000 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H96MC00042 | MILWAUKEE HEALTHY BEGINNINGS PROJECT | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 569,292 |
| 2000 | NIH | SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE | LA JOLLA | CA | R29CA075238 | TRANSFORMATION SPECIFIC SIGNALING MEDIATED BY VERBS | 93393 | Cancer Cause and Prevention Research | CHANGE OF GRANTEE / TRAINING INSTITUTION / AWARDING INSTITUTION | MICHAEL J MCMANUS | $ 128,560 |
| 2000 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CTR AT SAN ANTONIO | SAN ANTONIO | TX | T32HL007446 | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | Heart and Vascular Diseases Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 161,445 |
| 2000 | SAMHSA | AL ST DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH & MENTAL RETARDATION | MONTGOMERY | AL | SM00115 | CRISIS COUNSELING – HURRICANE GEORGES | 93982 | Mental Health Disaster Assistance and Emergency Mental Health | ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPLEMENT ( + OR – ) (DISCRETIONARY OR BLOCK AWARDS) | MCMANUS, BRIAN H. | $ 2,093 |
| 2000 | SAMHSA | AL ST DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH & MENTAL RETARDATION | MONTGOMERY | AL | SMX060001-00 | PATH | 93150 | Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) | COMPETING CONTINUATION | BRIAN MCMANUS | $ 300,000 |
| 2000 | SAMHSA | WOMEN OF COLOR AIDS COUNCIL, INC | BOSTON | MA | SP08892 | PREVENTION FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN & HISPANIC/LATINA WOMEN | 93230 | Consolidated Knowledge Development and Application (KD&A) Program | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | MCMANUS, KAREN | $ 249,000 |
| 1999 | CDC | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | CCU518156 | COMMUNITY COALITION DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES | 93939 | HIV Prevention Activities_Non-Governmental Organization Based | NEW | PATRICIA MCMANUS, RN, PHD | $ 185,000 |
| 1999 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H96MC00042 | MILWAUKEE HEALTHY BEGINNINGS PROJECT | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NEW | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 417,681 |
| 1999 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H96MC00042 | MILWAUKEE HEALTHY BEGINNINGS PROJECT | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 807,920 |
| 1999 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | U93MC00029 | MILWAUKEE HEALTHY BEGINNINGS PROJECT | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPLEMENT ( + OR – ) (DISCRETIONARY OR BLOCK AWARDS) | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 34,014 |
| 1999 | NIH | MAYO CLINIC ROCHESTER | ROCHESTER | MN | R29CA075238 | TRANSFORMATION SPECIFIC SIGNALING MEDIATED BY VERBS | 93393 | Cancer Cause and Prevention Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | MICHAEL J MCMANUS | $ 99,771 |
| 1999 | NIH | UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CTR AT SAN ANTONIO | SAN ANTONIO | TX | T32HL007446 | PATHOBIOLOGY OF OCCLUSIVE VASCULAR DISEASE | 93837 | Heart and Vascular Diseases Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | LINDA M MCMANUS | $ 173,857 |
| 1999 | SAMHSA | AL ST DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH & MENTAL RETARDATION | MONTGOMERY | AL | SM00115 | CRISIS COUNSELING – HURRICANE GEORGES | 93982 | Mental Health Disaster Assistance and Emergency Mental Health | NEW | MCMANUS, BRIAN H. | $ 44,927 |
| 1999 | SAMHSA | WOMEN OF COLOR AIDS COUNCIL, INC | BOSTON | MA | SP08892 | PREVENTION FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN & HISPANIC/LATINA WOMEN | 93230 | Consolidated Knowledge Development and Application (KD&A) Program | NEW | MCMANUS, KAREN | $ 249,000 |
| 1998 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | 1H96MC0002801 | MILWAUKEE HEALTHY BEGINNINGS PROJECT | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NEW | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 417,681 |
| 1998 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | 5U93MC0002902 | MILWAUKEE HEALTHY BEGINNINGS PROJECT | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 819,420 |
| 1998 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H96MC00028 | MILWAUKEE HEALTHY BEGINNINGS PROJECT | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NEW | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 417,681 |
| 1998 | HRSA | BLACK HEALTH COALITION OF WISCONSIN | MILWAUKEE | WI | H96MC00042 | MILWAUKEE HEALTHY BEGINNINGS PROJECT | 93926 | Healthy Start Initiative | NEW | PATRICIA MCMANUS | $ 417,681 |
| 1998 | NIH | MAYO CLINIC ROCHESTER | ROCHESTER | MN | R29CA075238 | TRANSFORMATION SPECIFIC SIGNALING MEDIATED BY VERBS | 93393 | Cancer Cause and Prevention Research | NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION | MICHAEL J MCMANUS | $ 95,934 |
A little more on Maggie (Gallagher):
“In 2002, syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher repeatedly defended President Bush’s push for a $300 million initiative encouraging marriage as a way of strengthening families.
[…]
“But Gallagher failed to mention that she had a $21,500 contract with the Department of Health and Human Services to help promote the president’s proposal. Her work under the contract, which ran from January through October 2002, included drafting a magazine article for the HHS official overseeing the initiative, writing brochures for the program and conducting a briefing for department officials.
From “SourceWatch” from the “Center for Media and Democracy.”
Maggie Gallagher is the president of the Washington DC-based Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, editor of MarriageDebate.com, a syndicated columnist, author, and frequent television commentator. She also serves as president of the National Organization for Marriage. [1] Her articles on marriage policy have appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard. [1] She’s a former editor at the National Review, former columnist at New York Newsday and a founding senior editor at the Manhattan Institute‘s City Journal. [2]
Gallagher also receieved a $20,000 Justice Department grant for a writing a report titled “Can Government Strengthen Marriage?” that was published by the private, non-profit National Fatherhood Intiative. Wade Horn, the Health and Human Services Department’s assistant secretary for children and families who defended Gallagher’s contracts as “not unusual,” founded the National Fatherhood Initiative before entering government. [4]
INTERESTING “CO-INCIDENCE,” that. 1995, NFI, and then here’s Wade Horn from within government pushing through the initiative (not without some outside help).
These comments seem to contrast with statements that Gallager herself made in 1997, when she spoke at a conference organized by the Committee of Concerned Journalists at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. “The more a journalist views himself as a participant in the events and has a loyalty to sources, the less able he or she is to really consider himself a journalist,” she told the conference. “… [And as an opinion journalist, which is to say you are emotionally invested in the outcome of the events] it becomes [even more] important … to be open with the reader, to make it clear to the audience what your views are and what your biases are.”[6]
The National Organization for Marriage
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is a nonprofit organization with a mission to protect marriage and the faith communities that sustain it.
Founded in 2007 in response to the growing need for an organized opposition to same-sex marriage in state legislatures, NOM serves as a national resource for marriage-related initiatives at the state and local level. For decades, pro-family organizations have educated the public about the importance of marriage and the family, but have lacked the organized, national presence needed to impact state and local politics in a coordinated and sustained fashion. NOM seeks to fill that void, organizing as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, giving it the flexibility to lobby and support marriage initiatives across the nation.
aggie Gallagher is President of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy and a co-author of The Case for Marriage. Comments for Maggie? Email
File under:
“The $21,000 that Maggie Forgot.”
Michael McManus, a marriage advocate whose syndicated column, “Ethics & Religion,” appears in 50 newspapers, was hired as a subcontractor by the Department of Health and Human Services to foster a Bush-approved marriage initiative. McManus championed the plan in his columns without disclosing to readers he was being paid to help it succeed.
Responding to the latest revelation, Dr. Wade Horn, assistant secretary for children and families {{Translation: “ACF” I believe}} at HHS, announced Thursday that HHS would institute a new policy that forbids the agency from hiring any outside expert or consultant who has any working affiliation with the media. “I needed to draw this bright line,” Horn tells Salon. “The policy is being implemented and we’re moving forward.”
Horn’s move came on the heels of Wednesday’s report in the Washington Post that HHS had paid syndicated columnist and marriage advocate Maggie Gallagher $21,000 to write brochures and essays and to brief government employees on the president’s marriage initiative. Gallagher later wrote in her column that she would have revealed the $21,000 payment to readers had she recalled receiving it.
I’d probably look up Grant #90EI0456, above (in purple).
| Title | New Mexico Project to Build Assets for Rising Out of Poverty |
|---|---|
| Award Number | 90EI0456 |
| Project Start/End | / |
| Abstract | New Mexico Project to Build Assets for Rising Out of Poverty |
| Thesaurus | Social Service; Social; Service; at risk; Assets; Independence; Demonstration; Community; Communities; AFI |
| PI Name/Title | Rita Garcia-McManus NONE |
| PI eMail | NONE |
| Institution | |
| Department | NONE |
| Fiscal Year | 2007 |
| ICD | {{RIGHT HERE IS WHERE ONE EXPECTS A LITTLE DESCRIPTION}} |
| IRG | NONE |
(anything the ACF chooses to throw $1,000,000 at in the year 2007 might be worth a 2nd look).
A Brief History
The HELP – New Mexico, Inc. (HELP-NM) was created and incorporated as Home Education Livelihood Program, Inc. in 1965 by the interdenominational New Mexico Council of Churches and its successor, the New Mexico Conference of Churches and Church Women United. The founders included pastors, ranchers, farmworkers, housewives, businessmen, and government workers. The HELP-NM organization is governed by 18 Board of Directors representing sectors including public, business, low income, native American, parents, and other community members.
ver the past 42 years, HELP-New Mexico, Inc. (HELP-NM), has provided services to over 816,000 individuals and families including migrant families, self-employed farmers and ranchers, low-income families, abused and neglected children, senior citizens, people with disabilities, and disadvantaged youth. These services have included adult education, job training, early childhood development and education, youth development and care, self-help housing construction, rural health clinics, land development, job placement, literacy training, affordable housing, nutritious meals, and family counseling.
HELP – New Mexico
exists to create self-sufficiency and provide economic opportunities to strengthen families throughout New Mexico.
Initially organized as the “Bienvenidos (Welcome) Coalition”, in October 2007, HELP-NM, was awarded a grant from the Administration for Children and Families for a Compassion Capital Fund project. The goal is to support faith-based and community-based non-profit organizations in New Mexico in order to increase their capacity and their efforts to work with families and individuals in the providing community based social services. Target organizations provide social services to poor and low-income individuals and families, particularly families in poverty; prisoners re-entering the community; the children and families of prisoners; the homeless; elderly persons in need; families in transition from welfare to work; people in need of rehabilitation such as substance abuse; couples seeking information and support for forming and maintaining healthy marriages; and at risk youth. Included in HELP-NM CCF project are a wide range of vulnerable populations needing rehabilitation, including victims of domestic violence, the mentally ill, and victims of human trafficking. If you want to learn more about this program contact Gracie Gonzalez at 505-766-4921 or via e-mail atGracie@helpnm.com.
HELP-NM CCF includes a funding plan in which $250,000 of sub-awards are dispersed to applicant organizations, based upon developmental level of the organization. Training and workshops sessions are conducted statewide through the year. Consultants are then engaged to provide technical assistance to both sub-awardees and other eligible non-profit community organizations. For more information regarding the trainings & technical assistance please contact Gracie Gonzalez at 505-766-4921 or via e-mail atGracie@helpnm.com
\
(This seems one of the better-explained sites, at least as to how the structure works).
A quick search of the TAGGS database shows that Help-Inc. 1995-2009 has received:
| Total of all awards: | $ 33,415,378 |
(MOST of it is Head Start, which appears to be a going concern.)
$8million 2007-2009 per USASPENDING.GOV, probably not too accurate
WELL, the Garridos were married. How healthy was that? In fact, as far as I know (and even in separate cellblocks) they still are. Or course clearly, he wasn’t very “abstinent” before, or during marriage.
Perhaps if the funds weren’t being funneled to telling people how to keep it zipped, the authorities would’ve had the intent and resources to find out what Mr. Garrido was keeping captive in his own back yard.
Since that article was sprung, we’ve had (in the news) a Yale graduate student (female) found dead in the wall of her lab, a few days before marriage. She was going to get married. Sounded like a dangerous proposition from her perspective.
Maggie Gallagher is from Yale (’82).
And recently we’ve had a young (about 28) married woman, with three children, from Hamilton, Ohio, end up in more than one garbage bag, after the father (and suspect) thereafter apparently took his 3 young kids to the store to get garbage bags and bleach.
She was MARRIED. OK, dudes?
I too was married. You know what it wasn’t? Healthy. Partly because there are people on this earth who take some of these doctrines a little bit too much to heart, and get to expressing it with their hands, and weapons, too.
Anyhow, I just wanted to give a little flavor of the origins of a few initiatives. In the pocketbook plus a gleam in the eye of the Bush Administration and others who worked HHS during this time.
Jaycee Dugard wasn’t married, how could she be? Who would conduct the ceremony? Her married kidnapper raper? But I heard her traumatized kids were still clean, relatively healthy and I haven’t read anything yet about academically backward. She was a single mother. According to statistics, her kids should be worse off. They WERE, but it was at the hands of a firmly married (from prison, initially) couple. So, personally, I think that I could tell where someone to shove this dogma that is being shoved off on the rest of us.
During my own marriage I had enough being shoved, ordered, slapped around, characterized and “trained” to last the nine lives of a circus cat. Quite frankly, enough is enough. Theoretically, I”m still in favor of both abstinence and marriage, however when PUSH comes to SHOVE, I’m MORE in favor of the Bill of Rights.
Part of Garrido’s credibility was that he had a woman, I’m guessing. This was a factor in the attacks on me as a single mother for maintaining the concept that as a single mother WITHOUT an attacker, I was indeed better off (and our children) that way, than before, and that the removal of the violent person from our household was sufficient for now, thank you. it was made abundantly clear, from some West Coast liberals, that a woman being beaten in the home was preferable to us having to worry about a woman without a man, any quality man, in the home, when children were involved. This overly “rigid” world view, quite frankly well, _____s. And isn’t a great value to communicate to the next generation; gender matters more than character.
And look at the characters that were promoting it!
They were bribed to get the thing off the ground!
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Stocking Stuffers: 2009-2010 Status of Women, if Jesus had been born in CPS era, and Jurisdictionary plea.
California Commission on the Status of Women 2009
http://women.ca.gov/images/pdf/issues/1073.2009.2010publicpolicyagenda.pdf
HERE is the list Family Law is 9th.
2009-2010 Priorities • 1
Child Care • 2
Civil Rights • 3
Economic Security • 4
CalWORKS • 5
Education • 6
Employment • 8
Family Law • 9
Health • 10
Substance Abuse and Mental Health • 13
Long Term Care & Aging • 14
Reproductive Health • 15
Crisis Pregnancy Centers • 16
Teen Pregnancy and Parenting • 17
Violence • 17
Sexually Exploited Minors • 19
Teen Dating Violence • 20
Women and Girls in the CriminalJustice System • 20
Women and Corrections • 20
Girls in the Juvenile Justice System • 22
Women Veterans • 23
================
This would be good reading, for sure…..
Family Law
California is failing to protect its most
vulnerable children.
[[Not that this is exactly breaking news…]]
Whether it is child support enforcement, the foster care system, or the family courts, the rights and safety of many women and
children are at risk.
[[In a masterful understatement, not mentioned here — many have also died, probably needlessly… Others remain in the custody of their abusers…In truth “at risk” is a diversionary phrase. They have died. What about THOSE? So, as to the living ones, then…]]
Courts are overburdened and
court personnel often lack knowledge and
resources needed to address the complex issues
of domestic violence and child abuse. [*] Women
often suffer financially and emotionally as a result
of unjust rulings. In order to improve outcomes for
children and families, the Commission supports
the following agenda:Legislative Proposals
1. Establish an independent state-level oversight
committee/commission to review child custody
proceedings to better inform public policy, with a
particular focus on cases with allegations of
child abuse or domestic violence (Priority)2. Establish a multidisciplinary team of professionals
with expertise in assessing child abuse
and domestic violence to evaluate cases when
child custody is in dispute and such allegations
are made against one of the parties
3. Strengthen the right of custodial parents to
relocate without the risk of losing custody of
children
4.Support a State General Fund appropriation to
backfill lost federal matching incentive funds for
administrative costs in the child support program**
5. Require judges, mediators, custody evaluators,
law enforcement officers and social workers to
receive education on how to coordinate and
interface with all appropriate agencies in child
custody cases as a means of preventing
systems from failing to meet the needs of
families
If you know my blog, you know I’m not into this solution, because I don’t think that’s the problem. I think that if these personnel receive MOTIVATION (not “education”) to do the right thing, when evidence is on the record, that would be a nice gift for this season….
6. Allow children the opportunity to speak directly to the judge regarding their custody and visitation wishes and needs
And just hope that no undue influence has been applied outside the court…. (??? in a DV case??)
Administrative Proposals
7. Require judicial education regarding
• the dynamic of domestic violence and child
abuse, including the invalidity of the
“Parental Alienation Syndrome” (Priority)
• transgender individuals to prevent
discrimination in child custody matters due
to a parentʼs transgender status
8. Support a request for a Joint Legislative Audit
Committee to audit child custody cases involving
allegations of child abuse or domestic violence
9. Establish a judicial performance evaluation
system for appellate and trial court judges and
commissioners using American Bar Association
guidelines…
Study Proposals
10. An update of the 1987 “Senate Task Force On
Family Equity” report on family law
11. A study of gender fairness in the California
family courts
[added in 2011 commentary:]
[*]Viewing this post, over a year later, again (as then) phrases pop out, that somehow we, the public, are to understand ( believe) that Judges DON’T understand what we do — behaving like an out of control kindergartner in a marriage (or after sex has produced a child, producing whats’ called a mother, and a father, if not a family) and asserting dominance over pregnant, nursing, or mothers of young children — is wrong and dangerous to others than just the pregnant, nursing or mother of young children. Or, to fail to understand that real adult men, really do (and sometimes women, I fear & hear) molest children, and that’s a euphemism. IN such case, to continue this, they have to get rid of any parent who would stop this. The venue where this happens is “family” court.
All these people wanting to reform family court, and keep the professionals, while tossing off lives left and right (and some of the damage hit sthe community) and failing to account for usage of grants to the California Judicial Council/Administrative Office of the Courts / Center for Families & Children in the Courts (CFCC, or whatever the acronym) and from there, at a minimum, the “access/visitation” grants system spinning off of welfare reform, which criticizes women of color (primarily) for being poor, and determines to help men of color that have been made poor by the same type of mentality — and this system to supposedly reform welfare and help poor people, is being exploited by very RICH people, and a lot of powerful, white males, to keep their kids. See Nassau County, (NY). wife jailed for ‘alienating” her children. Nassau County, people….Different coast, same mentality.
Also (I learned in this 2010) the “fatherhood commissions” are legislated into various states. Now it’s time for “You, the people” to figure that out.
Or, keep paying taxes without expecting ANY, and I mean ANY accountability in a timely fashion to what the hell they are being used for. YOU take one day a week out of spa, or whatever (or something — like church, if it applies? — and get on-line and fact-check organizations like “Kids’ Turn” or others that are being marketed worldwide (now, in other countries) and funded by U.S. Federal $$, then having parents ordered into counseling, education, and in essence becoming the permanent “infants” (no matter their ages) to the everpresent BigBrother/”fatherland.”
[end of, added in 2011 commentary]
Ah, well.
No, This is closer to my legislative proposal, taken from an email from the author of “Jurisdictionary [TR]”. He waxes eloquent, but he talks about loving JUSTICE in addition to the natural human love we have for each other. He is talking about getting ourselves educated on how the justice system works. Not paying taxes to hire experts to talk to experts about how it SHOULD work and why it doesn’t (only). There is something individuals can do; teach themselves how it works! (Should be required with the marriage certificate, probably).
Love is manifested in many strange and wonderful forms.
There is the unmistakable, mystical love of a mother for her offspring, incomparable, impossible for us men to ever comprehend.
There is the love of a soldier for his comrades at arms, a power deep within the heart that motivates the impossible and sometimes galantly gives the soldier’s final gift.
And, there are other forms of love too many to list here.
Yet, in that mix of many forms of love there is an adoration that dwells deep in the breast of every one of us: the love of honor, the love of peace, and the love of justice that has rules by which our peace and shared prosperity can be fashioned and preserved both for ourselves and those who follow after, justice that is not perverted by the persuasion of power nor undermined by the influence of base motives.
Justice is, perhaps, the greatest of our American ideals.
We must immediately decide for justice that has rules.
We must unquestioningly decide and seek every practical mechanism we can find to promote the ideal of justice that has rules … not for one or a few but for everyone.
. . .
The American Dream is an Holy Experiment, a Republic under law and not an oligarchy of powerful men free to do as they choose and justice be damned.
The American Dream is a Wise People.
- A People who care for those who are unjustly treated.
- A People United.
- A People united by a vision that puts honor first, with love, mercy, kindness, courage, and justice constrained by rules.
- Whatever your faith this Season, whatever your political persuasion, whatever notions you’ve picked up from others about the horrors we are threatened with at the hands of those who hold ideas contrary to our own, remember this:
We are One People United by Our Ideals!
We are one precisely because we share ideals, of which the chiefest is that justice must have rules, and those who judge must obey those rules to-the-letter!
Cling to those ideals as dearly as you embrace your own children, for they preserve your children more than anything that you alone can do, more than any army, more than any doctor, more than anything you can imagine … for those ideals we share as Americans are the very hope of the world!
…
Tell everyone about us, please, and do what you can to help us promote your ideals!
… Dr. Frederick D. Graves, JD
Yeah, it’s an item for sale. But it’s designed for the general public, not the experts, and it teaches principles. I don’t have to share his faith to share the concept that there are rules we ALL should know and hold our appointed officials to by any means possible, and send a strong message that we are NOT their property, they are our paid servants, by law.
to do this, more people need to actually understand the financial systems also..
And a final thought for the evening — suppose Jesus had been born in a manger, and CPS had caught wind of it? Oh my God, Mary would never see him again.
Plus, part of his childhood, it appears he went to sleep in a fatherless home. Well, at least somewhere in there Joseph disappeared.
I think Jesus did all right, don’t you? He had a Father figure, at least….
More irreverence later….
THESE are a START in understanding WHASSUP with “women and Children” — learn the origins of this CFDA, the promoters, what else they promoted, and how they have changed the face of litigation throughout this country. Here’s TAGGS.hhs.gov, ALL I did was sort on “CFDA 93.597.” I learned this at NAFCJ.net, talked to the site author, and fact-checked Wake up!
S
tate = CALIFORNIA
CFDA Number = 93597Recipient: CA ST DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES
Recipient ZIP Code: 95814
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAgency Award Code Action
Issue DateAmount
This Action1998 9701CASAVP 1 ACF 2 05-31-1998 $1,113,750.00 1998 9801CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-01-1998 $1,113,750.00 1999 9901CASAVP 1 ACF 2 08-16-1999 $987,501.00 2003 9801CASAVP 1 ACF 7 02-24-2003 ($250,805.00) 2003 9901CASAVP 1 ACF 5 02-25-2003 ($139,812.00) 2009 9901CASAVP 1 ACF 8 09-14-2009 ($38,917.00) Award Subtotal: $2,785,467.00 Recipient: CA ST DEPT OF CHILD SUPPORT SERVICES
Recipient ZIP Code: 95741
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAgency Award Code Action
Issue DateAmount
This Action2000 0001CASAVP 1 ACF 3 08-24-2000 $987,501.00 2001 0001CASAVP 1 ACF 4 10-06-2000 ($987,501.00) Award Subtotal: $0.00 Recipient: CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL
Recipient ZIP Code: 94107
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAgency Award Code Action
Issue DateAmount
This Action2001 0010CASAVP 1 ACF 5 10-10-2000 $987,501.00 2001 0110CASAVP 1 ACF 1 08-23-2001 $987,501.00 2002 0210CASAVP 1 ACF 2 08-06-2002 $970,431.00 2003 0310CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-11-2003 $970,431.00 2004 0410CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-15-2004 $988,710.00 2005 0510CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-14-2005 $988,710.00 2006 0610CASAVP 1 ACF 1 09-19-2006 $987,973.00 2007 0710CASAVP 1 ACF 1 07-20-2007 $950,190.00 2008 0810CASAVP 1 ACF 1 01-30-2008 $957,600.00 2009 0010CASAVP 1 ACF 8 09-14-2009 ($48,827.00) 2009 0110CASAVP 1 ACF 4 09-14-2009 ($26,938.00) 2009 0210CASAVP 1 ACF 6 09-14-2009 ($46,392.00) 2009 0310CASAVP 1 ACF 2 09-14-2009 ($15,092.00) 2009 0910CASAVP 1 ACF 1 12-23-2008 $942,497.00 2010 1010CASAVP 1 ACF 1 11-25-2009 $946,820.00 2011 1110CASAVP 1 ACF 1 10-08-2010 $928,087.00 Award Subtotal: $11,469,202.00
Total of all awards: $14,254,669.00
Recipient: CA ST JUDICIAL COUNCIL Address: 303 SECOND STREET, SOUTH TOWER
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94107Country Name: United States of America County Name: SAN FRANCISCO DHHS Region: 9 Type: Other Social Services Organization Class: State Government Award Actions
FY Award Number Budget Year
of SupportAward Code Agency Action Issue
DateAmount This
Action2011 1101CASCIP 1 1 ACF 12-10-2010 $ 799,429 2011 1110CASAVP 1 1 ACF 10-08-2010 $ 928,087 Fiscal Year 2011 Total: $ 1,727,516 WONDER WHAT 1101CASCIP (court Improvement Program) is? Well, so do I.
THIS SITE CONTINUES TO EXPAND, AND PEDDLE THE “YOU MUST GET ALONG WITH YOUR PERP” MENTALITY; “HE WAS YOUR PURP, NOT YOUR CHILDREN’S, RIGHT?”
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/programs/cfcc/
HOW COME THE STATUS ON WOMEN DOESN’T REPORT ON THIS?
This is the “official” view:
Click to access Snapshot2008SummaryFindings.pdf
Key Findings
The majority of mediation sessions involve clients who are self-represented. The proportion of cases involving at least one self-represented party has increased steadily over time, from 52 percent of cases in 1991 to 75 percent of cases in 2008.
The population of mediation clients is ethnically diverse, the majority being non-White. The proportion of Hispanic/Latino clients has increased since the 1991 survey.
The mediation population includes many non-English speaking clients who may be in need of special language services. Mediators reported that special language services were used in 10 percent of mediation sessions. Approximately one out of ten clients indicated that they would have benefitted from, but did not receive, this sort of language assistance—including more bilingual staff, and bilingual interpreters or mediators.
Many families have been seen multiple times by family court services and are in mediation to try to reach agreement on more than one type of order and to discuss a wide range of concerns. The most frequent issues cited by mediation clients are problems with visitation arrangements not working, the other parent not following the order, and child emotional adjustment and behavioral concerns.
Not cited– threats to kidnap, actual kidnappings, and child abuse, stalking, or death threats from the other parent, which we are told happen, after a case becomes a “statistic.” This report dates to 2008. In 2008, in Contra Costa County, there was a triple-homicide/femicide, DV-& divorce-related. In 2007 in Oakland, there was a church-parking lot gunning down of a woman who was trying to stay alive, on a mid-week morning with lots of witnesses. In 2006, there was a woman who disappeared (mother of two young kids) on a routine exchange, when her ex was thousands behind on child support (Reiser). In 2005, there was (I believe in SF), a man who’d been stalking just a temporary GIRLFRIEND (not even a parental situation) who was ‘diverted into” domestic violence counseling, like many fathers are. Days after he got an A+ from that sesssion, her body shows up in a trunk. (McAlpin). We have had little girls show up in suitcases in ponds (Sandra Cantu), young women kept captive in back yards, giving birth to and raising children by their captor/rapists (Garrido) and all kinds of horrible events happen. The treatment of women throughout this Bay Area has been horrific. Meanwhile, many of the justice NONprofits (vs. “agencies”) are in it for themselves (see my “Dubious Doings by District Attorneys” post. The CEO is a plum position, and the women needing the protection are at the bottom of the barrel.
These reports here are meaningless to many women in my situation. We personally know mediators that regularly lie, fail to do intake forms, and break rules of court designed to protect children, in particular, when writing orders. This creates chaos in their lives, and chaos in the community, and increases poverty — of the affected parites, and those helping them. It creates “business as usual” for the court. Look here — they say it, right up front:
Family violence is a common issue among mediation clients. More than half of the families reported a history of physical violence between the parents.
THE FAMILY COURT paradigm is “Families” and “between the parents.” When one is assaulting another, the only thing “between them” is not enough airspace, and not enough distance. The blows are typically going ONE way, not both ways. The word “family violence” is to replace the term “domestic violence” which is a misdemeanor, or felony, in this state. It is no accident. MORE THAN HALF the FAMILIES reported — means typically ONE parent reported first, and possibly obtained a civil, or criminal, order — at which time the other would be foolish to fail to acknowledge it. That’s how the term “families …. reported… a history of physical violence.” Moreover, if the children were not interviewed by this mediator, then it’s only adults reporting. This phrase is a coverup of an ugly reality.
Approximately 15 percent of both mothers and fathers indicated that there was a current restraining order in place. Concern for future violence with the other parent was common, as was the concern for possible child abuse by the other parent.
Let’s see how oblique and indirect a “report” can get. What does the phrase of both mothers and fathers need to come in here for? The very grants system that ensures lots and lots of mediation happens (see this same site, Access/Visitation programs) does NOT say “mother and fathers” much at all — but “parents” or “Noncustodial” etc. Why stick it in here, haphazardly? To show that Dads get restraining orders too now? Well, they do, but why mention it here, and retain the same consistency of saying the word “mother” throughout, then?
The length of the mediation session and time spent preparing for mediation varied. The median face-to-face service time was 90 minutes and the median preparation time was 15 minutes.
The words “physical violence, history of” equates to “domestic violence.” There are lethality risks involved here, and there typically has been some serious physical injury, though not also. MOreover, physical violence indicates other forms of intimidation and coercion, generally speaking. And to resolve this potentially life-threatening (and childhood stultifying lifestyle of WHICH parent, primarily, against the other — or is fighting back to protect oneself also “mutual violence”? — the litigants get a whopping 90 minutes (we didn’t — the one joint sessions, more like half that, and subsequent separate sessions I swear it was a half hour, at most, and a farce at that). There are two ways to do this: Jointly, in which case a woman sits with her batterer or abuser that she just confronted by filing a DV order, in the same room, and attempts to “negotiate” with the mediator, which I did. Never again! NO way can you keep those thoughts on target that early in the game after separation. the other way — (all subsequent mediations), separate. In which case, there is NO real recourse for a party whose mediation report has factual errors, material ones, or was out of compliance. Why? Because if that family court judge bases an order on that mediator’s report (which they will, typically), then the life goes through another immediate upheaval. She (or he) has to deal with that upheaval FIRST, and appeal, if possible — second.
OK, stop, look, and listen. HALF had domestic violence (excuse me, “a history of physical violence” .. “family violence.”) Don’t think it’s an accident that the word “domestic violence” (which might point one to somewhere in the family, or criminal code, with defining terms…) is NOT used here. But MORE than 50% had a history of physical violence, and of those, only 15% had a CURRENT restraining order. So, who didn’t get restraining orders, or who took them off?
Family court judges, after these cases went through mediation, right? . . . . . Get it??…..
Overall, parents reached agreement in slightly less than half of cases. Agreement rates were higher for parties who were working on initial orders than for those who were working on modified orders.
OK — over 50% had a history of physical violence “between” (i.e., two sets of attacks met mid-air, collided, and none hit another body?? That’s “between” — or, blows were equally exchanged, like in the movie Crouching Tiger, til both lay exhausted?? ??? I don’t think so.) And UNDER 50% (“slighty less than half”) “reached agreement.” In any classroom, this would be a definite fail-rate on the part of the mediator. This means that in less than half the situations, one parent took a stand on some issue.
Reading further on this pdf report, it seems that mediators spent more time on the study than they did per client (15 minutes, average).
Clients rated their experiences in mediation very positively. For example, three-quarters or more of the clients provided favorable ratings on items related to procedural fairness.
What about other items? Which 3/4 or more (which — was it? 75% or more than 75%? Is this summary typical of how accurate a mediation report is?)
“
Parent Survey
This survey was completed by parents prior to their mediation session. The Parent Survey covered topics such as the purpose of the mediation session, issues to be discussed during the session, family violence history, legal representation, and parent demographics. Parent Surveys were completed by 3,176 clients representing 1,741 families. One or both parents completed a parent survey for 95 percent of sessions for which a mediator survey was completed.”
One OR Both parents in a litigation proceeding, lumped together, consisted in 95% of the sessions for which a survey was completed, which resulted in 75% satisfaction.
Well, in my case, the father was satisfied (and subsequently tried to derail my fact-finding in the courtroom to “the mediator’s report,” which recommended an overnight custody switch despite recently felony child-stealing, reported, by me, and obvious from the facts). I was dissatisfied, obviously. This is why I think vendor payments are more relevant than any organization receiving millions of $$ to increase noncustodial parenting time THROUGH mediation, in reporting on the results of Mediation. Of course they are going to give a positive report — if not, they’ll have to go find some other nipple to nurse off, than these access/visitation grants program, administered through the OCSE to the State of California Judicial Council, etc.
From this 2008 pdf, still, look at what they are attempting to discuss in the FAMILY law venue:
Table 2: What Issues Are You Here to Discuss?
Parent Issues N %
Visitation arrangements not working3 717 41%
Other parent not following order 615 35%
Other parent should be supervised during visitation 294 17%
Other parent’s alcohol abuse 282 16%
Other parent’s drug abuse 279 16%
One person is moving 216 12%
Child abduction/taking child without permission 197 11%
THE ABOVE ARE “PARENT ISSUES” AND NOT “CHILD ISSUES” — Except the first “visitation arrangements not working” which is too vague to mean much, and “should be supervised” which indicates (a) report of abuse of child during visitation, or threats to abduct OR (as equally possible) (b) Parental Alienation claims to counter (a)…an underlying criminal issues as to the first, and NOT as sto the second) and “is moving” (move-aways, which also will fall neatly under “parental alienation” claims) — ALL of these issues involved contempt of a court order (“not following is the degradation of the word “contempt of”) substance abuse — which is bad parenting — and the last one is either (a) a crime or (b) what sure looks like one, “taking child without permission.”. These are not “parent issues” as so labeled. They are contempt of court order issues.
ADD TO THIS — the court orders typically, when DV has been outed, or Child Abuse, are StiLL written so vaguely as to ensure constant negotiation needed by (when DV has occurred) a custodial parent with her (yeah, her) former abuser, which was my case. I have never seen a more vaguely written court order, I had to go to court years later to even get a location written in. Holiday exchanges had no location AND no time of exchange. Summer Vacations had no stipulation and resulted in our children not being able to attend summer workshops and events which would’ve helped their college vacations, in areas of already identified interests. I was able to do these while the RO was on, and had to stop once it hit family law, thanks to this mediator’s version of reality. Basically, mediation is going to remove a safety boundary for the custodial parent. Add to this, joint legal with sole physical means, there is no end of argument possible. I cannot imagine any business, sports team, investment, or performance oriented group that would be able to operate under such circumstances, with no enforceable rules when a chaotic individual wants to pre-empt the field. Add to this the impact of the child SUPPORT factor — which mediation refuses to address, although it’s a hot topic — and you have utter, complete, disorder — designed to bring business to the courts after one failed mediation session, to another.
Then, on the basis of “overburdened” and “overcrowded” they can ask for more grants.
Child Issues
Child emotional adjustment 513 29% Child behavior problems 355 20% School problems 331 19% Child refuses to visit 233 13% Child medical needs 213 12% Delay in child growth or development 99 6%
Violence/Abuse Issues
Domestic violence 318 18% Child neglect 306 18% My safety with other parent 304 17%
Child physical abuse Child sexual abuse. 159 9% 40 2%
Note: N = 1,741 families. Percentages sum to more than 100 because respondents were able to check more than one item.
I find that every single one of those items relates to children, and many of them are LEGAL issues and CRIMINAL issues. Mediators should not be handling such matters, but they are. These matters also should not be before family court judges, with their HUGE amount of discretion, but they are.
That said, District Attorneys have the discretion to not prosecute. All in all, it’s a joke, basically.
And a “joint legislative audit” isn’t going to fix that.
This is where to look, for starters:
California’s Access to Visitation Grant Program (Fiscal Year 2009–2010)
REPORT TO THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE MARCH 2010
Then do the follow-up, whether in your state, or if you are California, here.
[I am in a real rambling, ranting mode today. So be it! 01/2011]
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To tell the truth (per my handle, “Let’s Get Honest”), I’ve got something stewing under my collar. And it’s this. I didn’t bring children into this world and remove them from an abusive situation just to have them and it stuffed back into the situation, myself excommunicated for actually speaking up, and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, So Long as We’re Not Caught” policy I just don’t think is appropriate for the topics involved in our particular family line, including: domestic violence, incest, suicide, mental illness, substance abuse (by my father, who grew up witnessing violence in HIS home), stalking, and in general shred the evidence, point the finger, and let society pick up the tab.
Ain’t that how the cycle is perpetuated?
Sentiments of the Seasons….
I can remember seasons of Christmas (day after tomorrow, my hemisphere), from childhood (glitter, music, lights), from the abusive family (sometimes sullen and nothing — literally NOTHING was allowed to happen). One year, explosive [assault & battery, I was pregnant, toddler witnessing and affected by it, reacting], I cannot forget THAT incident, which I reported to a relative, who gave a single expression of indignation, and went right back into enabling/don’t ask, don’t tell mode. To this day…
Less than a month later, a more dramatic repeat of nearly the identical incident, after which I told a doctor, a pastor (OUR pastor), and my mother. Similar reaction. A pattern was established of non-intervention, and the circus was afoot.
And inbetween the insane, and steadily increasing control, the job sabotage, the transportation sabotage, the shutting down of access to finances, and trying to keep me at home and on my knees, cleaning, and if I got it clean, more stuff was dumped out, lest I GET out. Sometimes it was dumped, and he’d grab the kids for some fun times. Dysfunctional households, major functions not working, and I couldn’t fix this. Increasing animal abuse, and when I tried to intervene, was myself threatened. Kids witnessing this. I kept them, and best I could us, out, and busy with more healthy activities, with strangers who were nicer than family, with classmates, with classes. Their stuff got sabotaged too, at times. I had to sneak, sometimes my education, their education, and bargain, negotiate, and figure it out.
Every possible work scenario: employed FT office, PT from home office, unemployed stay at home Mom, business from home Mom, and no matter what I did, practically, it seemed to even out, we still had to beg for necessities more often than needed. It wasn’t a family together holding it together, it was not a sharing situation, it was a dominance situation. He didn’t lack clothes, transportation, electronics, or freedom to get out unpredictably. I was to conform to this thing I wasn’t, or else…
Years went by, and holidays. I remember 2 days before one, we had to flee the home with a barefoot child from a well-set peaceful dinner. His rage was that I had actually visited a pastor for help (I was still dumb enough to thing that pastors might help with this criminal matter and had not yet picked up on my legal rights to ask for an arrest to STOP it!) (and the pastors, on their part, were dumb enough to counsel us both together, meaning, it wasn’t exactly safe for me to speak openly…). He was furious that I’d done this without him being there to, I guess, “interpret” and do damage control on the truth.
Luckily this time, I actually had a car. In the dark, right before Christmas (and not having received any funds to buy them anything) The youngsters and I deliberated (in the dark), do I head for a relative (the same one who did nothing earlier), or Christian friends in a nearby city (who to date hadn’t done anything so far either, though they knew about his physical and economic in particular abuse towards me, which the little ones witnessed growing up). They didn’t ask questions when we just “appeared” at the door while they ate dinner. We stayed overnight.
One of the dumbest things I ever did was to return home the next day, even though I called first and asked whether he could, according to his stated faith, promise to stop threatening us. I even quoted the Bible verse that said “forbearing threatening.” The answer, basically, along the lines of “the devil made me do it, and [ in short, no…] Did I have somewhere else reasonable to go? NO. So guess where I went. Back. Big mistake, I guess.
We were great at doing holidays in front of others and pretending to be happy family (or else, I learned my lessons years earlier for failing to perform up to snuff, making him uncomfortable, resulting in a physical drubbing I shall never forget, and probably (let’s hope) the children blanked out, as one of them was not yet born, but inside at the time.
Like a ripple in the pond, I had to keep splashing about for years, until finally one of my ripples picked up a responding resonance from a “family violence law center” which helped me out, and then sold us out, almost straight out of the gate. Nevertheless, (him) OUT was still OUT, and a definite improvement.
After that TRO, with the energy unleashed, and a woman intent on getting her house in order, now that the chaos-creator was temporarily disabled (i.e., OUT), I most certainly had hope, and stamina and resolve, and within 3 short years (if ONLY the restraining orders had been even a single year longer, we would literally have made it!), we were just about off anyone’s dole, including child support.
In order to become solvent, I had to increase income and reduce expenses.
Alas, doing this meant disobeying an order (I later found out it was an order, not a suggestion) by another nearby male, no kids’ father, and who had not intervened at all (though informed of the violence, and asked for help) for years. Suddenly he became an expert, and I became a needy child (rather than the blossoming woman and mother I was at that time, and further energized by the ability to practice the profession I was trained in, which had been almost shut down by that abuse, and for a long time, too….). When I informed him and his wife that
~~he had no jurisdiction in this divorce/custody issue; it was between the father and me, not the whole “clan,”
~~a restraining order was on, and please stop sending messages from my ex via you to me, that’s breaking it…
~~In case you’re not watching, I have things to do, i.e., a business to rebuild (like, WORK?), and in essence….
~~thanks, but no thanks, and if you wish to learn more about the thing you just proclaimed yourself expert on (talk about self-anointed!), here’s where you can find out. I’m BUSY…. ”
I had learned, now, not to take years before deducing whether this person was willing to listen, or interested in interrogating me without witnesses, and I didn’t waste much time in making an assessment. Not much time to lose, eh?
Nor did he (not my ex, but his new “buddy” on my side of the family) lose much time in building some momentum from the anti-single-Mom, don’t let them get loose side of the family, and I experienced a new phenonenon — not just tolerance and silence, but actual flip-flopping betrayal, followed by serious aggression. It was a win-win situation for them. They got to be heroes, and nobody was accountable for either domestic violence, or having enabled it, or missed it. They had a common cause enemy — derailing the conversation, and, me if I protested said derailment.
Sensing true male support in his “let’s dominate a woman” cause (sort of like the church had given during the marriage), my ex picked up some steam himself, meaning, I had to face both of them as a single mother. Nevertheless, Dad at least paid child support steadily; apparently he understood this was an obligation. Myself, I tried to mind my own business, get along, and was in general still in “good girl” mode, but this time with more boundaries.
Until we went into family court. Reviewing how this happened, I realized (too late) that the manner, which I hear from respectable authority locally, is common practice — that TOO violated due process. He was informed in advance, an ex parte decision was made by a judge to consolidate actions, and it was sprung on me in court when I went to renew the order. THIS was the beginning of the degradation of:
my relationship with the children, as they watched me both prosper, rebuild, and be respected among colleagues and their friends’ parents (many of who were professionals in this, or that field), and themselves began to blossom as people, wh le still seeing Dad regularly….
~~due process in any subsequent court hearings
~~any sense of predictability and order in our lives, as court orders began to have less and less meaning, of any sort, and
~~first thing to go — of income, and (which family court EXISTS for, folks!)
~~tipping the power balance back towards the (abusive, in this case) father.
Soon enough he picked up ANOTHER woman, this time to live with, drive her car, help with aggressions towards me, and apparently (?) pay h is bills, meaning he could afford to not work: translation: CHild support arrears began to mount, and Dad became more and more troublesome during the week, as well as weekends. Restraining order got stripped off the last round of hearings. I tried for another. This time it was girlfriend, father, and MY ( female) relative on one side of the courtroom, and me, alone, striving to protect what was left of my work life, on the other, as well as the kids’ educational alternatives (which had been a target). I lost. I was sent to debate with his lawyer, him and myself OUT of the courtroom, and for hours, I tried (alone) to stick up for my rights in front of a man who’d asssaulted me. No one — at all — was with me. As good an arrangement as I thought I had (definitely better than nothing), it was inadequate protection.
One more year of more nightmare exchanges — weekly, any week, any holiday, and during the middle of the week (remember? no restraining order in effect, although exchanges no longer happened at my home) — could be, and many were, incidents. I gained and lost a prime music job, a car, and ground. The speed of job losses was beginning to frighten me. Oh yes, and he’d learned a new trick — sporadic child support payments. My credit had already been ruined, and this hurt us, for sure. If only, I thought, I could get some LEGAL help and get either (A) protection so I myself could work without job loss, or (B) child support enforcement, so he would work, and therefore have less time to harass me while I was working. (I was self-employed professional in the arts at the time, working with kids, and had to show up with my emotions intact and usable, and LEAD things. This is dang hard to do when safety, whereabouts of one’s own kids, and trepidation at whether or not right before or right after a job is going to escalate. I burned up the cell phone bill calling crisis lines, stayed on the internet searching for help, got validation of what was right, but no means to do anything about it (Hence, “I don’t CARE “WHY Does He DO that?” I care how to make it stop!) and so forth. My kids managed, somehow…
I learned where help wasn’t. This is helpful, for not going there with hat in hand NEXT time round. I survived by talking to people. I was found at times crying in the parking lot right after an exchange. We went from police incident to job, or job to police incident. The same family members that enabled in the last decade did worse, this decade — they SHOWED my kids now to “Say nothing, Do nothing,” and exploited the increasing PTSD for increased bonding with themselves. I was aware of this and spoke to it; it seemed to be something of an operational plan. Cause an incident, grab the kids, take them to the relatives, they bonded while I was in shock, rather than actually having a respite from the other parent over a weekend, or a week. ….
When I asked for them to support court order enforcement, as I was attempting to do, I was met with increasing anger and indignation. Expect the father to work, like I was? To behave, like I was? WHo the hell did I think I was? A citizen or something?
I began going after the child support also, when that became a thing. I did printouts, mailed my relatives (mistake, but i was still learning), and even attempted to tell a 911 policeman I’d called to the scene for his refusing to leave MY home (and there was only one exit from the place, and I had no car) on a non-pickup day. I showed the nonstop calling, described it, and told the fellow (in this nice suburban town) that we had a history of violence, and I was attempting to say no to arbitrary orders on his part, no reason given (particularly in light of increasing child support arrears) and restrict us to the actual wording of this court order.
No deal. The police officer let him violate, and the race was off. Oh what a season THAT was! That’s what led me to try for a 2nd restraining order. Jobs I got to replace jobs were being affected. Add a new responsibility: It became clear I was going to have to locate a domestic-violence-proof profession, and I was serious about this, and went in a certain direction.
Now, eventually, as I’ve probably narrated ad nauseam herein, this escalated suddenly on an overnight visitation when I’d just moved — again– into another very promising housing and work situation, nearby, great schooling, great opportunities, and income (mine at least) in progress. His actual residence, something up in the air, although my attempts to smoke it out, supported by court order, were NOT supported by him, his girlfriend, my relatives, or even police I asked to enforce THAT aspect of the order,showing it to them. No deal. My kids, naturally, were absorbing this, and every now and then one of them would give me some very pungent analysis of the situation. She knew they (plural) felt they needed another “win.”
I continued to tell, in writing at times, the people NOT on the court order that they were NOT on the court order, and please let the Mom (me) and the Dad (him) work this out like adults; you are supposedly also adults, and don’t you have a life, somewhere? I do — where’s yours? Go get a foster child, there are needy kids. Go get a life purpose, don’t you have another one somewhere? I said, in writing (and when we had to talk, over the phone), if you love (my daughters) as you are shouting from the housetops (and on court paperwork, to which they now began adding), how about demonstrating it in this manner: help their Dad find a job & work. Like I am — see? Encourage him to obey the court order — like I am.
No deal. That wasn’t on the agenda.
AND so yes, another Christmas, after my kids were kidnapped, essentially, Dad dumped out on the street by woman #2, who still won’t fork them over, and what else is new in lala land, no one even in the court OR law enforcement system appears interested in enforcing, or helping me to, any order. Should I try for another CERTIFIABLY INSANE RESTRAINING ORDER (or anti-stalking) for what I would consider, currently to be these CERTIFIABLY INSANE policies being pursued, zealously, by this certifiably dysfunctional family line (mine, I mean)…??? Wow, that sounds like a “great” idea. … Someone else would have to blog any resulting statistics, as I’d be less likely to survive this round. It IS escalating, and there are only so many more places one can escalate to, at this point…
So, yeah, that’s in my mind today (obviously). I do not share the “let’s not have conflict” and “let’s not talk about it” mentality.
Jesus Christ had a lot of conflict in his life, and ministry, surrounding his birth, and death. And we human parents aren’t supposed to?
Should we just go along with the crowd, like too many did until finally someone raised a ruckus, as happened in Richmond?
Is it a family value to shut up under criminal behavior? Or else? No, I have daughters. I wish them to know WHAT”s right and speak up in the face of what’s wrong, if they can do so safely. And I want a society where they CAN do so safely. I have XX years ahead, by the grace of God, and they have XX plus another generation or two more. So, right from wrong counts. Direction they are being steered in counts. Associates count.
Values count. Values about what is most important — placidity? Or integrity? Can’t always have them both.
===============
So, I just narrated some married (WITH a father in the home) and SINGLE (without a father in the home) years. Now, some of my fellow bloggers have a thing to say — by “fellow blogger,” I mean, probably on my blogroll, or another favorite I picked up along the way somehow.
I may be inactive for about a week, depends on internet access. Have a happy season, remember those who don’t, and make plans for what to do when the tinsel comes down… And always, always count the cost of hiring Big Brother to Design, Educate, Evaluate, Raise, Adjudicate, and Legislate YOUR family. Get YOUR family to understand YOUR legal rights (in whichever country) and carve out some time to learn what they are.
And make a big stink about any violation of them: “Don’t tread on me.”
And teach your sons and daughters to do the same.
Beware the 2nd wives club, that’s where women can get pretty vicious, I”ve watched this, and the males involved in the background, enjoying the show, and the perks, including money, respect, and probably just the drama of it. I hear they are, after all, visually oriented, and it’s quite a spectacle, being fought over, or fought for.
NB: I’m not a second wife, you betcha. I’m a Momma. And what I’m steamed up about, I just found out who was carting them off where, again, this season, illegally. Damn….
I was just getting warmed up here. Now for the re-post, and my repartie, afterwards:
HERE”s RANDIJAMES.com, on Obama on Mother… My comments below.
Saturday
Obama and His Fathercentrism
It has become more than apparent that our President has some psychological issues related to his father being “absent.”
But is it really that serious? And does he have to make the rest of us suffer with him?
We all know that the President, in spite of having an absent father, turned out quite well. In fact, President Obama said that his mother was “frequently absent.” So, where does this leave us? Is this such an atrocity because of the racial issues? Because we knowz dat da man keeps telling us dat da Black family be damned ‘cuz of all of dem single momz.
Obama’s father was an “intellectual” who pursued his goals, including attending Harvard. He was like many men who are committed to education and career first, and thus leaving the family behind. He may not have been “there” for Obama but Obama can still attribute some of his own success to his genes.
How many other Black boys and men can say the same?
And don’t go blaming single Black mothers, again. If these fatherless kids end up as troublesome youth and adults, you can likely attribute that to the characters of their fathers, coupled with the constraints of life in poverty.
Obama described his own father as “volatile and vaguely threatening.” Would he have wanted someone like this in his life full-time?
What Obama is doing and preaching is unfair, because he is coming from a position of privilege.
Didn’t Obama make his family secondary to his career?
The fact that he remains married and participating in his household [as a “father”] is related to the resources that he has had available to him (education and money for both Barack and Michelle, and a patient wife whose number one duty is the kids), coupled with his value system and self-esteem issues related to his family of origin.
I respect that as a role model, our President is intent upon helping us reach the mountaintops through speech directed at fathers. But we would be better served if Obama focused on our educational system and jobs, respected different family styles and values, and licked and healed his wounds on his own dollar and time. By giving people the tools they need to reach their potential, everything else will fall into place. Stop legislating the family. [end of post]
My feedback:
Whitehouse.gov on “Families” (notice “Women” are filed separately from “families.”)
Guiding Principles
A strong nation is made up of strong families. Every family deserves the chance that so many of our parents and grandparents had – to make a better future for themselves and their children. Strong families will always be front and center of President Obama’s agenda.
This is why, while Fatherhood Folks (Jeffrey Leving, etc.) helped him get in office, and HHS of course going full steam ahead withpromoting the conservative evangelical Norman Rockwell heterosexual, a chicken in every pot and a father — ANY father, no matter the behavior, we’ll haul them out of prisons, too — in every kid’s life, because when H1N1 ain’t got nothing on fatherlessness. On the other hand, we have a bang-up educational system where if you’re not LGBT-friendly, you’re committing a hate crime and to be feared as a religious bigot. This also applies if your kids are not attending public school where they can figure out which values apply. Just to make sure, we have a new appointee…
EDUCATION:
Invest in Education
President Obama is committed to providing every child access to a complete and competitive education, from cradle through career. First, the President supports a seamless and comprehensive set of services and support for our youngest children, from birth through age 5.
Yes, indeed, whose children are they? Ask AFCC, ask any mental health professional, social worker, guardian ad lit, and family law attorney (“$$$”), they are OUR children. Forget the parents, and particularly the mothers….
[[I blogged earlier on the absence of the word “mother” in his pages on “families.” You can search this site. I don’t see it currently. Apologize for my sarcastic tone…]]
The 50 Richest Members of Congress (2008)
Sept. 22, 2008
By Paul Singer, Jennifer Yachnin and Casey Hynes
Roll Call Staff
IN 2007, The Obamas were 10th. Interesting, that….Not that I mind, but it’s not exactly the typical perspective….
Published on Wednesday, June 30, 2004 by the Agence France Presse |
Millionaires Fill US Congress Halls |
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| WASHINGTON – The US Congress, the domed bastion of democracy in the capital of capitalism, abounds with deep-pocketed politicians whose fortunes have made the legislative branch of government a millionaire’s club.In the 435-member House of Representatives, 123 elected officials earned at least one million dollars last year, according to recently released financial records made public each year.
Next door in the ornate Senate, whose blue-blooded pedigree includes a Kennedy and a Rockefeller, one in three people are millionaires. By comparison, less than one percent of Americans make seven-figure incomes. |
MANY of the top 10 are Democrats, per this:
Roll Call calculates net worth based on the minimum assets and minimum liablities listed in each lawmaker’s annual financial disclosure report. These reports exclude some assets including primary residences, however, and may not provide a full representation of a Member’s financial portfolio. Click column headers to resort the chart; click Members’ names to see descriptions of their assets; for top 10, click their net worth for PDF copies of their disclosure forms. See story for details.
Assets, liabilities, net worth and difference figures in millions of dollars.
| Rank | Member | Assets | Liabilities | 2008 Minimum Net Worth (MNW) | 2007 MNW* | Difference Between 2007 and 2008 MNW | Percent Change in MNW, 2007-2008 | Rank in 2007 | Chamber | Party | Date Entered Congress |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Kerry (Mass.) | $215.41 | $47.86 | $167.55 | $231.88 | -$64.33 | -27.74% | 1 | Senate | Democrat | 1985 |
| 2 | Darrell Issa (Calif.) | 164.70 | 0.00 | 164.70 | 160.62 | 4.08 | 2.54 | 3 | House | Republican | 2001 |
| 3 | Jane Harman (Calif.) | 112.13 | 0.00 | 112.13 | 225.96 | -113.83 | -50.38 | 2 | House | Democrat | 1993-1999, 2001 |
| 4 | Jay Rockefeller (W.Va.) | 85.70 | 5.25 | 80.45 | 80.40 | 0.05 | 0.06 | 4 | Senate | Democrat | 1985 |
| 5 | Mark Warner (Va.) | 75.77 | 3.40 | 72.37 | 90.80 | -18.44 | -20.30 | Senate | Democrat | 2009 | |
| 6 | Jared Polis (Colo.) | 76.14 | 5.14 | 71.00 | 97.62 | -26.62 | -27.27 | House | Democrat | 2009 | |
| 7 | Vern Buchanan (Fla.) | 85.39 | 35.60 | 49.79 | 65.49 | -15.70 | -23.98 | 6 | House | Republican | 2007 |
| 8 | Frank Lautenberg (N.J.) | 48.88 | 0.50 | 48.38 | 55.33 | -6.95 | -12.56 | 7 | Senate | Democrat | 1982-2001, 2003 |
| 9 | Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) | 43.94 | 1.00 | 42.94 | 52.34 | -9.40 | -17.96 | 8 | Senate | Democrat | 1992 |
| 10 | Harry Teague (N.M.) | 41.63 | 1.00 | 40.63 | 6.26 | 34.37 | 549.04 | House | Democrat | 2009 | |
| 11 | Michael McCaul (Texas) | 38.08 | 0.00 | 38.08 | 23.93 | 14.15 | 59.13 | 11 | House | Republican | 2005 |
| 12 | Alan Grayson (Fla.) | 31.24 | 0.12 | 31.12 | 29.06 | 2.06 | 7.10 | House | Democrat | 2009 | |
| 13 | James Risch (Idaho) | 19.49 | 0.20 | 19.29 | 20.21 | -0.92 | -4.55 | Senate | Republican | 2009 | |
| 14 | Rodney Frelinghuysen (N.J.) | 18.15 | 0.00 | 18.15 | 22.41 | -4.26 | -19.01 | 12 | House | Republican | 1995 |
| 15 | Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.) | 18.22 | 1.10 | 17.12 | 17.19 | -0.07 | -0.41 | House | Republican | 2009 | |
| 16 | Bob Corker (Tenn.) | 21.79 | 4.70 | 17.09 | 19.19 | -2.10 | -10.93 | 15 | Senate | Republican | 2007 |
| 17 | Claire McCaskill (Mo.) | 16.04 | 0.02 | 16.02 | 19.52 | -3.50 | -17.93 | 14 | Senate | Democrat | 2007 |
| 18 | Edward Kennedy (Mass.) (deceased) | 15.74 | 0.00 | 15.74 | 47.62 | -31.88 | -66.94 | 9 | Senate | Democrat | 1962 |
| 19 | Nita Lowey (N.Y.) | 14.38 | 0.00 | 14.38 | 17.77 | -3.39 | -19.08 | 18 | House | Democrat | 1989 |
| 20 | Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.) | 16.50 | 2.50 | 14.00 | 19.01 | -5.01 | -26.35 | 16 | House | Democrat | 1993 |
| 21 | John McCain (Ariz.) | 15.83 | 2.05 | 13.78 | 19.64 | -5.86 | -29.84 | 13 | Senate | Republican | 1983 House; 1987 Senate |
| 22 | Gary Miller (Calif.) | 13.26 | 0.00 | 13.26 | 14.49 | -1.23 | -8.47 | 22 | House | Republican | 1999 |
| 23 | Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) | 25.28 | 12.75 | 12.53 | 18.71 | -6.18 | -33.03 | 17 | House | Democrat | 1987 |
| 24 | Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) | 13.04 | 0.91 | 12.13 | 12.43 | -0.30 | -2.40 | 23 | Senate | Republican | 2003 |
| 25 | Kenny Marchant (Texas) | 14.70 | 2.81 | 11.89 | 10.49 | 1.40 | 13.35 | 28 | House | Republican | 2005 |
Interesting, anyhow…
Next Post, Dr. Chesler letter to Alice Walker re: her pro-Obama stance.
…
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
Who’s Your Daddy? Er, your Mommy? er. . . . Let the Courts Order…
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This NYT article from Dec. 13th is overdue for posting. A story of how important motherhood really IS and what lengths a mother (whether financial, or surrogate — neither with any biological relationship) will go to protect their own.
Sounds like, here, both the people who PAID for the babies (they were twins) and the surrogate mother (no biological relationship) were happily married. And it would seem in both cases, employed…Surrogacy is a job…
Anyway, I presented some “teaser” information. Check out the article (multiple links and graphics), and just ask yourself, what are the responsible fatherhood folk going to do with THIS one?
Building a Baby, With Few Ground Rules
Uncertain Laws on Surrogacy Can Leave Custody at Issue.
[[So far, so good . . . . Everything is worked out. Looks like the courts, the police, and the parental education folk will have to go look somewhere else, as well as supervised visitation supervisors….]]
Well, that’s not my main post this afternoon…. Interesting reading, though. I poke fun at Designer Families from the Top-Down perspective. But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet . . . .
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Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
January 28, 2010 at 7:03 PM
Posted in Context of Custody Switch, Designer Families, Split Personality Court Orders, Vocabulary Lessons, Where's Mom?
Tagged with Designer Families, fatherhood, Motherhood, social commentary, Surrogacy, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work..