Posts Tagged ‘Access-Visitation’

Evaluate, Coordinate and Call Mom “Alienator!” — Pt. 3, in which 3 AFCC Ph.D.’s (Benjamin Garber, Peggie Ward & David Medoff) in a NH PAS case get a PAS-based reversal, plus some Warshak Talk

To be continued….

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

June 15, 2011 at 2:28 PM

Posted in Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Parent Education promotion, PhDs in Psychology-Psychiatry etc (& AFCC), Psychology & Law = an AFCC tactical lobbying unit, Who's Who (bio snapshots)

Tagged with Access-Visitation, Benjamin D Garber (AFCC), custody, David Medoff (AFCC), fatherhood, obfuscation, Parent Coordination, PCANH, Peggie Ward (AFCC), Supervised Visitation

Evaluate, Coordinate, Prepare to Call “Alienator!” — Pt. 2: CFCC and AFCC people Nunn, Depner, Ricci, Stahl, Pruett(s), and others DV groups fail to talk about

REMINDER — in CALIFORNIA — Three accepted purposes of the A/V funds system remain:

Supervised Visitation is an idea from that became an industry spawned and sprouted by some of the above groups, and watered by the US federal funds to the states. The link cites the supporting 1996 legislation… For a reminder

California’s Access to Visitation Grant Program (Fiscal Year 2009–2010)

REPORT TO THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE MARCH 2010

Federal and State Program Goals

The congressional goal of the Child Access and Visitation Grant Program is to “remove barriers and increase opportunities for biological parents who are not living in the same household as their children to become more involved in their children lives.”3 Under the federal statute, Child Access and Visitation Grant funds may be used to

support and facilitate noncustodial parents’ access to and visitation [with] their children by means of activities including mediation (both voluntary and mandatory), counseling, education, development of parenting plans, visitation enforcement** (including monitoring, supervision and neutral drop-off and pick-up), and development of guidelines for visitation and alternative custody arrangements.4

The use of the funds in California, however, is limited by state statute to three types of programs:5

Supervised visitation and exchange services;

Education about protecting children during family disruption; and

Group counseling services for parents and children.

(This report has been prepared and submitted to the California Legislature under Family Code section 3204(d).Copyright © 2010 by Judicial Council of California/Administrative Office of the Courts. All rights reserved.)

**isn’t it interesting — if a court order exists, but is not being complied with, wouldn’t “visitation enforcement” be the simplest solution? Dad, Mom — obey your visitation court order. But somehow California wasn’t interested in that aspect, but wants the A, B, C, of Supervised Visitation & Exchange Services; of “Educating Parents about “protecting children during family disruptions” {the Kids Turn component) and getting people into group counseling, parents and children both.

If the whole concept sounds like AFCC, it is. In 2000, I see a report planning how to use “court-based mediation” for child custody. (California Judicial Council, Administrative Office of the Courts, “CFCC” (Center for Families & Children in the Courts). This shows Isolini Ricci, Ph.D. under this CFCC:

Report 12 Executive Summary (Sept 2000)

Preparing Court-Based Child Custody Mediation Services for the Future

KEY PERSONNEL POSITIONED TO SET POLICY are AFCC.

As of 2010, the top two personnel (Director, Assistant Director) of this Center for Families & Children in the Courts are AFCC, I’m pretty sure (Nunn/Depner).

I notice Diane Nunn (attorney), Isolini Ricci (Ph.D., and AFCC leader, author, etc.), and here, Charlene Depner was “Supervising Research Analyst,” but by 2010 (above) was Assistant Director of the entire CFCC. Depner is an AFCC member. AFCC members are coached to, or at least always seem to, talk about “Parental Alienation” and ‘High-conflict” parents, or divorces, usually in the same breath, for example:

Parental Alienation”: A Continuum of Responses in High Conflict Divorce

-by Mindy F. Mitnick, EdM/MA {search my blog, she’s AFCC. Note degrees — a professional educator….}

(She is AFCC board of directors, currently)

DIANE NUNN

LEADERSHIP AND NEW ROLES FOR THE JUDICIARY a 2002 conference at Univ. of Pacific McGeorge School of Law,

with emphasis on Criminal Justice
“The Many Faces of California’s Courts”
Diane Nunn, Director, Center for Families, Children & the Courts,
California Administrative Office of the Courts, “She supervises projects related to family, juvenile, child support, custody, visitation, and domestic violence law and procedure. Ongoing projects include training, education, research and statistical analysis.” (Note, presenting alongside Bill Lockyer, then California Attorney General, whose wife Nadia ran (til recently) the Alameda County Family Justice Center).

FALL 2004 AFCC Newsletter

Diane Nunn listed as not just “AFCC” but “AFCC Advisory Council” in an inset column — alongside some well-known names, such as Janet Johnston, Joan Kelly, Philip Stahl (all Ph.Ds), and — please note — Jessica Pearson. (See yesterday’s post, or search my blog). Plus a passel of judges, including from other countries. I count ten (10) Judges, just a few J.D.s and Ph.D.’s (I’ll bet, several in psychology or psychiatry), some unlabeled, some educators (M.Ed.D.) and social workers, I presume.

About this Newsletter, let’s notice the “Thanks!” list:

AFCC wishes to thank Symposium sponsors and exhibitors for their support:

Children’s Rights Council, Hawaii (that’s CRC)

Christine Coates, JD, Dispute Resolution Training Complete Equity Markets, Inc.

Dr. Philip M. Stahl, ParentingAfterDivorce.com (alienation promoter)

Family Law Software, Inc. J.M.Craig Press, Inc. LifeBridge

The LOGO for the newsletters shows children and has the subtitle “KIDS COUNT ON US.”

It’s an eyeopener to start seeing the AFCC conference and newsletter material. For example, among the Parent Educators, in fine print it lists “Kids First, Chet Mukliewicz, Dunmore, PA” (more on him, in this post if I get to it. Kids First is a Kids Turn knockoff, it sells publications by AFCC personnel, including Isolini Ricci, Philip Stahl, Richard Warshak, and of course himself. In addition, it takes referral business from at least one other state court besides the one where he lives, and he holds a contract with Lackawanna County, PA, which court is being compared (in print) to the Luzerne County, PA “Kids for Cash” scandal. …. This is product positioning and marketing, basically. Janet Johnston, Ph.D. (in this 2004 letter) is welcomed as Associated Editor of the “Family Court Review” (which AFCC puts out) and is revealed as to having previously worked as executive director of “Protecting Children from Conflict,” itself an affiliate of Judith WallersteinCenter for the Family in Transition in California .

3 Pruetts — one on Board of Directors (C. Eileen) , 2 (Kyle & Marsha Kline) as main presenters. Is Eileen related to the other Pruetts from California? (I don’t know — it’s not an usual name. But I’d like to know!).

That’s handy…. C. Eileen Pruett lists on Jigsaw as “Dispute Resolution Program Coordinator” under the Hon. Francis Sweeney (Columbus, Ohio). AFCC pushesmediation as a solution for custody disputes, even though most custody disputes are acknowledged to have elements of violence and/or abuse, including child abuse.

A 1999 Supreme Court of Ohio Task Force Report called “Family Law Reform: Minimizing Conflict, Maximizing Families” on Reforming the Courts from Ohio lists her as:

Eileen Pruett and the Supreme Court of Ohio Office of Dispute Resolution Special Committee on Parent Education for the material on parent education, which is replicated in Appendix D.

In Ohio, “To achieve this goal, the Task Force recommend(ed, in 1999): 1) All parties in proceedings that involve the allocation of parental functions and responsibilities should attend parenting education seminars……Sixty-seven Ohio counties currently mandate parent education seminars for all divorcing parents;

Note on this Task Force: The Executive Director of it (Kathleen Clark), was AFCC Board of Directors at least in 2004 (see newsletter) and acknowledges AFCC allegiance. In fact, a search of both “AFCC” and (AFCC written out) totals 11 references to this task force report — which also details how (besides lifting the parent education segment from an AFCC board of directors) also relates how as part of OHIO’s task force, they flew to Arizona and attended what appears to be presentations at AFCC, including by some members on the task force who were AFCC presenters.

In fact, in its own (1999) words:

More than two dozen experts from around the state and across the country presented testimony to the Task Force over a six-month period. Representatives from a variety of parents’ organizations, as well as a panel of teens who had experienced their parents’ divorces, brought their unique concerns to the Task Force. Staff members obtained research articles and statutes from around the nation and the globe to find the latest policies and practices. Members of the Task Force traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, to meet with staff at the Maricopa County Court system, a nationally recognized leader in court services and pro se programs, and to conferences sponsored by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, an internationally acclaimed organization which provides research and programs for professionals dealing with families in conflict.

Given who was on the task force, and what it did, this kind of conclusion is a little predictable:

The following report and recommendations are the result of this extensive research effort and debate and have been unanimously approved, without any abstentions or dissents, by official action of the 17 members of the Task Force present at the final meeting on June 1, 2001.

That’s OHIO flying to Arizona (which has its own chapter of AFCC, and where Philip Stahl happens to live, now that he’s left Northern California) to meet with a Court Administrator to coach themselves how to be GOOD AFCC members and make sure not to swerve from the policy of talking about “conflict” more than criminal issues or domestic violence issues.

Here’s another (undated) AZ supreme court, what looks like Domestic Relations training committee (of some sort) which is heavily AFCC laced, Just click on it and search for “Association of Family and….” and see… Arizona also happens to be where Sanford Braver, Ph.D. practices. Philip Knox, that they went to visit (from Ohio Task force) also worked (it says) with the California AOC (on which Nunn & Depner sit, under CFCC) on promoting a Unified Family Court.

The OTHER Pruetts (I’m still on that 2004 AFCC flyer which mentions Diane Nunn as AFCC “Advisory Task Force”) include Dr. Kyle (child psychiatrist from Yale) and his wife Marsha Kline (also a Ph.D.). They have three daughters and one son and have naturally dedicated themselves to promoting fatherhood, as a search on “Marsha Kline Pruett, Kyle Pruett Fatherhood” will readily show, at a glance. Dr. Marsha Kline even got an award for “Fatherhood Initiative Community Recognition Award, State of Connecticut (2002), and Stanley Cohen Distinguished Research Award, Awarded by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. She is definitely (with I gather her husband, Dr. Kyle) on the Grants stream for investigation: “University of California, Berkeley: Supporting Father Involvement 7/1/09-6/30/12: Total (T) $176,924 Marsha Kline Pruett, Ph.D., Co-InvestigatorUniversity of California, Berkeley: Supporting Father Involvement 7/1/04-6/30/09: Total (T) $353,849 Marsha Kline Pruett, Ph.D., Co-Investigator

The Pruetts, being a double-Ph.D. married family with academic connections to Yale, Berkeley, Tufts, Smith, etc. and on the conference AND grants circuit would of course have first-hand experience and understanding what it’s like to be on welfare, and forced to litigate for years in the family law system, whether a father (to chose between child support issues, or litigate, allowing more business to be driven to the professionals) or a mother (struggling to retain custody, or for survival, or (foolishly, given the state of the field nowadays) for child support enforcement. AND, they are AFCC. One psychologist & MSL, and one Psychiatrist.

Basically, if you browse family law reading lists, literature, or establishments, you will run across AFCC members referencing each others’ publications. These publications may say “domestic violence” but will juxtapose it with “Parental alienation” and then talk about “conflict” which in the case of DV, is a euphemism. Many of the lists still reference Richard Gardner. “Reading Materials for Parents and Children Going Through A Divorce“

CHARLENE DEPNER, Ph.D., AFCC, etc.

Now (just for the heck of it), more on “Charlene Depner, Ph.D.” First of all, Ph.D. in what? the answer — per LinkedIn, is Social Psychology at U Michigan

Assistant Division Director, Cntr for Families, Children & Courts, CA Administrative Office of the Courts Govt. Admin. Industry 1988 – Present (23 years)/ Education: U Michigan, PhD, Social Psychology 1972 – 1978

So it appears, about 10 years, if any, in private practice or employment of some sort?

Yesterday, I ran across a comment (I believe I know who its author is) on an “AngryDadBlogspot” which related some more (Nepotism?) in San Diego between a supervised visitation provider (already found to be practicing without a license) and the family justice center — which started there, apparently, in San Diego. That’s not today’s topic — but here it is:

A 2006 NCJRS study of families at supervision centers in NY reads:

A. Does the history of violence in the relationship predict whether the visits are supervised or unsupervised?

We found no statistically significant relationships between the history of physical and psychological abuse or injuries and court orders to a supervised visitation center, family supervised visits or unsupervised visitation. More than three quarters of the participants had experienced severe forms of physical and psychological abuse from the father of their children. One can surmise that these pervasive experiences provided no useful information to the court to determine which fathers might pose a current and ongoing danger.

The one exception was severe injuries, which had been experienced by less than half the participants (46%). Nevertheless, fathers who had severely injured their former partners were no more likely to be ordered to supervised visitation than unsupervised visitation.

A 1996 report (issued by this CA Judicial Council AOC) on “Future Directions for Mandatory Child-Custody Mediation Services:….”

” notes:

Court-based child custody mediations affect the fate of nearly 100,000 California children each year. Many of them are already at risk when parents come to court. Currently, one- third of all mediations address concerns about a child’s emotional well-being. Child Protective Services has investigated a report about children in 33 percent of all families seen in mediation. Children in half of all mediating families have witnessed domestic violence. Today’s Family Court faces the serious challenge of protecting the best interests of the next generation.

Well, pushing mediation does not appear to be the solution!

Joan Meier, of DV Leap writes on this, and most any battered women’s advocate without AFCC collaboration in the bloodstream, might say the same thing — it’s counter-indicated! Whatsamatta here? Joan Meier, of “George Washington University Law School” (and ‘DVLEAP.org”) as posted in a noncustodial mother’s blog. NOTE: She quotes both Janet Johnston, Ph.D. (AFCC leadership) and Depner, who both acknowledge that MOST of the the high-conflict cases entail child abuse or domestic violence. This has been known since the 1990s….

Most Cases Going To Court As High Conflict Contested Custody Cases Have History Of Domestic Violence

By JOAN S. MEIER, George Washington University Law School

Janet Johnston’s publications

Janet Johnston is best known as a researcher of high conflict divorce and parental alienation. {{NOTE how AFCC often pairs those terms– that’s an AFCC language habit}}. Not a particular friend of domestic violence advocates or perspectives, she has been one of the first to note that domestic violence issues should be seen as the norm, not the exception, in custody litigation.

Johnston has noted that approximately 80% of divorce cases are settled, either up front, or as the case moves through the process. Studies have found that only approximately 20% of divorcing or separating families take the case to court. Only approximately 4-5% ultimately go to trial, with most cases settling at some point earlier in the process.

– Janet R. Johnston et al, “Allegations and Substantiations of Abuse in Custody-Disputing Families,” Family Court Review, Vol. 43, No. 2, April 2005, 284-294, p. 284;
– Janet R. Johnston, “High-Conflict Divorce,” The Future of Children, Vol. 4, No. 1, Spring 1994, 165-182, p. 167 both citing large study by Maccoby and Mnookin, DIVIDING THE CHILD: SOCIAL AND LEGAL DILEMMAS OF CUSTODY. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press (1992).

Johnston cites another study done in California by Depner and colleagues, which found that, among custody litigants referred to mediation, “[p]hysical aggression had occurred between 75% and 70% of the parents . . . even though the couples had been separated… [for an average of 30-42 months]”. Furthermore, [i]n 35% of the first sample and 48% of the second, [the violence] was denoted as severe and involved battering and threatening to use or using a weapon.”

Mediation is an easy way to increase noncustodial parenting time without the protections that facts & evidence, without the disclosure of conflicts of interests a judge has to abide by, without the attorney-client work product relationship, and much more — in short, without the PROTECTIONS — that a regular trial might afford, and finish. Mandated mediation is bad enough. Some counties (in Calif) also have what’s called “recommending” status to the court-appointed mediators, meaning, their reports are taken more seriously by judges. I have seen how this works year after year (from being in the courtroom) — the mediator’s report is often delivered IN the courtroom, and NOT prior to the hearing, if then. It is typically a shocker, and this really violates due process, but it’s accepted practice. Mediation is the poor-person’s “supervised visitation / custody evaluation.” If no private family member can be made to pay for the latter two, or then the quick & dirty custody hearing is going to involve mediation.

Guess which organization is heavily composed of mediators, and ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution services) and emphasizes this to unclog the courts? You betcha — AFCC.

· Attempts to leave a violent partner with children, is one of the most significant factors associated with severe domestic violence and death.
– Websdale, N. (1999). Understanding Domestic Homicide. Boston, MA: University Press.

· A majority of separating parents are able to develop a post-separation parenting plan for their children with minimal intervention of the family court system. However, in 20% of the cases greater intervention was required by lawyers, court-related personnel (such as mediators and evaluators) and judges. In the majority of these cases, which are commonly referred to as “high-conflict,” domestic violence is a significant issue.
– Johnston, J.R. (1994). “High-conflict divorce.” Future of Children, 4, 165-182.

What “DVLEAP” does in its own words:

A STRONGER VOICE FOR JUSTICE

Despite the reforms of recent decades, battered women and children continue to face unfair treatment and troubling results in court. Appeals can overturn unjust trial court outcomes – but they require special expertise and are often prohibitively expensive.

We empower victims and their advocates by providing expert representation for appeals; educating pro bono counsel through in-depth consultation and mentoring; training lawyers, judges, and others on cutting-edge issues; and spearheading the DV community’s advocacy in Supreme Court cases

(photo also from this site):

They even have a “Custody and Abuse” program, and have taken on the “PAS” theme. These are specific cases that have been taken to the Appeals or even Supreme Court (state) level. Here (found on-line) is an Arkansas Case where they took on “PAS” alongside: Arkansas Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Justice for Children and The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence (on which I believe Ms. Meier is a board or advisory member), the NCADV, and National Association of Women Lawyers. It is an Amicus Brief and will likely go to discredit PAS.

The Leadership Council’s:

Mission Statement

The Leadership Council is a nonprofit independent scientific organization composed of respected scientists, clinicians, educators, legal scholars, journalists, and public policy analysts.

Our mission is to promote the ethical application of psychological science to human welfare. We are committed to providing professionals and laypersons with accurate, research-based information about a variety of mental health issues and to preserving society’s commitment to protect its most vulnerable members.

Goals

To develop a coalition among professionals within the scientific community, the legal system, the political system and the media to provide professionals and laypersons with accurate information about mental health practice and research which helps insure access to the highest quality of care. (and several others are listed. . . . . .. )

In the bottom line, the Leadership Council is still talking psychology, acknowledging trauma, and opposing “PAS” — but, who they are and what they do is clear — “Apply Psychological Science Ethically.” So, if you put this psychological group together with some domestic violence lawyers, or lawyers who recognize that batterers (etc.) are getting custody — you just the opposite of the AFCC “J.D. & Ph.D.” combo of attorney & mental health practitioners

The problem is — the AFCC, being around longer, and having strategized better — have the judges, too.

As I look at The Leadership Council’s page on “Child Custody & PAS” and associated “resources” below, I notice that they have said NOTHING about the things I blog on, and some others, individuals, who have simply observed. There is a striking omission of the organizations promoting “alienation” theory — no mention of AFCC, CRC, or the influence of the Child Support System & Grants Stream on how cases are decided. While NAFCJ (and a similar Illinois group) are listed — for a change — they are one in a dozen-plus links that a mother in a crisis system could not sort through or wade through in time to help her case — if indeed that information even would.

I appreciate the work these organizations do to “out” that violence does indeed happen in the home. Of course most people experiencing it know this already….

But how much better might it have been to give TIMELY information on the operational structure of the courts, and who is paying whom. How in the world can one enter a contest being ignorant of the habits and devices of the opposite side? What’s up with that?

So, I talk about these things. And so do a FEW others.

Domestic Violence Nonprofit DVLEAP gets a “Sunshine Peace” award:

“This award is so meaningful to me,” said Professor Meier, “because I have so much respect for others who have received it in the past. I am also grateful to the Sunshine Lady Foundation for the financial contribution to DV LEAP associated with the award which will make a significant difference to our small organization that manages to accomplish so much with so few resources.”

According to the Sunshine Lady Foundation (which was founded by Doris Buffett), the Sunshine Peace Award program “recognizes extraordinary individuals who make a difference; those who help to build communities that are intolerant of domestic violence and through whose work peoples’ lives are changed for the better.”
Since Professor Meier founded DV LEAP in 2003, the organization has worked on cutting-edge issues in the domestic violence field, submitting 6 friend of court briefs in the Supreme Court. In the past year, in addition to lecturing and consulting with survivors, DV LEAP staff have worked on 10 appeals, a remarkable output for an organization of its size

Well,this is all very nice — and certainly I”m sure professional work. But is it the most important task? I say: NO! Neither DVLEAP nor the State Coaliations (why, I hope to show soon enough), nor the related Leadership Council mention the operational systems of the courts — which is their related professional associations and nonprofits — as well as the grants stream and the child support system. How hard is that to comprehend? There are different systems working within to promote more and more work for the marriage counseling and therapy industry, PERIOD.

For example:

They did not mention that in 1999, in Ohio, an AFCC-laced Task Force lifted some AFCC_designed policies for custody, then flew to Arizona to attend an AFCC conference as part of their transformations of the courts. These groups do not mention, typically, fatherhood funding, or the history of Family Law as an offshoot of a brainstorm between “Roger & Meyer” (Judge Pfaff and Counselor Meyer Elkin) long ago, or anything at all about the Marv Byer discoveries in the late 1990s. They don’t mention that around the US, “fatherhood commissions” building of the National Fatherhood Initiative have been formed to legalize some of the policies these very groups say they oppose. Nor, FYI, do they (for example) broadcast to women that the NCADV and associated alliances are actually collaborating with the father’s groups at the national and financing level, and talking policy with them.

They certainly don’t mention when a local legislator slips in some bill to legalize steering court business to court professionals, as Senator Christine Kehoe (San Diego area) did when an Assemblyperson in 2002 (proposing a bill naming Kids’ Turn in its first draft; see my “kicking salesmanship up a notch” post), or as She (sponsoring?) did again in SB 557 (with her chief of staff then and now Assemblyperson, Atkins) in legalizing the “Family Justice Center Model with an alliance run out of the San Diego City’s original brainchild.

Nor do they mention how the money keeps flowing in after conferences, for example, as in this 2008 AFCC conference:

Not only does the material itself show (coach) professionals how to be prejudiced against mothers — but it also probably more than breaks even (though aren’t judges paid enough in our states?) by selling the stuff!

READ THIS! Read every sentence and simply think about it. This is the pre-game and post-game plan for a custody hearing. And it’s only one of how many?

These are existing people who decided WHERE kids live (or don’t), whether they see their own parents’ income go to professionals and evaluators, or to the children’s future college funds, or simply survival funds. This is AFCC conference material:

Your Price: $25.00
Item Number: AFCC-08-011-M
Quantity:
Email this page to a friend

This panel will demonstrate how the judge, evaluator, psychologist performing psychological testing and the childrens therapist work together to complete the evaluation process. The panel will present an actual case in which a family comes to the court with allegations that mother is alienating the children and is clinically depressed. Father is asking for full custody. Mother is making counter allegations that father and his live-in girlfriend are verbally and emotionally abusing the three children. The parents have a history of high conflict and the police have been called many times to keep the peace. The family is referred for a child custody evaluation. The panel will demonstrate how the evaluator relies on the childrens therapist and the psychologist performing psychological testing on the parents, fathers girlfriend, and the child experiencing emotional distress, for information and case consultation in order to give the judge the most complete history and assessment possible. The panel will describe how and why the recommendations were made for this family.

The police were probably called because someone (not both) was being assaulted. However, a single evaluation of a police call might obtain the cause of the call. To “keep the peace” is an evasion. 911, or non-emergency police calls have causes. We all know this. If the police were called many times to “keep the peace” was no referral made? Was no restraining order solicited? Why not get to the bottom FIRST of whether or not a crime was committed. THEN, if the answer is conclusively, NO, it might go to the next level.

Why do that, however, when a custody evaluation can be instead ordered.

I might just get this product and find out how they frame the situation.

To be continued . . . .

@@@

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

June 15, 2011 at 1:56 PM

Evaluate, Coordinate, Sow the Seeds of Mother-Hate (a.k.a. How to Accuse a Mom of Alienation)

I’m going to print that commentary here:

Typically, a Guardian Ad Litem is appointed in Family Court matters where a child is at risk due to a crisis within the family structure. In most counties across the state, about 5 – 8 percent of all family court cases has a Guardian appointed to make sure that at-risk child(ren) have access to legal representation of their own. It’s a good idea and it often saves children from abuse. In all other counties, there is a list of attorneys to select from.

However, in Lackawanna County, the appointment rate of a Guardian is nearly 100% of all family court cases. And, there is no list from which to select. There’s one Guardian that gets all the cases. It’s been that way since Harhut took over Family Court.

For years now, Family Court judges have appointed Atty. Danielle Ross as the Guardian in practically every single case. About a dozen cases a week are handed to Ross on a silver platter. The parents have to immediately cough up $600 as her fee, plus she tacks on heavy fees once she’s on board if she’s called upon for a recommendation in a custody proceeding. Ross picks up about $7200.00 a week, every week of the year, and it’s been going on like that for years, which why she drives a bevy of exotic cars and takes non-stop vacations.

{{more than one income stream, county-mandated services, county-paid salary, plus what else?}}

90% of the families have no crisis situation that requires her presence. Some families have kids under five years-old who are not at risk of any abuse, yet they are ordered to pay Ross $600.00 anyway. Ross gets a salary from the county, plus a free county office, free phone and utilities and a free county secretary, even though she’s easily good for half-a-mil a year, year after year.

Then, there’s the quality of her work. Having so many cases, she’s often very difficult to access when problems arise. Once appointed, it takes her weeks to make contact with the family. In fact, she’s required to inspect every house, which she can’t possibly do, so she sends her county-paid secretary, Sue, with no qualifications, to inspect these houses and the family pays her an additonal $100.00, which, by the way, is required to be paid to Sue only in cash.

Ross has a history of making custody recommendations to the court that are extremely politically motivated. She meets with children as little as 5 – 6 years old and interrogates and manipulates them to get them to agree to certain custody conditions that certain “political” litigants want. She’s personally serviced many county employees or cronies to get them a customized custody order, because the judge of the day follows her recommendations. I have some of those outrageous orders in my possession. There are many very angry parents who want Ross’ head on a stake, to say nothing of lawyers on the business end of her biased and unjust recommendations.

Claire Czaykowski is the Court Administrator for Family Court. She’s Harhut’s former tipstaff. He appointed her upon his appointment as President Judge. Claire gets certain cases scheduled before certain judges to make sure the “right” judge hears the “right” cases. If you call Family Court, in fact, it’s Danielle Ross’ voice that welcomes you to Family Court.

{{Case-steering, in other words. it’s a network of interlinked associations…}}

If anyone has a Family Court case involving Danielle Ross, wherein they are unhappy with Ross’ recommendations and the Court’s Custody Order that was issued as the result of it, I’d like to hear from you. I’m in possession of quite a few now, but the more the better.

This Kids for Kash Scheme needs to come to a halt. It’s time to end Ross’ Cash Cow days. Rumors of her paying kickback are out there, but I can’t prove anything, yet. That’s yet. If a Guarian Ad Litem is needed, that’s all well and fine, but in most cases kids are not at risk and the family does not need Ross’ interference or expensive fees for nothing.

And the link contains the feedback, including that this woman drives a $145K Mercedes, and doesn’t even do her own work, but hires others out to do so. AMong the comments:

Ourtraged parents have had to be dragged out of the courtroom over complaints about recommendation made by Ross. On top of the $300 each parent has to pay, Ross then bills at $200 an hour for talking with the family. She likes being alone with the kids and asks them very compromising questions to help steer her findings to assist who she likes in a custody case. The woman knows nothing about what’s best for kids, only what’s best for who’s best friends with the court system.

Different venue, sounds like the same behaviors….

This isn’t about “Kids First,” or Kids, at all; it’s about Purchase Immediately My Products (a.k.a. PIMPs in Govt, Inc.). Public Service? This is the public serving the self-appointed parenting preachers under guise of “it’s good for you,” i.e., public benefit.

It goes on:

Counsel and litigants without counsel are ORDERED to immediately consult their schedules for conflicts and to promptly request a continuance where necessary because of a prior attachment or emergency situation. ALL requests for a continuance of a Custody Conciliation conference must be made on the APPLICATION FOR CONTINUANCE form available from the offices of the Court Administrator, Custody Conciliator or Prothonotary in the Schuylkill County Courthouse. The application must be filed in the Custody Conciliation Office. A continuance will be granted only upon good cause shown.

The moving party shall immediately serve on all interested parties a copy of the original pleading, this order, ”Kids First” registration and information, and a custody conciliation questionnaire; and shall further file an affidavit verifying service.

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990: The Court of Common Pleas of Schuylkill County is required by law to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. For information about accessible facilities and reasonable accommodations available to disabled individuals having business before the court, please contact our office. All arrangements must be made at least 72 hours prior to any program, hearing or business before the court. You must attend the scheduled conference or hearing.

[Pa.B. Doc. No. 10-2355. Filed for public inspection December 10, 2010, 9:00 a.m.]

No part of the information on this site may be reproduced for profit or sold for profit.

This material has been drawn directly from the official Pennsylvania Bulletin full text database. Due to the limitations of HTML or differences in display capabilities of different browsers, this version may differ slightly from the official printed version.

This concept didn’t just appear fully-formed in the brain of this judge, this county, or these mediators; it was circulated among professionals with decades of experience requiring others to consume their product, get business referred to their nonprofits, and doing this at public AND private expense, and through the courts.

why do I think this is probably a Kids Turn knockoff? Call it feminine intuition, or that I happen to live in California where a man running for judge, who started a Kids First of Orange County (aka Orange County Welfare Coalition, a nonprofit) simply said he modeled it after Kids Turn:

http://www.fullertonsfuture.org/2010/gerald-l-klein-for-judge/

Among his accomplishments, he founded Kid’s First in 1996. It is a program for separated or divorced parents and their children. Both parents attend this 8 week course together with their children to help the kids cope with changes in the family.

Klein has been practicing law for 33 years and has sat as a temporary volunteer judge in Orange and Los Angeles counties since 1981. He is active in the community and he also teaches Family Law and Community Property as a part-time professor at a local law school. Although I only witnessed his expertise in family law, he is familiar with many types of law as he had a general practice in his early years.

“The Story of “Kids First”

The History

The “Kids First” program is a project of the Orange County Welfare Coalition, Inc., a nonprofit corporation started by Attorney Gerald L. Klein and Attorney Ruth Shapin, MFT, in 1975. Through 1990, the coalition assisted individuals in obtaining governmental entitlements including social security and supplemental security disability benefits.

Left to right: Robert Schuler, Gerald Klein, Sara Doudna and Ruth Shapin, along with Kids First Staff members

Recognizing the need for a program focusing on the needs of children whose parents are separated, in 1995 Attorney Klein began looking for such a program. In 1995, he learned of the “Kids Turn” program in San Francisco which dealt with families going through divorce. The coalition adopted their idea and curriculum. Sara Doudna, MFT, became the Clinical Director, expanded upon it, and “Kids First” was born.

In 1996, “Kids First” became operational.”

Ms. Doudna-Klein (she married him??):

have worked extensively for twenty years with addiction problems and with individuals, couples and families in recovery. I am familiar with all forms of addiction but am most experienced with alcoholism. Ten years ago I co-founded a non-profit program for families in divorce. I am familiar with the issues that affect all members of a family during the divorce process. I am also experienced in the assessment and treatment of “Parental Alienation”.

Mrs. Sara Doudna-Klein, LMFT, Marriage & Family Therapist in Huntington Beach

Situations

involving divorce

Check out Kids First

A Program Helping Family in Divorce

http://www.kidsfirstoc.org/

Positive co-parenting
Single Parenting
Parental Alienation
Parent-Child Reunification
Blended Families

Or on another site: ” I am clinical director and co-founder of this nonprofit program called “Kids First”. Gerald L. Klein, Family Law Specialist founded the program in 1997. Since that time, we have served the community of Orange County and surrounding areas to make a difference in the lives of the parents and kids in the process of divorce.”

These behaviors and products are prime-time AFCC.

and overall would be Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO), and perhaps may be with, however, the habit of actually legalizing this behavior may compromise it from being prosecuted under RICO. Also, if it were fully explored and prosecuted, as I may just about to show, it would possibly not clean up, but also completely empty out the family law system Justice = Therapy-dispensing monopoly of judges, mediators, certified family law specialist, and all kinds of psychologist, from J.D.-endowed Psy.D.s to the lowly man or woman who paid up the latest AFCC-approved parenting coordinator, or mediator, or supervised visitation center training course.

Cleaning up the racketeering element of AFCC might end up shutting down the system, because it is probably (at this point) not possible to separate the private nonprofit association, “Association of Family & Conciliation Courts” from the concept (and practice) of family law, at all. this is such a fixture of our society that people forget it had an origin, and at one time, did not exist. This origin was NOT by public, grassroots demand, but it was (like most oppressive systems) from top-down; by highly placed legislators, judges, and/or others who got a law passed, started practicing, and then expanded.

On the other hand, passive inaction will just send the US economy downhill faster –a situation for which those who’ve been marketing these things will be in a better position to handle than those they force to consume their products. At least they know how to operate businesses, reduce taxes, and even in some cases do it under the radar, avoiding taxes and dumping the real social needs of society (housing, food, water, the ability to defend onesself and one’s property — or to own property or assets of any sort) on those already hardest hit.

The RICO link, above, explains how the law began in the 1970s to stop the Mafia, in 1980s was applied to more individual situations, and in the 1990s the federal government sought to restrict this use:

During the 1990’s, the federal courts, guided by the United States Supreme Court, engaged in a concerted effort to limit the scope of RICO in the civil context. As a result of this effort, civil litigants must jump many hurdles and avoid many pitfalls before they can expect the financial windfall available under RICO, and RICO has become one of the most complicated and unpredictable areas of the law.

Today, RICO is almost never applied to the Mafia. Instead, it is applied to individuals, businesses, political protest groups, and terrorist organizations.”

That said, let’s note that two judges in PA were convicted of this, recently — in Luzerne County; “Kids for Cash” scheme. And I cannot think of a better descriptive word, given the powerfully-connected (judges are members) and internet-connected, conference-churning, international, and training-oriented private “nonprofit” organization called “the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts” — particularly when the associated network of nonprofits working with it are considered. Talk about undue influence! People who are subjected to this treatment routinely call it “Mafia” or refer to extortion, which I believe overall, the practices are. Doesn’t that last one sound like extortion (though only for $40, do the math X how many divorces and custody modifications…..)? Why, for example, shouldn’t someone besides Libassi Mediation be able to run a simple Kids First class? And what happened to Dr. Chet? Has he got his own line of business with the county now?

HOW I”M GOING TO SPLIT UP THE 17,000-WORD POST:

I AM GOING TO JUST “CUT & PASTE” INTO DIFFERENT POSTS. THIS IS NOT CALLED EDITING, IT’S CALLED, I GUESS, MACHETE CopyEditing.

ONCE THE BASIC INFORMATION IS OUT, I DO NOT FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO KEEP PUBLISHING AND BLOGGING IT — CAVEAT EMPTOR CUSTODY COURTS. THEY ARE BASICALLY (ANYMORE) PRIVATE, NONPROFIT ENTERPRISES WITH A VENEER OF PUBLIC LEGITIMACY. THOSE WHO DON’T TAKE TIME TO LOOK ARE PASSING THE BUCK TO THOSE WHO HAVE HAD TO, BECAUSE THEY WEREN’T SO FORTUNATE IN LIFE (OR COURT) TO HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DODGE THIS RACKET.

Jesus Christ said, long ago, “the poor you have always with you…” It’s obviously that the leadership of the US has figured this out, and made plans with how to control them through a variety of institutions, lest they riot, or there be another civil war. Also, to keep a substantial enough portion of people desperate and competing for jobs they are underqualified for, while promising them more help through reforming the public education system, run as a monoply anyhow, etc. Bread & Circuses..

Yesterday, I compiled, but didn’t publish, a triple-sized post, explaining the relationship between AFCC, Parental Alienation, High-Conflict (talk) and Parenting Coordination. And the absolute mother-hatred in a certain parenting coordination handbook, which is standard. I also show (and it’s obvious to those who look) that state borders (and at a certain level, state laws) are becomign meaningless when, for example, an Ohio Supreme Court Task Force (date: 1999), heavily AFCC-stacked, and lifting portions of its “tasks” wholesale from AFCC leaders — decides, in studying how to reform child custody — to simply fly its personnel out to Arizona and attend and AFCC conference. Again, this was about 12 years ago and NOT blogged by domestic violence advocates.

If I am able to complete the series on the Ellen Pence/Casey Gwinn (I.e., DV advocate / Family Justice Center) connections, I believe this will show an educated (researched) “guess” as to why NONE of the Domestic violence coalitions and primary ‘battered women’s” advocate generally blog, report, publish, or scrutinize the AFCC, OR the fatherhood grants system, (and its religious connections). One of them (Center for Judicial Excellence) has made a habit of not doing this (though they are informed of it, as are many others) until very recently, I heard. And probably because a few bloggers continued to “out” them for failling to address it.

Mainstream, professionalized groups have their rhetoric set in stone, pretty much — and simply do not follow the money, or report to the general public on the conference circuits. These posts are “Public Service Announcements.” I am one (networked) person reporting certain themes. I do not have an editorial staff and am not paid for my time here, as a whistleblower. I write what I see, and I see a lot. The alarm is definitely appropriate.

INDIANA & AFCC

Indiana has lots of Justice. In fact, it has TWO Justice Centers from the Casey Gwinn/Gael Strack/GWBush Initiatives Alliance.

But this is about its AFCC-State Government connections (which, FYI, the Kids First & Kids Turn concept is).

Indianapolis, on the other hand, did it differently, and rather than going through the expense of flying its judges OUT, simply decided to invite AFCC to hold their fall conference locally. This is from the Domestic Relations Committee, June 2009 meeting:

Domestic Relations Committee / Judicial Conference of Indiana / Minutes June 12, 2009

…

1. Members present. Craig J. Bobay, Francis G. Hill, Karen M. Love, Sheryl L. Lynch, Nanette K. Raduenz, Deborah J. Shook, Dean A. Young and William C. Fee, Chair, were present.

2. Staff present. Jeffrey Bercovitz and Anne Jordan provided the committee with staff assistance.

3. Guests present. Amber Njau, Project Analyst; Cynthia Longest, Deputy Director, Child Support Bureau; Karla Mantia, Prosecuting Attorney’s Council, were also present.

4. Minutes approved. The minutes for the May 15, 2009 meeting were approved.

5. Draft child support guidelines. Committee members reviewed comments submitted by topic area:

a. The Health Insurance Premium Worksheet (HIPW) and the Child Support Obligation Worksheet was reviewed. The committee made changes to ease the preparation of the HIPW. b. Members of the committee agreed all commentary should be italicized in the child support guidelines. c. The “Child Multipliers” commentary was revised in the Support Guidelines and the Child Support Obligation Worksheet was revised to encompass eight (8), not just five (5) children in accordance with the amounts from Dr. Venohr.***

[[Dr. Jane Venohr runs nonprofit Center for Policy Research, along with Jessica Pearson et. al, and I believe also works for PSI, its nonprofit arm. These two organizations are all over the HHS grants circuit, and found publishing and promoting access visitation policies. She is active in child support matters…See my last post.]]

6. Domestic Relations Conference.

a. Anne Jordan reported the two-day domestic relations conference in the areas of child development, family dynamics, custody and visitation is scheduled for November 19-20, 2009 in Indianapolis. Committee members suggested the following topics:

(1) The economy’s effect on the family, e.g. mortgage foreclosure, high layoff rate, and the court’s ability to respond to a crisis if its staff is reduced.

(2) Professor Marcia Klien-Pruitt, Connecticutt, to speak on family dynamics.**

[[**Mis-spelled, Marcia Kline-Pruett is AFCC presenter, with her husband Kyle, and discussed later]]

(3) Child-Informed Mediation, where a psychologist interviews a child and brings this input this into mediation.

(4) Court ordered investigations in custody disputes. Some courts use a guardian ad litem for this purpose, to investigate mental health issues, substance abuse issues, and criminality.

b. Committee members discussed having the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) hold their fall symposium in Indianapolis in November 2011 and the Judicial Center using the monies they would otherwise have spent on the two-day domestic relations conference on having Indiana judges attend the AFCC fall symposium in Indianapolis. Magistrate Bobay moved to have the Judicial Center contact AFCC about holding their fall symposium in November 2011 in lieu of the two-day domestic relations conference, with the Judicial Center using the monies they would otherwise have spent to have Indiana judges attend. Magistrate Raduenz seconded the motion. The motion was passed unanimously.

As I see from the Feb 18, 2011 minutes (thanks for publishing them, guys….) the networking with AFCC is going to continue:

This time there was a different set of guests:

“3. Guests present. Stuart Showalter,** Indiana Custodial Rights Advocates, and Craig Scarberry were also present.”

{{The links are relevant: both are fathers’ rights advocates;

Showalter characterized as former “Neo Nazi Skinhead” and in some trouble with the law (as a youth) for it. Later, he is found blaming a woman for her own stabbing death — because she sought a restraining order. She was stabbed to death in front of her two daughters, 8 & 12 Here’s the quote, just so we have a grasp on who was a Guest at the Indiana Judicial Conference this past February:

The wife was found stabbed in her bed at home on Sunday night. Investigators say the couple was going through a divorce and she had a protective order requiring him to stay away from her and their daughters. The killing came two days after the wife obtained a two-year extension on the order.

Angela Warnock’s use of the Indiana Civil Protection Order Act for leverage in the divorce proceedings with the father *of their two daughters failed her this past weekend. On Friday she had obtained an order that would keep the father from having any further contact with his daughters for two years. In addition she had the daughters, age 8 and 12, sleeping with her. These are both signs of Parental Alienation.

(Showalter’s comment was June 2009. Note: obtaining a restraining order is sign of parental alienation. wonder where that concept came from. It has nothing to do with protection, obviously — just using for an advantage in divorce. (the concept that perhaps her desire for divorce may have had to do with violence to start with doesn’t seem to have occurred to him…..)

Craig Scarberry (unfamiliar to me) had custody reduced because he became agnostic, after being formerly Christian. Plans for fathers’ rights rally in Marion County… Another article from “the democratic underground” asks whether(I DNK….) this was the same Scarberry who sued the City of Chicago (etc.) on the same grounds, for interfering with the distribution of gospel tracts with “Repent America”: link shows the pleading: including the Statement of Facts, which begins ”

STATEMENT OF FACTS 7. Plaintiffs are Christians who regard the Bible as God’s literal authority. In keeping with this sincerely held religious belief, Plaintiffs believe that they are obligated to tell as many other people as they can about what they believe is their individual need to be “born again,” that is, to be reconciled to God. This comes only by believing that Jesus Christ is God,{{i.e., Trinitarian, which founding fathers primarily weren’t}} and that Jesus suffered and died on the cross (and was resurrected from the dead subsequently) to pay the penalty for the sins of humanity, particularly those individuals who will believe in him; and who seek healing and forgiveness for and deliverance from their past, present, and future personal sins—“sins” being defined as transgressions of the binding commands of the Bible.)

Just including to show the mindset of someone who would attempt to “witness” in a legal pleading. Probably the same Scarberry, although, who knows? If so, he first proselytized FOR his beliefs God and then, disgruntled, for how his agnosticism shouldn’t be held against him. While it indeed shouldn’t, either line of thinking wouldn’t affect his position regarding father supremacy, most likely..or that it’s appropriate that his current beliefs be inflicted on others…. These two are not the major concern, they are two guys with a cause who sat in on a judicial conference. It’s the conference we should be most concerned about, and this style of decision-making within government.

This 2011 Judicial Conference meeting concluded peacefully:

10. Future meeting dates. Committee members agreed to meet again on Friday, March 18, May 20, July 15, August 19, and November 18, 2011 from 10:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. at the Judicial Center. They also agreed to meet in conjunction with the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Regional Meeting in Indianapolis on Oct. 27-29, 2011 in Indianapolis.

Respectfully submitted,

Jeffrey Bercovitz, Director Juvenile and Family Law

= INBRED with AFCC. So who ARE they, anyhow? What do they DO? (well, since you asked, I’ll keep posting….)

I don’t know how comfortable the average reader feels with abandoning due process, law, etc. and giving leaders a huge leash (or taking them “off-leash”) by simply ignoring what’s going on with the primary institutions that rule people’s lives, such as — say, the courts?

And behind the courts is the power to incarcerate, or transfer wealth, and offspring; to spare life or to waste life . . . ..

While an Indiana conference, or a Schuykill County parenting education mandate may not seem to relate to you — it does. We are a networked country, and the networks are to be watched. When not “nipped in the bud” these things only expand — and they are inappropriate tolls on the highways of life.

Would you trust this kind of back-door dealings with your life, or your children’s future? Do you want others — judges, psychologists, economists, and mental health practitioners (working together) to do the heavy thinking for you, so long as they leave you alone for a while? Even after they’ve been proven corrupt several times already?

(California’s illegal benefits to judges — legalized. Luzerne County, PA judges — sending adolescents to camps in which they had a vested interests, violating their rights and disrupting their and their parents lives . . . and here’s another post on some Pennsylvania court-based toll-gating with another individual:

To be continued …

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

June 15, 2011 at 12:38 PM

Posted in 1996 TANF PRWORA (cat. added 11/2011), AFCC, Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Designer Families, History of Family Court, Lackawanna County, Parent Education promotion, Parent Education promotion, Parenting Coordination promotion, Psychology & Law = an AFCC tactical lobbying unit, Who's Who (bio snapshots)

Tagged with Access-Visitation, AFCC, Andrew Libassi (KidsFirst Lackawanna Co PA), Chet Muklewicz (AFCC-PA), Indiana Judicial Conference Domestic Relations Committee aka AFCC outfit, Jeffrey Bercovitz (IN), KidsFirst, KidsFirst-1996 (Orange & L.A. Counties-California), Pennsylvania Council of Children, SCHUYLKILL COUNTY COURT RULES (mandated Parenting Class), Stuwart Showalter shows up, Supervised Visitation, Youth & Family Services (and Libassi-Muklewicz Contracts with them)

Ms. O’Malley goes to Washington, selling SB 557 (Legislating the “One-Stop-Justice-Shop”)

with 3 comments

This post title: Ms. O’Malley goes to Washington, selling SB 557 (Legislating the “One-Stop-Justice-Shop”) with case-sensitive short-link ending “-Hy,” published 5/29/2011 (May 29).

Memorial Day Weekend. Let’s remember that people who started out an organization pulling a fast one on the public -successfully – are likely to try the same thing, again.

Keep an Eye on our Public Servants: District Attorney’s Offices

Always.

Take for example (1), Los Angeles County‘s:

(By way of finding out WHY one better watch one’s local DA’s office..and make sure they know you are.)

For a clue what may happen when one doesn’t, see Gil Garcetti, L.A. D.A. (retired?)

BIOGRAPHY

Although Gil spent 32 years in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, eight years as the elected District Attorney, much of his life has been spent as an urban photographer. His first photo book, IRON: ERECTING THE WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL, (November 2002, Balcony Press), received much critical praise in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and other publications. The photographs emphasize the contribution of the ironworkers to the building of America, but they also document the beauty of the curved, angled, and bent raw steel of this building before being covered by its exterior skin.

Photographs from his second book, FROZEN MUSIC, (November 2003, Balcony Press), have been featured in multi page features in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, American Photo, Newsweek, Time, Harvard Design Magazine, California Lawyer and other magazines. Gil’s second book is his interpretation of the abstract art created by the finished building. The book is a portfolio of 45 panorama lithographs.

How Nice.

I’d love to resume arts, leisure, writing activities like this, too — or even the concept that I might have some sort of “retirement” whatsoever. HOWEVER, thanks to this system, a lot of time is spent reconstructing where my kids, time, legal rights and finances went. Why does it keep leading back to these offices, in particular — whose function is to prosecute crime AFTER it happens fairly, and do it right & without corruption, to the extent of their budget. Just imagine in a world where crimes to & by men, women, and minors actually received prompt punishment as a deterrent and a message to others….

While Mr. Garcetti’s retirement plan includes urban photography and some book royalties, up here (and in San Diego), the retirement plan, I figure probably includes selling and letting someone else run, FAMILY JUSTICE CENTERS — which is why this post. If the demand isn’t great enough for a family justice center, it helps to have a nice District Attorney well-positioned to get funds to start one anyhow, and with connections to staff it — and it appears also even connections enough to then legislate it into a business model for all times (and counties).

But this is the Los Angeles District Attorney’s legacy, here:

Pre-Retirement (from the office):

WIKIPEDIA describes — clearly from a bit of a disgruntled fathers’ perspective (and with good cause — ) his “Life as (Los Angeles) District Attorney” – First and Second Terms, 1992-2000 starting right after Rodney King riots, prosecution of O.J. Simpson, Ramparts scandal, and, as it mentions:

In the late 1990s, Garcetti’s use of default judgments in child support cases were considered by many to be particularly heinous. Garcetti openly refused to rescind judgments against men who later proved through DNA evidence that they were not the fathers in question. By 2000, 79% of paternity judgements in Los Angeles County were assigned by default.

Which is why I bring him up, as representing a Southern California leading District Attorney’s legacy…

Wikipedia (voice of the people, or at least people who write Wikipedia articles) goes on about the child support issue, a bit of heartfelt passion enters into the narrative…

Gil Garcetti created so much chaos and heartache that even diehard feminist attorney Gloria Allred protested.

Gloria Allred was a single mother in need of child support — which she went after. As this was before the invention of the post-feminist (?) “fatherhood” movement to keep people like her in place, and also became pregnant because of a rape, possibly part of how she became a “protester” activist lawyer: “During her years in practice, she has successfully sued Los Angeles County to stop the practice of shackling and chaining pregnant inmates during labor and delivery; put a halt on the city of El Segundo from quizzing job applicants about their sexual histories, …”

Allred, who has perhaps done more than anybody to promote the phrase and concept of ‘deadbeat dads,’ called Garcetti’s office ‘an organization without a heart, without any compassion, and without a sense of priorities…[it’s] a system run amok’… Jackie Myers, a former Deputy District Attorney under Garcetti, said that she quit her job because ‘we were being told to do unethical, very unethical things.’

Allred didn’t find out about the $14 million of collected child support cooling its heels (and earning interest) in Garcetti’s office, instead of going straight to its recipients, the children. Richard Fine did. The law said, if they couldn’t find the mother (parent) within 6 months, it goes back to the father. Narrated briefly here: When Fine saw them dismiss the Silva v. Garcetti case, it led to the discovery of payments to judges in the County (Sturgeon v. County of Los Angeles). Funny the upset for fathers wikipedia guy didn’t mention this — but MSM silence on certain cases can be effective.

This was an unbelievable mess. Child Support collections was eventually (in CA at least) specifically removed from the province of the District Attorney’s Office, probably because of this, and now the practice of holding onto child support collections while they collect interest (at least 30 days before anything is considered “late”) and attempt to divert them for private crony use, or otherwise seriously mess with mothers (and fathers) — is in the hands of a different centralized agency in California — and “Local CSA’s” (child support agencies) by county, for the most part. They’re doing approximately as well when it comes to conflict of interest and honesty, but at lest someone else had a crack at screwing families financially for a change.

See? CA.Gov

Welcome to the Department of Child Support Services Website!

California’s Child Support Services Program works with* parents – custodial and noncustodial – and guardians to ensure children and families receive court-ordered financial and medical support. Child support services are available to the general public through a network of 52 county and regional child support agencies (LCSAs).

* this must be why it’s “Child Support SERVICES” not collections, or enforcements. How ‘holistic.’

and (from same website, different tab) a note about the administrative costs:

The May 2011 Revision updates the DCSS local assistance budget for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2010-11 and SFY 2011-12. It provides the estimates of the administrative costs for the local child support agencies, as well as the detailed methodology for each estimate. The total administrative costs for local assistance are estimated to be $906.3 million ($277.7 million State General fund (SGF)) for SFY 2010-11 and $866.6 million ($270.8 million SGF) for SFY 2011-12.

and such financial concepts as:

Federal Performance Basic Incentives

DESCRIPTION:

This premise reflects the Federal Performance Basic Incentives. Pursuant to the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998, the federal incentives passed onto local child support agencies (LCSAs) are to be based on the five performance measures and Data Reliability Audit compliance. California’s historical performance is displayed in the Auxiliary Tables section of this document on the Historical Incentive Performance Measures chart (Chart A-10).

IMPLEMENTATION DATE:

The federal performance incentive methodology was implemented October 1, 1999 and phased in over three years.

OR, say, a measly almost $100,000 to keep the pipelines open to Strengthening Families and other Cross-Collaborations which many child support recipients (meaning payees/ payors) would be hard-pressed to comprehend, or track (if they even knew these existed). No doubt this is far better than having ONE corrupt District Attorney’s Office simply sitting on the stuff, Los Angeles Style, until caught at it and sued to stop it:

Partnership to Strengthen Families Grant

DESCRIPTION:

This premise reflects the funds for the Partnership to Strengthen Families Federal Grant. The project will support partnerships among state child support program and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) agencies and university scholars and researchers. Research and data analysis will be performed to improve coordination between the state child support program and TANF agencies.

The child support program and TANF program serve many of the same customers and share a program goal of family self sufficiency. Cross organizational partnerships can support improved efficiency and effectiveness by bringing together program experts to evaluate policy making and to assess processes that cross both organizations. The policy choices of each program can have a significant impact on the other. Isolated decision making is not in the best interest of the child support program nor the TANF program. This demonstration grant will serve as the foundation for an integrated and more effective communication between programs.

This partnership will benefit both the child support and TANF programs with the help of university faculty and scholars to design and support data exchanges, store and analyze data, and conduct special studies or evaluations of program policies or practices. Additionally, the steering committee for the partnership will also involve local child support and TANF welfare directors so that all elements of the program leadership are included. A collaborative effort is expected to add substantial value to otherwise independent planning and actions by these organizations in isolation.

IMPLEMENTATION DATE:

This premise was implemented September 30, 2009.

KEY DATA/ASSUMPTIONS:

• Authorizing statute: Section 1115(a)(2), 1115(b) and 1115(b)(3) of the Social Security Act [42 United States Code 1315].

• This grant is effective from September 30, 2009 through February 28, 2011.

• The total project cost consists of Section 1115 grant funds, a required 5 percent state match, and federal financial participation. The 5 percent state match will be funded through redirection of existing resources. [from Childsup.ca.gov, various links]

Now, instead, they can figure out what to do with approximately $4 billion (per year) of federal funds to states intended to enforce child & family support (or, promote marriage, a.k.a. fatherhood), including Compromising Arrears (that they ran up to start with), jailing fathers for nonsupport of outrageous amounts — then letting them out into classes about “How to be a father” (including abstinence education — go figure) run by court-affiliated program promoters.

But that’s another topic.

Take for example (2), Alameda County’s:

Now, for ALAMEDA COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE

I casually noticed that the Alameda County District Attorney actually had an Annual Report 2010, I figured, why not take a look? (note: I also look other places – so should we — such as vendor payments for this one, contracts, payrolls, etc.)

For Annual Report, read “Sales Promotion” for receiving more money for more programs. It’s basically going to be a Business Plan, or part of one, right.

Being the smart woman that I am, I went straight to “LEGISLATIVE INITIATIVES.”

I’ve been around the block a few times, and know what the word “initiatives” means

I find it odd that the law enforcement is so eager to write the law also. Kind of like the Executive Branch of the US changing the legal system (and adding a faith-based office to help the separation of church and state just a little more) and the Judicial Element forming nonprofits and directing traffic to them. Or the Legislative Element getting press for helping the homeless, while their wives are busy charging $225 an hour to subcontract work that probably should’ve been done by a public agency (which the public pays for) to start with.

Makes you kind of wonder where the criminal element of society really is, sometimes. I mean, what’s truly causing the level of poverty and street crime and disrespect for authority seen throughout this county (home to the 4th and 5th highest homicide cities in the country, last I heard — Oakland, and Richmond, California). Does no responsibility ever rest with this department?

So, here’s “Nancy (O’Malley) goes to Washington” — What a Wonderful Life it must be.

Once there she has some nice chats, by mutual request it seems, with Dianne, about SB 557 – instead of having this chat first with the citizens that actually live in this state and who don’t always have our U.S. Senators’ ear. They’re lucky, many times, if they can get law enforcement’s ear, if it’s just a “family matter” (aka domestic dispute), even though these matters can get both family and officers killed, and have.

And here’s SB 557. Glad I happened to hear about it. And guess who proposed it (sponsor, co-sponsor):

CORRECTED APRIL 27, 2011
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 25, 2011
AMENDED IN SENATE APRIL 05, 2011

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2011–2012 REGULAR SESSION

SENATE BILL No. 557
________________________________________

Introduced by Senator Kehoe
(Coauthor(s): Assembly Member Atkins, Fletcher)

Wow —Senator(SB117) Kehoe (SB747) & Assemblyperson Atkins (SB 887): the Dynamic Duo strikes again

This time, to help their cohorts get proprietary language to promote a certain concept promising “justice” coach parents suffering from domestic violence and separation, including with their kids, from abusers.
This is not to say the same people don’t also propose better bills — like adding “strangulation” to the definition of “traumatic injury.” However, this still ain’t gonna change how little family law judges care about it, as opposed to pushing co-parenting, therapy and marriage & fatherhood to people who are, er, divorcing (etc.). Generally, they fall under the category of “special interests” it seems, including:
SB 117 (Kehoe)
Public contracts: prohibitions: discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation. (see my last 2 posts on how Atkins’ partner got San Diego business…)

While this may be a good concept, common sense says to take it up with the California Healthy Marriage and the Bush-originator and perpetuators of National Fatherhood In Aeternum. Isn’t there some way we could lock the different factions into a single room — like is done with a sequestered jury — and duke it out while the rest of us get about our own business, and sex lives? Note: no minor children should be allowed into the room for any purpose during this time.

Actually, it was Kehoe sponsoring SB 2263 nine years ago, trying to one-stop shop an all-expense-paid (i.e., public funding through California Judicial Council) assessment of (Kids’ Turn). Has she had children? Has her partner had children? So what’s with this fascination with coaching others about how children feel about divorce, and what parents should tell them during the process?

Somehow I”m starting to wonder how these types of bills relate to each other.

So long as family court judges continue to exercise “wide discretion” and retain immunity for screw-ups, and so long as parents are too busy on on-line forums (arguing PAS or anti-PAS) and going to rallies to Washington, D.C. to plead for mercy — it doesn’t matter that Governor Gray Davis vetoed that one, saying gently that perhaps the highest judicial body in the state wasn’t, er, qualified to measure mental health (i.e., attitude adjustments that certain mental health professionals wish to see).

Family Law already makes just about any other law a moot point, no matter what gender you express this in — it’s possible to get permanently screwed in 2o minutes, or ex parte, and with or without a $$ to spare.

We, the People of California (insert your state, but this state has a well-earned reputation for being off the charts sometimes, it seems) should instead actually investigate who’s married to, in business with, or on the board of directors with whom, and we’d better keep our eyes peeled about whassup in the legislature, and whassup in Washington, too. And start respecting bloggers that do (historymatters of Sandiegooneline, or Ronkayeinlaw, etc.), rather than on-line weekly reporters (Mr. Peter Jamison of SFWeekly) that don’t.

February 17, 2011

________________________________________
An act to add Title 5.3 (commencing with Section 13750) to Part 4 of the Penal Code, relating to family justice centers. **

**the last suggestion (see my recent posts) was to simply amend Civil Labor Educational Insurance and Penal codes to clarify that gender expression is a civil right (as I understood it). This one simply adds a Title subdivision, i.e. 5.3.

While AFCC is busy legitimizing and legalizing “Parenting Coordinators” to further undermine due process (and confidentiality) a.k.a. legal rights, the DA’s office itself is trying to legitimize and hallow “family justice centers” that shouldn’t even be necessary IF the DA’s office (law enforcement and prosecution) had been doing their jobs right to start with, including taking criminal activity committed by one parent against the other without respect to gender. Same general idea — exploiting prior screwups by the same people to add another layer of bureaucracy to “coordinate” all the services needed.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL DIGEST
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SB 557, as amended, Kehoe. Family justice centers.

THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1.
Title 5.3 (commencing with Section 13750) is added to Part 4 of the Penal Code, to read:
TITLE 5.3. Family Justice Centers

13750.
(a) A city, county, or city and county may establish a multiagency, multidisciplinary family justice center to assist victims of domestic violence, officer-involved domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, stalking, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and human trafficking to ensure that victims of abuse are able to access all needed services in one location in order to enhance victim safety, increase offender accountability, and improve access to services for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, and human trafficking. Family justice centers, if established in a city, county, or city and county, may include community-based domestic violence, officer-involved domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, stalking, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, and human trafficking agencies in partnership with survivors of violence and abuse in the planning and operations process of a family justice center, and may establish procedures for the ongoing input, feedback, and evaluation of the family justice center by survivors of violence and abuse and community-based crime victim service providers.
(b) For purposes of this title, the following terms have the following meanings:

(1) “Abuse” has the same meaning as set forth in Section 6203 of the Family Code.
(2) “Domestic violence” has the same meaning as set forth in Section 6211 of the Family Code.
(3) “Sexual assault” means an act or attempt made punishable by Section 220, 261, 261.5, 262, 264.1, 266c, 269, 285, 286, 288, 288.5, 288a, 289, or 647.6.
(4) “Elder abuse” means an act made punishable by Section 368.
(5) “Human trafficking” has the same meaning as set forth in Section 236.1.

(6) “Victim of crime,” “crime victim,” or “victim” means a victim of domestic violence, officer-involved domestic violence, sexual assault, elder abuse, stalking, cyberstalking, cyberbullying, or human trafficking.

(c) For purposes of this title, family justice centers shall be defined as multiagency, multidisciplinary service centers where public and private agencies assign staff members on a full-time or part-time basis in order to provide services to victims crime from one location in order to reduce the number of times victims must tell their story, reduce the number of places victims must go for help, and increase access to services and support for victims and their children. Staff members at a family justice center may be comprised of, but are not limited to, the following:

(1) Law enforcement personnel.
(2) Medical personnel.
(3) District attorneys and city attorneys.
(4) Victim-witness program personnel.
(5) Domestic violence shelter service staff.
(6) Community-based rape crisis, domestic violence, and human trafficking advocates.
(7) Social service agency staff members.
(8) Child welfare agency social workers.
(9) County health department staff.
(10) City or county welfare and public assistance workers.
(11) Nonprofit agency counseling professionals.
(12) Civil legal service providers.
(13) Supervised volunteers from partner agencies.
(14) Other professionals providing services.

Text found at Survivors in Action (which addresses stalking — not parenting — issues)

Wow. I felt SO o o o o distracted by investigating the Nonprofit Filings of the “Alameda County Family Justice Center” which I already knew was itself a Dubious District Attorney Doing. San Diego (where the model started) also reported on their Doubts as to why a retiring City? attorney should simply move functions that belonged to government over to the Y, later to become what I like to call Casey Gwinn’s Retirement Plan Model.

I found out that after getting a $3 million grant, producing a nonprofit structure (channel?) that has 0 $$ and 0 boards of directors (if one looks at the paperwork) yet suddenly a subsidiary group, “Family Violence Law Center” is getting flush with $millions of education & prevention programs under a different EIN.

Having wondered why none of these groups actually tell us how Family Law Operates (which is through AFCC/CRC and a host of nonprofit groups to receive federal funds to fix families, even though the fix is getting some of them killed from the resulting mix of turmoil & entitlements) — I see that the Executive Director of this Family Violence Law Center, has a background in Family Law.

Together, while they do not talk honestly about each other (or their relationships), they comprise an assembly line that shuffles families from separation through dissolution to destitution, getting grants along the way to “prevent family violence” at the top of the chute (abandoning those halfway down).

Wait a minute — don’t we deserve some better accounting of the EXISTING family justice Centers before they become the model of how to (not) help Victims of Crime navigate the family law system?)

FROM THE ANNUAL REPORT:

D.A. Nancy E. O’Malley and U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein

In May 2010, Alameda County D.A. Nancy O’Malley led a team from the District Attorney’s Office to Washington D.C. to honor fallen officers at the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial and meet with legislators.

The team met with many officials to discuss the Office’s nationally recognized programs and initiatives. Highlights included presentations on the Restitution Unit, the H.E.A.T. Watch program, and the Alameda County Family Justice Center

(A Nancy O’Malley/Davis-Lockyer, affiliate of the San Diego Family Justice Center model, founded by someone who was personally sued by one of his own staff for ignoring severe domestic violence and what appears to be death threats to one of his own employees, to which it seems he (Casey Gwinn) responded by moving the situation to a different floor, and thereafter ignoring it. Which I have blogged. Guess they don’t read my lovely, graphics-intensive, professionally organized posts.)

. Also overviewed was the Alameda County Juvenile Justice Center and the innovative and successful partnerships between the D.A.’s Office, Probation Department, Alameda County Office of Education and Alameda County Health Care.

In a briefing with the White House Advisor on Violence Against Women, D.A. O’Malley spoke about the Family Justice Center’s concept of collaborative comprehensive services.

Time to review (From FIRST AMENDMENT PROJECT), “The Brown Act.”

Open Meeting Laws In California: The Brown Act

THE BASICS

Meetings of public bodies must be “open and public,” actions may not be secret, and action taken in violation of open meetings laws may be voided. (§§ 54953(a), 54953(c), 54960.1(d))

WHO’S COVERED

Local agencies, including counties, cities, school and special districts. (§ 54951)

“Legislative bodies” of each agency–the agency’s governing body plus “covered boards,” that is, any board, commission, committee, task force or other advisory body created by the agency, whether permanent or temporary. (§ 54952(b))

Any standing committee of a covered board, regardless of number of members. (§ 54952(b))

Governing Bodies of Non-profit corporations formed by a public agency or which includes a member of a covered board and receives public money from that board. (§ 54952(c))

This is my HOLIDAY (or the Sunday before it) and catching up with a Northern California District Attorneys’ latest Dubious Doings and proposed legislations wasn’t on it. Can I — like Kehoe recommended that Kids’ Turn (initially) — get some public funding to study the effectiveness (or rather, lack of it) of both kids’ Turn AND all spinoffs functioning in my area — AND of the local Family Justice Center closest to me? (I posted others, from an IRS lookup of charities with the name, yesterday, bottom of the post).

In other words, we can either work, and trust our local representatives and elected officials to do their jobs at least as well as we do our own — OR, we can scale back on work (and thus fewer taxes for them to waste) and take time to divert some of the slush funds to our scrutinizing the rest of the slush fund activity.

Having a family law attorney running FVLC is a conflict of interest, as shown (last I heard) on the total SILENCE on the characters, traits, and habits of the family law system and the nonprofits surrounding it, like

NAUCRATES DUCTOR (pilot fish):

(no, the term is not familiar to me, but isn’t the image appropriate? Because what they are escorting is indeed a shark. And the nonprofits surrounding the family law system, which may or may not be smaller than it (who knows? WHo is tracking) — are feeding off a fish which itself is paid for by the public to start with. At some level, this is starting to resemble family COURT systems, not just FAMILY courts. And I’m not the only person that seems to think this way — I have a photo on here of a bunch of judges (SF area) dressing up as royalty at an AAML meeting. They composed a cute song based on “Camelot” (itself a reference to the Kennedy White House as royalty) to go along with this and seemed to think it was funny. )

From the Legislative Initiatives section of the Annual Report.

Legislative Initiatives

Under the leadership of District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, members of our staff frequently consult on, testify about and assist in drafting new legislation at a state- wide and national level. Working with lawmakers, we propose and support legislation that fits with our mission to champion the rights of victims and to keep our community safe.

In 2010, we were instrumental in writing numerous pieces of legislation, including:

SB 557: to define family justice centers in California law, thereby acknowledging the trend towards multi-disciplinary, multi-agency service delivery models for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking. This legislation is currently pending.

As with “fatherhood” programs — this “trend” is hardly a grassroots demand for justice centers. No, certain people have a vested interest in continuing to “initiate” them.

I have a motto to counteract this trend:

JUST SAY NO!

Meanwhile…

Anyone willing to do some legwork and track the nonprofit status and get some verified results from any of the existing family justice centers — please do so. Are they all set up like this one? Are they obtaining public & private monies and funneling them to a favored nonprofit and changing the character of a nonprofit which used to simply help its clients?

How many of the board members are actually public servants — and let’s get some payroll records.

A reminder — someone who walked through the doors — in fact even someone who got a restraining order (already proven to have a good risk of getting him/her (a) dead or (b) eventually completely eliminated from (her) kids’ lives — when the people who should be instead supporting court order enforcement are those collaborating instead to “educate” and “train” others inside new centers…

McDonalds is hugely successful — it serves a lot of people. That doesn’t mean everyone should buy all their food form fast-food franchises…..

This “trend” is going to increase the number of DISenfranchised citizens, whose real needs don’t fit neatly into such expensive and unproven collaborations.

Just Say No. Then get on-line, and get involved demanding a better explanation of why we should put up with this.

Take time from TV and do some FOIA requests under the Sunshine Ordinance. Each one teach one — we can do this!

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

May 29, 2011 at 3:53 PM

Kicking salesmanship up a notch: the nonprofit “Kids’ Turn” and my California Legislature (Sept. 2019 title update: Calif. Legislature 2001-2002 Session, A.B. 2263, 2002, C. Kehoe tries to legislate KT as a standard and order funds to study and expand it)

with 10 comments

Post Title: Kicking salesmanship up a notch: the nonprofit “Kids’ Turn” and my California Legislature (Sept. 2019 title update: Calif. Legislature 2001-2002 Session, A.B. 2263, 2002, C. Kehoe tries to legislate KT as a standard and order funds to study and expand it) (Shortlink url: https://wp.me/psBXH-G7, published May 19, 2011, this title update added Sept. 29, 2019, about 7,661 words. Original title as seen only in bold. I added explanatory phrase, and nowadays I add “date published” to the title where possible.//LGH.

From this post (tongue in cheek, my voice, after reading about it):

…Everybody who’s anybody in the family law fields (whether attorney, judge, or psychologist/family therapist, etc.) should take a turn at running Kids’ Turn.

From that bill, before amended to ask for generic help, not specifically admitting that what was meant was “our baby, Kids’ Turn”)…operates as a franchise sold only to nonprofits (not mentioned: started and run by, see previous quote):

Kids’ Turn is a private non-profit organization that provides workshops for children and their parents that are intended to teach skills to cope with the difficulty of divorce and separation….

Fees for workshops range from $75 to $600 (on a sliding scale). Kids Turn conducts programs in San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, and Contra Costa County. The organization has sold its curriculum and licensed affiliates located in Sonoma, Napa, San Diego, Shasta, and Yolo Counties (in addition to Dayton, Ohio and Hillsboro, Oregon. Although sold only to nonprofits, the program effectively operates as a franchise. Kids’ Turn currently is conducting its own study, in consultation with the California School of Professional Psychology. This bill would require the Judicial Council to duplicate, at least in part, the current study.

Among the objections raised, and possibly why (last I looked) it wasn’t passed SPECIFICALLY naming Kids’ Turn as the California (NB: Large state!) recommended parent education curriculum:

…According to the Judiciary Committee analysis, the author states that the bill is needed so that Kids’ Turn will have state approval as evidence of credibility and will allow courts to “recommend Kids’ Turn as a resource to the community.”

[[On the organization’s website, five-year strategy, this analysis continues]]

…Specifically targeted for consideration is: “Enhanced marketing strategies in order to increase the number of Kids’ Turn affiliates and sales of Kids’ Turn Curriculum.” This bill may create the appearance that a State study and Judicial Council recommendations are part of a marketing strategy..

In fact they are. The workaround was to delete specific references to the corporation name and limit the dollar amount for the study to $50,000, from the phrase amount “necessary.”

Author’s amendments: The author proposes amendments (LCR# 0216385), which (1) delete the specific reference to Kids’ Turn and, instead, study projects or programs that provide services to parents and children undergoing divorce, 2) to delete reference to program expansion; and 3) to delete the language requiring the Judicial Council to allocate the amount “necessary” to conduct the study, to limit the State’s obligation to $50,000. The third staff recommendation to authorize, but not require the study, was rejected by the author.

Shameless! I do not know what became of the bill; I was just discovering it at the time (and my second child was turning adult around the time I discovered it). The continued use of state government positions, websites, and affiliations (especially AFCC’s) continues in the second decade of the 21st century and as we are approaching the third decade, I expect unless someone develops the means and courage to stop it, will continue to do so.//LGH

BELOW THIS LINE: AS WRITTEN May 2011 (except as I may later return here to clean up formatting, which is seriously in trouble at this point, but for a snapshot in time, you can see the basic content is still here and was then/still is now, solid on the business model in play…//LGH 9/29/2019):

I was just casually searching on “Kids’ Turn Affiliates” and even I was surprised at how far proponents would go to push this judge-originated nonprofit.

To the California Legislature?

Yep. The original version was written specifically to this one organization that is probably something of a slush fund to start with.

Makes you wonder about some of our legislators. (posted below).

It was already mentioned 2001-2002 (at a minimum) in the Calif. Judicial Council’s Report to the Legislature on Access and Visitation Fundings, as a sub-grantee. In fact, looks like it was the first one that popped to their mind:

The following are some of the parent education programs funded by the grants that help promote and encourage healthy parent-and-child relationships.

Kids’ Turn (San Diego, Napa, and Shasta Counties): This is a nationally recognized educational program that offers workshops and counseling for families with separated or divorced parents. Kids’ Turn teaches family members the skills that can improve communication between children and parents and help parents understand their children’s experience during and after divorce.21

The San Francisco (founding org.) Kids’ Turn apparently gets some direct help from the City & County, and wants more:

We submitted our first grant to the Administrative Office (AOC) of the Court in November, 2011. This grant was submitted in a partnership with the Rally Project. If awarded, the AOC will fund low-income, noncustodial parents and their children to attend Kids’ Turn services.

6. The City and County of San Francisco initially reduced our 1011 grant award by 10%, but the amount was re-instated in September, 2010 raising our contract award to the original $50,000. This funding is for our very specialized, Nonviolent Family Skills Program for Juveniles.

If you’re actually still earning money, while in the custody process, the Sliding fee Scale does not seem to have an upper limit (?):

FEE TABLE

Pre-Tax Income Tuition with 1 Child 2 Children or More

0 — $14k $50 $60

$15k — $19k $65 $80

$20k — $24k $90 $120

$25k — $29k $175 $225

$30k — $39k $250 $300

$40k — $49k $325* $375*

$50k — $59k $450* $500*

$60k — $74k $625* $725*

$75k — $99k $750* $850*

$100k — $124k $900* $1000*

$125k — $250k $1075* $1175*

$251k — $500k $1400* $1550*

$500k+ $1700* $1900*

Pre-Tax Income	Tuition with 1 Child	2 Children or More
0 — $14k	$50	$60
$15k — $19k	$65	$80
$20k — $24k	$90	$120
$25k — $29k	$175	$225
$30k — $39k	$250	$300
$40k — $49k	$325*	$375*
$50k — $59k	$450*	$500*
$60k — $74k	$625*	$725*
$75k — $99k	$750*	$850*
$100k — $124k	$900*	$1000*
$125k — $250k	$1075*	$1175*
$251k — $500k	$1400*	$1550*
$500k+	$1700*	$1900*

For parents receiving child support (often the mother), this is counted in the “pre-tax” income to determine fees.

(I wonder if this includes child support that’s not being paid……)

Parents paying child support, however, can deduct that from the “pre-tax” income to determine fees….

WHO & WHAT IS KIDS’ TURN?

(well, see my recent post on this)…(or figure it out yourself):

What is “Kids Turn?” — it’s a nonprofit started by a family law judge in about 1987, with help later from some family law attorneys, one of who was called a Northern California “Super attorney.”

Kids’ Turn

THE HISTORY OF KIDS’ TURN

From 1987 to 1990, Judge Ina Levin Gyemant presided over the family law department of the domestic relations court, noting that while lawyers filed motions and parents sought orders regarding custody, visitation and other diputes,[sic] children and their needs were almost completely ignored. Mediation services were mandated for parents in California in 1980, but no educational program was available for children, who are often the people most vulnerable and confused during separation or divorce.

It’s perhaps a training ground on how to promote parental alienation and get paid for it.
It’s a debtor to the San Francisco Superior Court (figure that one out — because somehow, we found that the “SFTC” has a lien on this group).
It has tons of donors on its roster (many of them judges or attorneys), gets apparently some of California’s share of the Access/Visitation funding (which is $10 million per year, nationwide, and California, being so large, gets close to $1 million/year for this source of funding).
Foundations & Associations help it continue & expand:

This is the listing from the San Diego Kids’ Turn (only) website:

Foundations

2009

Linda Brandes Foundation CFLS
California Bar Foundation
Boys & Girls Foundation
Cuatrecasas Family Foundation

The Samuel I. & John Henry Fox Foundation at Union Bank

Sempra Energy

Lions Club of San Diego

Stensrud Foundation

JAMS Foundation

Lawyers Club- Fund for Justice

Leroy and Claire Hughes Family Fund

Mary and John Grant Foundation

American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers- National

American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers

2010

Ellen G. & Edward G. Wong Family Foundation

JAMS Foundation (This is a foundation of Mediators. Pushing Mediation is central to Family Law….)

Lawyers Club- Fund for Justice

Cuatrecasas Family Foundation

Price Charities

Qualcomm

Linda Brandes Foundation (This wealthy couple never had any children….)(See photo of her 67 yr old ex, “Charles Brandes” with new 42 yr old wife — and Bill Clinton in between.. . )

Carlsbad Charitable Foundation, an affiliate of The San Diego Foundation

Fieldstone Foundation

Wells Fargo Foundation

WD-40 Company

Comerica Bank

The Samuel I. & John Henry Fox Foundation at Union Bank

2011

Leichtag Foundation

Linda Brandes Foundation

HD Supply

CFLS **

Cuatrecasas Family Foundation

Stensrud Foundation

AAML- Southern California Chapter

{{** {{CFLS, 2011 donor: Why isn’t this ACRONYM (not found on the web) specified? It apparently stands for “{Association of} Certified Family Law Specialists,” such as Linda Pabst de Leon here, speaking at a CFLS seminar and listing herself as a Kids’ Turn Board of Director (& Event Committee 2006) and “Featured guest speaker at CFLS’ Spring Seminar, “Nov-DV Restraining Orders” (2005))} “CFLS” is not an organization (I think) but a Designation that individuals can reach: }}
{{At least 2 of the “Corporate Donors” listed on same page are the firms that a Kids Turn Board of Directors member works on… meaning, not that the project is so great, but that someone already at the firm managed to finaigle, or sell, a donation ….}}

San Diego Foundation, 2010:
Kids’ Turn San Diego, Expansion of Kids’ Turn Workshops into Carlsbad $20,000Kids’ Turn San Diego plans to bring no less than four, 4-week psycho-educational workshops into Carlsbad, serving 100-120 families who are divorcing or fighting over custody of their children. The workshops will show families how their conflict is negatively impacting their children and teach them to communicate more effectively, manage their anger, focus on their children and create a healthy two household environment for all involved. Furthermore, Kids’ Turn San Diego will help children make a successful adjustment to challenging family changes.
2008 Donations
The Southern California Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyer supports the following organizations: . . .
- Kids’ Turn – San Diego – This is the only program in San Diego County working for te whole family to achieve a child centered and healthy divorce. It provides a low cost solution for families experiencing the pain of divorce or separation no matter how great the conflict.
A former Pro Tem Judge, Attorney Alan Edmunds, promotes Kids Turn through a link, at “SanDiegoDivorceCenter.” (services provided by The Edmunds law Firm).

It showed up in the San Francisco list of nonprofit organizations providing services to the City and County of SF, as a vendor. From what I recall, for 3 years in a row the billing was around $45,000.

Report 1234a
Data As Of : 05/15/2011

City and County of San Francisco
Vendor Payment Summaries Website

Page 1 of 1

Search Results by Vendor, Department, Type of Goods and Services and Document

Payments

Vendor Names

Non
Profit

Departments

Types of Goods and Services

Documents

FY 2008-09

FY 2009-10

FY 2010-11

In
Process

Remaining Balance

KIDS’ TURN

x

CHILDREN; YOUTH & THEIR F

CITY GRANT PROGRAMS

DPCH1000014101

$0

$10,063

$937

$0

$0

DPCH1000014102

$0

$35,679

$3,321

$0

$0

DPCH1100003001

$0

$0

$34,926

$0

$9,574

DPCH1100003002

$0

$0

$5,500

$0

$0

Totals:

$0

$45,742

$44,684

$0

$9,574

Far more than, say, “Fathers and Families Coalition” which only got a pittance (recorded here, at least) under “child Support” department. Wonder what for, though:

Search Results by Vendor

Payments

Vendor Names

Non Profit

FY 2008-09

FY 2009-10

FY 2010-11

In
Process

Remaining Balance

FATHERS & FAMILIES COALITION

x

$470

$865

$740

$0

$0

Totals:

$470

$865

$740

$0

$0

It’s apparently a model judges and attorneys love, because a spinoff “Kids Turn” is in San Diego; in fact a group called “Kids First” (There are a number of “kids’ Firsts” around, but indeed there was one which claims to be modeled after Kids Turn). The beauty of these programs is that the curriculum/curricula is designed, perhaps ONCE (with maybe occasional updates) — and can be marketed endlessly to families going through divorce court who can’t agree on the custody of their children. Which is usually what brings them to divorce court to start with, so obviously the market is right.
Everybody who’s anybody in the family law fields (whether attorney, judge, or psychologist/family therapist, etc.) should take a turn at running Kids’ Turn. Some of these people did and at least one is a Super-Attorney. Some even go on to create look-alike programs for other client sectors, such as Dr. Delisle…. PLUS, you can work there, if you have a BA (recent job listing, $35-38K/year. (Can a person who survived divorce court and a custody battle apply? Because such people include those with BA’s who are probably hurting financially… Of course, you’d have to buy parental alienation theory, which this group promotes.…)

The Founder of Kids’ Turn San Diego in 1996, Dr. Delisle received the 2001 Peacemaker of the Year Award from the National Conflict Resolution Center. In 2005, She was honored by Channel 10 news for its Leadership Award. She was also recognized by the San Diego County Bar Association for the “Distinguished Organization Award”. In 2008, Dr. Delisle transferred responsibility for Kids’ Turn to new leadership

In the Spring of 2010, Ms. Kalemkiarian was Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of San Diego School of Law, teaching a full semester course in Family Law. From 1993 to 1996, she served as the Supervising Attorney of the Child Advocacy Clinic at the University of San Diego School of Law. An active community leader, she has served as the President of the Kids’ Turn San Diego Board for over ten years, and is a longtime Board Member of the Environmental health Coalition. (Ms. Kalemkiarian is also an AFCC presenter) As a leading voice for children in San Diego County, she oversaw the design and implementation of a new system of care for children’s mental health, as the Director of Project Heartbeat. She is a frequent author of opinion editorial pieces regarding public policy and children. … {{CHILDREN MUST BE SPEECHLESS & NEED LOTS OF INTERPRETERS}}Honors 2007-2010 San Diego Super Lawyers®

Alexandra M. Kwoka – Attorney at Law

Alexandra M. Kwoka has been practicing law since 1974, and Family Law for 20 years. She is not only certified as a Family Law Specialist but also holds a LLM/Masters in Tax Law….Association; Certified Family Law Specialists – San Diego & North County; founding member of the Collaborative Family Law Group of San Diego; SDCBA – Carmel Valley; Kids’ Turn – Board Member. She has published a number of articles and has been nominated and selected for a number of awards, including the Ten Top Attorneys in Family Law by the Daily Transcript, San Diego in 2006 and was listed as one of the top Family Law attorneys in San Diego Super Lawyers, 2007, 2008 and 2009.

Barbara is president of the board of directors of the Legal Marketing Association, Southern California Chapter. She is also a former member of the boards of directors of Kids Turn, San Diego, the San Diego Chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators and the Professional Women’s Roundtable. Barbara is a graduate of Coach University and has a BS in business Management with an emphasis in marketing

Ms. Milligan is a member of the San Diego County Bar Association, and is on the Board of Directors of the Foothills Bar Association. Ms. Milligan is also on the Board of Directors of Kids’ Turn, San Diego, a non-profit organization devoted to promoting the well-being of children who are experiencing the challenges of family separation….Ms. Milligan dedicates her practice to the area of Family Law. She is a Certified Family Law Specialist, certified by the California Board of Legal Specialization.

Specialties

Mr. Renkin has focused his practice in Family Law since 1991 and is a Certified Family Law Specialist. He has expertly handled all phases of Trials, Mediation, and Negotiation in areas including Marriage Dissolution, Property Division, Spousal Support, Child Support, Child Custody & Visitation, along with the complex issues of mental health and drug and alcohol dependency. High-asset and high-conflict cases have been settled both through negotiation and litigation. Mr. Renkin has the honor of acting as a Settlement Conference Judge Pro Tem for Family Courts. Member Board of Directors Kids Turn (Present) Fundraising for Hannah’s House and Kids’ Turn

Oh Yeah — Hannah’s House, Supervised visitation place, I remember. The founder was caught operating without a license., there were unsanitary situations, and the owner is having to pay back contracts…

Hannah’s House faces trouble

San Diego Area Licensed Psychologist / Marriage Family Therapist Dr. Simon lists this among his professional associations:

Professional AffiliationsMember, American Psychological Association Member, American Psi-Law Society Member, California Psychological Association Member, Ethics Committee of the California Psychological Association Editorial Board, Journal of Child Custody Member, Collaborative Family Law Group of San Diego,Board of Directors, Kid’s Turn San Diego Founding Member, San Diego Family Law Council for ChildrenMember, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (“AFCC”)Member, Program Committee, Association of Family & Conciliation Courts Member, Awards Committee, Association of Family & Conciliation Courts Member, International Association of Collaborative Professionals Associate Member, San Diego County Bar Association; Associate Member, Los Angeles County Bar Association

You noticed that many are AFCC members? So did I. Here’s another person, a judge, being honored posthumously and Board of Directors, Kids’ Turn is among her accolades:

Judge Grant’s many years as a family law judge and a probate judge during her tenure on the San Francisco Superior Court gave her ample opportunity to pioneer judicial change. Most importantly, Judge Grant became an icon for young female externs, paralegals, attorneys and judges for nearly the entirety of her long career. …

Following her appointment to the San Francisco Municipal Court in 1979, Judge Grant dedicated her life to public service. She was appointed to the Superior Court in 1982, serving as the Presiding Judge in the Family Law Department and later as the Presiding Judge of the Probate Department. She retired from Superior Court in 1996 but continued to work with the American Arbitration Association. She is a past President of the California Chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and of the Northern California Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. (AAML Southern chapter donated to Kids’ Turn San Diego)…

She served on the Board of Kids’ Turn Honorary Committee for many years, an organization offering assistance for children impacted by divorce, including psycho-educational workshops for children being raised in two households. She also pioneered the first Guardian Mentorship Program for children being raised in alternative homes.

JUDGES, JUDGES, JUDGES are on the Boards of this organization:

Barbara W. Moser, SF Attorney, AFCC member, (in fact, a presenter at one COlorado conference), Judge Pro Tem, Family Law Bench Bar Program, Marin County Superior Court… SEttlement Judge Pro Tem, SF Superior Court — was “former secretary, Kids Turn”

IT’s NOT NECESSARY TO EVEN BE IN THE FAMILY LAW FIELD TO BE ON THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS:

Mr. Semmer is also actively involved in the San Diego community. As a Board Member of the Cornell Club of San Diego, he has organized charity fundraisers to endow the Willie Jones Jr. Scholarship. He has volunteered for and assisted with fundraising efforts for Kid’s Turn San Diego, a San Diego non-profit organization helping children and parents whose lives are impacted by parental separation. He serves on the programming committee of the San Diego Receiver’s Forum and is a member of the San Diego Bankruptcy Forum.

(CLICK ON THE LINK. HE DEALS WITH COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE, ETC.)

So what IS it, anyhow?

It’s not quite Avon, Amway, or McDonalds, but basically the same idea only using legislative loopholes and opportunities to promote it, and charging clients to consume the services (court-ordered), for people to be trained to run the courses, and taking federal grants to states money (and foundational support also) — in fact, where DOES all that money go, anyhow? ….?

Such a great organization obviously deserves some extra, extra legislative help…

I searched “Kids Turn affiliates” and came up with real interesting California Assembly Bill 2263. Other than it cuts down our fresh-air exercise activity, ya gotta love this Internet, sometimes….

http://www.metnews.com/endmomay02.html (This is 2002)

•AB 2263, by Assemblywoman Christine Kehoe, D-San Diego, which would require the Judicial Council to study the effectiveness of expanding the Kids’ Turn program, which assists children while their parents are in family court obtaining a divorce or legal separation. The bill was approved by the Assembly Appropriations Committee on a 23-0 vote May 15, passed the Assembly on a 72-2 vote May 23 and was sent to the Senate.

Wow, the Assembly sure loved the concept of funneling divorce education to ONE nonprofit started by a family law judge…..

 BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    

                    Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary

                                           2263 (Kehoe)

          Hearing Date:  8/22/02          Amended: 5/8/02
          Consultant:  Karen French           Policy Vote: Judiciary
          4-2
          ____________________________________________________________
          _
          BILL SUMMARY:   AB 2263 requires the Judicial Council to
          allocate, from funds appropriated to it in the annual
          Budget Act, the amount necessary to study the Kids' Turn
          projects.  The bill also states that up to $50,000 shall be
          allocated only if the Judicial Council receives non-state
          source matching funds.   The bill requires the Judicial
          Council to report to the Legislature by January 12, 2004,
          on the results of the study and propose guidelines for 
project expansion, if Kids' Turn is found to be effective.
                              Fiscal Impact (in thousands)

           Major Provisions        2002-03             2003-04               2004-05 
           Fund 
          Judicial Council
            Study              --          $100                   --General &
                                                            Other
            Court funding                 --       ---Significant, cost
          pressure---              General    

          STAFF COMMENTS:  SUSPENSE FILE.

          Kids' Turn is a private non-profit organization that
          provides workshops for children and their parents that are
          intended to teach skills to cope with the difficulty of
          divorce and separation.  Workshops are six weeks long with
          one 90-minute meeting per week.  Fees for workshops range
          from $75 to $600 (on a sliding scale).  Kids Turn conducts
          programs in San Francisco, Marin, Alameda, and Contra Costa
          County.  The organization has sold its curriculum and
          licensed affiliates located in Sonoma, Napa, San Diego,
          Shasta, and Yolo Counties (in addition to Dayton, Ohio and Hillsboro, 
Oregon.  Although sold only to nonprofits, the program effectively operates as a franchise.  Kids' Turn
          currently is conducting its own study, in consultation with
          the California School of Professional Psychology.  This
          bill would require the Judicial Council to duplicate, at
          least in part, the current study.

          According to the Judiciary Committee analysis, the author
          states that the bill is needed so that Kids' Turn will 
have state approval as evidence of credibility 
and will allow courts to "recommend Kids' Turn 
as a resource to the community." On its website, the organization states that
          this Fall, its Board of Directors will be planning a
          five-year strategy to determine course direction of the
          organization.  Specifically targeted for consideration is:
          "Enhanced marketing strategies in order to increase the number of Kids' Turn affiliates and sales of Kids' Turn Curriculum."  This bill may create the appearance that a State study and Judicial Council recommendations are part of a marketing strategy.

(WHICH THEY ARE..... Better amend the bill so this is less obvious....)

          Author's amendments:  The author proposes amendments (LCR#
          0216385), which (1) delete the specific reference to Kids' Turn and,
           instead, study projects or programs that provide
          services to parents and children undergoing divorce, 2) to
          delete reference to program expansion; and 3) to delete the
          language requiring the Judicial Council to allocate the
          amount "necessary" to conduct the study, to limit the
          State's obligation to $50,000. 

          The third staff recommendation to authorize, but not require the study, was rejected by the author.
          .

HERE’s an AMENDED VERSION (attempting to conceal the blatant effort to legislate parents to consume this product in particular to “help” their kids deal with divorce):

AMENDED IN SENATE AUGUST 22, 2002 AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MAY 8, 2002 AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 1, 2002

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—2001–02 REGULAR SESSION

ASSEMBLY BILL No. 2263

Introduced by Assembly Member Kehoe

February 20, 2002

An act relating to family courts.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST AB 2263, as amended, Kehoe. Family courts: ~~Kids’ Turn~~ family assistance. Existing law governs the procedures for obtaining a dissolution of

marriage or a legal separation. This bill would require the Judicial Council to allocate, from funds appropriated to the Judicial Council in the annual Budget Act, the an amount ~~necessary~~ not to exceed $50,000 to conduct a study regarding ~~the effectiveness of the Kids’ Turn projects, which~~ projects or programs that provide services to assist children and their families while the parents are in the process of obtaining a divorce or a legal separation, as specified. The bill would provide require that ~~an amount not to exceed $50,000 shall~~ these funds be allocated only if the Judicial Council receives matching funds appropriated from sources other than the state.** The bill would require the Judicial Council to report to the Legislature by January 12, 2004, the results of the study ~~and to recommend guidelines for expanding the projects if the study indicates that the projects were effective.~~

**The California Judicial Council just so happens to be the single designated state agency receiving the access and visitation federal funds (“SAVP”) to enable programs such as (but not exclusively!) this one, as I have reported before here. Check it out at TAGG.hhs.gov — there’s a CFDA number referring exclusively to this grant series (“93597,” or similar)(marriage/fatherhood promotion is 93086)( and related ones).

In fact, a great exercise would be to go HERE: http://taggs.hhs.gov/AwardsList.cfm

You’ll have to redo the search — search by “CFDA Program Numbers” (take 2011 year) and get the 50-state list of all 93597’s. Then you’ll have a panorama of which agency, in every state, gets these funds, and can click on the other funding they get. I recommend clicking on Texas (after all, the President who put some of these policies into full swing came from there). You can see that OCSE (collecting child support) is a major expense. Then learn how to do advanced searches (with more fields) and figure out which way the wind is blowing.

Again, TAGGS is your friend, in part. Especially if you are an employee these are your taxes, right? part of each hour you work … it’s collected, assembled, and distributed later by the IRS, along with distributing favors called “tax-exempt status” to certain corporations, and of course foundations….

KIDS TURN:

It is ever so important that everyone (parents, federal government, City and State of San Francisco (I guess for the SF Kids’ Turn….) and foundational donors, plus of course individual donors focus on THIS one program to help, to measure levels of conflict, mental health and attitude change on parents . . . . well, let me just quote the leginfo record. Our state was then and is now in budget crisis, so obviously measuring parental stress levels is an urgent public need:

2)Requires that JC's study include an assessment of all of the
            following:

             a)   Any decrease in conflict between the parents regarding
               custody issues, as reported by the parents;

             b)   The mental health of the children, as measured by their
               attitudes before and after participating in the project or
               program;

             c)   Any change in the attitude of the parents who
               participate in the project or program;

And of course, who better to help children navigate the difficult shoals of divorce than:

           AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY  , this bill was limited in its scope to the Kids' Turn project.

Apparently these entities supported it ( Senate Floor link on “leginfo” site):

SUPPORT  :   (Verified  8/23/02)

          Kids' Turn (This link lists San Diego Bd of Dirs./SF, Here)
          Cope Family Center  (See Kids Turn "Affiliates" list....)
          California Coalition for Youth
          Private Dispute Resolution of San Diego** (=Judge Geary D. Cortes)
          California Judges Association
          CARE Children's Counseling Center
          Gregory M. Caskey, Supervising Judge, Superior Court,(SEE **)
          County of Shasta (There's a Kids' Turn in Shasta County)
          Thomas Ashworth, Judge of the Superior Court
          San Diego County Office of Education
          Professor Janet Weinstein, California Western School of Law (Kids' Turn donor)

           ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT  :    According to the author, this bill
          is needed because it is imperative for organizations to
          have state approval in order to provide evidence of
          credibility and efficacy to the community.

**I had no idea who Judge Caskey is, but linked to his 1998 Admonishment by the Commission on Judicial
Performance!   So he got this slap on a wrist, in part for:

STATEMENT OF FACTS AND REASONS

In November 1997, Judge Gregory M. Caskey was regularly assigned to handle juvenile dependency matters. On the morning of November 6, 1997, Judge Caskey sent a message by electronic mail to an attorney who regularly appeared before him on those matters. The e-mail message concerned a case then pending before the judge, in which the attorney was appearing. The message read in part:

I am considering summarily rejecting [the father’s attorney’s] requests. Do you want me to let [the father’s attorney] have a hearing on this, or do we cut [the attorney] off summarily and run the risk the third DCA reverses? . . . . I say screw [the father] and let’s cut [the attorney] off without a hearing. O.K.? By the way, this message will self- destruct in five seconds…

Later that morning, the attorney sent the following e-mail reply:

Your honor, I don’t feel comfortable responding ex-parte on how you should rule on a pending case.

Two hours later, the judge sent an e-mail response which read: “chicken.”

 
"Private Dispute Resolution" appears to be one retired San Diego Judge, although obviously
working (in dispute resolution) in Southern Calif (3 offices, so I guess he still has a license).
The site "noethics.com" says he made the cut of the top Judicial Misfits under this title:

Judge Geary D. Cortes – San Diego

“She deserved it! – Pugilists – p. 281

 
I don't know much about this Judge, although he's mentioned as being overturned on appeal
on First Amendment issues here:  He was overturned on appeal (I think) in an elder abuse case,
and was involved in the high-profile Prop 21, trying juveniles as adults, matter, described in
The Adult Boys of Rancho Penasquitos  (hover cursor for relevance)...Same case as the First
Amendment Issue...  More likely, he's probably been on that KT Board during some of its years.

Assuming I have the right Judge Thomas Ashworth, he doesn't sound much better:

Case Against Judge Should Remain in San Diego, Court Rules

January 23, 1990|ALAN ABRAHAMSON | TIMES STAFF WRITER

A lawsuit that claims a San Diego family-court judge committed fraud and legal malpractice before he took the bench should be heard in San Diego County, a state appellate court ruled Monday.

The 4th District Court of Appeal ordered the case against Judge Thomas Ashworth III returned to San Diego Superior Court, saying it was improperly ordered out of the county

 
Judge Ashworth also ordered a mother living in Utah, whose child was born after separation,
to send the 5-year old to her paternal grandparents for four, week-long visits (to San Diego).
Report is from 2002:

In Harris, the Court of Appeal held that substantive due process limits a court’s authority under the state’s grandparent visitation statue to cases in which there is clear and convincing evidence that the child will suffer harm if visitation were not granted.

The panel reversed a 1999 order requiring Karen Butler, a remarried Utah resident, to send her daughter Emily, then 5 years old, to San Diego for four week-long visits with the child’s paternal grandparents. Emily was the product of Butler’s brief and stormy marriage to Charles Erik Harris and was born after the couple separated.

The order by San Diego Superior Court Judge Thomas Ashworth III was based on Family Code Sec. 3104, which allows a court to order grandparent visitation when the parents are living separate and apart or the child is not living with a parent. The statute applies a best-interest-of-the-child standard, with a rebuttable presumption that grandparent visitation is not in the child’s best interests if the custodial parent objects.

Here’s another one reversed on appeal, where the paternal grandparents of a father who died after divorce took the mother to court to force more visitation (in San Diego). Ashworth granted them (and got the girl a counsel of her own), but was reversed on appeal, citing Troxel v. Granville:

CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION (Punsly v. Ho, No. D036025 (Cal.App. Dist.4 03/16/2001)

APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of San Diego County, Thomas Ashworth, III, Judge. Petition for writ of supersedeas. Judgment reversed. Petition granted.

Manwah Ho, the mother of Kathryn Punsly, appeals an order granting visitation to Kathryn’s paternal grandparents, Marilyn and Bernard Punsly under Family Code *fn1 section 3102. *fn2 Manwah contends section 3102 is unconstitutional, as applied to her, in light of the recent United States Supreme Court case of Troxel v. Granville (2000) 530 U.S. 57 [120 S.Ct. 2054] (Troxel), a case concerning the constitutionality of a nonparental visitation statute, and Troxel’s appellate progeny. Manwah also contends the court’s ancillary orders attached to the visitation order, independently, violated her constitutional due process rights. We conclude section 3102, as applied in this case, unconstitutionally infringed on Manwah’s fundamental rights. Accordingly, we reverse the order in its entirety.

There was a "Day" named after Judge Ashworth:

Honors, Memberships, and Professional Activities

City of San Diego Proclamation of January 31st as “Thomas Ashworth III Day“

Judicial Lifetime Achievement Award, San Diego County Bar Association’s Certified Family Law Specialists, November 2002

Family Law Person of the Year, American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, Southern California Chapter, 2001**
 (**who donated to Kids' Turn.....)

Then again, The Ashworths themselves also donated to Kids' Turn. Wish I had a year on this
brochure, but readers should check out the judges & attorneys on the INdividual Donors lists.
(Found at California Men's Center website...)

WITH REPUTABLE PROMOTERS SUCH AS THESE, WHO COULD FORBID SIMPLY LEGISLATING A STUDY
TO GIVE IT STATE CERTIFICATION AS JUST THE BEST-EST PARENTING EDUCATION COURSE (COURT-ORDERED)
AROUND, IN FACT, WHY NOT HAVE IT BRANCH OUT INTO THE COMMUNITY, JUST IN CASE THEY ARE
THINKING ABOUT DIVORCE?  (On the other hand, with all those supporters, why does it need
more promotion???? SOmething doesn't look right about this....)

THANKFULLY GRAY DAVIS VETO’ed it with this message:

BILL NUMBER:  AB 2263
  VETOED	DATE: 09/29/2002

SEP 28 2002

To Members of the California State Assembly:

I am returning Assembly Bill 2263 without my signature.

This bill would require a study of projects or programs that serve
children and their families while the parents are in the process of
obtaining a divorce or legal separation.

Under this study, the Judicial Council would be required to assess
the results of, among other things, changes in the mental health of
children and any change in the attitude of parents.  The Judicial
Council, however, may not be well suited to conduct this type of
study.

For this reason, I must return this bill without my signature.

Sincerely,

GRAY DAVIS

In 2003, the same assemblywoman comes up with a Gay Fathers' Day proposal, which met some resistance.

What normally is a legislative slam-dunk – a resolution honoring dads for Father’s Day – turned into a debate on “alternative lifestyles” in the California state Assembly.

According to a report in the Stockton Record, Republicans this week either withheld their support or voted against the resolution because it focused on “nontraditional” dads, including families with two fathers.

“It didn’t belong on the floor,” said GOP Assemblyman Alan Nakanishi. “It was a homosexual bill in the sense that they wanted to make a point out of two fathers” in a single household.

The resolution, sponsored by lesbian Democratic Assemblywoman Christine Kehoe, mentions stepfathers, foster fathers, single fathers and families headed by two fathers, the paper reports. However, it fails to cite traditional fathers who are married to the mother of their children.

Republican Assemblyman Greg Aghazarian, as a traditional father, noticed he wasn’t represented in the proposal.

” Where is the (part) talking about a husband and a wife who have kids?” he said, according to the Record. “I mean, where is the love?”

“CRISPE,” A group for Shared Parenting was pretty upset about her also, although for different reasons and supplied a photo:

Senator Kehoe Plans if she has her way, will steal the SD Fairgrounds for HER greedy self interests!

However, it’s primarily a simple affiliate marketing operation — only with governmental connections.

Did I mention, “NONPROFIT”? Because of the public service it provides, obviously.

I just missed a March, 2011 conference — that’s what I get for falling behind on my FaceBook operations:

Gerard

Kids’ Turn Spring, 2011 Retreat and Training Conference

Theme: Welcome to the Future (of Kids’ Turn)

Dates: March 4-6, 2011 Location: Asilomar Conference Grounds, Pacific Grove, California

Take a deep breath and settle in for a time of serene relaxation, reflection and rejuvenation. Celebrated as Monterey Peninsula’s “Refuge by the Sea” – Asilomar State Beach and Conference Grounds is a breathtakingly gorgeous 107 acres of ecologically diverse beachfront land. www.visitasilomar.com

Who should attend: Kids’ Turn Leaders, Staff, Board Members, Volunteers, Affiliate
Representatives

Conference Goals:

1. Familiarize participants with the future direction of Kids’ Turn
2. Broaden exposure to contemporary issues affecting Kids’ Turn families
3. Refine skills to deliver The Kids’ Turn Way
4. Eight CEU’s awarded
5. R & R in a beautiful, tranquil setting
6. Enjoy camaraderie with Kids’ Turn colleagues
7. Explore the communities of Pacific Grove and Monterey (on your own)

Dr. Gladys Ato, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Argosy University
San Francisco Bay Area
Communicating the Kids’ Turn Message

Dr. Allison Thorson, University of San Francisco
The Impact of Marital Infidelity on Children

COST: (Must be why they need all the donors, and access to the “Access/Visitation” federal support).
Single Occupancy:
$350* (two nights, six meals, training, ECU’s, taxes, all inclusive)
$400 single occupancy AFTER 2/15/11
Double Occupancy (participants must self-select roommate):
$250* (two nights, six meals, training, ECU’s, taxes, all inclusive)
$300 double occupancy AFTER 2/15/11

Kids’ Turn is also an arts supporter, in fact partnered with an upcoming San Diego show, don’t miss:

26 MILES

by Quiara Alegria Hudes
Sept 29 – Oct 23, 2011
The time is 1986. Olivia is a half-Cuban, half-Jewish ‘zine-writing teen. Join us for our next full production written by award-winning Quiara Alegria Hudes (In the Heights), and in partnership with Kids’ Turn San Diego. (“Eight years after a Cuban mother looses [sic] custody of her Jewish daughter, she gets a second chance. At 4:30 in the morning she kidnaps the sick teenage girl and the two drive west in search of a remedy and their divergent American dreams.”)

In Washington County, Oregon, a nonprofit called YOUTH CONTACT features Kids’ Turn (and a pop-up indicates that Kids’ Turn is supporting their work also: See for yourself: )

Registration form shows it’s $230 per parent per 4-session class:

The enrollment fee for Kids’ Turn is $230.00 per adult. Children (ages 5-16) are free with a paying adult. The fee must be paid in full before a spot in the workshop can be reserved. This is done on a first-come, first served basis until each workshop is full. Acceptable methods of payment are Visa, MasterCard, debit card (with a Visa or MasterCard logo), or money order. We do NOT accept checks.

YOU MUST COMPLETE ALL FOUR SESSIONS IN ORDER TO RECEIVE A CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION. IF YOU DO NOT ATTEND ALL FOUR SESSIONS YOU WILL HAVE TO RE-REGISTER FOR ANOTHER WORKSHOP AND RE-PAY THE $230.00 ENROLLMENT FEE. THERE ARE NO MAKE-UP SESSIONS AND THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS!

Serves the parents rights for divorcing in the first place, eh? Domestic violence survivor parent concerned for your life? what kind of excuse is that!?

In fact, generally speaking, REALLY FAMOUS PEOPLE SEEM TO JUST LOVE “Kids’ Turn” — for example, Halsey Minor, founder of CNET:

Community programs for Children and Parents

experiencing separation or divorce. Featuring The Kids’ Turn Way© Curriculum

“Kids’ Turn has leveraged its resources*** and the progressive nature of San Francisco to become a global leader in addressing the problems children face when their parents separate.” Halsey M. Minor, Kids’ Turn Board Member; Founder, CNET

Oh, I forgot — he was on 2010 list for tax evasion, found auctioning off his art collection.

Found via LA Observed, the California Franchise Tax Board has released its list of the state’s biggest delinquent taxpayers. This year, the honor goes to Cnet co-founder Halsey Minor and his wife Shannon, who owe a whopping $13,120,479.39 in personal income tax.

They also maintained the #1 California ranking for tax evasion, for 2011 .

***resources such as connections to the legal/judicial community…..

I would love to see an audit of this organization’s books, all California operations.

The nonprofit directory “Guidestar.org” notes that Kids’ Turn San Diego started in 1996 with a grant from the “Seuss Foundation”…. 2009 form 990 lists only $151K net revenues, and Expenses include $124,424 salaries, plus $30,452 professional fees, and that they are running about one salaried position ($38K) in the hole. They ran a $50K ARt & Wine auction, but donated $36K of that, leaving revenue of $12K. Expenses, however, were $18K, so That event was a deficit, I guess…..

Lots of Directors (which my “select-copy” tool worked on the PDF) including what appears to be the infamous (or honorable) Honorable Thomas Ashworth’s wife? (also an attorney), Kathryn — in fact, eighteen (18) individuals listed, none drawing a salary. The Executive Director, however, is taking applications for a FT program director

One of these 18, “Patty Chavez-Fallon” just so happens to be (or have been) Director of Family Court Services at San Diego per this article (critical of) Supervised Visitation:

Patricia Chavez-Fallon, the director of the Superior Court’s Family Court Services in San Diego County, said people who want to be paid monitors submit documentation to the court showing they have attended a training class and meet the other state standards, which essentially require that monitors be 21 or older and free of any legal trouble in the previous 10 years. Chavez-Fallon then adds them to an alphabetical list of supervised visitation monitors that the court provides.

and she’s been there a good while (1991-2008): Kids Turn San Diego started in 1996. So did the Access Visitation Funds that help facilitate things like this (with PRWORA Welfare Reform). Must’ve been a coincidence, that timing. It was a very busy time, after all….

Patti Chavez-Fallon is an expert in alternative dispute resolution. Both as a counselor and Director of Family Court Services, she has served parents and children going through the process of defining and developing a cooperative sharing plan that benefits everyone involved. Her background includes:

Seventeen years as Director: Family Court Services, San Diego Superior Court

Four years as a mediator of Custody and Visitation disputes

Ten years of other child related social work services

She is also listed on the Federal HHS/ACF site for “Access and Visitation” grants as a California “State Access Program Contact:”

9. Superior Court of California , San Diego County
Contact: Patti Chavez-Fallon (619) 557-2100
Services: counseling, parent education

Subcontractor:
Kids’ Turn, San Diego
2136 Newcastle Avenue, suite 150
Cardiff, CA 92007
(760) 634-0280

Remind me again how this is NOT a conflict of interest? She is the program contact — on behalf of the Superior Court — for the federal funds, and a nonprofit where she sits on the board of the directors is the listed subcontractor…. There’s another one in Shasta County…..

. Northern California Center for Family Awareness
Kids’ Turn Shasta Cascade PO Box 991473
Redding, CA 96099-1473
(530) 244-5749

What’s in it for them, altruism? The art & wine auction factor?

Ms. Chavez-Fallon is even quoted in a “johnnypumphandle” review of a high-profile San Diego case (Morse v. Morse) where the papers featured the abducting ex-wife, the court had transferred custody to the father after finding allegations of abuse “inclusive” and Stephen Doyne (Note: also a Kids’ Turn donor, see link to their brochure, above) played a factor. It noted:

Robert and Eugia Morse divorced in 1994 after 10 years of stormy marriage.
Robert Morse remarried almost immediately and shared custody of his three
children with his ex-wife.

The battle over the children was contentious, McIntyre told jurors. In
January 1996, Robert Morse spent a night in jail after his former wife
accused him of hitting her when she came to pick up the children after a
visit. He was not allowed to see his children for two months.

After a psychological evaluation, Robert Morse received full custody in
October 1996. On their children’s first weekend visit with their mother,
the older girl contended that her father had molested her.

The Corruption Exposed

Before the custody battle even took place, we have learned that Eugia Morse was in the Family Violence Program sponsored by Children’s Hospital. Her records show a multitude of evidence of violence in the form of photos and documents detailing injuries at the hand of Robert Morse. In addition, the children had records of therapy for abuse alleged to be perpetrated by Robert Morse as well as records documenting the abuse. When the custody case went to court, this evidence was suppressed in favor of the court assigned evaluation team which recommended that custody of the children be transferred to Robert Morse.

Apparently Family COurt Services had a role in this case, one that ended up with the mother feeling she had to flee. YOu can read for yourself. While Chavez-Fallon was incidental (in this report), she was director of the same family court services that pushed a certain evaluator and psychologist on the family. Responding to the news article someone wrote:

I saw the news report about Morse v. Morse on T.V., we recognized the modus operandi, and in unison wesaid “LINDA HIRSHBERG.” Next time I was in court, I looked at the file. We
were right. It was LINDA HIRSHBERG and STEPHEN DOYNE working together again.
Later, I heard from the “victims of Family Court underground” that Eugia was
networking with others who had been exploited by these two. She was desperate
to get the evaluator changed. She was not successful. No doubt, this
evaluation was arranged by Family Court Services, because that is what FCS
does. They are brokers, not mediators.

The “Cope Family Center” (APparently = ‘Kids’ Turn Napa County) (found supporting the Legislative Action in 2002) states (falsely) that:

Kids’ Turn is supported entirely by generous contributions from individuals and foundations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Workshops are held in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Napa and Marin counties. Kids’ Turn requests that each participating parent contribute a sliding scale fee to help cover the cost of the program. Any family wanting to help support the program to a greater extent is encouraged to make a tax-deductible contribution at any time.

This “Cope Family Center” also runs Supervised Visitation:

Cope Family Center provides

Supervised Visitation

Monitored Exchange

Parent Education, including Kids’ Turn and Cooperative Co-Parenting

Coincidentally(?), the legislative purpose of the Access Visitation funding (in California), is:

Assembly Bill 673 expressed the Legislature’s intent that funding for the state of California be further limited to the following three types of programs:

Supervised visitation and exchange services;

Education about protecting children during family disruption; and

Group counseling services for parents and children.

This family center has an Assembly member, a State Senator, and a District Attorney among its honorary board members.

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, MUCH?

Courthouse Forum (a place one can bellyache about court players) writers also noticed the phenomenon of family law judges referring business to nonprofits they sit on the board of. THis one notices a judge who was even Treasurer of Kids’ Turn. These 2006 entries are web-cached:

Contra Costa County KIDS TURN & Berkow

If this J Berkow is a Corporate Treasure of Kids Turn Inc. a organization that is often court ordered by Contra Costa County Family Law. This appears very improper to me doesn’t this violate the judicial standard to “avoid appearance of impropriety” I know in my business this would be considerd a conflict of interest, and the SEC would have a field day with a trader who was conducting there business like this judge

This is appalling I live in Contra Costa County and this judge is notoriously bad she has raped more fathers in this county then I can even list. Calling her the Monster of Martinez is not a understatement. It is common for father to be so severely financially raped by this women that they do actually end up living in a car with there children. Now she is runningKids Turn!(i.e., this is not my own comment!)

Below is the link to Kids Turn is you scroll down you will that Berkow is a Director. This is not a proper postion for Berkow she is ordering people from the bench to keep her company going. What a way to capitalize your company!

Apparently, they rotate membership in and out (of Judges, Attorneys, etc.). Here’s a 2010 new President, Greg Abel, who has been on the board a few years, and is quite active in family, appellate and other courts:

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, October 11, 2010 – Kids’ Turn, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization today announced the election of Greg Abel as president and CEO succeeding Steven Kinney, who remains on the board of directors of Kids’ Turn. Mr. Abel is a Partner with Whiting Fallon Ross & Abel, LLP, Walnut Creek, Calif., which represents parties in complex family law and matrimonial matters.

In making the announcement, Steve Kinney, outgoing president of Kids’ Turn said, “We are pleased that Greg Abel has agreed to assume the leadership mantel of Kids’ Turn. He has been a very proactive member of the board since 2008. Greg will provide important leadership as Kids’ Turn moves to the next level of service to customers in the five county region of the San Francisco Bay Area and extends Kids’ Turn curriculum reach to other parts of the U.S. and around the globe.”

Well, since they are going global, I suppose it was worth a try to get the California Legislature to pass a law standardizing this judge-initiated project, just in cases judges who sit (or sat) on the Board previously, or the Director(s?) of Family Court Services, etc. who donate to it (and sit on its board) aren’t drumming up enough business, or foundational support. As a little reminder, this has been operating IN THE HOLE according to its own 990, at least the San Diego One.

What a lesbian State Senator (in 2002, State Assemblyperson) is doing promoting that bill, Lord only knows. Guess it’s politically advantageous (do they donate to her, too?)

How can any organization with so much foundation support, a ton of volunteer Directors (with judicial, therapy, and attorney association connections) AND a guaranteed source of court-ordered referrals end up with a negative cash flow?

And what about that $45K in vendor services to the City of San Francisco, recently?

And what about that Lien that the San Francisco Superior Court has (or had) on this group?

. . . . This isn’t THE major question of the family law system, but it sure does make one go “Huh???”

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

May 19, 2011 at 2:27 PM

Posted in AFCC, Business Enterprise, History of Family Court, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids

Tagged with Access-Visitation, AFCC, California Judicial Council, Christine Kehoe, Conflict of Interest, Kids' Turn, Super-Attorneys, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work.

Let’s Eliminate OCSE — the Office of Child Support Enforcement — and why.

with 6 comments

No, that’s not a joke. I’m serious.

Or, we could just continue to watch this institution gradually eliminate the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution, in fact the entire concept of individual rights whatsoever, in favor of social(ism) science run amok.

This post also ran amok (as you can see) but the links are valuable.

The OCSE has to go. It’s out of control, and is hurting men, women, and children — generation after generation– while loudly proclaiming it is, instead, helping society, families and kids.

WHAT DO YOU WANT — A SOCIAL SCIENCE SOCIETY, OR LIBERTY?

Obviously, it’s either/or, not Compromise/And. Even the experts know this:

Do government sponsored marriage promotion policies place undue pressure on individual rights?

Karen Struening

Abstract

The dominance of social science research in the debate over the Bush Administration’s Healthy Marriage Initiative may explain why questions regarding the proper role of government in regulating adult intimacy (!!!) have received little attention. Social science research focuses on outcomes such as well-being and health. In contrast, rights-based legal theory considers whether state action undermines the rights of individuals. In this article, I intend to shift the debate over marriage promotion policy from questions of child well-being to questions of individual rights. I will ask the following questions: Do individuals have a liberty interest in making their own choices about intimate relationships, such as marriage? Do federally-financed (and frequently state-run) marriage programs compromise this liberty interest? Are there any constitutional grounds for objecting to marriage promotion policy?

Either we recover the OCSE from its fatherhood-dispensing-propaganda (and fundings) — repeal (or defund) the Access/Visitation grants system entirely. There is no question, whatever its grandiose proclamations, the system is rife with corruption, has failed, and hasn’t even reduced TANF, allegedly the purpose for its existence.

Let alone the dubious ROI for this agency — Can you spell Four Billion?

Yes, +/- Four Billion (federal incentives), courtesy the IRS, to fix families, support children by adding “fatherhood.” which as I point out elsewhere, is one of several “hoodlums” used to justify stealing time and money from honest people and transferring them to dishonest.

$4,000,000,000

I’ve uploaded (hopefully) and linke two PDFs to this post to illustrate the cost and the personnel investing themselves into the system. One is primarily charts the other, primarily rhetoric. Please browse the Dept of HHS/Administration for Children and Families (“ACF”)

(Federal)

PAYMENTS TO STATES FOR CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AND FAMILY SUPPORT PROGRAMS, including for FY 2012, and historic back to 2002. Its charts speak loudly as well as this paragraph justifying some of the expense:

Promoting Access and Visitation. The budget provides $570 million over ten years to support increased access and visitation services and integrates these services into the core child support program. The first step in facilitating a relationship between non-custodial parents and their children is updating the statutory purposes of the CSE program to recognize the program’s evolving mission and activities that help parents cooperate and support their children. The proposal also requires states to establish access and visitation responsibilities in all initial child support orders. The proposal also would encourage states to undertake activities that support access and visitation. Implementing domestic violence safeguards is a critical component of this new state responsibility. These services not only will improve parent-child relationships and outcomes for children, but they also will {{??}} result in improved collections. Research shows that when fathers are engaged in the lives of their children, they are more likely to {{or is it “will”?? the program has been going on over 15 years. Don’t we know which it is yet — “more likely to,” or “will”?}}meet their financial obligations. This creates a “double win” for children – an engaged parent and more financial security.

and paragraphs like this:

Budget Request – The FY 2012 request for Child Support Enforcement and Family Support programs of $3.8 billion reflects current law of $3.5 billion adjusted by +$305 million assuming Congressional action on several legislative proposals, including those supporting a newly proposed Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative. The Budget promotes strong family relationships by encouraging fathers to take responsibility for their children, improving distribution policies so that more of the support fathers pay reaches their children, and continuing a commitment to vigorous enforcement. The Budget increases support for states to pass through child support payments to families, rather than retaining those payments and requires states to establish access and visitation arrangements as a means of promoting father engagement in their children’s lives.*** The Budget also provides a temporary increase in incentive payments to states based on performance, which continues an emphasis on program outcomes and efficiency and will foster enforcement efforts.

**(This program has been known to promote mother ABSENCE from lives of the children after custody-switching enabled through mis-use of program funds in conflicts-of-interest with custody hearings…Despite more and more mothers becoming noncustodial, this program still remains father-centric. )

Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative

The CSE program plays an important role in facilitating family self-sufficiency and promoting responsible fatherhood. Building on this role, the FY 2012 budget includes a new Child Support and Fatherhood Initiative to encourage non-custodial parents to work, support their children, and play an active role in their children’s lives.

After I sent this document to Liz Richards, of NAFCJ.net, I got the following response:

OCSE cannot override federal and state law; it cannot initiate legal disputes without the approval of both the assumed litigants. It cannot override standing court orders.
But this IS what the OCSE agency and been doing for years – and they believe they can get away with this fraud, because nobody is scrutinizing them.

You should not believe anything they claim about their policies and procedures which sounds good. They have been hiding their corruption with “sounds good” analysis for as long as I’ve been following them. They say one thing – and do the opposite.

Of the hundreds of women who contacted me each year, some are custodial mothers, and nearly none of them actually collect the support owed to them.
The local state agencies stonewall them for months and even years.

Once woman with a N. CA child support case got told by the San Fransico c.s. agency they couldn’t send her the support check because they hadn’t [earned] enough interest on it yet. After she made strong complaints about this dishonest practice – they sent a check a few days later.

The OCSE even admits they have a policy of “retaining” undistributed but collected support to earn interest on it and to declare it “abandoned” and split this collected money 60/40 between the federal and state c.s. agencies. (eg illegal confiscation of other people’s money).*** Even the HHS General Counsel, David Cade, admit to me this was the official policy.

I believe the whole agency should be shut down and the few vital services they have be transferred to Dept of Treasury.

Liz Richards

(**great example discovered by Richard Fine, resulting in the infamous Silva v. Garcetti lawsuit. This extremely disturbing case over county abuse of privilege in MILLION$$ IN L.A. County CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENTS ALREADY COLLECTED shows how corruption responds to corruption uncovered — Mr. Fine in jail, an attempt to intimidate him and a warning to others who might think to follow in his footsteps. As far as I can tell, this case was eventually dropped, although eventual Mr. Fine was released from solitary coercive confinement, at age 70!)

(This BUDGET document is found at: http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/olab/budget/2012/cj/CSE.pdf)

AGAIN — what ROI, what overall good really comes out of this department, as reported by anyone who is not in on some of its many scams? She writes: “I believe the whole agency should be shut down and the few vital services they have be transferred to Dept of Treasury.”

I’m so glad she’s come around to my way of thinking, after I read enough rhetoric to gag on justifying the elimination of child support for most kids, and the inability of actual, legitimate abused children and/or spouses (primarily mothers) to EVER get free from abuse, resulting sometimes in their deaths at the hands of a father over a court-ordered visitation and after death threats and molestation had already been identified. Alternately, they can just be impoverished needlessly, and society can be robbed of working parents while these parents instead go to court and suffer more legal abuse and trauma, often for years.

I ALSO UPLOADED a “Reviving Marriage in America: Strategies for Donors” philanthropy roundtable talking about the foundations backing to these movements. File it under “what your social worker and child support advocate, your local domestic violence agency, or local legal aid office, didn’t and won’t tell you — but should have — about who’s really behind the fatherhood movement.“)

Looking at both these documents, I have to ask: how much priming the pump is needed to produce a few good fathers, or get child support enforced? Are these indeed producing good fathers, and if not, who gives a damn? The jet-setting, conference-presenting, politically connected fatherhood program administrators? The family law judges, attorneys, evaluators (basically, all AFCC membership categories) whose nonprofits profit from this arrangement? The funeral homes, who get extra business when some Dad goes haywire after separation? The press, who reports the casualties?

An article from the “Institute for Democracy Studies” (Sept. 2001, VOl. 2, issue 1), lead article by a “Lewis C. Daly” focused on the “Charitable Choice: The Architecture of a Social Policy Revolution” cites the Bradley Foundation’s influence, and provides a flowchart with National Fatherhood Initiative and the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives central underneath. They point out the “Heritage Foundation” connection (which I’ve noticed) and that a certain Kay James (directing the US Office of Personnel Management at the time — and as such placing “vast numbers of individuals throughout the White House national security apparatus, government agencies (etc.) ) endorsed the resolution of the 1998 Southern Baptist Convention (regarding wifely submission to husbands) — an endorsement that caused former President Carter to resign from this group in protest of its treatment of women.

“O Say Can You See?” what’s happened to the “land of the free” (or even the concept of the land of the free….)

“OCSE”: CLEAN IT UP OR SHUT IT DOWN:

The more I read about this, the more outraged I get at tax dollars being used for social science rhetoric — most of it a combination of belief, myth, and confusion of results with causes.

While promising delivery on child support — the fact is, it extorts both mothers and fathers in the courts to consume services and classes they don’t need, such as parenting education classes produced by judges-and-attorney-run nonprofits with unholy alliances with the family courts (kids turn, etc.). (Kids Turn & look-alikes)
It s a guaranteed formula for reducing and eliminating child support, sold under the guise of doing the opposite.
The Access Visitation grants system, per se, while not huge — is the doorway to ever-expanding initiatives (fatherhood, marriage-promotion, etc.) — that undermine due process and individual rights.
Its own regulations indicate that the purpose of this grants system enables ONE Person in ONE Executive Branch Office to run demonstration social science projects on the populace, through the states, as I have pointed out before in reviewing 45 CFR 303.109: As such, it’s anti-democratic, and contrary to the purpose of having three separate branches of government, which was to counter potential tyranny. Section (a) basically says, there’s a need to monitor these grants. Here’s (b):

(b) Evaluation. The State: (1) May evaluate all programs funded under Grants to States for Access and Visitation Programs; (2) Must assist in the evaluation of significant or promising projects as determined by the Secretary; (of HHS).

These significant or promising projects are going to be fatherhood promotion or marriage promotion projects. They are poorly monitored, especially after going to subgrantees once they hit the sole state agency in each state that dispenses them.

For a quick sample, tell me why the Texas Office of Attorney General (generally associated with matters of law, right?) even HAS a “Deputy for Family Initiatives,” let alone why are they using this post to expand opportunities to turn this office into more therapeutic, right-wing, family intervention schlock? (See RandiJames.com’s 2009 post, “Michael Hayes wants to Build Family-Centered Child Support” and how:

“Before his current post, he helped create and was director of the Texas Fragile Families Initiative, a statewide project involving community-based, faith-based, and public agencies to support fragile families.”

See also my comment on that post, showing Mr. Hayes flying up to Minnesota to present at a Fatherhood Summit. And about his plans for the “evolution of child support.”)

Now, when you have an Office of the Attorney General coming straight from a “Fragile Families Initiative” this tells me there is at least one foundation behind the scenes. While Michael Hayes may have got this going in Texas, “FFI” has been going strong, courtesy of at least the Ford Foundation, in NY and elsewhere, and typically links a researcher, a reputable university (or several of them) such as Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, etc. — and someone with a personal agenda getting paid to produce social science studies on how to fix America. For example, Ronald D. Mincy, Ph.D., of Columbia’s

For Dr. Ronald B. Mincy, Saving `Fragile Families’ is Personal

by Michele N-K Collison

Black people will never reach economic parity if Black children have to depend on one income and White children depend on two,” says Mincy, the architect of the foundation’s “Strengthening Fragile Families Initiative.“

{{i.e., while Mr. Hayes may have got it started in Texas, Dr. Mincy got it going, period. This is the “foundation connection.” As with President Obama’s stuttering on the word “mother” regarding his own mother, despite his obvious success in life (US President = success, right?), Dr. Mincy’s pedigree includes Harvard, and a Ph.D. in economics from MIT, teaching at Swarthmore, and heads up a

The multi-million dollar initiative focuses on increasing research about these poor fathers and their families, and working with policy-makers to create policies that encourage unwed parents to work together for the benefit of their children.

Since 1994, the Ford Foundation has spent a total of roughly $14.5 million on this issue. It is one of too few major foundations, according to Mincy, engaged in this work.

These days Mincy crisscrosses the nation giving speeches and meeting with child support officials and advocates for fathers as he tries to take advantage of the convergence of circumstances that has made fatherhood the issue de jour.

But there is a compelling personal reason why Mincy is so interested in this issue — he also grew up without his father. …

…So did many children, whose fathers served in the various wars our country has been involved in– Civil War, World War I, II, Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, etc. Wars definitely contribute to fatherlessness. So did slavery, which routinely broke up families. Of all people who should know this, I’d think an economics expert would. Of all people who also should (and I bet does) know that “jobs” =/= “wealth” or financial independence stemming from assets which spin off enough income to live on. No, the experts are focused obsessively on “jobs” while themselves functioning, often as not, from their connections to foundations & government or university research institutes.

However, the “fatherhood” field developed in the LATE 1900s, not the EARLY 1900s or before. Why? When it was the air people breathed, there was no need to push the ideology. But now, there is some competition — and it has to be pushed. The most natural place to push fear of women, fear of feminism, is through institutions already controlled by men — faith-based ones, Congress, etc.

The “fatherhood” promoters did so in response to at some level, I believe, gut-level primal fear of women and feminism, a feminism in possible in part because women can indeed vote. It is also in fear of the reproductive capacity of people of color; this is clear from the boardroom discussions and the Congressional record. The conservative’s push into inner city churches and ministries helped split off some of the progressive and civil rights activities in those areas, and partly clean up their image, just as the recent nonprofit group “Women in Fatherhood, Inc.” [WIFI] is a more recent formulation to help clean up the obvious gender bias in the “fatherhood” policies to start with.

After graduating from Harvard, Mincy went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned his doctorate in economics in 1987. He taught economics at Swarthmore College, the University of Delaware, and Bentley College, before heading to the Urban Institute in 1987.

{{“obviously” no father in the home dooms a child to academic, professional and financial failure, case in point.}}

While at the Urban Institute, Mincy directed a policy-research project on the urban underclass. His work on poor, unwed families caught the attention of the Clinton administration and he led the Noncustodial Parents Issue Group for the Presidents Welfare Reform taskforce. The group’s mission was to figure out how welfare reform could accommodate poor men. His experiences in the Clinton administration laid the groundwork for the Fragile Families Initiative.

He’s now at Columbia, degreed, decorated, publishing and promoting. Note the Foundation Connection throughout ….

Bio:

Dr. Ronald Mincy teaches Introduction to Social Welfare Policy; Program Evaluation; Economics for Policy Analysis; and Advanced Methods in Policy Analysis, and directs the Center for Research on Fathers, Children and Family Well-Being.

Dr. Mincy is also a co-principal investigator of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, and a faculty member of the Columbia Population Research Center (CPRC).

He came to the University, in 2001, from the Ford Foundation where he served as a senior program officer and worked on such issues as improving U.S. social welfare policies for low-income fathers, especially child support, and workforce development policies; he also served on the Clinton Administration’s Welfare Reform Task Force.

This tells me, he may have had input into the Access & Visitation factor of 1996 Welfare Reform. And, he’s as much as stated he has a chip on his shoulder from childhood. However directed at low-income noncustodial fathers this work has become, by targeting the child support system, this re-balancing of “welfare” has been exploited by all levels of fathers (including some multi-millionaires) and has resulted in lots of noncustodial (and some homeless) mothers after processing through this wonderful child support system plus therapy-dispensing family law system. It has pushed social science dispensaries (whether institutes or initiatives) to the top of the administrative heap. The discussion is no longer of individual rights, due process, bias — but of outcomes, of best “practices” and “promising projects.” Such language keeps the research $$ flowing and sets up a subject/object relationship between the researchers and the poor slobs with the actual problems and lives affected the most.

Only through the internet have we become more able to “eavesdrop” in on some of these conversations, and hear the incredible logic behind them, pick on the tone of how policymakers view the nation, of how Federal entitities attempt to set up a trainee/dog relationship with the states (good states get more treats [incentives], bad states will have treats withdrawn…. Clearly in such an environment, the obvious line of work is dog trainer — if one is not of sufficient drive, connections, inspiration, pedigree, (etc.) or luck to be the ones paying the dog trainers.

NEXT QUESTIONS:

HOW MANY FOUNDATIONS DOES IT TAKE

TO ELIMINATE THE US CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS?

Whose idea was it, to switch society’s main institutions from the concept of individual rights (eventually — at least in theory — including minorities & females, in that order) in favor of “social science” (next step — back to eugenics….)?

Whose idea was it to centralize rule under Executive Dept. initiatives (versus the original idea — three branches of government).

Whose idea was it to eliminate the restrictions on sectarian religion on public government?

Well, in my book, this is in great part, a 4-letter word: “B.U.S.H.” (GWB), aka Government by Executive Order.

CONSIDER THE IMPACT OF THE

Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

The Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (OFBCI), was established January 29, 2001, when President George W. Bush “issued twoexecutive orders related to faith-based and community organizations. The first executive order established a White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The second order established centers to implement this initiative at the Department of Justice, along with the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development. (wikipedia)

NOT a good idea for women…..

Let alone this particular President’s (and other right-wing Republicans) curious connection with the Unification Church. Don’t laugh. See my “Shady-shaky Foundations’ post and look at that picture of Sun Myung Moon being crowned in a US Senate building. And rethink all this “Family” and “Marriage” promotion agenda in terms of this known money-laundering, criminal-enterprise cult headed by the world’s “True Parents.” Or read from the Steve Hassan’s “Freedom of Mind” site on Moon/Bush: Ongoing Crime Enterprise (2007 article) :

By the early 1980s, flush with seemingly unlimited funds, Moon had moved on to promoting himself with the new Republican administration in Washington. An invited guest to the Reagan-Bush Inauguration, Moon made his organization useful to President Reagan, Vice President Bush and other leading Republicans.

Where Moon got his cash remained one of Washington’s deepest mysteries – and one that few U.S. conservatives wanted to solve. …

…

While the criminal enterprises may have been operating at one level, Moon’s political influence-buying was functioning at another, as he spread around billions of dollars helpful to the top echelons of Washington power.

Moon launched the Washington Times in 1982 and its staunch support for Reagan-Bush political interests quickly made it a favorite of Reagan, Bush and other influential Republicans. Moon also made sure that his steady flow of cash found its way into the pockets of key conservative operatives, especially when they were most in need. […]

Throughout these public appearances for Moon, Bush’s office refused to divulge how much Moon-affiliated organizations have paid the ex-President. But estimates of Bush’s fee for the Buenos Aires appearance alone ran between $100,000 and $500,000.

Sources close to the Unification Church told me that the total spending on Bush ran into the millions, with one source telling me that Bush stood to make as much as $10 million from Moon’s organization. . . .

The senior George Bush may have had a political motive, too. By 1996, sources close to Bush were saying the ex-President was working hard to enlist well-to-do conservatives and their money behind the presidential candidacy of his son, George W. Bush. Moon was one of the deepest pockets in right-wing circles.

The “Marriage Promotion” and “Fatherhood” fanaticism definitely has Unification overtones. I first began comprehending this summer 2009, while protesting another round of fatherhood funding at the Senate Appropriations Committee. This was headed up by Rep. Danny K. Davis. Naturally, I looked him up, some, and discovered the Moonie (Unification Church) connection. I told some friends, and now they think I’m nuts for the assumption… When our leaders start crowning kings in Senate Buildings, and don’t apologize for it – which Rep Davis did not — we have to start wondering where their heads are at. (Hover cursor over the “Danny K. Davis” link for the incredible/incriminating details… When our leaders start play-acting coronations and it’s somehow a joke, I think it’s time for someone else to be put on the stand and questioned.

Now that I think of this, several Judges in the SF area were found in a similar charade. Poormagazine.com alerted us to this. Photo is from 2002 AAML (Amer. Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers) gathering, apparently. It was accompanied by a spoof of the tune to “Camelot,” called “Familawt.” Compare to “coronation” photo(s)

The Round Table
Queen Dolores Carr (San Mateo)
Queen Charlotte Woolard (SF)
Queen Marjorie Slabach (SF)
King James Mize (Sacramento) King Gary Ichikawa (Solano)King David Haet (Solano)
Queen Beth Freeman (San Mateo) not pictured

Compare:

I’m not against a little light-hearted fun, but given the state of the family law system (and the increasing god-like attitudes found in the Executive Branch overall, towards the rest of the country), this is more than disturbing — perhaps it represents the true regret of some elected leaders and public “servants” (such as the judges/commissioners) that there is no title of royalty available, at least per our founding documents, in this U.S.A., which got its start protesting such abuses of power from England….

There is also a unification connection to an Arizona legislator, (1998 article on “Parents Day”). Sorry I’m not an Arizona resident following their elections, but here’s a 2007 article:

(www.bizjournals.com) “Arizona state legislator and member of Unification Church weighs bid for US Congress”

The Business Journal of Phoenix — August 29, 2007
by Mike Sunnucks, The Business Journal

State Rep. Mark Anderson, R-Mesa, is considering a challenge of freshman Democratic Congressman Harry Mitchell in next year’s elections.

Anderson, who is in his seventh term in the Arizona Legislature, has formed an exploratory committee for a possible run against Mitchell.

Anderson is a Realtor and a member of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. If elected, he would be the only member of Congress to be part of the Unification Church.

The Republican lawmaker cited Congress’ low approval ratings in considering a run. In the Legislature, Anderson has favored tuition and school tax credits; abstinence education programs; and removing junk food and sodas from public school vending machines.

UNIFICATION CONNECTION:

Given what this particular organization represents, worldwide (criminal enterprises, money laundering, and cult activity), the simple math should tell us: (1) The Office of Faith-based Initiative comes from Bush by Executive Order, not popular mandate (2) Bush & GOP ties close to Moon & Moon’s money. (3) Some faith-based groups are just too danged misogynist, and turn a blind eye to wife-beating and molestation. Some women became single to start with, because they found no way to stop this in their local communities. Moreover, many faith-based (husband = head of the household) groups also encourage men to control the finances, thereby when they separate, actually CAUSING, rather than SOLVING, additions to the welfare role.

The co-founders of the influential National Fatherhood Initiative include the first appointee to this Office, i.e., Don Eberly. The other co-founder of the National Fatherhood Initiative is Wade Horn. Successor (?) Ron Haskins was instrumental in passing the Access/Visitation funding mentioned above. Combined with the powerful influence of foundational wealth, their social-science, religious-based myths rhetoric is distributed nationwide, and also funded unwittingly

Then come back here.

The HERITAGE FOUNDATION (with Unification church ties….) has its FAMILY & RELIGION page, and objectives, including developing a rhetoric. Yep:

Cultivate an environment in which the permanent institutions of family and religion can flourish and fulfill their role in maintaining ordered liberty in America.
Develop the best research and accompanying rhetoric that will strengthen and unify the current pro-family constituency and win over new target audiences to preserve the institution of traditional marriage and restore the family to its central role.
Unite religious and economic conservatives more effectively around the goal of restoring the family to its central role, both legally and culturally, and reviving religious liberty.
Shape a healthy public discourse that appreciates the historic and continuing significance of religion and moral virtue in American civic life. {as signified by the pedophile priest scandal, and coverups?}

THEY SAY:

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Family and religion are foundational to American freedom and the common good.** For example, the married family plays an important part in promoting economic opportunity: children raised by never-married mothers are seven times more likely to be poor when compared to children raised in intact married families. Meanwhile, religious institutions and individuals form the backbone of America’s thriving civil society, providing for the welfare of individuals more effectively than government programs. Yet the role of these institutions in maintaining ordered liberty is poorly understood, and policy and social developments have factored in undermining their important contributions.

**Not for young women, and middle-aged women honor-murdered for being too Western, or for divorcing.

**This must be why we have the First Amendment, to enable Congress — naw, let’s just work through other arms of government — to establish a state religion called “marriage and family/fatherhood” etc….. and facilitated by some of the most misogynist groups around, including faith groups that don’t permit ordination of women, require celibacy for their priests, and believe that Eve is responsible for bringing sin into the world, primarily because she acted independently from Adam in talking to someone besides her husband.

Here’s a sample Abstract of a Heritage Foundation report on Marriage as the cure for poverty:

Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty

Published on September 16, 2010 by Robert Rector

Abstract: Child poverty is an ongoing national concern, but few are aware that its principal cause is the absence of married fathers in the home. Marriage remains America’s strongest anti-poverty weapon, yet it continues to decline. As husbands disappear from the home, poverty and welfare dependence will increase, and children and parents will suffer as a result.

The rationale for pushing fatherhood through the child support system is that these engaged fathers will then contribute child support to the home, which would then help reduce poverty. Seems to me that using kids as child-support bait is not a good idea. Seems to me that anything that requires THIS MUCH POLICY PUSHING (and rhetoric-production) IS NOT COST-EFFECTIVE FOR KIDS.

Has anyone considered the custody-battle factor? When Moms go for child support, Dads go for custody and have federal help in this. Perhaps PART of the poverty factor is that both parents are being taken out of the workforce to litigate, but only one of them is getting the federal government on HIS side in the family law venue. Besides which child support contractors such as Maximus, Inc. (look ’em up!) have been caught in embezzlement, fraud (repeatedly, and in the millions) yet still get multi-million-dollar contracts after paying millions to settle. I personally think that until we either make a determination to root out fraud from this system — which would have to be consistent, local, diligent, and probably done by mothers and fathers NOT in think-tanks or on the federal (county, or state) “teat,” — we can safely assume that this is where a good deal of the nation’s wealth and GDP is going. Everyone gets a cut but the actual children….

Look at Maximus, Inc.’s range of services:

Look at one review of this group in TN, and the cases, to date, involving embezzlement & fraud:

Thursday, May 28. 2009

Maximus signs $49M Tennessee child support deal

Your private information may have just gotten more vulnerable in state of Tennessee. In a deal that is qualified as the largest state privatization deal up to this point has been awarded to “Government Health Services Provider Maximus, Inc.” to provide services that the state is paid to provide to its residents under a federally mandated social security program known as Title IV-D. (42 USC 651). The contract details, we are working on, but Maximus, Inc. will be doing the government’s job in locating absent parents, establishing paternity, carrying out support orders and medical support orders, processing interstate cases, and providing customer service. This comes as a surprise because just last month there was a Former Child Support Services Employee Arrested in Tennessee for selling confidential records.

I am in the process of obtaining the government’s documents associated with these contracts, stay tuned for more information. We have some legitimate fears of access to citizen’s private data that have not been found guilty of any crimes being placed in unregulated databases that are accessible by unsavory characters that aim to make a profit with identity theft.
Over the past several years we have noticed a climate ripe for embezzlement, identity theft, invasion of privacy, and more. Just this year the Federal government removed some protections to the taxpayer to stop the continuous growth of these agencies. The reversal of the tax payer protection policy that was originally implemented under the Budget Deficity Reduction Act of 2005, paves the way for more disastrous consquences for taxpayers.

Just in June 2008, Delaware Child Support Program Employees were caught stealing from taxpayers and the children. Just over a year ago, we demonstrated how Theft was Running Rampid in State Child Support Programs. The widespread lack of accountability in these programs continues, without sufficiently limiting access to private data and ensuring digital fingerprints are placed on all data in the various systems nationwide, there will continue to be fraud on the taxpayers and the participants of Child Support Enforcement programs.

The Child Support Enforcement program continues to be plagued over the past several years of documented fraud, identity theft, embezzlement, bribery schemes, and more.

Here’s a report from Canada complaining that this giant company has already run into problems in 5 US states:

B.C. Contractor Maximus Mishandled Public Funds in U.S.

Liberals, as part of privatizing push, gave a $324 million contract to a firm with a history of controversy in five states. A TYEE SPECIAL REPORT

By Scott Deveau, 3 Dec 2004, TheTyee.ca

In its move to privatize PharmaCare and the Medical Service Plan, the provincial (CANADIAN) government hired a company that was found by the state of Wisconsin to have misappropriated public funds.

The same company, Virginia-based Maximus Ltd., has been embroiled in controversies in four other states, involving accusations of mismanagement, overspending or improperly receiving information while seeking a contract. … …

U.S.-based giant

The company, which is one of the largest providers of outsourced business and information technology to governments, has 280 offices in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and more than 5,000 employees worldwide. It provides a range of services from welfare, educational and judicial programs, to debt collection agencies on student loans and child support.

Bill Berkowitz tracks a lot of conservative funding, and wrote a famous article nailing Bush’s payoffs to certain individuals pushing marriage promotion (Wade Horn, Maggie Gallagher, etc.). This 2001 report Prospecting Among the Poor: Welfare Privatization (co. May, 2001, Applied Research Center) summarizes the situation and deals with the Maximus, Inc. group, first, including its troubling practices in Wisconsin:

Discriminatory Practices

The Milwaukee Business Journal reports that, on top of the company’s financial shenanigans, “16 formal gender or racial discrimination complaints have been filed with the Milwaukee office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, against Maximus or one of its subsidiaries. In addition…as many as a dozen internal grievances were filed with the company’s human resources office related to unfair promotion practices.”34

Linda Garcia is an organizer with 9to5, a national nonprofit grassroots organization working to empower women through securing economic justice. Garcia has observed the activities of Maximus first-hand from the front lines in Milwaukee. “The public has not been served well by privatization, “ she says. “The standards of accountability and monitoring have been practically non-existent. We’re not seeing decent services provided to the community or a decrease in poverty or homelessness.” Garcia, who has been working on behalf of the women involved in the discrimination suit against Maximus, believes discriminatory practices “may be widespread” at Maximus’ MaxStaff entity, which seems to be “funneling women to low-paying jobs in order to quickly receive the bonus staff gets for placements.”35

2001 Prospecting Among the Poor- Welfare Privatization~ Berkowitz

The bonus principle cited here exists in virtually any custody battle; in court cases easily become the “kickback” principle, opportunities to overcharge or double-bill, and opportunities to “buy” a decision, especially as the family law system is known for wide discretion given to judges.

In the Access and Visitation grants (and the expanding other grant systems they attract or work alongside, through the child support agency, as in Texas), the presence of (poorly-monitored) federal incentives, multiple nonprofit sub-grantees, and program facilitators with connections to the courts, makes an atmosphere ripe for case-steering when the stakes are, children and child support.

So I recommend scanning this report and considering its implications. I’m glad that people like Mr. Berkowitz have reported on events that took place while I, and other families, were struggling with their individual cases, and also to survive in their own households. Excerpts:

INTRODUCTION

Even before the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 was signed, sealed, and delivered to the states, the conservative Reason Foundation’s William Eggers and John O’Leary had lauded “aggressive” privatization initiatives in New York, California, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Georgia.

New York Governor George Pataki, chair of the Privatization Task Force of the Republican Governors Association, had argued at a meeting of governors that it was time for the immediate repeal of federal barriers to privatization at the state and local levels:

…

The privatization of welfare was a triumph for many Republican as well as some Democratic governors, and for conservative national and state legislators.

Policy analysts at right-wing think tanks and policy institutes were also elated. In a 1997 speech, Lawrence W. Reed, President of the conservative Midland, Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, touted privatization as the wave of the future:

….

Bernard Picchi, growth stocks analyst for Lehman Brothers, estimated that the potential market (for welfare privatization) could easily be more than $20 billion a year. Others placed the target figure as high as $28 billion, more than 10% of the national expenditure on welfare recipients.15

…CHARITABLE CHOICE:

In addition to unleashing predatory corporate forces, the Personal Responsibility and Work Reconciliation Act of 1996 contains the first enactment of a concept conservatives call “charitable choice.” Far from expanding anyone’s choices, “charitable choice” forces state and local governments to include religious organizations in their pool of bidders for service-delivery contracts.

Cathlin Siobhan Baker, Co-Director of The Employment Project, explains although religious organizations have received government funding over the years for emergency food programs, childcare, youth programs, and the like, they were expressly prohibited from religious proselytizing. Baker writes: “Gone are the prohibitions regarding government funding of pervasively sectarian organizations. Churches and other religious congregations that provide welfare services on behalf of the government can display religious symbols, use religious language, and use religious criteria in hiring and firing employees.”50

…

On January 29, [2001] amidst great fanfare and surrounded by Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders, President George W. Bush signed an executive order cre- ating a new White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. As governor of Texas, Bush has been a strong advocate for charitable choice, supporting the notion that faith-based organizations take over a large part of the provision of a broad array of government services. One of the things the new White House Office will do is help religious groups compete for billions of dollars in government grants.

During the presidential campaign, Bush called for “armies of compassion” fielded by “faith-based organizations, charities and community groups” to help aid America’s poor and needy. In an opinion piece for USA Today, Bush laid out his plan for taking “the next bold step in welfare reform,” proposing $80 billion over 10 years so that faith-based organizations can become “our nation’s most heroic armies of compassion.” He also proposed a $200 million federal initiative to “sup-port community and faith-based groups that fortify marriage and champion the role of fathers.”51 The ceremony at the White House was only Bush’s first step toward fulfilling his campaign promises.

Right-wing ideologues find charitable choice attractive because it not only reduces government involvement in service-delivery but also injects their religious and “moral framework” into the welfare debate. Welfare is no longer a question of poverty or the economic inequities in our society; the debate is framed within such time-honored right-wing moral premises as an epidemic of out-of-wedlock births and the lack of personal responsibility – behaviors that conservatives believe contribute to the general moral breakdown of our society.

Not only has the web changed the workplace, it has most certainly also changed government. However the policies forced on the poorer population are geared to the industrial economy, a 9 to 5 mentality, a public education mentality, a faith-based mentality.

The welfare concept eliminates and discourages single parents from supporting themselves in creative ways (including through this internet). Its assumption that poverty has to do mostly with fatherlessness is nonsensical, and dishonest — when many times it may relate instead to a present, and abusive, father. Failing to distinguish one case from another, and listening primarily to their own rhetoric, social scientists in key positions + political appointees force basic “solutions” on the entire society, and stick society with the bill as well. It is basically taxation without representation.

The only people escaping this taxation without representation are those profiting from it — who run or own nonprofit businesses, have or benefit from private foundations or wealth — or in some other way have learned to maximize profits, reduce expenses, and make their expenses, including conferences on how to keep the systems going, tax deductions.

These people are not uniformly two-parent income, or even stable-marriage families. Heck, some (including Presidents & legislators) are not even faithful to their own wives. So how dare they preach to the rest of us, who are not quite so wealthy, or don’t have backing to get into political office, on our morals and work ethic?

In the “Payments to States for Child Support Enforcement and Family Support Programs” (links above), on page “271” there is an Appropriations History Table, from 2002 through 2009. Its simple, (two-column) and speaks volumes. The costs range from $2+ billion to $4+ billion, and always with an advance of $1billion or so. ALWAYS the appropriation is higher than budget.

The Philanthropist Roundtable (Reviving Marriage in America, link above) lists these benefits to Marriage. Are you in agreement with all of them? If not, do you want your IRS payments to go towards pushing marriage education, (let alone abstinence education for parents), do you want families EXTORTED into high-stakes custody litigation through the child support system, do you really believe that we should have such foundations running our lives through major institutions?

If not, take some time to read the links I’ve provided here, which prompted this piecemeal protest post. Really these are TAX issues. Perhaps more of us should focus on establishing foundations and stop working W-2 jobs;; there has to be a better way. Anyhow, rich conservative foundations declare:

The Benefits of Marriage

Benefits for Adults

1. Married men and women have lower mortality rates and tend to have better overall health than their single counterparts.

2. Married couples tend to have more material resources, less stress and better social support than people who are not married.

3. Married men are less likely to abuse alcohol.***

[[potential cause of divorce — wife gets tired of living with a chronic alcoholic. Hence, those who stay married might indeed drink less…]]

4. Both married men and women report significantly lower levels of depression and have better overall psychological well-being than

their single, divorced, widowed and cohabitating counterparts.**

[[Exceptions: marriages with abuse, or chronic infidelity. Which definitely is depressing and affects psychological well-being!]]

5. Married African-Americans have better life satisfaction than those who are single.

[[! ! ! How are these people checking out African-American’s “life satisfaction” quotient? Apparently, it’s important not to have too many angry, dissatisfied African-Americans around. After all, the prisons are already overcrowded, and with US already the largest per-capita jailor on earth, what’s a ruling elite to do if the anger spills over?]]

6. Married men report higher wages than single men and have been found to be more productive and more likely to be promoted.

[[So women should marry and stay married to encourage men to work. Single working parents, single nonparents should also contribute to the federal marriage movement, because without marriage, men are simply not as motivated to work. Potential cause — the wife at home is supporting the guy, or the wife at WORK is supporting the guy. What about married mother’s wages or likelihood of promotion? Knowing the high potential for divorce, women should (sure, yeah….) most definitely go for marriage, because it’s good overall for the nation, even if they sacrifice their financial futures post-marriage, ending up eventually on welfare, in court, and fighting for custody of their children with a federally-funded fatherhood mandate run through the child support system?]]

7. Married women tend to have substantially more economic resources than single women. The economic benefits of marriage are especially strong for women who come from disadvantaged families.

[[I really wonder where this statistic comes from… There are obviously exceptions, some of them in abusive religious marriages, some where, at times, a woman was sought from another country to make some babies for a US resident.]]

Benefits for Children

1. Children from families with married parents are less likely to experience poverty than children from single-parent or cohabitating families.

2. Children born to cohabitating couples have a higher chance of experiencing family instability, a factor that has been linked to poor child well-being.

3. Children from married, two-parent families tend to do better in school than those who grow up in single-parent or alternative family structures.

4. Children from intact, two-parent families are less likely to experience emotional-behavioral problems.

5. The more time children live in a married, two-parent home, the less likely they are to use drugs.

6. Children who grow up in a married, two-parent family are less likely to have children out of wedlock in their future relationships.

7. Women with married parents are less likely to experience a high-conflict marriage.

8. Single mothers report more conflict with their children than married mothers.

[**depending on date of this report, one factor may be this agenda being run through the family law system to start with — as it has been since 1996 at least, which guarantees ongoing court litigation where one parent wants to struggle, and the case was flagged for program funding to help ONE side do this.]

9. The rate of infant mortality is lower among married parents.

10. Children living with their married, biological parents are less likely to experience child abuse.**

[[see note on married men drink less. Child abuse by either parent is a deal-breaker for most marriages. And, what about also the ongoing situations where the child experiences abuse on visitations with the noncustodial parent — such cases would fall under “not living with their married biological parents” — but who is the perpetrator? If someone is willing to abuse a child initially, whether married or single, would life be better if such parents were together, and the abuser had daily access?? This statements imply doesn’t handle many situations.]]

What this entire report fails to address is that domestic violence can turn lethal within marriage, or leaving a marriage.
Moreover, an on-line “find” (search) in this report of the word “father” (which covers fathers, fatherhood, fathering etc.) shows 23 occurrences. The corresponding search on “mother,” only 7. That’s imbalanced, and typical of certain sites sponsored by conservative foundations.

A token reference to the fact that for some, marriage has problems occurs here, in context of the tail end of an inset about marriage education movement. Notice, no mention is made that some marriages result in death by femicide. This is virtual denial…..

“Feminist leaders at the time emphasized the dark side of marriage for women whose husbands refused to be equal partners to their working wives and women trapped in abusive relationships. {{note order: not equal partners, and just a token, vague reference to “abusive” which is then dropped. Completely:…}}

The mainline Christian churches emphasized pastoral sensitivity to divorced people and single parents, which seemed inconsistent with proclaiming the unique value of life- long marriage. {{meaning, to be consistent, churches who believe in lifelong marriage should be harsh to divorced people and single parents? which harshness of course would be inconsistent with the gospel record of their hero, Jesus’, sensitivity, including to a woman caught in adultery, a poor widow, a woman with an issue of blood, and so forth…}}

The conservative Christian churches still preached about life- long marriage but were not organizing programs for couples to help them achieve such relationships.”

OK, so the Bradley Foundation acknowledges there are churches with thoughts about divorce. But ….

Do we or do we not have other religions in this country? (But none mentioned here?). How about Islam — what about Shari’a? Does marriage promotion apply here also? Because the Muslim and the Christian/Jewish (let alone agnostic/atheist) concepts of marriage are radically different from each other. Should the US move towards the Shari’a model because marriage is “good” for a nation? How could any discussion of this topic among conservative foundations just “forget” other major world religions, let alone that First Amendment is intended to protect religious choice — not push one variety of it on all of us through governmental institutions.!

Nonie Darwish at Temple University (April 2011) — these are Youtubes of a presentation, and a following Q&A. I haven’t viewed them (fresh off a Google search to you), but have read at least one of her books:

Nonie Darwish: Shari’a Law & America at Temple University

Q&A to the above presentation

This is another reason why the US should NOT allow religious groups to be grabbing federal funds to collect child support and promote fatherhood. What if the group favors shari’a law, which goes like this:

Shari’a, that is Muslim law, controls the private as well as the public life of the woman.

In the Western World (including America ) Muslim men are starting to demand Shari’a Law under which wives can not obtain a divorce and men have full and complete control of their children. It is amazing and alarming how many of our sisters and daughters attending American Universities and other parts of the Western world are now marrying Muslim men and submitting themselves and their children unsuspectingly to the Shari’a law.

By publicizing the information below, I hope to help enlightened American and other women avoid becoming slaves under Shari’a Law:
1. In the Muslim faith, a Muslim man can marry a child as young as 1 year old, consummating the marriage by 9.
2. A dowry is given to the family in exchange for the woman who becomes a slave.
3. Even though a woman is abused she cannot obtain a divorce.
4. To prove rape, a woman must have four male witnesses.
5. Often after a woman has been raped, she is returned to her family and the family must return the dowry. The family has the right to execute her (an honor killing) to restore the honor of the family.
6. Husbands can beat their wives ‘at will’ and do not have to say why the beating occurred.
7. A husband is permitted to have 4 wives and a temporary wife for a limited period at his discretion.

The goal of radical Islamists is to impose Shari’a law on the world, ripping Western law and liberty in two. If that happens, Western civilization will be destroyed. Westerners generally assume all religions encourage a respect for the dignity of each individual. Islamic law (Shari’a) teaches that non-Muslims should be subjugated or killed in this world.

Peace and prosperity for one’s children is not as important as assuring that Islamic law rules everywhere in the Middle East and eventually in the world.

While Westerners tend to think that all religions encourage some form of the golden rule, Sharia teaches two systems of ethics – one for Muslims and another for non-Muslims. Building on tribal practices of the seventh century, Sharia encourages the side of humanity that wants to take from and subjugate others..

While Westerners tend to think in terms of religious people developing a personal understanding of and relationship with G-d, Shari’a advocates executing people who ask difficult questions that could be interpreted as criticism.

This woman should know — and has earned the right to speak on it. The blurb:

“Darwish was born in Cairo and spent her childhood in Egypt and Gaza before immigrating to America in 1978, when she was eight years old. Her father died while leading covert attacks on Israel. He was a high-ranking Egyptian military officer stationed with his family in Gaza. When he died, he was considered a “shahid,” a martyr for jihad. His posthumous status earned Nonie and her family an elevated position in Muslim society. But Darwish developed a skeptical eye at an early age. She questioned her own Muslim culture and upbringing and later abandoned Islam.” (For Christianity, incidentally).

What about a woman who has escaped a violent marriage, and may wish to partake, for once, in a better one — but because of the family law system, is doomed to struggling with custody until all kids turn 18? Should she suffer, should the next potential partner suffer alongside, because some people believe that the problem with this country is out-of-wedlock fertility, unhappy AFrican American couples (read the list!) and of course the cause of child abuse and poverty is fatherlessness – not failure to prosecute child abusers properly, or economic policies that exploit wage-earners and outsource child support collections to corporations like Maximus, Inc., famous for fraud, gender discrimination, embezzlement, and poor performance?

We do not need cults (Unification Church), Crooks, or Misogynist Faith Institutions running the child support system as if there was a war on fatherhood by virtue of women having gained some options in the mid to late 1900s, including to vote, and an uphill fight that was.

We do not need another caste system — or royalty — created through welfare policies based on myths, which then undermine the primary documents on which our country has been founded by trying to tip the court favor towards fathers based on a job-based workforce system and inferior educational system.

As Berkowitz wrote in 2001 (above), Welfare Privatization is a cash cow, a big one, and Charitable Choice may fall hard on women overall, given how many religious groups already do. Those in the (expanding) bureaucracy get to inhabit lofty positions writing about the poor while those poor often live lives at risk from their partners, their neighborhoods, and the myth that the legal system exists for them — and not for those running it.

OCSE – TANF – FATHERHOOD PROMOTION, MARRIAGE PROMOTION — PRIVATE CONTRACTORS CAUGHT IN EMBEZZLEMENT AND FRAUD — GOP PRESIDENTIAL CONNECTIONS WITH INTERNATIONAL MONEY-LAUNDERING, CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE (the Unification Church) & CULT — and PRIVATE WEALTH (whether honestly or dishonestly gotten) RUNNING AND RESTRUCTURING GOVERNMENT, HIGHER EDUCATION, LOWER (EARLY CHILDHOOD) EDUCATION, AND SO ON.

Let’s begin with this Eliminating this Child Support System — which garnishes wages and has the power to put a man or a woman in jail, or homeless, if they don’t pay up, farms out collections to companies known for gender, race discrimination, fraud, embezzlement, and poor performances (Maximus), selling private information and in general tearing up the lives of innocent people (but still getting multi-illion$ contracts). While its federal fatherhood focus is indeed sexist, it is also equipped to turn on EITHER gender, depending on the case, and get away with it. Which, while the original concept was — child support — the “evolution” of it is becoming more and more like an episode of “Aliens” only more frightening.

Which is just too big and too entrenched.

Sounds like a good idea, on the surface: I briefly took welfare (food stamps) and the county went for the father to pay themselves back. They could be the “bad guy” in the situation, protecting me. But in practice, I see, they’ve had a makeover, and are more interested in being the nice guy (and enrolling men in fatherhood programs, access visitation programs, etc.).

I thought it was a great transitional idea immediately after marriage to have someone besides myself (for a change) asking the father of my children to pull his own weight, like I was, and to do so without in-home assault & battery privileges. We got a child support order when I got welfare help (rather than ask him for help myself). Not having the operational structure laid out in front of me, I thought that my getting OFF the system would be the end of the story, and they could go their way, and I mine, end of acquaintance. What did I know about the federal incentives, or how the interest income — of pooled, undistributed collections — was a real low-hanging fruit for the operation, and by withdrawing

Not so, not with all these grant programs and federal incentives flying around the place; not when within my own state, the same jurisdiction that basically spawned the family law industry was caught with its pants down, sitting on millions of collected child support (and its interest) until one father and one attorney caught them at this (John Silva, Richard Fine).

SO, LET’s ELIMINATE — OR AT LEAST BOYCOTT — THE ENTIRE AGENCY. HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS NOT NEED CHILD SUPPORT. KNOW WHAT IT MEANS IN ADVANCE. WARN MOTHERS LEAVING VIOLENT RELATIONSHIPS. AND TELL YOUR LOCAL LEGISLATOR (FIND OUT IN ADVANCE IF HE OR SHE IS ON A “NATIONAL FATHERHOOD INITIATIVE” LEGISLATIVE TASK FORCE — MANY ARE…) THAT ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! If a program takes over $4 BILLION just to enforce, and is still resulting in increased welfare loads, is not well-tracked, and has already been caught in repeated scandals — then it’s simply not worth the investment.

Mothers of minor children can only do so much, but one thing we can do is boycott (boycott seeking child support if you can. Or marriage — or sex (believe me, it’s been discussed in some groups I know) — or the family law system. You might get dragged in, but don’t go voluntarily — and publicize — put the warning labels out on blogs — they won’t reach mainstream media — and encourage them to find another way to live; there has to be one.

Decent Single Mothers AND Decent single Fathers AND decent non-parents (single or married) should figure out what we have in common, start asking hard questions about this OCSE agency and how it spends its funds. Meanwhile, we should work TOGETHER (unilaterally) to boycott it until it gets the message we are serious.

Most will not, or cannot, because their lives are already so entwined in and dependent upon this system, whether for work, for their kids’ school, or they are simply already employed by the huge bureaucracy. Or, their free time weekends is soaked up volunteering at the local faith-based organization…

FOUNDATIONS AND WELFARE POLICY:

Foundation after Foundation are writing the policy, through government institutions…. When one considers what foundations are, to start with, tax-exempt, one wonders about the arrangement. The Lynde and Larry Bradley Foundation (who published the “Marriage Guidebook — strategy for donors” I linked to, above) also is sponsoring another welfare think-tank in Wisconsin, with the “same old” players included that re-wrote welfare to include more Dads. Hmm. Wasn’t Wisconsin having LOTS of fiscal/political problems recently?

During the conference, an eclectic group of national thinkers will address the intersection between welfare policy and issues such as: parental involvement, especially fatherhood; {{now WHY doesn’t that surprise me?}} child well-being; marriage and divorce; family living arrangements; and non-marital sex, pregnancy, and child birth. Attendees will gain a better understanding of what the state of Wisconsin — and the nation as a whole — can (and can’t) do to build a welfare policy that has strong, stable families at its center.

The discussions will be moderated by former White House and Congressional welfare-policy advisor Ron Haskins of theBrookings Institution in Washington, D.C. The luncheon speaker will beWade F. Horn, a former Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in Milwaukee substantially supports WPRI.

This is hardly an “eclectic” group. Where are the feminists, where are the representatives from people affected by these policies? Where are the atheists who believe in separation of church and state? However the phrase “group of national thinker” (what is a “national thinker”? someone who wants to run the nation???) reminds me of the National Fatherhood Initiative self-description as having been founded by a “few prominent thinkers” (egotism, much?)…..

Presenters:

RON HASKINS — INSTRUMENTAL IN TACKING THE “ACCESS AND VISITATION” LANGUAGE ONTO WELFARE REFORM AT THE 9TH HOUR…

WADE HORN — CONFLICTS OF INTEREST (PRIVATE NONPROFIT WITH HHS)

ALSO GOING TO BE PRESENTING: DAVID BLANKENHORN:

“David Blankenhorn is founder and president of the Institute for American Values, a nonpartisan organization devoted to strengthening families and civil society in the U.S. and around the world. Blankenhorn is the author of several books, is a frequent lecturer, and has been featured on numerous national television programs.”

{{another Bush appointee, per Wikipedia: “In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed Blankenhorn to serve on the National Commission on America’s Urban Families.^[4]^[2]^[5] Blankenhorn helped to found the National Fatherhood Initiative, a nonpartisan organization focused on responsible fatherhood, in 1994.“}} Blankenhorn is anti-gay, but not anti-polygamy, it seems……

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

May 16, 2011 at 7:43 PM

Posted in Business Enterprise, Designer Families, Funding Fathers - literally, OCSE - Child Support, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids

Tagged with Access-Visitation, Beware, Bill Berkowitz, Boycott, Bradley Foundation, Bush-Moonie connection, Child Molestation, Clean up, Declaration of Independence/Bill of Rights, Due process, DV, fatherhood, Feminists, Hazards of Charitable Choice, Healthy Marriage perks for Healthy Marriage promoters, Institute for Democracy Studies (IDS), Maximus Inc., Michael Hayes, Motherhood, Nonie Darwish, OCSE, OCSE -- boycott? Shut down? Eliminate? Beware!, OFCBI Office of Community and Faith-Based Initiatives, Privatization of Welfare, Ron Haskins, Shari'a law, social commentary, Social Issues from Religious Viewpoints, Social Science v Rights, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work.., Wade Horn

All the World’s a Stage. Or, is it Classroom? Or, is it Human Laboratory?

with 2 comments

Well, it depends on the point of view. In yesterday’s obnoxiously long post, I ran across the phrase “Recalcitrant parents” being used in Kids’ Turn propaganda. The word “recalcitrant” is generally applied to the word “child” —

A Sampler of Timeless “Wisdom” across the centuries:

“All the World’s A Stage” … the bottom line is…

1600s, roughly:

William Shakespeare – All the world’s a stage (from As You Like It 2/7)

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Whatever you may think of that phrase, it’s full of metaphors, and takes a few minutes to chew on them, translate into perhaps common terms (what is he referring to, in other words?) and you come out with a perspective on life pretty close to “from dust to dust.” Shakespeare’s seven stages of man go from infant to infant: A child “mewling and puking in its nurses’ arms…” and towards the very end, like the last scene, “sans (without) teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.” There is a real truth to this, and perspective — Life has stages, beginning, and end. Noting this, with elegance, puts man — meaning ALL of us — humbly in place; all have exits and entrances, and all go to the same final stage — helpless, like a child…

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound.

At least it makes you think!

The World is a stage, and a sense of perspective says there are different acts, AND bottom line, the play is over, it has an exit, no matter how poorly or well we played our parts. He pokes fun at the sixth stage, a Justice — “full of wise saws (sayings)…”. He’s going to slip into high-pitched voice, no teeth, and that impressive presence is going to turn back into a helpless infancy on the way out…

Shakespeare’s speech finds something to mock in every stage — appropriately, because,

the bottom line is… there will be an exit.

Hundreds of Years BC (or, to be Politically Correct, “BCE”):

Solomon (book of Ecclesiastes, “the Preacher”)

Vanity of Vanity, all is Vanities — the bottom line is …

From Ecclesiastes 12 (last chapter)–

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; 2While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: 3In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,4And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;

Basically, he’s describing that seventh stage of life, in a very picturesque way, rich in symbolism.

5Alsowhen they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets: 6Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

7Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it. 8 Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity.

And he gently mocks the endless writings….

. . .of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

To be condensed into:

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. 14For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Again, the bottom line is Fear God, because what you do, including what you tried to do in secret, is going to be judged (in the resurrection, is implied):

Remember thy Creator while young, and Fear God, keep his commandments. THere’s even a rationale provided: “for God shall bring every work into judgment, every secret, whether good, or whether evil.”

Even those who may not believe in that future judgment, or in terms such as “good” or “evil” (perhaps this is a sad loss in our society, to openly say we believe there is good and there is evil — as opposed to functional & dysfunctional, healthy and unhealthy (as defined by ……?) might be able to grasp some interest in the symbolism, the recommendation towards humility in life. Some of the phrasing, about Times and Seasons has made it into music, old and new… it’s simple enough to grasp the concept….

“Simple Pictures are Best!”

The basic commandments cited were about ten only (one for each finger, in intact humans), not too many to count…and they too had a condensed internal order to them that refer to ethical behavior and not putting onesself first as “God” in worship, or in relationships. Most of these have some direct parallel in law today — i.e., thou shalt not bear false witness ( slander, libel, perjury), though shalt not steal (self-explanatory!), thou shalt not commit murder (homicide), and a few most have tossed since — honor the sabbath, honor mother and father, don’t commit adultery (definitely tossed by the wayside), and stop coveting all your neighbor’s stuff.

How about just TWO concepts?

Anyhow, moving on… Jesus, in the gospels, further simplified those 10 down into just 2: Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. Hard to remember? No. Hard to do? Yes. But one need not Ph.D- it (pile it higher deeper) (Ph.D.) to practice, or sit at the feet of one to practice these, either. It relates to choice, determination, and will — not education only..

Even atheist George Carlin (search my site — believe I linked to this YouTube) was able to boil those 10 down to 2 also, and with some humor. Most normal people could figure these out. It takes a special mindset NOT to….

Fast forward to somewhere between 30 and 70 A.D. excuse me, politically more correct, “CE”). This — still in Shakespearean English (but in any language — Greek, Hebrew — the elegance of language still holds)

Or, OK, THREE main concepts…

Things go better with “Love” (Charity) — without them, it’s just all show and noise”

The apostle Paul, to some Gentiles with significant “relationship” problems, including even incest, strife, and divided loyalties, ignorance, and (this addresses), the omnipresent hyperinflated EGO…

<< 1 Corinthians 13 >>
King James Version

1Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 2And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

There is a difference between doling out tons of charity, and living with this love and concern for others’ well-being. They are not the same things, and sometimes people sitting atop and running charitable foundations can be real pompous and arrogant. I can think of few things more arrogant than the attempt to train the entire U.S. population (at its own expense) in concepts like “fatherhood” or “abstinence” and so forth…. let alone “healthy relationships.” Sorry, but that’s ARROGANT! Congresspeople that voted for this are not likely monogamous, uniformly faithful to their own wives (and/or husbands — though its the male indiscretions we hear most about), or even all straight. The intent is to legislate this for the common folk — not the upper echelon or the policymakers.

Bear with the Bible stuff, please…

I wouldn’t be exposing readers to all this scripture without a point, be patient please. To recall: all the world’s a stage, in the bottom line, all is vanity — you’re going to die, one way or another/strength will fade; constant writing of books is weariness of the flesh, and MOST wisdom can be condensed down in to a very few basics — whether 2 items (Fear God & Keep his Commandments), 2 OTHER items (Love God with all you got AND your neighbor as yourself), or here, we are going to have THREE items, and ranked as to which one ranks the highest:

12For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 13And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of theseis charity.

This world view values humility, and realizes that changes happen — that we are NOT know-it-alls or perfect. So, until then, recognize this, and focus on the three most important qualities:

Faith
Hope
Charity

The first two relate specifically to the religion — faith in Jesus Christ, hope in the return, and future judgment of good & evil, and that we are on the right side of that judgment, and recognition that, like it or not, a lot of secret things will exist till then. ALl will come out in the wash. Faith and Hope relate SPECIFICALLY to where the individual will stand at that future judgment, and expects it to come.

I don’t take this (case in point, see blog!) to mean passivity in the face of evil, or lack of social justice efforts. But anyone who undertakes serious reporting of corruption, crime, or attempts to clean up institutions, or to live so clean one-self regarding all standards– will soon learn it’s a rough road (if a good one) and a risky one, and vast in nature. Without some kind of personalized hope, personalized faith in what one is doing, the sustained effort simply wouldn’t be worth the pain and drain!

People who have this faith and hope (whether in this religion, or other causes they actually are personally committed to) are hard to manipulate, sway, and intimidate — and threaten people to whom those practices are normal.

Among such groups are parents attempting to protect their children from abuse, and I have to say judging by the courts, that SOMETHING about the mother-child relationship must be quite threatening to the status quo — because it has been disrupted, intentionally and systematically, by judges, and “in the best interests of the child.” The real bottom line in the courts is, parents cannot decide for themselves, and must not be allowed to. they are infants, they are incompetent, they are “recalcitrant” some literature from Kids Turn said (last post….). They need to be taught…. ALL of them…..

We just passed the month of Valentine’s Day. That’s about romance. This is a deeper kind of action:

The Greatest of these is Charity.

It will abide beyond the Faith and Hope…

It is the deepest motivator.

the bottom line is… charity. And a healthy dose of humility — because now, we know in PART…

Now, I’d like to contrast the above sections with where we are now, in the permanently in need of education, training and I suppose, diapering?, population of the United States of America primarily from the Executive Branch, and again, at its own expense…

No more stages of humanity — for those teaching or for those taught. Of childhood and development, yeah sure – but once in the courts, immaturity for ever seems to be assured. THis is basic public policy (those doing the teaching and “training” excepted, of course). We have really sunk so low to a permanent, unchangeable state of needing to be taught and trained…. And this is reflected in the degraded, pompous, self-important language of the trainers, which bears no relationship to the timeless wisdom of the ages — Love God (i.e., YOu are not God..) Love your neighbor, work no ill to your neighbor, and keep things in perspective…life has stages, and consider how you spend them, because assuredly there is an exit.

Nope, no more of that. Instead we have “constructs” and “Initiatives” and “Explications”. We have ever-expanding “mental health” needs (probably because the society is so insane!….).

How about “Parenting Coordination”?

I’ll just pick a random AFCC conference agenda, or a random term, for a sampler:

All North America — well, at least (here) USA — and heck, let’s throw in Canada — needs PARENTING COORDINATION:

Parenting Coordination. The bottom line is. . we need parenting coordinators.

But someone has to Coordinate the “parenting” coordinators — so why not put together a task force to define practices in this new field defined (and created) by the court system itself…

This is from May, 2005

Guidelines for Parenting Coordination

Developed by The AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination May 2005

Scratch the surface (or look at the foundations — see my blog!) of almost any family court, or “domestic relations” court, or “Unified Family Court” system — and this AFCC organization will be there, and probably helping run it as well.

Just enjoy the elegance, catch the flavor, catch the drift…..

The Guidelines for Parenting Coordination (“Guidelines”) are the product of the interdisciplinary AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination (“Task Force”). First appointed in 2001 by Denise McColley, AFCC President 2001-02, the Task Force originally discussed creating model standards of practice. At that time, however, the Task Force agreed that the role was too new for a comprehensive set of standards.

The Task Force instead investigated the issues inherent in the new role and described the manner in which jurisdictions in the United States that have used parenting coordination resolved those issues. The report of the Task Force’s (2001-2003) two- year study was published in April of 2003 as “Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues.”1

The Task Force was reconstituted in 2003 by Hon. George Czutrin, AFCC President 2003-04. President Czutrin charged the Task Force with developing model standards of practice for parenting coordination for North America and named two Canadian members to the twelve-member task force. The Task Force continued investigating the use of the role in the United States and in Canada and drafted Model Standards for Parenting Coordination after much study, discussion and review of best practices in both the United States and Canada.

AFCC posted the Model Standards on its website, afccnet.org, and the TaskForce members also widely distributed them for comments. The Task Force received many thoughtful and articulate comments which were carefully considered in making substantive and editorial changes based upon the feedback that was received.

I was in the court system at this time. No one asked MY opinion…. Of course we weren’t the type of family that could afford the custody evaluation/parenting coordinator route. There are two tracks in the courts (surely you know this by now) — families with money to be drained out — they go for the custody evaluation route — and families WITHOUT money to be drained out — they go the mediator route, with the end goal of getting the minor children away fro BOTH parents and into the foster care system somehow. Alternately, someone in government could end up personally adopting children, or adolescents, if such is desired. (see my Wacko in Wisconsin series — an account is detailed, and the on-line docket supported the pattern the forlorn, probably bankrupt by now mother, described). Sometimes foster care kids get trafficked (Franklin County, NE coverup being a horrible example). Sometimes they run away and get picked up by other abusers, as has happened in the Northern California area at least once. So the No-MOney-to-extort segment of society, they are encouraged to fight in court, and then, any number of alternatives may result — but I do know in my case, when I said I was NOT going to call in CPS on a simple (but blatantly illegal) violation of a physical custody order, the local law enforcement stood by with their arms folded. I wasn’t going to, as a mother, produce some income for the county up front by abandoning my children, so “forget you!”

Track one — extort money from the parents by promoting litigation on frivolous issues, call in some parenting coordinators, custody evaluators, court-appointed attorneys, or in short almost anything court-associated. The medical equivalent would be something similar to dialysis — blood is drained out, recirculated at huge expense, and put back into the parent’s and children’s blood stream, a total sea change of relationships…

Track two — is “Give us your kids, or forget you”

Back to the sample of “literature” in the endless education field of the courts:

Even the name of this document was changed to “Guidelines for Parenting Coordination” to indicate the newness of the field of parenting coordination and the difficulty of coming to consensus in the United States and Canada on “standards” at this stage in the use of parenting coordination. The AFCC Board of Directors approved the Guidelines on May 21, 2005.

The members of the AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination (2003 – 2005) were: Christine A. Coates, M.Ed., J.D., Chairperson and Reporter; Linda Fieldstone, M.Ed., Secretary; Barbara Ann Bartlett, J.D., Robin M. Deutsch, Ph.D., Billie Lee Dunford-Jackson, J.D, Philip M. Epstein, Q.C. LSM, Barbara Fidler, Ph.D., C.Psych, Acc.FM. Jonathan Gould, Ph.D., Hon. William G. Jones, Joan Kelly, Ph.D., Matthew J. Sullivan, Ph.D., Robert N. Wistner, J.D.

1 See AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination, Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues, 41 Fam. Ct. Re. 533 (2003).

Joan Kelly, Ph.D. (not ‘J.D.”) appears to be one of the grand dames of the system – her name, and her work is “everywhere.” Then again, AFCC has great PR.

At the bottom of this post (under the line of ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ‘s) I’ll post a classic 2003 condensed summary of the interrelationships, still a good writing on this (Cindy Ross). The same intelligence is also found at NAFCJ.net (Liz Richards’) blog, which has been exploring these matters since 1993…

The key to the system is the “business and professions” model analysis. Where professional organizations, and certain professionals who conference, task force, promote certain legislation, etc., fit into this picture is that these ASSOCIATIONS (affiliated with certain professions – judges, mediators, psychiatrists, mental health services providers, and of course, now, parenting coordinators….) are going to, each and every time, try to drum up more business. Why not — the groups boast memberships with judges on them ,and have learned how to become “principal investigators’ or “program directors” in various funding streams, and then channel those streams one way or another — and parents who lack the skill to investigate and challenge this — are babes in the wood when it comes to the family court process. THey get lost there, too.

the bottom line apparently is, “NO exit from this system, at least in this life…”

The system expands — endlessly — and gets more and more pompous and arrogant in the positions, the languages, and the number task forces needed to change a light bulb. Experts fly to and fro across the country to collaborate with each other on the next (scam) (possible profession to establish from the messes created by the courts to start with!). …. Most parents are not alerted to the hyper-active flight schedule of their overlords…. or where they congregate.

What pithy language, what clear terms, what graphic real-life symbolism comes from this trade:

Overview and Definitions

Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.

And a little grammar fluke “assist parents . . . .. to implement their parenting plan” The correct usage is “assist parents . . IN implementing their parenting plan…

To review the wonderful terms, nouns, verbs, adjectives.

PARENTING COORDINATION IS a . . . . . . PROCESS.

….Wow, I’m gripped already…. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the plot.

What kind of process?

. . . . it is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process….

Wrong on both counts.

(1) It’s not focused on the children, it’s focused on the professionals, and drumming up more business for them. Decently written “parenting coordination plans” (what are we, cattle?? In need of personal assistants to write in dates and times of drop off, pick up?) would need extra help to implement.

(2) From what we are reading about the courts, the disputes don’t get resolved — but rather heightened and escalated until someone breaks, or someone else shuts down emotionally socially, etc.

…in which a mental health or legal professional ….

i.e., what AFCC is primarily composed of, and of course not any ordinary person. People outside the fields promoted and endorsed by this group NEED NOT APPLY. (i.e., an elite squad of only the truly informed…)

…with mediation training and experience…

Of course. The “mediation” promotion (also endless in this field) is CENTRAL to family courts and has already been identified as how to increase noncustodial parenting time. They have rules, but don’t follow them. Fact-finding on the parents is DISCOURAGED in some circumstance. Recently, an ETHICAL mediator was fired (for doing the right thing — actually reading where criminal records existed — unheard of almost, in this field) and won a case that her firing was discriminatory retaliation for, basically ,whistle-blowing.

This quote is from TODAY’s post, article by Peter Jamison, cover story on the SF Weekly.

{FYI: I have submitted 2 comments (under this name) on the site Rightsformothers.com which, if approved, may shed some more light on the article and what it does, and does not, cover.}}

Emily Gallup, a Stanford-educated mediator in the Nevada County Family Court, was fired after her supervisors criticized her for reviewing parents’ criminal histories when making her custody recommendations. In a March 2010 written reprimand of Gallup prepared by Court Executive Officer Sean Metroka, and obtained by SF Weekly, Metroka states that it was “unprofessional and unacceptable” for her to have requested a criminal history report in a recent case she was handling. “I admonished you not to take the role of a court investigator,” he wrote.

Research on parents is part of a mediator’s job, as it is for evaluators, minors’ counsels, and judges — no single court official is specifically designated as an “investigator.”

Hmm. I was told — to my face — by a court mediator that he could NOT even look at information I submitted which completely countered the story portrayed in court. It included handwritten notes from my daughters at a young age, and some photographs of them. But I was told that because it hadn’t been filed also with my ex (on the record) he couldn’t look at mine. THis didn’t go both ways — the information he himself had, submitted by my ex, I hadn’t received before the meeting. And I had ONE shot to state my case as to a multi-page, pre-fab, INDEXED parenting plan which I hadn’t seen in advance, to “come to an agreement” or take it back to court. My ex didn’t type at the time, and it clearly wasn’t his work. Moreover, once I (year or so later!) learned the rules of court for parenting plans involving domestic violence — this didn’t follow any of them. I suspect by then he’d already been contacted by a fatherhood-funded program attorney, who knew what to do — file for divorce and custody, and set up a parenting plan that didn’t state place, or exact times, and was GUARANTEED to produce a lot of debating and negotiating on these matters — and there was a restraining order on at the time….

I can see wisdom in the mediator NOT going beyond the court file– contrary to this article’s portrayal. How can a parent respond to invisible information he or she has not received or been served? It dilutes the legal due process.

Metroka says that Gallup went too far, conducting criminal background checks in cases where they weren’t relevant. “It’s easy to violate [parents’] due-process rights if you try to make more out of a case than is there when it’s presented to you,” Metroka says. “Emily’s position is that in every case a mediator should investigate and get every piece of evidence she can before the mediation.”

Just last month, Gallup prevailed in a grievance against the family court system over her dismissal. Arbitrator Christopher Burdick found that she “had reasonable cause to believe that Court’s Family Court Services department had violated or not complied with statutes and rules of court,” and ordered an audit of the court to investigate the claims in her grievance.

“They’re making these monumental decisions based on air,” Gallup says. “They think if you have too much information about a parent, that makes you biased. My contention is, if you have more information, that will make you less biased.”

Something doesn’t smell quite right about this situation. Perhaps Gallup is not aware, as some of us are, of the true purpose of mediation– which is to increase noncustodial parenting time, per federal grant, and allow the Secretary of the HHS to suggest (and get states to implement and evaluate) demonstrations on people that come through the courts, generating MORE revenue for those in courts employ, or at least in their entourage. She musta been a rookie….

For example, suppose — in a “mis”-guided (according to this mindset) attempt to comply with the state code, (I can’t speak to Nevada, but IF it has the rebuttable presumption against custody going to a batterer code) — she checked for a criminal background in domestic violence. This would compromise the mission of retaining federal funding and INCREASING custody to such people, and it would actually add some weight to a protective parent’s position.

OK continuing with this 2005 AFCC Coordinating the Parenting Coordinators whose job is to help IMPLEMENT an already- written coordination plan that parents are working with — people who do this must also:

Overview and Definitions

Parenting coordination is a child-focused alternative dispute resolution process in which a mental health or legal professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.

. . . assists high conflict parents to implement their parenting plan….

[pause to adjust to the “assist . . .. to” syntax error again. OK, I’m better now …I’ll go on…]

Any legal professionals ought to know that one way to encourage a parent to comply with a written plan incorporated into any court order is, if it becomes habitual, file a contempt and seek some kind of sanction for it through the courts, putting this IN the court record..

Let us remember again – parents that comply with well-written parenting plans don’t drive more business to the courts. This behavior should NOT be encouraged……

FIRST OF ALL both parents may not need assistance. ONe may be an asshole, simply decides not to comply, thereby causing problem for either custodial or noncustodial parent, who then gets frustrated. I suppose enough of that frustration, and disruption of the children’s schedules and lives and/or someone’s work, might cause the other parent to come into a state of “needing assistance” and circuitously justify saying BOTh “parents” need this help.

“HIGH-CONFLICT PARENTS” — How about someone — for god’s sake! — actually investigating what the conflict is about, i.e, analyzing it, putting that on the record, and fixing it through normal legal means, promptly? This incessant lumping of both parents into “high-conflict” when only one may have started and continued to cause it is wrong. It’s a lose-lose combination.

Any good parent has conflict with certain BEHAVIORS, one of which is called, failing to comply with court orders. Complying with court orders is a GOOD value to give children. IF the courts themselves cannot recognize this (because some organizations wish to perpetuate work for their members) then who will?

well, here’s some more decisive, to the point, and clear writing:

…by facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner, educating parents about children’s needs, and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.

….facilitating the resolution of their disputes in a timely manner…

[by creating a co-dependent behavior between the parenting coordinators and the parents, in total conflict the court’s own theory that any domestic violence (etc.) issues are just disputes and parents should WORK IT OUT THEMSELVES!]

[“facilitating dispute resolution in a timely manner” and involving more court personnel is an oxymoron. It’s a contradiction of terms! Add to this Task Forces that can’t write straight, and what a mess! Most family law cases I personally know lasted a minimum of five years, some, three -times that. These professionals are most likely WHY….]

…educating parents about children’s needs. .

AHA! We come to the juicy caramel center of what this is about — another opportunity for endless education, including Kids’ Turn -type agenda..

Why don’t these professionals content themselves with HAVING and RAISING their own children — grandchildren, if they need to — and thus be able to help form new characters etc. Or, are they the cast-offs from the public education system, which is constantly having “peripheral” positions cut, such as psychologists and counselors, librarians, and sports/arts/ etc. roles?

“…..and with prior approval of the parties and/or the court, . . .

“…OR the court?” Meaning, if the parties don’t approve beforehand, the COURT can make more “prior approval” decisions WITHOUT their approval or prior knowledge? (commonly called ex parte when it changes a court order, so I guess this one just means, sort of fine-tuning the terms of an existing one. If that. . . It shoulda been fine-tuned out the gate. ….

making decisions within the scope of the court order or appointment contract.

In other words, high-conflict parents (some of which conflict might be with poorly-written court orders, or inappropriate decisions to start with) should become co-dependent/passive and learn to let these people make their decisions instead. Also, if some highly legitimate causes of conflict exist (like someone threatened to abduct, or did) — then how nice to have already got a new profession in place in case some illiterate judge goes back to allowing shared parenting after custody-switch, etc. (Many mothers know that the “shared parenting” with an abuser escalates in conflict, and leads to various crises, and sometimes on calling on the courts (a mistake, probably) to resolve this . . a judge will switch custody. Thereafter, she may not see her kids again — PERIOD. Or, only for pay — and a high pay — such as supervised visitation for HER (because of potential “parental alienation..”). … And so on.

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(Apologies today — my hyperlink function on this computer is temporarily not functional — so I am pasting titles, not links, to material discussed….).

MORE FROM TEXAS AFCC, 2007, ON THIS SAME TOPIC:

Report of the Texas Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Taskforce on Parenting Coordination

(translation: two years later, still needing more task forces..)

Members

Jack Bannin, San Antonio, TX Carrie Beaird, Dallas, TX Mike Booth, Dallas, TX Mary Bullock, San Antonio, TX Deborah Cashen, Houston, TX Jeff Coen, Dallas, TX

Bradley Craig, Arlington, TX Deborah Higgs, Galveston, TX Sondra Kaplan, Houston, TX

Toni Jo Lindstrom, Texas City, TX Susan Marsh, Houston, TX Judith Miller, Houston, TX Leta Parks, Houston, TX

Aaron Robb, Keller, TX Christy Schmidt, Dallas, TX Dina Trevino, San Antonio, TX Robin Walton, San Antonio, TX

Compiled by Aaron Robb, Chapter President August 8, 2007

Read a bit of this and see how it’s clear they wish to limit WHO can be a parenting coordinator to affilliated professions…. and missed the legislative bandwagon that might have allowed such a professional restriction… This article cites the one above, summarizing the scenario like this:

The AFCC parent organization began examining the issue of parenting coordination early in this century, forming a Taskforce on Parenting Coordination composed of nationally known experts in this emerging field.

“Nationally Known Experts in this emerging field.” . That’s “rich.” why does this, somehow, remind me of The National Fatherhood Initiative’s self-description as having been started by a “few prominent thinkers” back in the 1990s? Maybe it’s just the tone, I can’t say for sure.

“this emerging field” — -give me a break! With time, one comes to understand that in some lips the words ’emerging field” actually means a field that they (themselves, or close associates) are personally developing and promoting — in part by naming task forces after it — and it didn’t “emerge” like grass, or buds at springtime, or chickens from eggs, except that it IS sure that the seed was planted long ago that the sky’s the limit on professions that can spring out of the family court high-conflict parenting theme….

Supervised Visitation “emerged” the same way, as did “Batterer Intervention Programs.” Neither has proven particularly effective, both require lots of conferences, task forces, publications, and nonprofits to actually DO the supervising and intervening. Also those last two terms are known compromises with the battered women’s movement which in late 80s/early 1990s was much more pushing for full separation of the women and children from the danger, whether in shelters, or through full-custody.

The initial Taskforce produced a report entitled Parenting Coordination Implementation Issues in August of 2003 outlining the various forms and formats of practice that fell under the general heading of “Parenting Coordination.” The task force was reconstituted in 2003 and continued its work, expanding to examine best practices in both the United States and Canada.1

In 2004, in anticipation of growing interest in parenting coordination services in the state, Texas AFCC conducted a formal survey of our members, examining basic issues of role clarity and role delineation. At the same time Texas AFCC was approached regarding input on legislation that was being drafted regarding parenting coordination for the 2005 legislative session.

(Probably by someone affiliated with a father’s rights program… or CRC, etc.)

Responses from AFCC members to the survey came [“amazingly” given what AFCC is basically comprised of] from a mix of legal and mental health professionals, however the actual legislation regarding parenting coordination failed to address many of the prevailing opinions noted in the survey.

Chief among these was a strong consensus (89%) that to be qualified as a parenting coordinator a practitioner should be a mental health professional. A majority (56%) also noted that a parenting coordinator should be trained as both a mediator and parent educator.

If this became law, then any HIGH-CONFLICT PARENTS with POORLY WRITTEN PLANS (or, one or more parents who refused to comply with them) ARE GUARANTEED TO HAVE A HIGH-PRICED MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL — OR ATTORNEY — WITH A MEDIATIOR (PROMOTE MORE ACCESS FOR NONCUSTODIAL PARENT) MINDSET, AND A PENCHANT FOR EDUCATING PARENTS.

I CANNOT THINK OF ANY FIELDS I WOULD LESS LIKE HAVING IN MY PERSONAL OR RELATIONSHIP LIVES. WOULD YOU? SUPPOSE ONE PARENT JUST DECIDES TO ABANDON THE KIDS ON WEEKENDS WHEN YOU MIGHT HAVE, FOR EXAMPLE, A SOCIAL LIFE OR DATE. OR HE MIGHT… CALL IN THE MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL AND SIT DOWN — BOTH OF YOU — FOR MORE LECTURES ON HOW TO BE A PARENT, LET ALONE AN ADULT WITH A COMMITMENT OF SOME SORT!

THIS IS WHAT THIS GROUP APPEARS TO WANT.

A substantial majority of members (74%) also indicated that they believed parenting coordination Services should be non-confidential to allow reporting back to the court.

THIS NEXT SECTION IF FUNNY, IF YOU THINK ABOUT IT:

The AFCC Board of Directors accepted the final report and Guidelines on May 21, 2005.

Unfortunately this direction from the parent organization came too late for our local group to effectively act on it. HB 252 (relating to the use of parenting plans and parenting coordinators in suits affecting the parent-child relationship) had been introduced in February 2005 and had been voted out of the House by April 2005. It was subsequently voted out of the Senate in May 2005 and sent to the governor just days after the parent organization’s years worth of work on this issue came to a close.

Sounds to me like the would-be coordinator coordinator’s task force, dreaming about expansion into Canada, wasn’t too coordinated — and didn’t pay attention (or process input from the local Texas AFCC group) in time for the parenting legislation to be voted on! They were behind the 8-ball.

And this is who is trying to restrict the profession to people like themselves!

Parenting coordination is a maturing field and nationally there are many different theoretical and practice models for services that fall under the broad heading of “parenting coordination.”

Keep your (God-damn) “practices” away from my kids, and me. If I have a broken leg, I’ll go somewhere around a medical practices. If a loose tooth (both of these factors which may occur around “high-conflict” marriages and/or divorces), a dentist. If I am short an academic degree, or wishing to enter a new field MYSELF, I will approach someone qualified in that PRACTICE and will myself engage, and PRACTICE that they are qualified to teach, forming a contract between me and that person which PROBABLY would be bound the contracts, (i.e., breaking it would be a “tort” and could be handled in CIVIL courtrooms, unlike “relationship” issues which land up in this morass of family law….)

But for the “crime” of having a relationship (marriage, or out-of-wedlock birth parent) that went sour — in other words, it wasn’t a great match, or something seriously deficient or wrong showed up — we are to be doomed FOREVER to being ordered into FAMILY COURT PRACTICE PROFESSIONS (“parents forever, right?”) by a group of people who can’t find something more useful to do with their lives, and which might require hard sciences or truly disciplined practice THEMSELVES….

Here it is — they want more “training.”

Increase education and training requirements for parenting coordinators to include basic and advanced family mediation experience as well as formal parenting coordination training for all parenting coordinators.

Commentary: Given that parenting coordination is now firmly codified as a hybrid ADR procedure it seems only logical that the state should require parenting coordinators to have family ADR training. Issues of positional vs. interest based negotiations and other mediation related issues are core to helping families progress past their disputes and adopt a healthier problem solving strategy. This is reflected in not only the AFCC Guidelines but the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Parenting Coordinator Taskforce Recommended Practice Guidelines for a Family Systems Model of Parenting Coordination within the Context of Texas Family Law report as well.

Can you do this? Read aloud the title (it’s ONE title) for another related to the courts organization (AMFT). Read it in one breath, without stop, and with a straight face. i dare you. Now picture how many more such taskforces are flying around the land, invisibly spreading bad grammar, creating emerging fields, and writing model practices for those fields, and of course setting up the entrance fees to get into them, through more training…..

Did you? Try again: The Texas association for marriage and family therapy parenting coordinator taskforce (break for the short-winded)… recommended practice guidelines for a family systems model (what other kind of models would there be for ‘parenting coordination’ Extra-familial systems model, like with the athletic department of junior’s afterschool needs, or there’s a budding gymnast in the high-conflict parenting family??) within the context of texas family law

Wow — brilliant. I myself was thinking of developing some practice guidelines that CONFLICTED with texas family law — that way, more business for the cognitive dissonance folk, mental health professionals.

They go on to note (apparently catching up with FL Attorney Liz Gates — who wrote this I bet much earlier in Therapeutic Jurisprudence )

Ethically dual roles are problematic (and highly restricted) for many professionals. {{they’re more than problematic, they create a conflict of interest….}}

Attorneys, therapists, and others who may have had a previous relationship with a family member bring history to the process that may undermine their effectiveness as a parenting coordinator. A parenting coordinator who goes on to serve in one of these other roles with a family may be seen in hindsight as self-serving, and compromises the integrity of the process.

That bird has flown the coop already. People know, parents know, they blog and write and complain on the nepotism, cronyism and backroom deals around the courts — with or without the new field of parenting coordinators.. Here’s a wise group in 2007 noticing that.. This problem is intrinsic to the family law profession, let alone an expansion in that profession..into uncharted territories where “need” is anticipated — probably because these people INCLUDE many judges who are able to order such things, if they choose to..

But, they want more training — naturally.

My friends, … about those court-ordered train the trainers trainings — I have to tell you something:

“Where the Wild Things Slush FundsAre.”

Looking for where the money went, or kickbacks tend to happen? Look no further — you got it!

From “NAFCJ: Fathers Rights and Conciliation Court Law’ (article by Cindy Ross of N. CA area):

When AFCC affiliates assist fathers get [in getting] custody and get [in getting] out of paying child support, they instigate frivolous litigation for their own financial gain. They take kickbacks and other improper payments to rig the outcomes of the cases. Judicial slush funds, such as the “hearts and flowers” fund exposed in Los Angeles Superior Court, are established using fees charged for child custody “training” seminars. [20]

Because Conciliation Court codes specify how funding is dispersed to the court itself, huge sums of money are diverted out of federal and state block grants by AFCC affiliates, in the guise of “amicable settlement of domestic and family controversies”. [15] (See Codes 1800-1852). The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) was founded in 1994, to “lead a society-wide movement to confront the problem of father absence”, i.e., to embed the fathers’ rights agenda into government policies and programs. [21]

This is such OLD news, but [far too] few women seem to be acting to do anything about I. I’ve heard of more men – such as the Richard Fine folk — who at least understand the process and strongly advocate against this. No mention of this was made in the SF Weekly Article above…. and at this late stage of the game, I’d have to say that this omission is suspect. People who work in and report on these fields KNOW the basic literature that’s out on it, it is no longer an unsolved mystery…

This is not kindergarten any more. See my Shady Shaky Foundations page, look at other sources, connect the dots, and don’t believe everything said in FRONT of the curtain. Become a Toto (Wizard of Oz) and bark, and keep on barking .

Maybe all the world IS a stage, but we need permission to “exit stage left” from this family court system, and as we are forced into the roles, it’s time to find out who wrote the screenplay, and who’s on the Lights, who’s pulling curtains where, and who is providing the cue cards…

To Be, or Not to Be, that is the question…”

A recent hit movie “The King’s Speech” shows how a man overcame a stutter because he had to be king in the time of radio — and when Hitler was threatening Europe and Great Britain. He didn’t want to be a public speaker, OR king — and as presented, he’d suffered some serious childhood abuse, emotional and physical (like not enough food) which probaby precipitated the stutter — but he stepped up to the plate once he fired the bad speech coaches (including the ones recommending smoking!) and got an off-ball, un-doctored Australian who actually knew how trauma works, and how to get past it. The relationship was STILL voluntary, even by a king, or future king — but once it was entered into, it became successful.

We are in times like that. I’d rather be doing something else, and investigative reporting is not my primary field, and smoking out slush funds is very disturbing. But it certainly beats walking around in a daze, wondering what happened, and blaming something or someone else for the problem!

I changed from doing free PR for psychologist professionals who talk about PAS and bad custody decisions (and not slush funds, federal funds, and fatherhood funding, etc.). I changed because I missed my daughters, and I love them, and as part of this love, I want the truth out. As part of caring about my local communities, I want to spare others going through three or four years of anguish as I did (at least) BEFORE I connected some of these dots.

Remember — Three things abide, BUT, the greatest of these is charity.
How’s yours these days?

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

For footnote to Joan Kelly being omipresent (sort of) in these organizations and their literatures: From 2003,

NEWSMAKINGNEWS.COM
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/ross,familycourtcorrupt2nd2,19,03.htm

Family Court Corruption, Part 2: Fathers’ Rights and Conciliation Court Law: Federally funded misogyny and pedophile protection

by Cindy Ross © 2/19/03

Numerous reports have identified bias against women and corruption in family courts across the country. In bizarre and illegal rulings, family court judges ignore or deliberately suppress evidence of male perpetrated family violence and child molest. Fathers who are batterers and sex offenders are routinely granted visitation and custody, while mothers and children trying to escape abuse are punished through financial sanctions, loss of custody, supervised visitation, jail and institutionalization. [1]
While publicly touted as “responsible fatherhood programs” official federal documents say the purpose of their programs is to provide noncustodial fathers with free attorneys to litigate for custody. [4]

. . . . {{SO — read those document, just don’t buy the “party line” that it’s really all about “relationship coaching” and healing, and so forth… It ain’t.

AFCC affiliated experts who have established federal “model custody” programs using PAS methodology, include Joan Kelly, a founding official of CRC, and Judith Wallerstein of the Center for the Family in Transition.

Richard Gardner originally based his PAS theory on Wallerstein’s and Kelly’s research. [23] Joan Kelly sets up family court services programs and trains judges and “special masters” (mediators with quasi-judicial authority), using Access to Visitation grant funding. She is also connected — primarily through CRC — to Michael Lamb, of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Kelly and Lamb promote materials developed by Richard Gardner (and other pedophiliac experts), in conferences and seminars regarding “parenting time” and “alienation”. [8]

Judith Wallerstein, is an advisor to NFI. According to CA NOW’s “Family Court Report 2002”, in 1986, Wallerstein provided testimony — along with David Levy of CRC — to the House committee on Children, Youth and Families. regarding the “problems of single female parent families”. [24]

Members of Wallerstein’s Center for the Family in Transition and Kelly’s Northern CA Mediation Center, have “reformulated” PAS as “alienated children”, possibly to distance themselves from Richard Gardner.

However, in addition to being connected to some of the most egregious local (Marin County, CA) PAS cases, as the “Northern CA Task Force on the Alienated Child”, their group promotes PAS custody switching methods and “threat therapy” at AFCC conferences around the country and the world.

[25]Wallerstein, Horn, Eberly and others connected to NFI, CRC and AFCC have expanded the Conciliation Court agenda to include not only divorce prevention, but marriage promotion. By merging conciliation court and fathers’ rights agendas with a “faith based” marriage “movement”, they call for even more federal programs promoting “two-parent” families, through “marriage initiatives” funded by TANF/Welfare grants. [26]

And we wonder why the economy is in such crisis!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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

March 2, 2011 at 4:36 PM

Posted in AFCC, Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Context of Custody Switch, Designer Families, History of Family Court, Mandatory Mediation, Metaphors for Family Law, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Vocabulary Lessons, warfare: strategic, Who's Who (bio snapshots)

Tagged with Access-Visitation, AFCC, All the worlds a stage, Child Molestation, Cindy Ross, coordinating parenting coordinators, CRC, custody-switch, Due process, Education, expanding US-based tax-funded programs to other countries, family law, fatherhood funding, frivolous litigation, Joan Kelly, Judith Wallerstein, Kids' Turn, Liz Richards, mandatory mediation, mediation, obfuscation, Obsfuscate alienate explicate and legislate, Parenting Coordination, Peter Jamison SF Weekly, Richard Fine, Richard Gardner, slush funds through trainings, social commentary, task forces on coordinating parenting coordinators didn't coordinate response in time for legislation, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work.., Wade Horn, What the Crisis in the Courts folks don't tell you

Let’s Get Honest about “Kids’ Turn” and Judges’ Profit.. [First Publ. Oct. 24, 2011, updated Mar. 25, 2017].

with 10 comments

~ ~ ~

Let’s Get Honest about “Kids’ Turn” and Judges’ Profit. [First Publ. Oct. 24, 2011, updated Mar. 25, 2017]. Short-link ends “-Ev”. About 9,200 words and this post has several comments. Title and shortlink notation added Sept. 29, 2019 as I’m intending to reference it in a new post.

First published Oct. 24, 2011, I would consider Let’s Get Honest about “Kids’ Turn” and Judges’ Profit.. among key posts early in the blog (from a 2017 perspective). In wishing to quote this (for one of its passing references to Kids’ Turn donor “Halsey Minor” (founder of CNET), and because a blog-upgrade has for some reason turned the base post color to a sort of sickly mixture of greenish-white, I’m adding also a font-change, border, and a few other things I didn’t know how to do in 2011. Kids’ Turn has since submerged itself into (if I remember it right) San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center (SF CAPC) which “CAPC” is something of a serial curriculum-peddler (through a series of nonprofits to run the curriculum). That’s a general recall, and anyone is free to do a more detailed check on the Secretary of State, or Attorney General (Charitable Trusts Registry) as I do throughout this blog in case I mis-remembered exactly WHERE Kids’ Turn decided to submerge its identity into another nonprofit with classes to sell.

This may have happened anyway in the organization’s process of growing up and not wishing to call attention to the conflicts of interest it would sure seem to represent for anyone with a divorce case and likely to be added into forced co-parenting education, when the entity routinely has family court connections, family court judges, attorneys, or administrators on its board, and as this post references, contracts with the City and County of SF regarding the court.

Or, I like to think this blog may have had SOMETHING to do with their decision to go further underground and (apparently) otherwise continue business as usual…//LGH 3-25-2017.

Per an Annual Report, 2010, on this organization which sheds light on how the courts work:

The following representative results definitely affirm the efficacy of Kids’ Turn’s 2010 services:

• 50% of Kids’ Turn families are Court ordered

HALF THE CLIENTELE OF KIDS’ TURN ARE ORDERED TO GO THERE BY THE COURTS. Notably, this Nonprofit also was started by a family law judge, and by the end of this (LONG) blog, you should know much more about the interrelationship between the Profit in Non-Profits and how judges order litigants to attend services provided (fee-based) for organizations that MANY of them have sat on the board of.

Not just for US. Nope, the UK is going to help out this “charity” (started by family law judge…)

Kids’ Turn will soon complete a partnership with two charities in the United Kingdom (Relate and National Family Mediation) leading to implementation of Kids’ Turn throughout Great Britain.

Amazing….they write:

The UK govt has pledged a new pot of funding to help families. Here is a link to an online article about it which we posted on the KT Facebook Fan Page:

• Our partner agencies will submit funding requests in three categories, one of which is to implement Kids’ Turn throughout the UK

• They will received the funding award notices by March, 2011 and when awarded, the funds will be in place for four years

• The two agencies have settled their partnership challenges and worked out their respective roles re. the implementation of Kids’ Turn

UNbelievable… Some families stuck in the courts (beCAUSE they are stuck in the courts) can’t afford internet, and “Kids’ Turn” has its facebook page…

I am simply throwing out some greens here, about a gleam in a judge’s eye (1987-1990) that is going global. Not exactly in the free market — it is subsidized as a sub-grantee THROUGH the California Judicial Council, under “Access Visitation Grants,” and as such, you probably can’t get out of some facet of indoctrination once you file a motion in any family law court, anywhere, for any reason. You might, but it’s kind of like what I hear of slot machines, gambling, etc. — the House always wins.

KIDS’ TURN,” INTERNATIONAL” — and is CLOSELY Associated with AFCC:

International Conference Presentations (cached article…)

Kids‘ Turn Executive Director, Claire Barnes, had the privilege to co-present this summer at the International Commission on Couples and Family Relations’ 2002 Conference held in Sydney, Australia. She collaborated with Claire Missen, Teen Between (Dublin, Ireland) on the topic of Divorce and Teens. The respective papers, where cultural commonalities and differences specific to gender differences were discussed, are available for review.

Additionally, Susanna Marshland, former Kids‘ Turn Program Director, participated in a panel presentation at this year’s AFCC Conference in Hawaii. The topic of Best Practices was a perfect venue for Susanna’s information on the Kids‘Turn Early Years Program. Susanna’s remarks are also included
for review.

1. Statistics: a presentation by Claire Missen, Teen Between (Dublin, Ireland)

2. Presentation by Claire Barnes, M.A to the 2002 International Commission on Couple and Family Relations: Distance Diversity Dislocation, June 2002, Sydney, Australia

3. Summary of Presentation for the ‘Best Practices’ workshop
Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Annual Conference, presented by Susanna Marshland, LCSW, June 7, 2002, Waikoloa, Hawaii

How nice to belong to more than one organization for which conferences can involve transcontinental and transoceanic travel to exotic locales to talk about “healing family relationships.” OF note — this organization is funded in part as a sub-grantee from US Federal funds, including diversions from WELFARE to enhance CHILD SUPPORT collection for needy families. ….

But what caught my interest — what is KIDS’ TURN doing on a notice of lien to the SFTC, which is the San Francisco Courts? (Source: CRIIS.com, recorded documents)

Record Date Document Number GrantoR GranteE Name Cross Reference Name Document Type

14-DEC-2010 J09891700 R KIDS TURN SFTC NTC LIEN

14-DEC-2010 J09960500 R KIDS TURN SFTC NTC LIEN

11-DEC-2009 I88704700 R KIDS TURN SFTC NTC LIEN

27-JAN-2004 H64725800 R KIDS TURN SFTC NTC LIEN

Someone should look into this — what’s THAT about? From what I understand, “SFTC” is the San Francisco Superior (or Trial) Courts — pls. submit comment correcting me if I’m wrong. And its GRANTEE, i.e., Kids’ Turn is granting something to the courts, while receiving grants from the Cal. Judicial Council through the courts.

I could write on anything — of course — but have noticed this particular group (out of SF and San Diego, originally) going international, Hawaii, Illinois, you name it. They say they are really successful — read it on the website here, a study done in 2009 (it began around 1988) “Our programs work….”

Read the rest of this entry »

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

February 27, 2011 at 9:08 PM

Posted in "Til Death Do Us Part" (literally), AFCC, Business Enterprise, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Designer Families, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, History of Family Court, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids

Tagged with *Comments: This post has several comments with more info., Access-Visitation, AFCC, Claire Barnes, Designer Families by Court Decree, Education, Halsey Minor, HHS-TAGGS grants database, ICCFR - International Commission on Couples and Family Relations, ICCFR - International Commission on Couples and Family Relations | 2002 Conference (Sydney Australia), Jeanne Ames - Dorothy Huntington - John Sikorski (Kid's Turn Curriculum Authors), Kids' Turn, KIDS' TURN San Diego (EIN 33-0724932), KIDS' TURN SF (EIN# 94-3112621) [Merged out ca. 2016 or 2017], LGH|FCM Oct 24 2011 post 'Let's Get Honest About Kids' Turn & Judges' Profits' (w|updates 2017+2019-more tags), mediation, Studying Humans, U.S. Govt $$ hard @ work., UK running Kids' Turn Curriculum

NY, Nassau County: (another) Alienating Ex-Wife gets Jail-Threat Therapy; sounds like forgotten “Unalienable Rights” need a Resurrection?

with 2 comments

Wonder when this was re-written as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all MEN ~ at least ~ are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator by certain unalienable rights. . .. that among these are ETERNALLY UNALIENATED RELATIONSHIPS,** LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS . . . . .
**with the “fruit of the womb” of alienated relationships with (adult) ex-wives, i.e., namely, their kids.

THIS PROMPTED MY POST:

“Supreme Court Justice Robert A. Ross in Nassau County ruled that the mother, Lauren R., willfully violated a court order by deliberately alienating the elementary school-age children from her ex-husband, Ted R.” (cite, below)

Ex-Wife Ordered Jailed for Alienating Children From Father

THIS JUNE 2010 ARTICLE FROM the NY LAW JOURNAL IS BELOW, BUT WHILE READING IT, CONSIDER:

I lay THREE challenges before readers:

(1) Find me ONE remarried FATHER who was jailed, or threatened with it — and lectured — for doing the exact same thing to his wife, and for the same reason. And where a judge cited in the reasons for his/her opinion, that the father “smirked in the courtroom.” I open up the contest nationwide, not just NY, although how’s about in this same county?
(2) Find me how this same judge ruled on other similar cases.
(3) Understanding that these policies supporting and promoting fatherhood, of which mandated shared-parenting policies(etc.) are but one arm — were pushed through Congress as a solution to the LOW-income father issue, the female-headed (poor) household, PWORA WELFARE REFORM (and I’ve posted some of the Congressional transcripts surrounding it on my blog, too) — and is obviously affecting some very NOT-POOR households (except to the extent they are drained of finances through legal fees or child support rulings) why should this case, here in Nassau County, profit from that philosophy, and WHEN will these policies, based on the erroneous target population (expanded to everyone with a Y chromosome and offspring under 18 years old) be retracted?
- The father here spent over $100K on legal fees, and won, to express how hurt he was from being deprived of a relationship with his kids for (was it, a period of six WEEKS?) ? Or was that just the exception to the rule? Because the policy IS part of welfare reform, child support collection, and based on the theory that Dads who have more contact with their kids will do better at paying child support.
- NOTE; “3” is an essay question and rhetorical, obviously…

(“EXTRA CREDIT” — since our whole nation, almost, is either being taught, or teaching, or setting the national educational curriculum womb to tomb and how to marry, not have sex before it, divorce, co-parent, stop violence against women, intervene with batterers, supervise visitation, facilitate noncustodial parent’s access to their kids, support children, coordinate parents, counsel parents, manage high-conflict parents, promote mental health and evaluate the psychological health of everyone who is NOT a psychologist — I figured I’d get in there too…And put readers back to school ‘Extra Credit’ if someone is motivated to do the background on THIS case (i can’t..).

You can’t afford the time either? Got Job? OK, then (if you’re not in a job in one of the above professions), then you are paying for the rest of us to be threatened by judges for our bad attitudes towards our exes — OR, to utilize judges to communicate this threat to ex-wives, or ex-girlfriends. (For a great role model, take Mel Gibson…)… Seriously — if you have a “job” (i.e., pay taxes) you ARE funding these theories, and the courts. JUDGES are public employees, right? As are everyone it takes to run the family court business revolving door. But, ab ove and beyond that obvious function, and ALL the functions of running courthouses, there is ALSO a stream of federal funding to the Judicial Council of California to push policies that this is a prime example of. Anyone tracking those funds? Doubt it. (See bottom of my last post — it’s primarily what this blog is about, too…) OK, so EXTRA CREDIT would be:

Find how the ex-wife’ attorney’s track record goes. . . The wussy (?)(or — sensible; after all, he may have to stand in front of same judge in other cases?) (or, threw the case?) mother’s attorney didn’t dare express indignation and outrage before a judge, but just, in the press, said:
- Ms. R.’s attorney, Kieth I. Rieger of Barrocas & Rieger in Garden City, N.Y., praised Ross, but criticized the decision, likening it to last week’s missed umpire call that cost a Detroit Tigers pitcher a perfect game.
  
  “I think all of us make mistakes, and I think he’s just made a good-faith, honest mistake in his assessment of this case,” Rieger said. “That’s why there’s an Appellate Division. I think he just did not accurately assess my client.

Find how the father’s attorney’s track record goes. Too. I comment on the both of them in the body of the article, below. But attorneys have clients. Clients have case histories. Case histories have a custody-switch factor, a case docket, at times.

REALLY UNALIENABLE RIGHTS — BUT

(don’t smirk) ONLY IF ASSERTED:

Here’s part of the original, the wording of which has been forgotten. Or, which, the inclusion of men of color and women of all colors, in this, never was meant to happen . . . .

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security

Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

New Version:

A father’s, at least, UNALIENABLE RIGHT NOT TO BE ALIENATED

(and, don’t smirk in court, or else…)

Ex-Wife Ordered Jailed for Alienating Children From Father

Mark Fass

New York Law Journal

June 08, 2010

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A Long Island, N.Y., judge has sentenced a woman to six weekends in jail for repeatedly undermining her ex-husband’s relationship with their two daughters.

Supreme Court Justice Robert A. Ross in Nassau County ruled that the mother, Lauren R., willfully violated a court order by deliberately alienating the elementary school-age children from her ex-husband, Ted R.

Let’s look at ” willfully violated a court order by deliberately alienating“:

Did the court order mention not alienating — or was the court order about visitation? One is clear-cut. The other is a psychological assessment, less clear-cut, and gives judges a free license to call in the obedience-training authorities. Whether or not it is “deliberate” or as a consequence of moving on in life, is a matter for a mind-reader. Excuse me, “mental health professional,” a field I no longer respect (and this is probably why).

What kind of world do we (as a culture) want? One of action crimes, or thought (intent-) crimes ?? Guess which one you have here?

Only if the court order specifically SAID “don’t alienate” (which is too broadly worded to be enforceable, anyhow) is “deliberately alienating” a violation of it. However, this appears to be referring to failing to comply with visitation/vacation schedule, but doing it in a mean way. I believe that a Law Journal, of all places, should keep those issues separate. So should stipulations and custody orders, but often they don’t, setting the parents up for repeat litigation.

Ross held Ms. R. in civil contempt and ordered her to report to the Nassau County Correctional Facility every other weekend this summer.

Her term was to have begun on Friday, but was temporarily stayed pending appeal by a judge from the Appellate Division, 2nd Department, on Thursday.

FIRST OF ALL — that’s shock therapy, and a trait in bringing P.O.W. into compliance. You can find this treatment listed in places where a batterer is compared to a POW captor. One reason women coming out of that (I’m not saying that the woman in this case was…) have PTSD like veterans have PTSD. And why going through the courts exacerbates this — same treatement. Repeated, chronic threats to one’s integrity, and safety, every time one goes into court.

Comments: Penal law (criminal) has sentencing guidelines and limits. Civil law (torts, breaches of contract) have specific remedies. But, not well-known by the laypeople, FAMILY LAW is a different beast, and the contempts are to bring a party into compliance with a desired condition, and can persist until the desired (by individual judge) state is obtained. So, see the problem with that? Suppose the desired state is a state of mind? Now, that’s trouble, spelled out. . .. (I think the post I discussed this, with my non-legally-trained, but trying to grasp concepts-brain, was the one about an alarm system that failed, burning down a warehouse. The alarm system company was fined to the full amount (million$$) — because the civil law provides for this, and a contract was involved. When will we learn that marriage is not a real CONTRACT like that, with spelled out terms? (Enlighten me legally, if I’m missing something — such as options — in this statement).

“, The evidence before me demonstrates a pattern of willful and calculated violations of the clear and express dictates of the parties’ Stipulation of Settlement,” Ross wrote in Lauren R. v. Ted R., 203699-02.

“The extensive record is replete with instances of attempts to undermine the relationship between the children and their father and replace him with her new husband, manipulation of defendant’s parenting access, utter and unfettered vilification of the defendant to the children, false reporting of sexual misconduct without any semblance of ‘good faith,’ and her imposition upon the children to fear her tirades and punishment if they embrace the relationship they want to have with their father.”

This judge is indignant, and has the flourish (the first one being “replete with..”) to express it. HE TOO assigns motive. Of course, judges are supposed to have some judgement, but this is certainly an interpretation, and throughout, states, and restates, her intents. Mind-readers!

I wonder — do criminals at their sentencing for other than thought- or intent- or visitation-crimes, get the extra lectures to go with it?

The extraordinary hearing to determine whether Ms. R. should be held in contempt for violating the couple’s stipulation of settlement began in May 2009 and stretched over 23 days of hearings over the next nine months.

During the hearing, Mr. R. testified** to dozens of occasions in which his ex-wife either interfered with his visitation rights or purposefully alienated the children from him

“The hearing” ?? Which of the above 23 days? Was any of her testimony heard during this time, or was she able to rebutt any of it? Wouldn’t THAT be a set of transcripts . . . . . I know how family law hearings go; I was accused of this also, but did not interfere ONCE with custody by even a few hours — I wasn’t born yesterday. …. If an adjustment was made up an hour, I was requested to extend the pickup an hour. Then I was ordered to switch days of pickup, or had them cancelled on short notice, while children lived with me, and this many times compromised work, as moms can testify. This case, however, already had a stipulation.

“purposefully” entails assigning motive. Was wife allowed to cross-examine him on any of this? Was the interference documented and evidence for it found? Where is her testimony — was hits a hearing, or an interrogation?

“Interfering with his visitation rights OR purposefully alienated the children.” It is clear to me that the real indignation is over the alienation, not the cutting off of visitation. And again (readers), (assuming some are left!), I CHALLENGE you to find one MAN lectured like this for doing the EXACT same thing to a noncustodial Mom. While you’re looking, go to http://www.rightsformothers.com and scroll down far enough to get her story (hasn’t seen the son for YEARS, wages garnished to below housing, while working FT). Where is HER indignant judge?

The judge described about a dozen such incidents or patterns in his eight-page decision.

In the winter of 2007, for example, Ms. R. prevented Mr. R. from seeing his daughters for six weeks, Ross wrote.

“I observed the plaintiff smirk in the courtroom as defendant >>emotionally<< related how he was deprived of spending Hanukkah with his children, and was relegated to lighting a menorah and watching his daughters open their grandparents’ presents in the back of his truck at the base of plaintiff’s driveway,” the judge wrote.

Perhaps she’d seen his emotional performances before, including in a courtroom, and wasn’t as impressed as the judge. MORAL? Men can be soulful in court — it indicates sincerity, because we all “know” men are rational and logical, and when they truly DO emote, then what they are emoting about must be genuine, or why would their pain so move them to be soulful (in court)? Women, however, if remembering a different version of events, are warned that smirking at it could cost them custody — THEIR emotion must be in synche with the court’s emotions, or they’re screwed.

If true (presumably it is), that was sure mean. But, the point should the contempt of court orders re visitation, and should’ve been left at that. He is getting even now, more than, so far. And while I’m sure the pain (including humiliation, probably with another man inside, another factor, I bet) at this event was likely genuine, Mr. R. — UNlike many others, who will be affected by this decision, and the message it sends, I bet — many of us do not have $134,000 to lose, or at all, with which to console ourselves. With that amount of cash, he could I bet find another woman, maybe even make some more babies. There’s lots of them (count me out) around . . ..

MY point is — does this ever go the same way, with a different gender? Consider Joyce Murphy, who went to jail for interfering with custody when the courts wouldn’t do anything a bout her daughter being molested. She lost custody (threat therapy carried out). later, the same dude, not confronted and in fact one the first time, went on to molest some other children, whose parents DID report, and eventually she got her daughter back, though I bet not with an “oops” or apology from the court.

We DO have internet, and we ARE aware of other court cases around the country. I believe it’s time to shelve some of these theories– but since the courts don’t, I will again (below) review the Declaration of Independence. Certain rights are UNALIENABLE — and when a pattern of tyranny rules in one area of government, or throughout it, we have a right to change it, though not for a light reason. . . . Just a little reminder: The signers of that declaration pledged their honor, their fortunes, and their lives to this cause, and many of them lost all three. Well, maybe not the first one, in the long run.

Mr. R. also testified that Ms. R. consistently scheduled theater outings and social activities with her children so that they would conflict with his visitation, thereby putting him in the position of either consenting to a missed visit or risking disappointing his daughters.

Sounds like a play-book for many mothers I know who haven’t seen their kids in MONTHS, or YEARS.

The “crescendo” of Ms. R.’s contempt involved false accusations of sexual abuse against Mr. R., the judge wrote.

“Allegations that defendant had injured the child were found to be baseless and, by making such allegations, plaintiff needlessly subjected the child to an investigation by Child Protective Services, placing her own interests above those of the child,” Ross wrote. “This report was not made in ‘good faith’ — rather, the investigating agency warned the mother not to re-utilize the allegations and her children in her custodial litigation with the defendant.”

In addition to the contempt finding and the temporarily stayed jail sentence, Ross ordered a hearing to consider a change of custody and to hear Mr. R.’s application for more than $134,000 in attorney fees. Those hearings were postponed pending Ms. R.’s appeal.

Ms. R.’s attorney, Kieth I. Rieger of Barrocas & Rieger in Garden City, N.Y., praised Ross, but criticized the decision, likening it to last week’s missed umpire call that cost a Detroit Tigers pitcher a perfect game.

Maybe this (male) attorney didn’t pick up on the emotional overtones?? . . . . .

This judge has threatened this woman, and made an example of her, and lectured her in court; presuming the sexual abuse allegations to be false, and intended to make an example of her. Her attorney, seeing this — that comment is called Damage Control. He’s on the losing side and didn’t even support her in print, morally, at all.

“I think all of us make mistakes, and I think he’s just made a good-faith, honest mistake in his assessment of this case,” Rieger said. “That’s why there’s an Appellate Division. I think he just did not accurately assess my client.”

Stanley Hirsch, also of Garden City, represented Mr. R.

“I’m very hopeful that this case will be some type of warning to those who don’t have the children’s best interests at heart when they conduct themselves with their spouses,” Hirsch said. “It has great significance to my client, but I think it has a terrific overall impact on people who are going through a divorce and not getting along and involving the children in their disputes.”

Well, either the judge missed a pitch, or he sent a message. I’m going with the latter. Of course, the winning attorney was smart enough to put this in the plural, and keeping up the pretense that this is really a gender-neutral issue. That’s why the same people pushing “fatherhood” push this. (See my last post, the bottom section)

So, Yeah, we (noncustodial, now, mothers) got that. Loud and clear. Take your kids OUT of acttivities developing them personally, and don’t smirk in the courtroom, particularly in response to any lies. [FYI, that’s good advice].

Now get this — we haven’t forgotten the Declaration of Independence, or men, women and children who DIED ~ ~ and lives squandered ~ because of this pushing “parental alienation” and yet not enforcing this equally. And family law is NOT working for women attempting to protect themselves and their children from danger, which they have a right to — it’s under UNALIENABLE . . .

You want to go the “how dare you alienate a man from his “seed” theme (that’s the Biblical terminology for children)? And get the whole society and relatives wrapped up in it? Because while there are throwaway spouses, but having impregnated a woman puts a permanent bond between the man and his kids — and NOT the mother and his kids? We could just go back to sharia law and cut the facade of the Constitution, and all that.

HERE IT IS, AGAIN:

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.

I recommend re-reading the list of offences. Some that speak to me:

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:(NOTE: those who take time to review the material, and supporting systems to this FAMILY LAW system (as well as its history) will soon acknowledge that it is NOT based on LAW, but on PSYCHOLOGY, and it doesn’t protect rights of individuals when they conflict with an amorphous definition called “FAMILY.” Moreover, the funding of grants to the courts to sway custody decisions is indeed foreign to the (myth?) many American women believed, that they had some semblance of equality under the law, or some access to it, and did not become second class citizens on reporting abuse or leaving it.

There are others. (sorry about that print) — BUT, it should be acknowledged that whiel we don’t have a single “HE” as a king, or prince, it’s quite possible for an oligarchy, or a ruling “elite” to make the primary decisions far from those affected by them, jsut as King George had an army, courtiers, and messengers. . . . When the US Government is tarting to operate like this, we are simply colonized and cannibalized by our own. …

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

THIS IS HOW IT CONCLUDES:

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Ah well, another noble idea defeated by a dysfunctional formatting.

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

October 13, 2010 at 2:04 PM

Reader Quiz — What Decade Were These Stories? About Fathers..

with 2 comments

My last post (Luzerne County) was at least a triple-header, ending with some emotion over a mother of three who has taken her case to the international level in disgrace at the U.S. treatment of her civil rights.

I am changed as I blog also. Maybe it’s just another bunch of incidents to you, but to me, I learn and expand the context of this system, look at its history, reflect when compared with my immediate reality and acquired readings.

What I learned — yesterday — is this: Restraining orders are not enforceable, and probably never were. IF a police officer wishes to arrest, or needs to, the RO may make his job easier. But if he or she witnessed a violation of it, and does NOT wish to arrest, the protected person has no entitlement to that arrest, no matter whose life is at risk. Now that “Castle Rock v. Gonzales” has gone to the Supreme Court and been turned back, it is being quoted in similar cases to protect the officers (not the women or children). While most of government’s operations are self-justified on providing services and protection to the populace, who they are diligently training to expect this from them (and not from within or their local communities). This is closer to feudalism, serfdom, and monarchy.

U.S., Rome, or the British Empire?

It’s time to expose the truths that in the United States of America, and have moved from being “the colonies” (with the colonized populations that came along, or were removed from their lands during westward expansion) to being colonized (if not virtually cannibalized) by our own elected leaders, many who have some real “bad attitudes” towards those they are supposed to represent and serve. Power tends to congregate with power, and unless it’s kept in check, will simply continue to do so, justifying it with manipulation and manufactured “needs.”

(#1) we are closer to monarchy then ever before, and willingly/passively in more denial of it also, and
(#2) that this emperor has no clothes has been known for a long time; but the tacit “Bread-and-circuses” agreement to pretend we don’t know, is wearing as thin as the “social services” provided by the superstructure. and
(#3) in a country such as the U.S., with this Constitution elected officials are sworn with an oath to uphold, the pretense that in practice we are actually OPERATING as a republic (not democracy) is even more deceptive.

Who has the bread, the weapons, and the supply lines to the decision-makers? Who’s issuing the propaganda? That’s the power base. As of about 1980, 1991 (creation of the Health & Human Services/Administration for Children and Families Dept./Operational Div. in the Executive Branch of Government of which the CEO is our President), the fields of propagation (family design) and the downward to Head Start & Home Visitation (education) up through university (foundations sponsoring studies and institutes, often regarding fatherhood and marriage, and the entire work force) have gone from idolizing motherhood (while tolerating beating mothers) and, in response to mothers getting OUT of some of that (feminism/violence against women movement, battered shelters, etc.) to scapegoating single mothers on welfare (for being on welfare), (see bottom of my post), to simply eliminating the word mother from association with the word “family” or “children.”

This is starting to resemble the planned production of human beings from womb to tomb, with the aide of pharmaceutics, apparently, and mental health professionals to categorize and drug the dissidents, which any mother in her right mind would be when she’s been beaten in the home, or terrorized there (or for attempting to leave it) and has noticed — which is what mothers do — the effect of this on her children. They are educated to subjugation and only to the level of their intended place in a fully managed society.

When I say “womb” to “tomb,” I do mean just that . . . . It’s being studied and categorized, and one major database is at ICPSR below. Fertility, lethality, and population studies in 3 urban centers (Chicago, Boston, San Antonia, TX).

Those “in” and cooperate on the planning and distribution of this will prosper, while the supply lasts, and receive government grants and contracts in abundance, which will then compromise them from informing the subject matter (human beings) what the overall plan is. For example

HQ in Denver: PSI (“policy-studies.com” is the URL, “Performance, Services, Integrity” is the motto)
- Under Child Support Enforcement (one of the 3 major “solutions” area they outsource):
  - Noncustodial Parent Programs (“Through our innovative approach, PSI can help increase your collections and improve results for families. Our NCP program expertise extends across the following areas”)
    - Case management and community resource referrals
    - Enhanced child support services
    - Employment and training assistance
    - Peer support for NCPs
    - Parenting and conflict resolution classes
    - Access and visitation services
    - Mediation services
    - Mental health and substance abuse referrals
    - Legal referrals
HQ in Los Angeles: AFCC (“Association of Family & Conciliation Courts“)
- AFCC brings together members of multiple disciplines in the public, private and nonprofit sectors, from all over the world. As a nonprofit professional association, AFCC is unique because members do not share a common profession. Instead, AFCC members share a strong commitment to education, innovation and collaboration in order to benefit communities, empower families and promote a healthy future for children.
- “History of Innovation and Positive Change”For more than 45 years, AFCC and its members have served as a catalyst for generating major reforms. Dispute resolution processes such as child custody mediation, parenting coordination, and divorce education are just a few of the innovative ideas developed by AFCC members. AFCC developed Models Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediators, Child Custody Evaluators and Parenting Coordinators. Task forces and special projects address the ongoing challenges faced by AFCC members and the families they serve. AFCC actively disseminates innovations and ideas {“Parental Alienation, anyone? Mandatory mediation, anyone? Shared parenting, presumption anyone?”} to its members. The ripple effect can be seen in courts and communities throughout the world. {ONE of those stories I copy at length, below, in blue. The ripple effect was most definitely felt, and you can read about it, below.}

HQ in Denver: what I call “CPR” (Center or Policy Research) [Since 1981, 6 women, only!]

Childcare and Education;
Child Support;
Child Welfare;
Court Services;
Health and Medical Issues;
Incarceration and Reentry;
Mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution;
Fatherhood and Child Access;
Poverty; and
Violence and Intimate Partner Violence.
(OH, and CPR’ssttreamlined connection Connection with Feds:likely HHS & DOJ depts:
- “To make contracting with CPR easier for federal government clients, CPR is a Management, Organizational and Business Improvement Services (MOBIS) and U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) contract”

In Ann Arbor, MI: “ICPSR” (Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, since 1962 ) Member universities/institutions HERE:

Sponsors

ICPSR partners with several federal statistical agencies and foundations to provide access to their data resources.
search on CPR person “Jessica Pearson” – 1 study (listed below, this is link to it)

Study Design:	Data collection involved a collaboration with the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) in the administration and analysis of this survey. Court programs providing divorce mediation and/or custody evaluations in 1993 were targeted. The questionnaire was mailed in late 1993 to 200 institutional members of the AFCC and active providers of family and divorce services in the National Center for State Courts database. A total of 149 public-sector divorce mediation and custody/visitation counseling providers responded with information on their official policies and procedures for identifying domestic violence among the population served, and divorce mediation practices and policies in cases with allegations of spousal violence.
Sample:	Institutional members of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) and active family and divorce service providers from the National Center for State Courts database.

Study Design:

Data collection involved a collaboration with the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) in the administration and analysis of this survey. Court programs providing divorce mediation and/or custody evaluations in 1993 were targeted. The questionnaire was mailed in late 1993 to 200 institutional members of the AFCC and active providers of family and divorce services in the National Center for State Courts database. A total of 149 public-sector divorce mediation and custody/visitation counseling providers responded with information on their official policies and procedures for identifying domestic violence among the population served, and divorce mediation practices and policies in cases with allegations of spousal violence.

Sample:

Institutional members of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) and active family and divorce service providers from the National Center for State Courts database.

search on CPR person “Thoennes” — 5 studies:

20358	Integrated Approaches to Manage Multi-Case Families in the Criminal Justice System in Maricopa County, Arizona, and Deschutes and Jackson Counties, Oregon, 1999-2005 Thoennes, Nancy	2005

3142	Role of Stalking in Domestic Violence Crime Reports Generated by the Colorado Springs Police Department, 1998 Tjaden, Patricia; Thoennes, Nancy	1998

2566	Violence and Threats of Violence Against Women and Men in the United States, 1994-1996 Tjaden, Patricia; Thoennes, Nancy	1996

2561	Divorce Mediation and Domestic Violence in the United States, 1993 Pearson, Jessica	1993

3542	Evaluating a Collaborative Intervention Between Health Care and Criminal Justice in Harris County, Texas, 2001-2002 McFarlane, Judith; Malecha, Ann	2002

Did I mention that Jessica Pearson is also (per some sources) a founding member of the AFCC, if not also CRC?

In fact AFCC, CRC, CPR, PSI, HHS funded studies, and conclusions that MOST of our nation’s real poverty, inner-city, crime & juvenile delinquency problems is simply the ration of sex/conception/marriage, i.e., too few fathers (as opposed to, poor-quality fathers) in the home, and that the solution to this is through seamlessly blending mental health services with child support services, with the legal process — tend to congregate around similar key players.
Don’t believe me? See RandiJames’ “The List“ or Liz Richards pointing this out in 1993 “Fathers Rights and corrupt judicial cronies,” or again, in 2010, to the House Ways & Means Committee (found at House.gov, this committee, June 17, 2010 hearings, on left side), or an indignant “Fathers Battling Injustice” 2001 complaint “Liz Richards Hates Fathers with a Passion, which provides (if you scroll down) a good listing of key players and their interrelationships — including those on the CRC (Children’s Rights Council) 501(c)3 incorporation papers, and tying into others pushing mediation and Gardner’s “PAS” philosophies through the courts. I’ll try to upload that listing….

Around 1998, a disgruntled grandfather — and CPA — started tracking some of the founding documents of this AFCC, and has something to say about the money trail related to Jessica Pearson of CPR, and AFCC, who weems to be (with others) women of some real foresight and planning, and ingenuity in desgining systems — and evading tax accountability. THIS is listed UNDER “Is Justice for sale in L.A.” a.k.a. at “johnnypumphandle.com”

- :Mr. Bryer’s Tort Claim of 1998. You can hear his tone of indignation and upset, and he flat-out calls this Mafia, RICO, money-laundering, etc. The people he is talking about are listed in part, above. I doubt if he ever got justice, or compensation (let alone more discovery), but at least me blew the whistle!. People who want to “reform” the courts ought to at least read the material. OR, they could go back and try to reason more with a professional that may or may not be one of these type of conspirators from long ago. The system remains, I’m pretty well deducing at this point.
Another take on AFCC et al.: He’s not talking psychology or sociology, but money, IRS, EIN#s and incorporations…
- DESCRIPTION: The ACCUSED ( by this complaint) are part of an underground of white collar criminals who are involved in the theft of CITY, COUNTY, STATE, and FEDERAL money. The scheme started before their time as an organization known as the CONFERENCE OF CONCILIATION COURTS. That organization changed its identity and assumed the name ASSOCIATION OF FAMILY CONCILIATION COURTS. Using various identity changes, the organization was listed in the LOS ANGELES SUPERVISORS DIRECTORY in 1993 as JUDGES TRUST FUND ACCOUNTING.The crime ring is an underground Mafia that posed as the COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES – by using the FEDERAL EMPLOYMENT IDENTIFICATION NUMBER 95-6000927. In recent dramatic announcements, the INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE has informed me that the EIN or FEIN number assigned to the latest version of the organization – the – LOS ANGELES SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATION – is an EIN that was not assigned to the organization. It Is a COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES EIN!
  I previously attempted to get this discovery – in the lawsuit BRYER vs PENTONEY – but 298 judges and commissioners in LOS ANGELES were disqualified on a ruse orchestrated by JUDGE GARY KLAUSNER – a ring leader of the scheme. JUDGE GARY KLAUSNER’S name is on the signature card of BANK OF AMERICA account listed under the name LOS ANGELES SUPERIOR COURT JUDGES ASSOCIATION EIN 95-6000927.
  
  I was forced into the corrupt county – ORANGE COUNTY – where a co-conspirator named JAMES P. GRAY told me he would throw me in jail if I tried to make any more discoveries. FEARING FOR MY LIFE in a county that is FOREIGN to me – I dismissed my case without prejudice and continued to seek discovery away from the strength of ORANGE COUNTYCONCLUSION: My family and myself have been robbed of our money and our rights by a conspiracy that has operated since 1962. In 1962 a JUDGE NAMED ROGER ALTON PFAFF and his cohort – MEYER ELKIN. The association was called the CONFERENCE OF CONCILIATION COURTS. This association routed money through the LOS ANGELES COUNTY CONCILIATION COURT -111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles California, 90012, ROOM 241. In 1969 – the association incorporated and has NEVER PAID taxes. Assuming they used EIN 95-6000927 – then duping the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT was easy. In 1979 the corporation was suspended. There is no record that they surrendered their bank account or the EIN. In California – the organization filed as a CIVIC LEAGUE – Revenue and Tax Code 23701g. A CONCILIATION COURT is NOT A CIVIC LEAGUE. The exemption certificate was mailed to a lawyer named Michael Aaronson at P.O. Box 1055, San Carlos California 94070. The STATE 3500 papers states the organization was to improve marriage counseling. However, conciliation court is a STATUTORILY mandated function of the COURT – not a private corporation for lying and thieving judges and their court staff. The income was alleged to be derived from dues and contributions. In reality, the funds came from laundering legal education money through the COURT CONCILIATION DEPARTMENT through the FINANCE DEPARTMENT.
  
  In an incredible BREACH – a Judge from Detroit Michigan was listed as the Second Vice President His name is Victor J. Baum. The corporation number is 576876. I have no record of what EIN they used.
  
  In 1981 – I presume their bank account was still open and they created a new identity called the Association of Family Conciliation Courts. [CPR, above, dates to 1981 also as a nonprofit] This time – Margaret Little – FAMILY COURT SERVICES for LOS ANGELES, and a Colorado individual named Jessica Pearson orchestrated yet another version of the LOS ANGELES COUNTY COURTHOUSE SCHEME. Pearson borrowed the EIN of the WISCONSIN AFCC and claimed her office was in Colorado as an ILLINOIS corporation. The LOS ANGELES COUNTY COURTHOUSE became PEARSON’S and Dr MARGARET LITTLE’S California – FOREIGN – CORPORATION.
- (WI, Colorado, L.A. and IL if you can keep up with that…)
- I just found a strange, but possibly corroborating 1986 document, the “February 1986 Newsletter of the Alabama Court News, “Newsletter of the Alabama Judicial System” On page 3, it reads, under headline: “Federal Grant funds Sexual Abuse Study:
- “The Research Unit of the …(AFCC) and the American Bar Association have been awarded a grant from the federal dept. of Human Development Services* to study sexual abuse allegations in divorce cases. The goal of the study is to find how court officials [such as…?] are presently handling such matters, identify preferred procedures, and develop educational materials on the subject.” “Court officials [sic] desiring to participate in the study should contact AFCC at the following address:
  - - Ms. Jessica Pearson
    - AFCC/Research Unit, ?720 Emerson St. Denver, CO 80218
    - (303) 837-1555
- [Wow… Preferred procedures for handling sexual abuse allegations in divorce cases, such as — Gardner’s theories? They want to educate judges how to rule?] Also – it says since 1981 — at that address:]
- [*Note: the HUGE “HHS that now dispenses welfare, child support, medicare, head start funds, and sometimes is the largest (as to expenses) Exec Branch Dept — was formed in 1991, as I recall. This is 5 years earlier).

In fact the information arm is one of the most important, to quell rebellion before it gets going.

Maybe Rome went down because of lead in the pipes, or maybe some “karma” (or god) just got sick of all the slaughter for entertainment. Ever read about what happened in that Colosseum?

Back to this millennium — and the last decades

of the last one (1980-2010). In re: marriage, abuse, divorce, custody..

And the concept of “protection from abuse” or “restraining orders” as if they were NOT certifiably insane, as to fulfilling their supposed purpose of protecting or restraining.

While the literature tends to focus on, “it’s just a piece of paper and can’t stop a bullet,” the ones we REALLY can’t count on are the arresting officers. It’s an additional component of Russian Roulette that a woman can’t afford. And suing for any sort of damages on the basis of, they had a duty to protect, a procedural due process right to the victim, a substantive due process right to the victim, or in short, any consequences that “absolute judicial immunity” or the 11th amendment wouldn’t make LEGALLY protected (let alone the practical aspects) — they don’t, and probably never did.

Some judges are crooked — I don’t know how many. Some attorneys are also, and get nailed on RICO like the Luzerne judges did, RICO (“Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations“) being a criminal enterprise. There’s a case I may post out of suburban Chicago (older) where the husband (an attorney) did murder for hire, but not until he’d conspired in advance to wire-tap (jealous), someone had been prepared to dispose of the body (i.e., of his wife) and someone had been prepared to obstruct the investigation. (Alan & Dianne G. Masters, West Suburban Chicago, 1982 she disappears~ 1988 RICO charges)

As RICO does require some organizational skills, and Masters had already been engaged in other forms of crime, all the players to add murder-for-hire to this were in place, and he didn’t resist the temptation to engage, showing us to drop our illusions that every person in public office, or in positions of power, influence, and with access to streams of $$ isn’t per se there for service. Some are, some aren’t. And the ones that aren’t would be normally attracted to people in compromised situations (like a troublesome traffic ticket, an illegal enterprise of their own, or divorcing with children from a frighteningly dangerous spouse who’s already committed some crimes against your body, or your child’s). This attorney was acting more like a pimp with a stable, and some affiliate marekting reps in uniform. Maybe he liked the thrill of the danger and risk (one sees definite business skills that migh twork just as well in legal activities) or maybe it was simple greed.

It didn’t save her life, and no one was ever charged for murder, but the three “perps” got caught on racketeering and put away for a good many years, and fined. Oh yeah, and he had a $100,000 life insurance policy on his wife also.

So are some officers. And some are good. – – – – that’s just life. Why, then, (though) when women come for help, were they then (1990s) and now (2000s) doling out protection from abuse orders as if they were reliably enforceable? They aren’t. They’re real good at getting men angry though.

~ ~ ~ ~I can’t put my story up (or too much of it). But it’s been so many years in this system here. My infrastructure is repeatedly broken down, year after year, and access to things like transportation, (sometimes food), internet, health care (uninsured presently) just shouldn’t be.

~ ~ ~ ~If you have not been in a situation similar to the one I’m about to post (the part below is summary of her judicial proceedings after deciding to leave– having gotten a real severe beating (while naked), a threat for another, having had a young daughter molested by a visiting stepson, her husband was no inner city young black male, but a nasty computer analyst who’d (it turned out) abused his first wife, too.

~ ~ ~ ~Sleep deprivation is a factor and technique of weakening someone (I know). Attack on personal private parts (ditto). Rules almost uniformly designed to remove one’s humanity, with severe punishment for falling short (and they’re impossible to fulfil) with no rule for him. . . . .Having to choose which child you can do more to protect, potentially sacrificing something important for the other. Having your strength or skills as a professional work against you post-divorce. Historic revisionism (no remorse or acknowledgement of injury, and of course the father was the real caretaker all those years). Health care professionals treating injuries and not really asking questions. Your kids watching the assaults.

I’ll pick up this story mid-stream. See if you recognize the characters: judge, psychologists, attorneys (#1, 2, and 3), theme of supervised visitation, and her knowledge that if she requested it, he’d go for custody, professionals continually minimizing the situation and playing their own games . . . all too familiar.

I want to say something about “stories.” THEY HELPED ME while I was in the abusive relationship. One of the cruelest things is the isolation and dealing with the man’s anger when he perceives you may be connecting with someone who might validate or connect with you, and to whom you might report. You might get out, but there also may (or may not) be retaliation for doing so. Or you might be put through hell beforehand, so you get out, in public, in trauma, shaking, or in shock. One trick pulled frequently in our home (with kids) was I’d have enough gas in the car to get there (when a car was available) but not enough to get back. Hearing of women who got out HELPED me. If nothing else, to feel less guilty.

I pick up the story mid-stream, and admit that I am exhausted today.

Overall, I found the lawyers and psychologists very self–promoting and egotistical. It seemed as if everyone was having a good time, playing the game of litigation and psychology. All the while, my life was on the line. My children and I did not matter. I also felt like the lawyers and psychologists were running a cash register business at my expense. They were a lot more interested in my money than my welfare. The first two years of my divorce proceedings cost me more than twenty–five thousand dollars.

As incredible as it might sound, the judge who heard my custody case had an outstanding protective order against him by his ex–wife. I also sensed very strongly that the judge did not like me. For these reasons, I told my lawyer I wanted to seek the judge’s recusal. My lawyer dismissed me, saying, “You’ll just get someone worse.”

@ @ @ @ @Z

I probably never would have gotten Daniel back, except that Russ’s live–in girlfriend (with whom he is still living) contacted the children’s psychologist to report that he was abusing Daniel. This was four or five months after Russ had gained custody of Daniel. I think the girlfriend made her revelation partly because I had told her that Russ was planning to seek full custody of Elizabeth, too. Russ was not really taking care of the kids; the girlfriend was. When she learned that he would be going after Elizabeth too, she said, “WHAT???!!!” I think she cared about the children and knew that Russ’s having custody would be harmful and dangerous for them, plus, I doubt she was interested in being the caretaker for both kids.

After learning about Russ’s abuse of Daniel, I immediately went to my lawyer (Lawyer #3), demanding an immediate petition for a change of custody. He said we could not seek a modification of custody because it was too soon. He said, “Let the ink dry on the judge’s custody order.” That was the last straw and I fired him.

I got a new lawyer and a new psychologist. I recorded a telephone conversation with Russ’s girlfriend about the abuse of Daniel. Russ’s girlfriend was subpoenaed, and because of the recording, I knew––and Russ knew––that the abuse of Daniel would come out. Even if Russ intimidated her into changing her testimony, I think he knew that the tape was credible.

Faced with a situation he could not win, Russ folded. He agreed to a modification and I regained custody of Daniel. I grabbed at the chance to get custody back, even though I had to agree that Russ could have unsupervised visitation with the children. I knew Russ would never agree to supervised visitation. I did not want, and could not pay for, another long, drawn–out battle in court. Besides, based on what I had seen, I did not want to risk what a judge might do.

As far as I am concerned, Russ agreed to the change of custody to save face. No one in authority ever held him accountable for his abuse. People in authority, like the judge and the psychologists, always supported him and held a good opinion of him. Russ wanted to maintain his good image at all costs. By giving up custody of Daniel without a fight, he could avoid the public humiliation of being outed as an abuser.

He portrayed the custody change to the children as a sacrifice he was making because he loved them so much. “This is what’s best for you,” he said. Once again, he took no responsibility for doing anything wrong in abusing Daniel. He showed no remorse.

Even after I had custody of both kids, Russ continued to engage in repeated violations of my protective order through phone harassment and stalking. Additionally, his son, Chip, was there unsupervised when the kids visited Russ. Apparently, though, Chip did not abuse either child further.

@ @ @ @

C. Attitudes Need to Change More than the Law

Domestic violence law is certainly far better than it has been in the past. We have seen progress in the legislative, [77] judicial, [78] and executive [79] arenas. Positive legislative reform is on–going, though there is a backlash as well, driven primarily by the Fathers’ Rights movement. [80]

Changes in the law are important. With better law, good people (judges, police, etc.) can do more and bad ones are limited in the harm they can cause. Law can also have an educational effect. A judge or police officer who initially resists laws and policies that are appropriate for domestic violence cases may ultimately come to see their value.

Mary’s story shows, however, that the primary problem is not with the law but with the human beings who interpret and administer it. The legal system betrayed Mary, but not because it lacked the power to act differently. The judges, psychologists, and lawyers could have protected Mary and her children. They could have understood woman battering, or made a point of educating themselves about it. They could have let go of their stereotypes about what batterers and their victims “look like” and how they act. They could have reexamined their values, under which abuse of Mom is irrelevant to Dad’s fitness as a parent. The list continues indefinitely.

Mary’s custody judge easily had the power to find that full custody with Mary was in the children’s “best interest” [81] and that Russ’s visitation had to be supervised. [82] The judge could have warned Russ, not Mary, that he had to be on his best behavior or he would lose even supervised visitation. The judge could have ordered Russ to undergo batterers’ counseling as a precondition for even supervised visitation. [83]

My point is simple: this did not have to happen. Without in any way ignoring or bending the law, Mary, the children––and Russ––could have been dealt with appropriately. Mary and her children, especially Daniel, may pay for the system’s sexism, ignorance, and indifference for a lifetime. And, as Mary says, society pays too when the aftermath of abuse spills out, as it often will, beyond the family.

@ @ @ @

F. Any “Solution” Not Based on Battered Women’s Experiences
Is Doomed to Failure

We cannot know what to do about domestic violence unless we listen to survivors’ stories. In them are the keys to solutions. Battered women and formerly battered women are telling us what works and what does not. People with professional training can help, but only if their actions and recommendations are based on what battered women and formerly battered women say. [116]

Women like Mary tell us that mediation, joint custody, and couples counseling can be terrible for battered women, [117] yet certain professionals continue to advocate for these things in domestic violence cases. [118] Their arguments, however, are from the viewpoint of the mediator or the system, not the battered woman and her children. [119] Women’s safety concerns are either not addressed or minimized. [120]

Proponents of mediation in domestic violence cases express a near–magical belief in mediation and mediators. They believe that the mediator can tell when mediation is not appropriate or when it should be stopped [121] (another example of the helper’s ego surfacing). Sadly, the only expertise that seems to count is the mediator’s. Battered women’s expertise does not seem to matter. [122]

Sometimes, it seems that battered women’s voices are getting more and more lost. The field has become professionalized, [123] semi–respectable, [124] and partially funded. [125] There has been a parallel tendency to turn the focus away from the victims and toward the professionals. [126]

I do not want to be misunderstood here. I have absolutely no nostalgia for the “good old days” when shelters did not exist or led threadbare existences, and when a professor who wanted to teach Domestic Violence would have been laughed off campus. I have been doing domestic violence work far too long for such foolishness. I relish the voice, the power, and even the respectability that our movement has achieved. But people who really care about battered women must remain ever vigilant against those whose solutions come from their own professional experience and not from victims’ lives.

@ @ @

As a mother and wife, I absolutely agree that families need rules. Nothing is sadder than a house where “anything goes” and there are no rules; everyone is unhappy, especially the children. [131] Nor do I think that every rule, even if somewhat imposed by one family member over others, is abusive.

But rules are different in a batterer’s house. They are never negotiated; they are always imposed. [132] And rulemaking is a one–way street: the batterer sets rules for other family members, while he does exactly as he pleases. [133] Russ ordered Mary not to watch comedies on television, just as he announced that he was quitting his job. Mary knew that even suggesting alternatives might result in violence. But Russ could be away for days at a time, and Mary was not to question his actions.

The rules in a batterer’s house are not just for his comfort and enjoyment. They are an integral part of his plan to control and isolate his partner. [134] As Mary said, the rule about no comedies on television meant she could not exercise her sense of humor, an important part of her self–image. Batterer’s rules also control matters such as whether and when she can leave the house, and how she can spend money. [135] Many rules reinforce the victim’s isolation, such as rules about not having any of her friends over or going out with other people after work. [136][137] She might hear something that made her feel good while listening to the radio, or she might hear a description of domestic violence and recognize herself and start planning her escape. Looking out at the world from her kitchen window (or having someone else look in and see what was going on) might decrease her isolation. Even “little” rules, like “don’t play the radio when I’m gone” and “keep the curtain in the kitchen down” are part of an overall pattern of isolation.

In the functional family, rules are negotiated and renegotiated. [138] One partner may give in to the other, but both partners engage in some give and take. The rules may not fulfill everyone’s needs, but they do not destroy family members’ self–esteem either. [139] In functional families, people are basically satisfied with the rules. [140]

Second, the batterer’s list of rules is ridiculously long and ever expanding and changing. [141] While his partner and children are struggling to comply with his existing demands, new and often contradictory rules are added. [142] This again is in marked contrast with the non–abusive “dinner at six” dad. We have all known non–abusive families where one member (usually, but not always, the father) must be catered to, but his demands are limited and stable. Further, the demanding but non–abusive family member is capable of being satisfied. “Just feed him on time and he’s a happy man” is not something an abused wife would say.

Finally, there is the punishment imposed for non–compliance with rules. [143] The non–abusive man does not beat or rape his wife or children if dinner is not on the table at six. He may pout for a while, or whine, he may even occasionally yell. His reaction may be unhealthy, but the other family members do not live in terror of what will happen if the rules are not met.

Identification protocols for battered women should include questions about rulemaking. [144] Something like this would be good: “Every household has rules under which it operates. Tell me about the ones in your house. What are the rules? How are they established? What happens when they’re not met?” With a sympathetic ear and a little prodding, a battered woman may quickly identify a long list of onerous and changing rules, imposed by the abuser and ruthlessly enforced by him. [145] If she is still in the relationship, or just getting out, she may describe the rules matter–of–factly, and may consider them normal. [146] One advantage of asking about the rules is that she may talk about them much more readily and with less shame than about the violence she has experienced. [147]

H. How Physical and Non–Physical Abuse Work Together:
Why Do We See It as Torture When [XxxxxXxxx] Generals Do It,
But Not When It’s the Guy Next Door?

People are still very ignorant about domestic violence and how it works. If you talk to people and read news reports, the emphasis is always on physical violence. [148] Mary encountered this ignorance when the psychologists, judges, and lawyers minimized her danger because the last severe beating occurred a year and a half before Mary left Russ for good.

~ ~ ~ ~

In other settings, we are well aware of how torturers combine physical and mental abuse to get and keep power over their victims. [154] Appendix B is one of my favorite charts, adapted from Ann Jones’s book Next Time, She’ll Be Dead. [155] In the left–hand column are non–physical torture methods that Amnesty International has recognized and cata

logued. [156] Totalitarian regimes often use these techniques against political prisoners. [157] In the right–hand column are battered women’s descriptions of how their batterers used these same techniques to control them. [158] I have added some examples from Mary’s story to what appears in Jones’s book.

Those who work with battered women must understand the interplay of physical and non–physical abuse. When seen in context, a “slap” is not just a “slap”; it is a warning that the victim must comply with the batterer’s demands “or else.” Repeated phone calls to her at work are not just a sign of a little insecurity. They are part of an overall scheme of isolation and control. Busting up the furniture at home, or throwing the cat against the wall are not unfortunate temper tantrums; they say, “you could be next.” [159]

We should recognize domestic violence as the human rights violation it is. [160] We should draw analogies between domestic violence and torture, [161] to kidnappers and hostages. [162]

READER QUIZ: WHAT YEAR WAS THAT STORY ?

(hover cursor above to find the copyright and which attorney related the story).

Hover over THIS and I’ll tell you when this woman married & got her RO.

It could’ve been a decade later, and wouldn’t have read much different. I found this story after, with curiosity, searching on the man who wrote the article below. I hope readers may go back (click on this link, the “READER QUIZ” link) and actually read Mary’s Story, which was an actual case (name changed), and too damn typical. I doubt a person who has experienced abuse would respond the same as one who hasn’t.

NOW, for comic relief, of the monotous drone of fatherlessness being the nation’s crisis (and we have JUST the solution to fix it . . . . ).

Fall of marriage seen linked to decline in domestic murders Drop in homicides called ‘ironic benefit’ of change

The decline of marriage and the breakdown of stable relationships have produced a paradoxical benefit: Domestic murders have declined, with the most dramatic reductions among African- Americans, a University of Missouri criminologist reported yesterday.

“We’re living at a time of dramatic changes in marriage, intimate relationships and family structure,” said Richard Rosenfeld, speaking in Baltimore at the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Those changes have had an ironic benefit in reducing the number of intimate-partner homicides.”

Dr. Rosenfeld’s findings are the flip side of the much-reported increase in young men killing young men, which he said may be attributed in part to similar factors — family instability and lack of supervision by harried single parents

READER QUIZ — WHAT YEAR WAS THIS ARTICLE (ABOVE)?

(author date & cite show when cursor hovers over link)

OK, now that you know when Dr. Rosenfled (a criminologist, not a PSYchologist) found out that the decline in marriage rates among African Americans meant reduced DV homicides among African Americans (although young men were killing each other more, they weren’t apparently killing so many wives or “intimate partners.” )

Let’s say what the head-honcho elected mostly white men were saying about the same year:

I searched the 104th Congress (1995-1996) for the word “fatherless.”

As we know, fatherlessness has been for so long blamed on the nation’s troubles that you can barely walk somewhere in a government agency, or any social service community agency (after you come back from either a Catholic church, where the (celibate?) priests are called “Father” in direct disobedience to Jesus’s command in the gospels, “call no man Father.” Or, an evangelical Protestant, not quite mainline (or, megachurch) where, after the ranks were being drained to women, they are adding testosterone to the doctrine, and teaching men to be more sensitive (in men’s groups, of course).

If you want to go without the straight-up religious variety, there’s always “The Mankind Project” and one can get a seminar of the Robert Bly type. There are fatherhood practitioners everywhere one looks, practically.

All I really wanted was the conversation where a legislator expresses shock and dismay that African American boys and girls are waking up on homes without their fathers. (NOTE: The “Mary” story above happened in the late 1980s, and HER 3 kids were waking up with their father in the home. In fact, her little girl Elizabeth, at age 3, had gotten an early introduction to sex when her stepbrother came there for the summer and molested her, after which her mother had another job of making sure they weren’t left alone together. (That couple were white and suburban, so maybe they didn’t count in this topic).

I got a little more than I expected in this 104th Congressional record:
Beginning
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND WORK OPPORTUNITY RECONCILIATION ACT OF 1996–CONFERENCE REPORT

I met a man who was an administrator of one of the hospitals in my community in the 15th District of Florida, and this gentleman told me that, before he had moved to Florida, he had lived in Oklahoma, and he had taken part in a program where he would go into inner city housing projects and read to young children in those projects. This program started because it has been shown in research studies that, if you read to a child, you can improve their reading score. Actually there are some studies that show that, if you read to a child, you may actually be able to raise their IQ slightly, {{Noble cause. Some Oklahoman going to raise inner city kids’ IQs}} and he told me something that I will never forget.

So this anecdotal evidence of an unnamed Florida Hospital Administrator, about (how many years previous?) that administrator going into the projects (hence, he wasn’t from them) was not 2nd-hand but 3rd-hand hearsay — if the event ever indeed happened. The impassioned delivery is to state how Welfare is Cruel — listen up how this is done:

He was going into those projects and reading to those kids, and those children were, by and large, children of single parents on welfare, and he would ask, many of them 5, 6 and 7-year-old children, `What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And, yes, some of them would say I want to be a fireman or a nurse, but some of them would say:

`I don’t want to work. I want to collect a check.’

Not all of them wanted to be firemen or nurses (separate by gender; I don’t know how many female fire”men” there are these days, but we know there are lots of male nurses… And probably were in 1996, too..)

Mr. Speaker, a program that does that to millions of children is not a program of compassion and caring to children. It is a program that is cruel and mean spirited to children.

Here’s the process — a man in Florida heard a man in Florida talk about his experience trying to improve the iQ of little kids in the projects (did he talk to their Mamas?) in Oklahoma, and concludes that (although even in the story some WANTED a profession, others wanted a check) FEEDING such children was mean-spirited and cruel…

Today a young male being born to a mother, a single mother on welfare in the United States, has a greater likelihood of ending up on drugs or in the penitentiary than graduating from high school.

I showed in “Luzerne County” that you don’t have to be poor or (presumable here) black to be a crook. There’s a difference between being a crook and actually being jailed for it. It should be common knowledge now, and I bet then (1996) that America, being the largest jailor (per capita) has those jails disproportionately filled with black males. Some of them got their assaulting their mother’s attacker, too. He’s taking two statistics (if that) and creating a CASUAL connection rather than a CAUSAL one. Of course, how many poor black males — or females of any social status or color — were there in Congress in 1996 to comment on his reasoning process?

And the young females, (single mothers have both boys and girls, right?) — are THEY ending up on drugs or in jail?

The problem that we have with illegitimacy in our Nation today is a problem that has been created by the program that we are trying to change, and you cannot fix this problem by tinkering around the edges. The illegitimacy rate in this country has gone up from 5 percent to almost 25 percent in the white community. In the black community it has gone from less than 25 percent to, in some areas, as high as 70 percent.

If you look at what correlates best, what correlates in communities with problems like teenage pregnancy, drug use, illiteracy, juvenile crime, the thing that correlates best in those problems in those communities, Mr. Speaker, is the amount of illegitimacy, the amount of fatherlessness in those communities. A program that perpetuates and cultivates things like this is a cruel and mean-spirited program, and that program needs to be changed, and our bill makes a serious attempt at doing that.

We are not talking about tinkering around the edges. We are talking about promoting family unity, discouraging teen-age pregnancy and illegitimacy.

The fact that this program perpetuates it, Mr. Speaker, was driven home to me when I was a medical student working in an inner-city obstetrics clinic, and I had a 15-year-old girl come in to see me who was pregnant, and I had never seen this before, and I was so upset. I was grieved to see this. I looked at her and said her life is ruined, she cannot go to college, and I said to her, `How did this happen, why did this happen,’ and she looked up to me and told me that she did it deliberately because she wanted to get out from under her mother in the project, and she wanted her own place and her own welfare check.

Again, on the outside looking in, and one anecdote.

This program needs to stop. The people have asked for it; we are trying to deliver.

WHICH people? I mean, these are elected representatives, are they really speaking for their constituents?

Mr. Speaker, I encourage the Members of the minority to stop their partisan rhetoric and join with us in reforming welfare and creating a program for the poor and the needy that strengthens family, does not undermine them, that strengthens the bonds of marriage, because it is strong families that make strong communities that makes strong nations, and our Nation cannot survive with a perpetuation of a program like this.

Is it the lack of marriage, or the lack of fathers that counts? Because I tell you one thing that makes lack of fathers — WARS. Another thing that previously, broke up families in a callous manner is called slavery.

Who created ghettoes? Who created the two-tier school system, good for some lousy for others (a factor to this date). Who directed one populace into “jobs” and the others (elite ones) into how to run businesses and understand investments, political connections, foundations, and skills that would go along with that goal?

So if you want to know how much we (we WHO???) have invested in the old welfare program over the past 30 years, it is roughly the equivalent of the value of all buildings, all plants and equipment, and all of the tools of all the workers in the United States of America. No society in history has ever invested more money trying to help needy people than the United States of America has invested.

Yet, what has been the result of all of those good intentions? What has been the result of that investment? The result of that investment, 30 years later, is that we have as many poor people today as we had 30 years ago. They are poorer today, they are more dependent on the Government today, and by any definition of quality of life, fulfillment, or happiness, people are worse off today than they were when we started the current welfare system.

When we started the War on Poverty {{and another war in Southeast Asia to follow up on the Korean war I guess}} in the mid-1960s, two-parent families were the norm in poor families in America. Today, two-parent families are the exception. Since 1965, the illegitimacy rate has tripled.

I know that we have colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are going to lament the passage of this new welfare reform bill. But I do not see how anybody with a straight face, or a clear conscience, can defend the status quo in welfare. Our current welfare program has failed. It has driven fathers out of the household. It has made mothers dependent. It has taken away people’s dignity. It has bred child abuse and neglect, and filled the streets of our cities with crime. And we are here today to change it.

Grammar: Is this guy going to “own” the welfare program, or objectify it? First it was guilt trip, “we have created” and net thing it’s got an independent life, like a disease, perpetuating itself of its own accord, where it can be separated from the rhetorical bosom of the speaker, and be viewed running around tearing up the place. As an “it” it can now have stones thrown at IT first. And after the vivid picture of 5, 6 , 7 year olds wanting to collect a welfare check (“millions of them”) (Seriously, that’s the subliminal message — guilt trip first, it’s ours” and then relieve the guilt by blaming the same thing “we” created, and QUICK, call to action.….) Some action is needed to take away

Let me outline what our program does. I think if each of us looks back to a period when our ancestors first came to America, or back to a time when those who have gone before us found themselves poor, we are going to find that there are two things that get individuals and nations out of poverty. Those two things are work and family. I think it is instructive to note that those are the two things that we have never applied to the current welfare program of the United States of America.

This man seems totally unconscious of the fact that SOME ancestors came to America in the bottom of a slave ship; that a lot of wealth, including likely some of the wealth that helped put people in Congress, came from came from businesses that included plantation labor, sweat shops, and some very, very hard work. When he says “us” as to doling out benefits, he also seems to have forgotten that those taxes came from employees’ wages, courtesy a few reforms dating back to 1939. He seems to have forgotten everything about “Jim Crow” and era of attempting to turn back the clock on some serious industriousness by freed slaves.

The bill before us asks people to work. It says that able-bodied men and women will be required to work in order to receive benefits. It sets a time limit so that people cannot make welfare a way of life. It seeks to change the incentives within the welfare system. And I believe the time has come to change those incentives within the welfare system.

I admit I’m maybe sensitive to this because I know HOW HARD I worked over the years, and none harder than while in a battering relationship that could’ve been a variety of the one above (but a decade later). This relationship, within marriage shouldn’t be happening any more in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, or 2000s, but it is.

Family Court Systems Purposefully Mask Abuse and Abusers

(SEPARATE TOPIC, above)) just saving the link).

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

August 15, 2010 at 3:26 PM

_________________ ,	:
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Plaintiff,	:
:	No.: S-
VS.	:
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Defendant.	:

	Let's Get Honest\|She… on Gulag Archipelago, Bahrain Arc…
	sandwich near Detroi… on Gulag Archipelago, Bahrain Arc…
	Let's Get Honest\|She… on Historic Day Today, and Week,…
	Let's Get Honest\|She… on ‘Table Talk’ Helps…
	Let's Get Honest\|She… on So, You Want Us To Speak Out A…

Record Date	Document Number	GrantoR GranteE	Name	Cross Reference Name	Document Type
	14-DEC-2010	J09891700	R	KIDS TURN	SFTC	NTC LIEN
	14-DEC-2010	J09960500	R	KIDS TURN	SFTC	NTC LIEN
	11-DEC-2009	I88704700	R	KIDS TURN	SFTC	NTC LIEN
	27-JAN-2004	H64725800	R	KIDS TURN	SFTC	NTC LIEN

Posts Tagged ‘Access-Visitation’

Welcome to Parenting Coordinators Association

Celebrate Being a Man!No singing. No crying. No holding of hands.

What beats hanging out with 1,000 men for a weekend?Roasting our own pigs.

To be continued….

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REMINDER — in CALIFORNIA — Three accepted purposes of the A/V funds system remain:

DIANE NUNN

CHARLENE DEPNER, Ph.D., AFCC, etc.

Janet Johnston’s publications

A STRONGER VOICE FOR JUSTICE

Mission Statement

Goals

To be continued . . . .

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Title 255—LOCAL COURT RULES SCHUYLKILL COUNTY

Amended/Adopted Civil Rules of Procedure

[40 Pa.B. 7041] [Saturday, December 11, 2010]

Order of Court

Proposed Revisions to Schuylkill County

Rules of Civil Procedure

Rule 1915.1(b). Definitions.

Rule 1915.3. Commencement of Action. Complaint. Order.

Rule 1915.3a. Kids First Program.

Rule 1915.15. Form of Complaint.

I’m going to print that commentary here:

This isn’t about “Kids First,” or Kids, at all; it’s about Purchase Immediately My Products (a.k.a. PIMPs in Govt, Inc.). Public Service? This is the public serving the self-appointed parenting preachers under guise of “it’s good for you,” i.e., public benefit.

It goes on:

The History

These behaviors and products are prime-time AFCC.

INDIANA & AFCC

This 2011 Judicial Conference meeting concluded peacefully:

I don’t know how comfortable the average reader feels with abandoning due process, law, etc. and giving leaders a huge leash (or taking them “off-leash”) by simply ignoring what’s going on with the primary institutions that rule people’s lives, such as — say, the courts?

And behind the courts is the power to incarcerate, or transfer wealth, and offspring; to spare life or to waste life . . . ..

To be continued …

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Keep an Eye on our Public Servants: District Attorney’s Offices

Always.

Take for example (1), Los Angeles County‘s:

BIOGRAPHY

How Nice.

Pre-Retirement (from the office):

Welcome to the Department of Child Support Services Website!

Take for example (2), Alameda County’s:

So, here’s “Nancy (O’Malley) goes to Washington” — What a Wonderful Life it must be.

Legislative Initiatives

JUST SAY NO!

Meanwhile…

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BELOW THIS LINE: AS WRITTEN May 2011 (except as I may later return here to clean up formatting, which is seriously in trouble at this point, but for a snapshot in time, you can see the basic content is still here and was then/still is now, solid on the business model in play…//LGH 9/29/2019):

FEE TABLE

WHO & WHAT IS KIDS’ TURN?

(well, see my recent post on this)…(or figure it out yourself):

Kids’ Turn

Specialties

So what IS it, anyhow?

Such a great organization obviously deserves some extra, extra legislative help…

http://www.metnews.com/endmomay02.html (This is 2002)

Case Against Judge Should Remain in San Diego, Court Rules

Honors, Memberships, and Professional Activities

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST, MUCH?

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No, that’s not a joke. I’m serious.

Or, we could just continue to watch this institution gradually eliminate the Bill of Rights, and the U.S. Constitution, in fact the entire concept of individual rights whatsoever, in favor of social(ism) science run amok.

Let alone the dubious ROI for this agency — Can you spell Four Billion?

$4,000,000,000

After I sent this document to Liz Richards, of NAFCJ.net, I got the following response:

“O Say Can You See?” what’s happened to the “land of the free” (or even the concept of the land of the free….)

“OCSE”: CLEAN IT UP OR SHUT IT DOWN:

by Michele N-K Collison

HOW MANY FOUNDATIONS DOES IT TAKE

TO ELIMINATE THE US CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS?

Whose idea was it, to switch society’s main institutions from the concept of individual rights (eventually — at least in theory — including minorities & females, in that order) in favor of “social science” (next step — back to eugenics….)?

Whose idea was it to centralize rule under Executive Dept. initiatives (versus the original idea — three branches of government).

Whose idea was it to eliminate the restrictions on sectarian religion on public government?

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

Marriage: America’s Greatest Weapon Against Child Poverty

Thursday, May 28. 2009

The Benefits of Marriage

Title 255—LOCAL
COURT RULES SCHUYLKILL COUNTY

[40 Pa.B. 7041]
[Saturday, December 11, 2010]

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