Posts Tagged ‘BWJP’
If Dog-Fighting, Cock-Fighting, and Exploiting Prisoners as Gladiators (resulting in shooting deaths for some, and “hundreds of shootings,” not to mention fight-related injuries for others) is “BAD,” then why isn’t also Federal (PRWORA-based) and State (Family Courts) Policy with similarly staged, high-stakes conflicts — rigged for intended outcomes, and obviously potentially lethal for the combatants and, periodically, bystanders — on a far larger stage (national, and in some high-profile cases, international), also involving known criminally violent** fathers and their children’s mothers, AND young children of all ages? [Published Dec. 17, 2017]
The “parent post” also dealt in part with guns and groups seeking to reduce death by gun violence. I guess they just weren’t thinking in terms of, “of prisoners, by prison guards…” Its title:
This is a short (ca. 6,700 words or so) aside to that post, and a link to return to the parent post above is provided again at the bottom. There may be some repetition as I added documentation and examples to the text before publishing.
It originates in making references of these topics as analogies for the situation I am most deeply concerned about, the macro-economic, system-wide practice of the same power blocs setting up artificial, high-stakes and sometimes life-and-death conflicts especially between men and women overall, and between individual men and women who are mothers and fathers of children in common, while demanding the public fund both sides (the public as taxpayers and through other service consumption of governmental business enterprises, including accessing the courts, registering vehicles yearly, marriage licenses even, continues to pay “up front”)
Many men and women can handle themselves without hurting or destroying each other economically or physically, and not all men and women, on divorcing, use their children as pawns or take them as hostages. But WHEN some do, it seems to be “game time” for others. It’s “show time.” All can be manipulated, and the longer the conflict goes on, the higher the bills, the more civil and legal rights concessions are demanded of them (and the larger public), the higher the stakes and the greater the risks of those personally involved — yet these concessions are often described as the intended methodologies to change the outcome.
But doing so directly is contrary to our self-impressions of the country and view that we have a possibly functional system of laws and courts. The influences are from the sidelines, from outside specific jurisdiction of family courts involved, and these influences come from Congress and the White House (which expends funding allocated to it by Congress, i.e., that budget) and are applied through, as the title above says, a real “money maze” — sometimes direct to the states, sometimes direct to nonprofits within the state but involved in the courts, and sometimes otherwise.
That’s why I say the game is “rigged.” It’s not a level playing field, and its rules can be altered year to year, and situation to situation — and that’s the way some people like it. Rather than SETTLING the standards by the law, with a preference throughout of NOT prioritizing privilege for violators of penal codes when there are two parents and one is a violator and the other, not.
Rather than just having fair laws and enforcing them fairly.
We (so to speak) also already exploit at least federal prisoners for slave labor, through FPI (Federal Prison Industries) a.k.a. Unicor (and have since the 1930s), which is also referenced here near the bottom, but not in this post’s title, which reads:
QUESTION: What’s bad when found to have occurred in secret, in confined and closed quarters from which combatants cannot escape, and involving animals (whether dogs or roosters with spurs) or when it happens in prisons with caged men, and in ALL of the above resulting in serious injury and sometimes death, not to mention being “exploitation, defined,” ….
LA times 4/24/2000, by Staff writer Max Arax, “Guards on Trial in Corcoran Shootings blame Prisoners
…Pointing the finger at a vast group of prisoners with no faces or voices in the federal courtroom, the defense is using the government’s own witnesses to put Corcoran’s violent culture on trial. Sounding at times like prosecutors themselves, attorneys for the eight guards are also blaming official state policy handed down from Sacramento for the thousands of fights between inmates and the hundreds of shootings by guards during a six-year reign of terror at the San Joaquin Valley prison.
Beginning in 1989, defense attorneys contend, the state’s integrated yard and shooting policies required guards to mix rival inmates from different street gangs and then to fire at them with deadly force if they refused to stop fighting.
…why is the same basic routine under “family-friendly policy,” and when the forced interaction with known dangerous persons frequently happens WITHOUT armed guards or trained personnel nearby but WITH women and children, boys or girls nearby — in fact sometimes without even any authority supervising the exchange, but the exchange is still court-ordered, forced after reasons for separation or requested protection are on record as domestic violence or child abuse — somehow justified as moral, ethical, and as “American” as (well, what should we say, truthfully — as American as slavery? or as indentured servitude based, this season, meaning, this past half-century minimum, on parent gender?)?
Read the rest of this entry »
SHARE THIS POST on...
Yes, Broken Courts, Flawed Practices, and the Parade of Fools: (Pt.1(a) Intro, Context) [Last post of 2014, publ. June 29, 2014].
From this post as first published:
This post is about advocacy group supporters and followers failing to set standards and keep their own leaders ethical. In a larger sense, the same goes for all of us as citizens, supporting by personal energy and labor (i.e., government revenues) — how can we keep leaders honest or ethical if we don’t have a grasp of what they are doing, what they are paid to do, and how the system is organized? ….
It is a natural continuation of the recent (and from May 2012) “Parades, Charades and Facades,” and my posting this is keeping a personal promise (to myself) for the year 2014, to expose what’s underneath the rhetoric.
I had no way of knowing at the time, but this became my last post of 2014, and I didn’t post anything for the entirety of 2015, for another round in the court system and while handling (yet) another round of family-generated problems putting my housing at risk through previous rounds which destroyed a sustainable profession (through the family courts) which was then used, apparently behind my back, to take control of an inheritance, and all but “dare” me to challenge the current status quo.I tend to challenge any current status quo which forces competent individuals onto food stamps needlessly, and continues to harass and interfere, cyclically, as I am noticed to be engaging in obtaining replacement work. This was coming to a head in summer 2014, which also may have prompted my desire here to lay out the elements clearly, naming names, as to which organizations occupied what status on the family court reform (and associated “domestic violence prevention” food chains, and how I came to understand where they were on that food chain.
In late 2019 I am coming back to review this post along with a few others which engaged in the “Our Broken Family Courts Initiative” (i.e., the Cummings Foundations, legal domicile Nevada, field of operations it seems, they’d chosen for some reason nearby Arizona.
I noticed it lacked my usual “Title & Shortlink” format, so came here to add one, to add the date published to the title itself, and these comments. It’s clear I considered this even in 2014 an important point to make by the next update section.//LGH Dec. 7, 2019. Here’s that Title now:
(short-link ends “-2ug”). Having also now noticed this post is an obnoxious 25.4K words long, I’ll see if/when I might get to an abbreviation and/or re-posting of key parts. That’s not a promise, just a recognition of the need! NOTE: This post has comments (some dialogue with readers) and more helpful links. Most posts don’t have comments; these are worth reading (and found at the bottom) as are I still believe its extensive list of tags.
//LGH.
[Published June 29, 2014; Post in edit mode late July-Aug. 2014; expanded to almost double the size,nearly 24,000 words; with background info….In most posts, a lot of the length is simply quotes, my style is not just tell, but “show and tell.”]
February 2016 Personal Update:
Without changing the contents here (except one paragraph or so, cleaning up some formatting and adding tags), I’ll mention that the MAJOR break in posting anything between June 29, 2014 and early 2016 came because my personal situation heated up so much after I went public on fiduciary abuse by an older sister — who’d played a crucial role in supporting/enabling (if not inciting) our original “custody war,” after playing a negligible, passive, codependent, domestic-violence-enabling role the previous decade, after learning that I was a battered wife and mother and seeking intervention.
From summer 2014 – early 2015, the situation went into probate court — lasting in total, nearly a year, to finish transition. Throughout 2015 I was working with and renegotiating standards with personnel in control of my resources, and continuing to withhold access to evidence of the paper trail….From summer 2014 – 2016, I was still writing things up, investigating, communicating privately with some individuals — but also had to spend major time, that’s writing time, and to lawyer, sister, starting with unearthing a written commitment on her part, yes/no — are you resigning or not? Then, requesting to settle out of court (which is possible under California code and the individual trust), which (of course) was rejected, stringing the process out, adding more professionals (not that I had some for protection on this end).
In 2015, a major transition dealing with new people — major negotiation time, and now as the year 2015 closed out and so far in 2016– I find myself again fighting for housing, and to obtain financial records, which certain people don’t want found. Both my (so to speak — father no longer involved, and I was prevented from continued involvement years earlier) young adult children now being out of the state, I had hoped to move on with life, and promptly move out of present housing. I found — “not so” from certain personnel, and that “not so” is in one of the most effective forms of messing with other human beings — litigation absent the supporting facts (and here, even proof of standing) as a form of extortion, which like some of the other things this blog talks about (child-stealing, wife-beating, stalking, terroristic threats on individuals, statements under penalty of perjury which are, well, known to be falsehoods by those speaking, these are criminal issues.
In these conditions, struggling with wordpress HTML and getting out a post, wasn’t going to happen. I’ve been working at a different format to start uploading what did, still, continue learning during the non-posting time. We shall see…. Anyhow, that’s why no follow-up parts to this post occurred, much as I would’ve liked to complete them. There are plenty in draft, and I am posting again. There are still plenty of survival-level challenges, which means that about the only relief or “down-time” still involves this kind of blogging anyhow —
––and in continuing to blog I am still thinking about the next generation, particularly of those who may have been trafficked, traded and repeatedly disrupted (UNLESS they come into an abusive home, it seems — then the “don’t disrupt” theme seems to prevail) like commodities between and among parent/non-parent caretakers — all rationalized and presided over in the institutions run by privately-networked in organizations & with those in government positions people (judges, experts, and social science research & demo projects building their resumes and journaling their findings) “IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST” and in the name of “NON-ADVERSARIAL COURT PROCEEDINGS,” “REDUCING CONFLICT” and of course Treating and Healing the scourges of wife-battering and child abuse [“SUPERVISED VISITATION / BATTERERS INTERVENTION”], for “Futures without Violence” “Safe Horizons” “Justice” (a common label on oh so many organizations), FAMILY reunification, preservation, (…. Responsible Fatherhood, Healthy Marriages, Access and Visitation — all such good, wonderful, noble things…) and my favorite term when applied to what allegedly MUST happen between perps and those perpetrated-upon: “CONCILIATION.” Unless parental alienation was perpetrated upon someone in a high-conflict relationship, in which case cold-turkey quarantining of the offender with de-programming for the alienated minor children.
Maybe we should call these courts something more appropriate to what takes place in them — like virtual auction blocks, or stock markets in human lives, with some able to profit so well in the field, they can as majority shareholders, demand changes in management, streamlined efficiency and increased return to shareholders, futures, options, the whole deal, on the profits of churning individual human beings’ relationships under the banner of helping society — and of course anyone “low-income” adjust to business as usual.
// Thanks for Readers’ Patience, including with some of the formatting in reading through existing posts, or if you were expecting new ones that didn’t come timely…., LGH (“Let’s Get Honest) 2/6/2016.
Between “Pts.1” [1a and 1b] and “Pt.2” I expect to post more material on the Family Court Enhancement Project (“FCEP”), which I understand is all the talk about town (i.e., on the internet in these circles (use your search function to find some of it…). So the title of this blog refers to a series. It is a natural continuation of the recent (and from May 2012) “Parades, Charades and Facades,” and my posting this is keeping a personal promise (to myself) for the year 2014, to expose what’s underneath the rhetoric.
These parades, charades, and facades have become a problem for the people who match the profile of what they claim to represent, “Protective Parents” and/or “Battered Mothers,” specifically. I am among that class and a witness of the practices, tactics, and censorships of dialogues involved. I believe collectively the groups involved comprise a cult, and exhibit all primary cult practices.
Before a few mental circuits of distressed parents disconnect, or melt from the heat of their own righteous indignation, (“But my children were abused; I am an incest survivor” etc.), this post is not about whether or not incest or abuse took place in those cases, or children are being placed in the care of batterers or dangerous parents. I’m a survivor, and I know that plenty of times, abuse, sometimes incest did take place and children ARE being placed in the care of batterers. Mine were….
This post is about what kind of parents are taking a road trip (real, or virtually) with ANY advocacy organizations whose articles of incorporation (if any) boards of directors on their tax returns and patterns of incorporation, charitable filings they have not yet even identified (let alone read and understood), and what’s worse to a destination they have not evaluated as sensible, based on analyses of those organizations in the larger context.
It’s about the dangers of tunnel vision. Focus is one thing, but tunnel vision, an entirely different thing. it’s about how even spending days, weeks and months on a combination of social media, group -emails, individual emails, and even supplemented by various published articles on a certain topic can still be like eating white bread and peanut butter only, and wondering why you can’t make it through the marathon.
It’s so easy to get a sense of TIME (date of origin of a group), PLACE (where did it originally incorporated, and if it’s one of those state-skipping chameleon corporations, make a note of it, and find out where it’s been before), SIZE (for that, see the financials), and POSITIONING (who else is it interlocking agenda with; and — this is important — is it talking from a religious-exempt institution, or from a law school, or center/institute (etc.) at a university, or individually. Universities, hospitals, government represent considerable clout, prestige and authority, and lesser accountability for said “Center” or Institute” when it comes to tracking the funding = tracking the influence. Is it a regular HHS grantee? On which federal funding streams?
How much does anyone involved really know, as an abuse survivor or simply as a taxpayer, about the USDOJ/OVW (Office of Violence Against Women) funding streams proceeding from passage and subsequent re-authorizations of the Violence Against Women Act (1994ff) and who’s on them, who’s advising them? What about the people who have been directors of that Office? (Two — Bea Hanson and the Hon. Susan B. Carbon — in this post). What are their affiliations, where did they come from policy-wise and professionally?
SHARE THIS POST on...
OVW + BWJP-FVPF + PRAXIS + NCADV(s) + AFCC = same old, same old (with new names on the grant systems) Here’s why: [Publ. July 6, 2011]
Post Title with shortlink and enclosed comments added June, 2019. Post written eight years earlier.
(This post came up in a search and I needed to add a “Read-More” link anyway).
See Gilder-Lehman Center at Yale or his NYT Obituary April, 2019. Undated photo.
OVW + BWJP-FVPF + PRAXIS + NCADV(s) + AFCC = same old, same old (with new names on the grant systems) Here’s why: [Publ. July 6, 2011] [WordPress-generated, case-sensitive short-link here ends in just two characters, probably because it’s so early in this blog: “-K7”]. As first published, about 10,800 words, incl. any & all quotes, image captions, tables, etc. //LGH June 23, 2019
On review of this post, I see that perhaps the final ⅓ is quoting (at length) three sources on Irish Slavery, including “Tangled Roots’ “Barbadosed: Africans and Irish in Barbados” from GLC.Yale.Edu, a center originally inspired when businessmen/history buffs G&L heard lectures by a Yale history professor David Brion Davis, who I now see just died this past April after a long, productive life:”Prizewinning Historian of Slavery Dies at 92” NYT April, 2019.
Professor Davis wrote or edited 16 books, but paramount were the three that examined the moral challenges and contradictions of slavery and their centrality in American and Atlantic history. ~~|~~The first, “The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture” (1966), won a Pulitzer Prize and was a National Book Award finalist. The second, “The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823” (1975), won the National Book Award as well as the Bancroft Prize, one of the most prestigious in the study of American history. ~~|~~The last book of the trilogy, “The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation,” was published in 2014 as Professor Davis approached 90. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award…~~|~~President Barack Obama presented Professor Davis with a National Humanities Medal in 2014 for “reshaping our understanding of history,” as the citation said. ~~|~~The fundamental problem of slavery, Professor Davis wrote, “lay not in its cruelty or exploitation, but in the underlying conception of man as a conveyable possession with no more autonomy of will and consciousness than a domestic animal.” [ “~~|~~” = para. break omitted]
I was (and still am) pretty irritated at the exclusionary practices of the above-named groups in deciding how to solve “family” problems involving abuse; see concluding paragraph. And there are many parallels between abuse and slavery.
Understandably, this torrent of text with missing paragraph breaks can be very irritating to read. But for those who do read, or skim, I believe I have made the point that AFCC members flock together, consult together, and set policy together. Generally speaking any policy that comes out will somehow, somewhere, contain the words “Parental Alienation” “High-Conflict” and usually to go with it, “treatment” or “solutions” etc.
The solution is generally going to require counseling or the services of a psychologist, counselor, mediator, psychiatrist, therapist or other mental health expert.
- First, positioning member (this is long done, and ongoing) high in government, particularly in the court system.
- Programs are pretty much pushed from the Top Down while proclaiming they are actually grassroots demand . . . .
- Running conferences — all over the place, but noticeably in real nice places that most of the people they are talking about (in the conferences, i.e., parents) have little chance of reaching (or affording hotel & airfare for)– such as Honolulu, with an after-trip to Cuba, or other cool places. As well as the Contiguous US conference circuit, ongoing.
- Pushing the services of psychologists and psychiatrists, including Ph.D.s in the same to remedy the majority of life’s problems.
- This of course is easier to push when you also have judges in the mix willing to sign a few court orders forcing treatment.
- Taking advantage of Federal Grants and teaching membership how to do the same, whether from HHS or DOJ.
- Strategically forming nonprofit corporations to contract, or subcontract with whatever the grants are for.
- Skillful involvement of Child Support Service (OCSE) weaponry** to target participants in certain programs, like parental education, in particular.
- Co-opting the Battered Women’s Movement and diluting it through “collaboration.” (HHS grants system helps motivate this behavior). For example, when Battered Women’s Justice Project combines with Association of Family & Conciliation Courts to study the problems with Custody.
Development of a Framework for Identifying and Explicating the Context of Domestic Violence in Custody Cases and its Implications for Custody Determinations
BWJP and its project partner, Praxis International, are expanding recent multidisciplinary efforts to more effectively protect the safety and wellbeing of children and their parents in the family court system by crafting a more practical framework for identifying, understanding and accounting for the contexts and implications of domestic violence in custody arrangements and parenting plans.
Read that one aloud nonstop, three times (one quick breath only per time) and try to deduce the meaning. Separate and examine each phrase and try to locate in time & space, and clearly label what they are referring to.
BWJP and Praxis staff have formed a National Workgroup with representatives from the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) and theAssociation of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC). In consultation with leading researchers and practitioners, they have begun to examine the institutional processes by which family courts commonly reach and/or facilitate crucial parenting decisions, including the use of auxiliary advisors such as custody evaluators, guardians ad litem and court appointed special advocates. The intent is to identify the ways in which current institutional practices produce both problematic and helpful results for children and their parents.
The goal of this analysis, which draws heavily from the Praxis Audit Process of institutional ethnography, is to develop concrete recommendations for producing safer, healthier outcomes for children and their battered and battering parents.**
Commentary:
Yes — rather than, say, accountability, let’s go for making sure the battering parents as well as the parents and children battered are safe. This is equally important, right?, to protecting both perpetrators and their victims, whether the other parent, or children.
Since when did the safety of a person who beats on or abuses another person rise in equality to the safety of the person attacked? Does this happen throughout the criminal law system as well? Is battering no longer a criminal matter, but a “family” matter? After all, the name of BWJP is “Battered Women‘s Justice Project.”
Any project to “produce an outcome” should be most concerned about the processes involved to get there — which is where the “Justice” part supposedly enters in!
TO figure out how to do this, assemble experts from BWJP — a group that has so far not reported (at all) on the AFCC– and the AFCC, and another family court oriented group, NCJFCJ.
AFCC judicial members and others are notorious for switching custody to batterers on the basis of parental alienation, a theory derivative of some incest-friendly psychologists (Gardner et al.) and promoted by an organization founded by them. This sad/bad custody-switching habit spawned by AFCC (it wasn’t battering; it was parental alienation, and your mind needs adjustment, Mom; GREAT idea. . . .) has itself spawned another set of nonprofit groups who like to complain about it (but not address AFCC’s role or the fatherhood grants system’s role, or for that matter, the role of the child support system in funding the operation).
There already IS a framework — and these organizations are IT! So the same organizations are going to “frame” (or rather REframe) the problems they have helped create? — AFCC, as a primary agent, and BWJP at this point, I’ll have to call a decoy. Who, really is being “framed” here?
SHARE THIS POST on...
I turn, You turn, We all (must) turn to “Kids’ Turn” (and spinoffs)…per AFCC.. [Orig. Publ. May 23, 2011, #2 of 2, same-day].
[Title, short-link, background-color, borders and some tags added Sept. 30, 2019 because I’m linking to this older post..//LGH]
Yumm….. More goodies in the search to solve this problem, including why does the SFTC (That’s SF Trial Courts) have a LIEN on Kids’ Turn, which is constantly seeking more donors so poor kids can consume its services? (Richer ones, there’s a probably no-cap? sliding scale……)
How many mental health professionals is it possible to squeeze into one court case? And how is it done?
Ideally, as many as possible — one after another, after another. There is sure to be a need for them, given that the entire concept of mental health in the family law system is an oxymoron (see the word “law”).
Of course the family law system got its jumpstart with mental health professionals in alliance with legal professionals, somewhere shortly after women go the vote (but before all states had ratified it). The longer the system exists (generation after generation) the more mental health problems there are guaranteed to occur, given the source of them is the practitioner’s cognitive dissonance with state law (for example, against child abuse, child stealing, or valiant statements that there is a rebuttable presumption against custody going to batterers. Or, for that matter, child abusers. It’s a few steps away from fingerpainting — with the paint jars being the jargon used by various fields, which end up generally speaking in one big sticky mess.
Of course, you’re not supposed to see them at play behind closed doors, but since the advent of the Internet (which helps the conferences occur, obviously — and the curricula get disseminated — I’ll show how in a bit here) it’s also fun to track ’em down and catch’em in the act. Like my last post did with AB 2263, an attempt to legislate Kids’ Turn (ONLY) for a Judicial Council sponsored (public payments, I’m sure) analysis of how effective Kids’ Turn — excuse me, “programs that provide services to children undergoing divorce” (or whatever they called it to cover up that the original meaning intended was simply a nonprofit group brainstormed by — you guessed it — family law judges, etc.– this one in particular).
Well Gray Davis vetoed even the sanitized version of let’s build a LEGISLATIVE pipeline from this group to the entire divorcing population (Parental) of California — and the world, but we can start it here — and stick someone else, like taxpayers — with the bill. That was back in 2002.
Did that stop the idea? Heck no! I found the 48th Annual AFCC conference (Kids’ Turn is self-identified as an AFCC member. I guess a nonprofit can be a member of an association of court professionals (judges, commissioners and so forth) with mental health professionals with attorneys, etc.)
So, how IS it done? (other than out of the ready earshot of a court litigant, namely, parent in a custody battle).
(1)
FIRST OF ALL: FORM RAPID DEPLOYMENT UNITS — OF ONE JD, ONE Ph.D. (mental health, what else?) and one MSW or LCSW, or LMFT. Each has a specific purpose. Right now, we find this combo in pre-game a coaching session complete with powerpoint slides and diagrams:
….Understanding the Roles of Mental Health Professionals in Collaborative Practice
Conference : 48th Annual Conference
- A major strength of collaborative practice is the work done by the family with mental health professionals. Collaborative professionals frequently work in interdisciplinary teams to facilitate peaceful resolution. The collaborative process may include one “neutral” mental health professional, or two “aligned” mental health professionals. Both of these approaches may include a child specialist to help understand and facilitate focusing on the needs of the children. In some areas, mental health professionals work as neutral facilitators and as case managers. The program will provide an overview of each role and the strengths and advantages of each.
- Diane S. Diel, J.D., ** President, International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, Milwaukee, WI Barbara E. Kelly, Ph.D., Maitland, FL Mary M. Stengel, M.S.W., LCSW, Towson, MD [PARTNER in COLLABORATION LLC: Alice Dansker Doyle]
- [**notice (Mandatory) Parent Education link on Ms. Diel’s site. This is a critical component. Unless such classes were indeed MANDATORY (even if parents have no custody dispute!) who would attend?][More on this below, @ “Children in the Middle”]
Ms. Doyle is dedicated to the concept of assisting families to civilly resolve issues involved in custody, divorce and related disputes and training dedicated professionals to join the Collaborative community. Toward that result, she and Mary McNeish Stengel, LCSW, established Collaborative Training Solutions, Inc., (CTS) a company completely separate from her law and mediation practice ….Ms. Doyle sees spreading the Collaborative word as a mission. There are many professionals and communities that have not been educated in the Collaborative model of dispute resolution. Some don’t have training available within a reasonable distance because of population and geographical challenges. In addition to reaching larger populations, Ms. Doyle enjoys traveling to communities to provide trainings where local professionals are excited and want to be trained, yet may otherwise have to travel great distances for training because their community is too small to attract a large trainee group”
Session Handouts for AFCC’s 48th Conference
….NOTE — this is an UPCOMING Conference (June, 2011) called ‘What’s Gender Got To Do With It?” See my posts of January, 2011 — when I talk about are you speaking mother, father, or mediator? Pick a conference — there’s something for everyone (but the house wins when the coins are finally tossed.. that’s “mediator” rhetoric)…
The powerpoint slides (available on-line at above link) show few photos, but there’s one — of a father with a kid on his shoulders — next to “Maintain Focus on What is In the Best Interests of the Child,” which is under “Elements of Coaching” slide. But let’s go to the diagram, the playbook:
The slide “WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE?” shows two clients in the center, surrounded by larger circles, each one inhabited by a professor. This reminds me of a child’s game, such as “Ring Around the Rosy” or “Duck-Duck-Goose”. Either way the clients (litigants, most likely, parents….) are indeed surrounded by spheres of influence with lines between them; it does remind me of a corral:
“The Suggested Playahs”:
Two per client: Coach & Lawyer
At top and bottom: “Child Specialist“** (at the top — this category reigns supreme, obviously) and bottom, “Financial Specialist” which of course has to undergird the program, or who would fund he other specialists? How can you have a family law case without ferreting who’s got the assets that are going to be soaked in this process? So, FInancial Specialists are very, very important, especially for moneyed divorcing (or separating) parents.
Alternately, if one parent is Title IV-D (welfare), then the “Financial Specialists” are the program managers, and child support administrators, etc. After all, with $4 billion enforcement fees (per year, nationally speaking) surely some of these employees can figure out who’s got the money in each case. It’s in the public’s best interest for the courts to know….
**Child Specialist: (slide) is a NEUTRAL third party who focuses exclusively on the children’s concerns and/or their interests, advocates for the children and consults to the parents and their team. (Why GALs wont work is ….)
MOST professionals like to get paid for their work. Given that this includes child specialists, I say that it’s a rare person holding demi-god (i.e., neutral and not in the least subject to temptation to skew the scale) status. (“Mea culpa, mea culpa” for bringing this up)
When any judge takes payments from any County (in addition to state salary, whether this is in the form of benefits, or anything else) that’s a conflict of interest — the County has a vested interest in certain types of cases, and LOTS of these cases involve children, and child support, sometimes foster care and adoptions as well.
One attorney (non-aligned) noticed this and wrote about it in January, 2009. (I don’t think he was an AFCC member….):
LA County Payments to LA Superior Court Judges Cost Taxpayers Almost 1 Billion Dollars and Denied Constitutional Rights to the People of LA CountyJanuary 07, 2009
Los Angeles, California –
The commencement of the of unconstitutional payments by LA County to LA Superior Court judges was “unnoticeable” to the people of LA County in the late 1980s. Yet, its effect began to permeate the Los Angeles political and judicial systems to the extent that fundamental constitutional rights were compromised.Twenty years after the commencement of the payments, the political and judicial systems of LA County are rife with conflicts of interest, lack of disclosure and the failure to enforce constitutional rights and laws.A well traveled “money trail” exists from LA County who makes payments to LA Superior Court judges [present and past] who decide cases in favor of LA County.
Seems to me it took only a few months for a Superior Court Judge to throw in in Jail and the California Bar to disbar him. After all, his emphasis was constitutional issues (California State), and individual legal rights to fair and unbiased judicial hearings — not exactly your basic mental health, custody-coaching, professional-referral-basis expanding scheme.
So, he got tossed (well, led from the courtroom in handcuffs, and it seems the arrest record also fudged somewhat) into solitary coervcie confinement, as we now know, in an attempt to break his spirit (Note: it failed. 18 months later, he was finally released, and is still at it). This is an interim report from some groups / individuals that took up this banner — about no danged conflicts of interests in our courts, dammit! You will note, Mr. Fine’s comments were from his jail cell (and he has also been disbarred).
Los Angeles, CA Full Disclosure Network® presents a 3 min video report on the November 23, 2009 remarks made by Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich at a meeting of the Los Angeles County Lincoln Club in North Hollywood. The Supervisor provided an update regarding the controversy over long-time practice of the County making payments to Los Angeles Superior Court Judges. Civic leader David R. Hernandez provides his account of the presentation in the video.
A Fourth District CA Court of Appeals decision in November of 2008 ruled the county’s payments were illegal in theSturgeon v. County of Los Angeles lawsuit that revealed Judges, who are all elected officials, were not disclosing the extra payments they received from the County to litigants in the courtroom in cases involving the county nor on the Form 700 Economic Interest statements as required by the California Fair Political Practices Act.
Antonovich responded to a question about the continuing public concern that county payments created a “conflict” for judges and if this conflict was going to be resolved?
Here are some of the points made by Supervisor Antonovich:
- Recent [FEB 11, 2009] legislation, Senate Bill SBX2 11 has now made the payments legal.
- All new judges (appointed or elected) will not be receiving payments from the county.
- Most other California counties have been paying (illegal) benefits to the judges
- This was not just a Los Angeles County practice
- L A Judges have not always ruled in favor of the County (payments started in 1988)
- Several court rulings have been in against the County and in favor of illegal aliens
Featured in the video: are two prominent critics of the illegal payments made to Judges by the County and below are comments from Richard I Fine from his L.A. County Jail cell.
Richard Fine Fires back, in an L.A. Op Ed, as to Ron George. I’m enclosing here, for contrast with the profession-mongering family law field, via AFCC, to see a contrasting view of “in the best interests” of — one based on stop wasting our tax dollars, and concealing how this is done, not to mention, undermining the US Bill of Rights, labeled:
“The Deception of California Supreme Court Justice Ron George”
REBUTTAL TO L A TIMES OP-EDBy Richard I. FineIn his September 14, 2009 Los Angeles Times Op-Ed article California Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald George stated that the Judicial Council of California decided to close the California Courts one day a month until June 2010. He acknowledged the hardship on Californian’s and praised the Superior Court Judges who volunteered to take a one day pay cut.
FAILED TO DISCLOSE AUTHORSHIP
However, he did not disclose that the same Judicial Council of California of which he admitted he is the Chairman, also wrote Senate Bill SBX2 11. This bill was introduced by Senate President Pro-Tem Daryl Steinberg on February 11, 2009 passed by the State Senate on February on 14th , 2009 and passed by the State Assembly on February 15, 2009 signed by the Governor on February 20, 2009 and became effective on May 21, 2009.EXTRA JUDICIAL BENEFITS & CRIMINAL IMMUNITY
Such bill reinstated “supplemental county benefits” to Superior Court Judges in addition to their State Salary and compensation. Such supplemental County benefits have been held to be “unconstitutional” in the case ofSturgeon vs County of Los Angeles 167 Cal Ap 4th 630 (2008) review denied 12/23/08. Such bill also gave retroactive immunity to the Judges and others from criminal prosecution, civil liability and disciplinary action.$30 MILLION MORE DURING FISCAL CRISIS?
By omitting to disclose Senate Bill SBX2 11 and it’s retroactive immunity,Chief Justice George did not inform the people that the loss to the taxpayers in L.A.County alone of these supplement payments to the Superior Court Judges in fiscal year 2009-2010 is estimated at $30 million dollars this loss is greater than the contributions of all of the Judges of one day’s pay per month over a year. In effect, under Senate Bill SBX2 11 the judges are making more money during this financial crisis while the citizens of California suffer.DUE PROCESS DENIED
Worse yet, because of the retroactive immunity the decisions of the judges receiving county payments before 05-21-09 violated the due process clauses of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution and the California Constitution.
(end of commercial break from AFCC/Family Court Fantasia. back to our regularly scheduled post subject matter, here….)
OK Gray Davis in 2002 scotched (Vetoed) the concept of legislating Kids’ Turn, the whole Kids’ Turn and basically nothing BUT Kids’ Turn** (or — OK, maybe a look-alike or spinoff, such as Kids First, or Kids in the Middle, or Children in the Middle, or . .. or . . . . . anything that would require lots of people, some of who would recommend that parents be ordered to consume social-service product of, for example, a single AFCC acolyte (or, fully fledged priest) from Tarrant County, Texas . . . . . ).
Since the Governor (not the terminator) said NO! although the legislature (with its sanitized version) clearly said “YES” and wanted him to sign it . . . . did these zealots take “No!” for a final answer? Heck, No — they are salespeople first of foremost, and educators at heart.
[[**more commonly known as:
“The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth! So Help Me God!“and you gotta visit the website, there…. unlike these AFCC people, the author has a sense of humor in presenting reality…..]]
All true educators need to get continual access to people who need training after all, ambulance chasers chase ambulances, right? But what’s a psychologist and M.Ed.D. to do without some governmental subsidies? (“incentives”) — compete in the free market base don the quality of the product? NO! — back to the gameboard.
All that was just (long) introduction and setting the stage. This is the juicy center of the dialogue, and why I started this post — after the last two Kids’ Turn Posts. They’re just UNbelievable…. Anyone wnat to go to Florida and take notes at this upcoming conference? Lookee here:
Here’s some “Kids in the Middle” presenters. I’ll be back tomorrow — not done yet here…
Session : AFCC1111
5. Working with High Conflict Parents: How Conflict, Personality Disorders and Gender Influence Outcomes for Children
Conference : 48th Annual Conference
Speaker(s) :
- High conflict parents are the most difficult to work with in divorce proceedings. They utilize an inordinate amount of time and patience for professionals working with them. In addition, enduring conflict between parents, both pre- and post-divorce, has the greatest negative impact on children of divorce. Attorneys, mediators and guardians are in a position to recognize and minimize parental conflict when they possess knowledge about how gender and personality disorders play a role. This workshop focuses on recognizing the key elements at play and providing strategies for ensuring positive outcomes for the entire family system.
- Judy Berkowitz, M.Ed., Executive Director, Kids In The Middle, St. Louis, MO Carol Love, M.A., SMFT, Kids In The Middle, St. Louis, MO
- CLICK THE pdf ICON FOR SESSION HANDOUTS DOWNLOAD
Kids in the Middle profits from the Court-referrals and Schools-referral clientele, and says so on its 2009 Annual Report:
Workshops at the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court, Family Court ␣ 330 parents attended mandated parent education workshops.
Yes it is a Nonprofit, and in 2009, despite over $2,000 in interest income (how many people would this house for a month?), and over $1 mil in income, it operated $55K in the hole, which seems to be a standard in some of these groups. Probably because there are simply so many young and old, and middle-aged people that need this help, a little overeager promotional spending?
Ms. Berkowitz’s KIDS IN THE MIDDLE.org site has a book list. I always find these informative, for example, a few choice ones:
- The Boys’ and Girls’ Book About Divorce
, by Richard Gardner
THE MAN’s DEAD (a vicious death involving knives. Some say suicide, some disagree….), BUT HIS SELF-PUBLISHED IDEAS LIVE ON AMONG CONVERTS…..
- Good Parenting Through Your Divorce
- Parenting After Divorce: A Guide to Resolving Conflicts and Meeting your Childrens’ Needs
PHILIP STAHL ~ highly under-reported by women’s groups protesting PAS theory — they simply don’t pay attention to the distribution systems like I started to ~ ~ CARRIES THE GARDNER TORCH, AND HE’S GOOD AT IT. HE’S PART OF THE JUICY CENTER OF MY POST HERE TODAY — ABOUT HOW HIS BOOKS (AND OTHERS) ARE PROMOTED.. THROUGH COURT-MANDATED PARENTING PROGRAMS DIRECTING EVERYONE TO CONSUME JUDGE-ORIGINATED LITERATURE PUSHED THROUGH JUDGE-ORIGINATED (OR MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONAL-ORIGINATED) NON-PROFIT, AND SOMEONE HAS TO SAY THIS — FRONT GROUPS. OR STRAIGHT OUT FOR-PROFIT COLLABORATIONS AMONG THE VARIOUS PROFESSIONALS ALL OBSESSED WITH “helping” OPK (other people’s kids) with the problems THEY perceive, from THEIR perspective (only) and with OUR (public) money, like as not…
While the parents they are coaching, already under huge financial stress often enough, are (if taxpayers and wage-earners) picking up, collectively, the slack which nonprofits — because of their wonderful public benefits to all of us, and the universe — get out of paying, i.e., funds for themselves and services like libraries, police, schools, public transportation infrastructure, and far less urgent public priorities than indoctrinating kids and parents in the right way to think about their own children, and their own situations, and of course how not to use criminal terminology in one’s thought processes, even if convictions show that it’s occurred. After all, let’s just “focus on the family” and forget about those other unpleasant matters — eech!
Let’s take a look at a slide, so we know what to expect from this “What’s GENDER Got to Do With It?” AFCC upcoming conference among mental health professionals, attorneys and judges in the family law system:
Workshop Objectives
Know how to recognize a client who may have a personality disorder.
Understand how the traits of a client with a personality disorder can lead to chronic conflict and therefore poor outcomes for their children.
Understand how gender issues can combine with some personality disorders, resulting in extreme dysfunction and poor outcomes for children.
Understand why personality disorder traits make it difficult for parents to meet their children’s needs.
Understand the increased risk for alienation when a parent has a personality disorder.
Learn strategies to manage and support the client with a personality disorder.
I don’t suppose any “personality disorders” might result from abuse, virtual POW situations in the home, or years of trying to avoid provoking a violent incident — or seeking outside protection (and not getting it) from someone molesting one’s own kids on unsupervised weekend visitations…. Or having suddenly lost one’s kids’ after trying to do something about that and having been unprepared for the impact of federal incentives to switch custody and eliminate child support arrears through access visitation funding….
But, as it’s said, Cobblers see shoes, and Mental Health professionals see Personality Disorders and not what might have CAUSED them…. To People selling hammers, the problem is a nail… To people obsessed with unmonitored contact with distressed minor children — and these often show up in M.Ed.D. forms, i.e., as educators — the problem with divorce is the parents…. both of them — and the solution is to separate the kids and coach them on how to think about their parents and themselves….This also pertains if the source of conflict may entail, say, poverty — it’s still more critical that the problemsolving money goes to nonprofits coaching Kids and Parents…..
Here’s another slide. Given the scope of the problem (neurotic divorcing parents), Kids in the Middle, Inc. and it’s 23 paid staff (some of who are, obviously getting some frequent flyer miles in, too) stand ready to stand in the gap against the bad parents, and provide services to fix their viewpoints:
About Kids In The Middle ®
Our Services: Consultation Assessments Group Therapy for Children Individual Therapy for Children Family Therapies Treatment Reviews Individual Therapy for Parents Co-Parenting Counseling Parent Groups
Diagnostic Supervised Visitation Mandated Co-Parenting Education Classes
(at least 3 of these categories come under the federal access visitation (incentive) grants to increase noncustodial parenting time. We know in practice, this rarely occurs with a mother, even though more and more mothers are being completely eliminated from contact with their children through these and similar programs. Moreover, to keep the professional straights, AFCC around the country & state chapters are also heavily promoting (supposedly to meet the grassroots demand from the general public) “Parent Coordination” as a new field. Wait til you see my post on THAT one….)
Here’s another. Notice that being “wounded” disqualifies one’s ability to co-parent (which might result in recommendation of sole custody to the other parent, logically speaking….). There is no mention of who is inflicting which wounds. THe total oblivion to the blood on the streets of women and children (and sometimes men, by suicide after killing the women, or just the children) around divorce. Those aren’t their concern, I guess. After all, dead people don’t consume mental health services….at least court-mandated; I imagine it could seriously screw up surviving relatives and witnesses….
Assessing Parental Ability to Co-Parent
What we look for:
Level of cooperation as parents in the marriage Is conflict pervasive or focused on a few issues? Level of trust Level of “woundedness” of one or both parents Level of acceptance of the separation
Ability or inability to let go of issues from the marriage Level of animosity Ability to recognize and express the other parent’s
strengths Mental Health Issues
DastardlyDads.blogspot.com reports some of these (I’m glad someone else does, I couldn’t do this consistently — too close to home!) Here’s one from May, 2011 — this month.
Dad charged with 1st-degree murder; 17-year-old daughter found in dumpster (Washington, DC)
After much public display of grief and gnashing of teeth, dad RODNEY JAMES MCINTYRE has been arrested in the stabbing murder of his 17-year-old daughter. Her body was found in a dumpster. Seems that Daddy was sexually abusing her. Not one word here about this girl’s mother….INVISIBLE MOTHER ALERT. http://dcist.com/2011/05/father_of_ebony_franklin_charged_wi.phpFather of Ebony Franklin Charged with First Degree MurderNearly 6 months ago, MPD made the gruesome discovery of the body of 17-year-old Ebony Franklin in a dumpster in the ally of the 1000 block of Fairmont Street NW. Now, they have arrested Rodney James McIntyre, Ebony Franklin’s father, for her murder. Ebony was stabbed 17 times.Sources say McIntyre was linked both by DNA and cell phone records to Franklin’s death.
Police Chief Cathy Lanier indicated in her press conference announcing McIntyre’s arrest that there was also evidence of a sexual relationship between Ebony Franklin and her father.
McIntyre had been quoted in the press saying that “The way my baby was found in the trash, it’s unacceptable. What I want to know as her father, what really took place with my child?”
Now why must parents who may have gone through some serious, criminal hell spots be exposed, unilaterally, to consume classes by professionals who blame both parents for failure to get along with each other in situations where there is a clear perpetrator? . . . . . . . . I’ll let you figure out your own answer, I have also…. The entire forced shared-parenting/ joint-parenting field ignores situations like this, and that if separation HAD been allowed by the family law system, how many children would be alive now, that aren’t? And their mothers? and their fathers? What kind of sick obsession is it to change the language of criminal law into the language of, “my mental illness — and she alienated my children — made me do it”? This IS the language of AFCC; their main site acknowledges this, and it has now become the norm….
The real motivation is greed and fear of no professional niche for people raised on education theories and psychology. .. back to this particular group:
I’m so re-assured that these mandated classes will keep us on the right track. However, if they don’t, these same ladies are also training Advanced GAL classes (from a 2010 Missouri Bar agenda):
Child-Focused Divorce Therapy & How Attorneys Can Keep Kids Out of the Middle of Divorce Disputes
Speakers: Judy Berkowitz and Carol Love, Kids In The Middle, Inc., Kirkwood [MO]*
[GEE: I wonder if the punch-line is to recommend classes/services from groups like, say, “Kids in the Middle”…]
(*Kirkwood is an affluent suburb of St. Louis)
NOW LET’S SEE ANOTHER SET OF AFCC WORKSHOPS/ MP3s on HOW TO THINK RIGHT (a.k.a., marketing seminars for court professionals)….
-
A little more “Parenting Coordination” promo, a little more “Alienation Theory” promo never hurts:
ession : AFCC1101
2. Advanced Challenges in Parenting Coordination
Conference : Pre-Conference Sessions from the 48th Annual Conference
Speaker(s) :
- Successful parenting coordination is dependent on a research-based understanding about what works and what doesn’t. This institute will help participants optimize outcomes with difficult parenting coordination cases by constructing a framework for success. Presenters will address parenting coordination from the mental health {{1st things first — Mental Health First, Legal — 2nd}} and legal {{legal rights? legal ethics? or how to expand the legal profession(and further undermine civil rights) by engaging mental health professionals?}} perspectives offering a multidimensional understanding of the process. Participants will be better prepared to address complex parent coordination cases. {{PARENTING COORDINATION EXISTS to handle the Complexity Groups like AFCC have already introduced. Apparently, this has gotten out of hand, and not parenting coordination itself has (already) gotten “complex” and needs coaches to tell coordinators how to keep it together…}}
- Debra K. Carter, Ph.D., National Cooperative Parenting Center, Bradenton, FL Hon. Hugh Starnes (ret.), Ft. Myers, FL Denise L. Baier, M.A., Ft. Myers, FL B. Kerry Brown, M.S.W., Temple Terrace, FL
Session : AFCC1102
3. Differential Responses to Alienation: Risk Factors, Indicators and AssessmentConference : Pre-Conference Sessions from the 48th Annual Conference
Speaker(s) :
- Alienation has serious consequences for children and families. Based on a differential response model, the presenters advocate for early identification of parent-child contact problems and risk factors for the occurrence of alienation, and the implementation of appropriate, targeted responses. ** This institute (“INSTITUTE”???) provides a framework (indoctrination model) for assessing and intervening with families to resolve parent child contact problems before behaviors become entrenched; and help judges, lawyers and mental health workers to effectively respond to cases of alienation.** The analytical framework presented is based on a review of literature and case law, interviews with practitioners and scholars, and clinical experiences.
- Nicholas Bala, LL.B., LL.M., Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada Barbara Jo Fidler, Ph.D., Toronto, ON, Canada Michael Saini, Ph.D., M.S.W., University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
***”Alienation” is like the headless horseman. It’s been proved scientifically unsound and rejected by the American Prosecutors (etc., etc.) — but it rides on, in places like this.
A group taking Violence Against Women funds is now in bed with the “let’s not talk about it!” AFCC, lending a false legitimacy to the discussion. I have tracked funding from this one (BWJP) and am presently p*ssed off at the alliance — although hardly surprised by it. FOr the record, attempts were made to contact Ms. Frederick about AFCC regarding mis-use of the federal program funds to pay off custody switching to batterers/molesters (as I recall Liz Richards relating this — I was the person who alerted her to BWJP hooking up with AFCC). For a number of years, HHS grants of $1.78 Million went to this organization. The mutual blindness is probably not accidental — it’s a symbiotic relationship to keep the grants coming and support the published professionals — while parents, I must say, perish, or just about….
Session : AFCC1122
16. Examining the Family Court Response to Cases Involving Domestic Violence: Findings of the Henry County Ohio Safety Audit
Conference : 48th Annual Conference
Speaker(s) :
- This workshop describes the methodology and outcomes of a recent study of the legal and social service systems used to resolve child custody matters involving allegations of domestic violence. The Safety Audit, an institutional ethnography process, generated practical recommendations for strengthening the responses of various family court practitioners to custody cases involving domestic violence. Local and national audit team members will share the findings and recommendations of this audit and discuss the challenges of the process.
- Loretta Frederick, J.D., Battered Women’s Justice Project, Winona, MN Hon. Denise McColley, Henry County Family Court, Napoleon, OH Richard L. Altman, J.D., Magistrate, Napoleon, OH PamWeaner, J.D., Legal Aid of Western Ohio, Defiance, OH
- CLICK THE pdf ICON FOR SESSION HANDOUTS DOWNLOAD
These people truly do not know what time of day it is. What they do know, however, is where their next plane ticket is coming from. The difference in perspective comes from a consciousness and quasi-religious (in some cases, less than quasi-) belief that the world is fair, and that certain types of professionals are essential to keep it balanced — if only those danged parents would be more docile when ordered to sit still and be taught at!
Here, Ms. Frederick is on a Domestic Violence Task Force (“Wingspread Conference”) with a bunch of AFCC-ers, giving their concerns about the matter a veneer of respectability.
http://www.afccnet.org/pdfs/AFCC%20Five-Year%20Report%20Web.pdf
(hover/click to see summary text on link. Looks like AFCC, bored with the US, is providing social science libraries to developing nations, to make sure they develop right — Philistines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Mongolia. I don’t suppose any of these materials might take into account cultural differences or, for example, address family problems caused by — shari’a law, and honor killings? ??? Are we still into co-parenting issues there, too? Or is it just the ol’ bread and butter parental alienation, plus bring on the court-referred mental health professionals? Do we think that these countries are going to need fatherhood commissions to balance out the destructive feminists in developing nations who — for example — attempt to marry out of their faith, or are guilty of having been gang-raped without 4 male witnesses to testify it wasn’t consensual adultery — punishable by death, to the woman at least..?)
I really have to question AFCC’s motives in all this — what “world” do they live in? Where are their heads at?
And we are letting this PRIVATE, JUDGE~MENTAL HEALTHPROFESSIONAL-ORIGINATED, NONPROFIT(and originally, tax-dodging) PRIVATE organization basically run the family law system, which receives PUBLIC funds, from the top (California Judicial Council, Texas Supreme Court, at least, and plenty of superior court judges are members) to bottom and even let them train paraprofessionals who don’t even belong there to start with ? ??? And we then fund domestic violence organizations who don’t fess up to they’re going along with the program, pretty much, by failing to report the grants angle (i.e., how it plays into custody decisions….)
???
So, YEAH, I’m disturbed by this. Why shouldn’t I be? Did Ms. Frederick or BWJP report on, say, in 1999, how Ohio Legislature voted a Fatherhood Commission in to law, and did they warn single mothers, including single battered mothers, how this might impact their custody cases? See “5101.34 Ohio Commission on Fatherhood”
or how its membership was specifically targeted to single females? …. Or how this then, a mere 2 years later (2001) apparently, led to supreme-court appointed a TASK FORCE ON FATHERHOOD (you always need a task force, right?) I hope blog readers scan through THIS document, and search for “Philip Stahl” (an expert who testified, what else), learn how people were flown out to Maricopa County, Arizona home of Dawn Axsom – oh, I forgot — she was murdered, along with her mother, on a court-ordered visitation after pleading with a family law judges to leave, as there had been death threats — to hear AFCC presentations.
Ohio Task Force on Family Law and Children
Family Law Reform: Minimizing Conflict, Maximizing Families*
*if that sounds like your basic AFCC presentation, it is…. Experts giving testimony:
Experts and Stakeholders
Individuals who testified before the Task Force
Nancy Neylon Executive Director Ohio Domestic Violence Network
The Hon. Judith Nicely President Ohio Domestic Relations Judges Association
Kevin O’Brien President of the Board Parents And Children for Equality
Eileen Pruett, J.D. Director of the Office of Dispute Resolution Supreme Court of the State of Ohio
Nancy Rodgers, J.D. Vice Provost, Academic Administration The Ohio State University
Jeff Sherrill, Ph.D. Meers, Inc. Ohio Psychological Association
Michael Smalz, J.D. Statewide Attorney Ohio State Legal Services Association
The Hon. Leslie H. Spillane Judge, Butler County Court of Common Pleas Domestic Relations Division
Philip Stahl, Ph.D. Psychologist Author “Conducting Child Custody Evaluations: A Comprehensive Guide” and “Complex Issues in Child Custody Evaluations”
Tracy Ulstad, J.D. Ohio State Legal Services-NAPIL Equal Justice Fellow
Sanford Braver, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Arizona State University Author “Divorced Dads: Shattering the Myths”
Gerard Clouse, J.D. Attorney, Sowald, Sowald and Clouse
Christine Coates, M.Ed., J.D. Mediator and Parent Coordinator Past President, Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
Robert Emery, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Director of Clinical Training Director of the Center for Children Families and the Law University of Virginia Author: “ Marriage, Divorce and Children’s Adjustment”
Judy Greenberger School Psychologist, Shaker Heights City Schools Ohio School Psychologists
Don Hubin, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy The Ohio State University
Magistrate Eva Kessler, J.D. Chair, Domestic Relations Practice Area Ohio Association of Magistrates
Deborah Kline Association for Child Support Enforcement
Michael Lamb, Ph.D. Head of Section on Social and Emotional Development National Institute Of Child Health and Human Development
The Hon. Charles Loman III Judge, Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas, Domestic Relations Division Kids Turn Program
(Did someone say there is a Kids Turn Program right on a court website? Well that simplifies matters…CN find record of this one easily, or much on the judge….)
(This link is FYI amusement — although the mother in the case is not amused. She did get the expense reports, however, and out one of Judge Loman’s associates for billing taxpayers on Thanksgiving Day, after having hand-delivered a final decision. This is a PAS/Sexual abuse allegations, custody went to Daddy case, might be interesting reading….)
{2011, it looks like a ‘Parent Education Department:
“The court is led by Administrative Judge Denise L. Cross and Judge Timothy D. Wood. The Judges are assisted in performing the duties of the court by nine Magistrates, the Legal Services Department, the Court Operations Department, Bailiffs, Court Reporters, the Legal Secretary Department, the Assignment Office, the Compliance Office, the Family Relations Department, the Mediation Services Department, the Management of Information Systems Department, the Finance Department, and the Parent Education Department.”
The required seminar (3 hrs) is “Helping Children Succeed After Divorce” as a link to this 5-yr divorce case shows, interesting docket, too.
OHIO 2001 Task Force Experts — Anyone want to bet how many of the above are members of AFCC, besides those who actually admitted it?
Here (remember — back in 2001) is the preface to the final report of this task force, showing what they did:
However, given the scope and importance of the project, the General Assembly extended this deadline, to allow this research effort to be advanced more fully.
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.**
{**and has an official policy to change the “old” language of criminal law to the “new” language of (psychology, essentially…..) –}
{**anyone see a feminist flavor within range of the task force? Or someone willing to talk about domestic violence? . .. Note — contents highlight the access visitation conferences. I attended the BMCC (Battered mothers Custody Conferenc) in NY state this past January (2011) — and practically no one had HEARD of “access visitation” nor — naturally — was it even discussed. One reason, among others, I left there in disgust. They are no better than the fatherhood groups that don’t help fathers — it’s just about the dole, the $dollar….}
At the end of the information gathering process, the Task Force examined all of the information obtained with one goal in mind, enhancing the well being of Ohio’s children and families in a fiscally efficient and responsible way. Ideas were discussed and debated, and suggested statutory language created. The Task Force focused on the idea that Ohio’s legal and social service institutions should minimize conflict between parents and protect children from the effects of their parents’ conflicts, while providing opportunities and support to parents as they continue to be parents to their children, regardless of family structure. 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.
So, given all this lead-in, I really ought to show you the Philip Stahl Promotion in the 48th annual conference (guess AFCC was only in its 30s way back then…..):
TO BE CONTINUED ON MY NEXT, HYPER-LINKED POST …
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 
Who’s actually TALKS with the REAL stakeholders when it comes to Stalking, Domestic Violence (not “abuse”), and Child Abuse??
leave a comment »
I have a question, after finding an unusually honest commentary on how the model code for stalking laws was developed. I’ve spent some years, in the process of seeking help, becoming acquainted with the standards for what makes sense, according to LOTS of organizations. I then tried to bring this common sense into actual practice in our own case after it hit the family law venue.
Yeah, right..
I have a question. As usual, thinking aloud (and posting as I go), the introduction gets longer and the original content that inspired the post, lower and lower. Presently, scroll down to just below all the graphics (logos) and there’s the question, and in primarily BLUE content, the quote that started today’s post.
Eventually, over the years, I got to the point of connecting more and more dots, including why would it take this amount of diligent searching by a woman with two college degrees and highly motivated to get some answers, to come to the inclusion that the tipping point is where the intent to publish hits the point to put it into practice. This is a fulcrum.
Eventually I stopped just reading only content, and started paying more attention to in which publication things were published (most of which I couldn’t afford to subscribe to). THEN I started connecting which nonprofit (or, some of these are almost exclusively the project of some government grants, and say so right on the websites) with which publication, which which professionals. This is what would in interpersonal interactions be called “body language.” Only, without warm bodies and live voices and actual interaction face to face, the next best substitute, especially for those without a travel fund, is sometimes a little background check. On-line. Free.
What I post here today was written a while back by a professional now involved in addressing some family court issues, and who I hope to meet someday soon. We appear to have been circling around geographically within a few miles of each other, but consistently in different venues. In other words, she has worked for and at organizations I’ve sought help from and whose halls I’ve sat in as a “client.”
It’s probably time to make a phone call. Meanwhile, today’s a difficult time for me, and I can’t quite say why without revealing which case. Please bare with some of the over-writing here, and understand why today (and I acknowledge, yesterday), sarcasm is pretty high. Fact is, I miss my daughters, and it’s the beginning of a school year. Instead, I get the back hand and the ugly side (or no side at all) of the parent and other adults in control of their lives. I can and have read law, and after looking, still don’t see that I’ve committed a crime in these matters, and I most certainly HAVE seen and identified several ones committed since the case switched from civil to family law, which I to this day believe is where batterers go to hide, and keep up the same pattern of behavior, only with more validation.
Oops, there I go again.
ANYHOW, as to the conferences and subscriptions, I have a suggestion: Instead of a grant to explicate the context of domestic violence in custody decisions (apparently a recent one) and the “Domestic Violence Conference of the Decade,” whose speakers and sponsoring organizations I did take a pretty good (on-line) look at — and got the general picture for sure — and ANOTHER one I just heard of today:
(boy, the logos, and PR, and branding, is getting more and more professional!):
(SEE: http://dvinstitute.org), which it appears just happened in Detroit. . ..
Here’s another one about to happen in San Diego:
http://dvinstitute.org/announces/files/Partial%20Brochure-5-18.pdf
The logo makes me think I’m back in grade school again (check it out — I couldn’t click & drag).
It has a wooden post with 3 pointers, “Future, Present, Past” all askew on a sky background.
I could suggest some more detailed logos. Perhaps the length of the line I stood in yesterday for $15.00 coupon to go get food, which allowed me to get some nonfoods, which Food Stamps program, onto which I’ve been forced back because of former failed systems, most of which interfered with My system called, working! and complying with court orders. Because we might also have a problem with drugs, alcohol or tobacco, or who knows, perhaps just for simplicity, and of course for the safety of those distributing (i.e., no cash), we could only go to ONE store (a few miles away, which is great for those without cars, with children, and poor enough to need help with food). I figure out the expense to time ratio of this, and between wait, and buses, it was approximately $4.00/food benefit per hour, four hours expended in getting coupon and food. Not including getting home with it. A far cry from a conference.
This line contained live people with real stories, and mostly people of color, different colors, sizes, and manners; most of them also, women, many with children, and each with a story, and their own method of dealing with the long wait. It was detailed and usually cheerful, this waiting is routine. I didn’t see anyone I recognized although I’d been there many times before.
Perhaps I should show some children crying, with a forensic child psychologist, or CPS worker. Perhaps I should show a woman crying. Perhaps I should show General Assistance being cut (as it is) to make way for some of the grants I’ve been blogging on, including yesterday.
If economic distress causes violence (I don’t believe it does) than perhaps this is partly why. But an inane signpost over these words? – –
(I dare site visitors here to look up each and every expert and determine where they are coming from, and who pays their organization’s bills.. . . . . . )
Would you like to see a similar brochure? OK, here. I found it (this search) at
http://parentalalienationcanada.blogspot.com/2009/02/domestic-violence-conference-of-decade.html
THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CONFERENCE OF THE DECADE!
From Ideology to Inclusion 2009:
Murray Straus, PhD
Deborah Capaldi, PhD
Don Duton, PhD {{NOTE: S/BE “DUTTON”}}
K. Daniel O’Leary, PhD
Sandra Stith, PhD
Richard Gelles, PhD
Los Angeles, CA
Sponsored by:
California Alliance for Families and Children
and
Family Violence Treatment & Education Association
WWW.CAFCUSA.ORG
Mail or fax in your order today!
DID I forget, in addition to any conference fees, there’s (like any good market niche) the collateral sales market too. Incidentally, downloading information is one of the lowest overhead, most profitable fields of direct selling around, once it’s in place. It’s a GREAT business model.
Is that enough Ph.D.’s? Surely I should just their judgments about my danger level, experience of domestic violence, and whether my kids are or are not at risk of — shall we say — parental abduction — better than my own. After all, look at the degrees!
I wonder whether it has occurred to any of these people that some women leaving abuse might prefer going for not just “job training” but more degrees themselves, rather than defending from the latest round of accusations through this system, or for that matter, the latests fads sweeping through it. . ..
Speaking for myself, I already had the degrees, I just wanted “permission to practice” what I was already trained in and couldn’t, formerly, because of the domestic violence situation.
Remind me to get another Piled Higher Deeper (then I won’t call it that any more…), it may pay better than blogging for nothing, if I’m in one of these fixing people fields. Which, however, I wasn’t. I was in music, which helps heal people many times. It changes them. But it doesn’t approach from the point of view, unilaterally: “You need fixing, and we will do it!” It’s more transformative than legislative in nature. Funding for the arts is in jeopardy, but not for family-fixing.
SO, who attended THIS conference?
Who attended this one? (Sorry folks, if you just missed it, this past June): In the words of one of the groups above:
Seems to me about the only people NOT there were: family court LITIGANTS, battered women, protective mothers, children who had aged out of the system, in the custody of an abusive parent (these young people DO exist and are now speaking out: Courageous Kids, Alanna Krause, others. I WONDER what my daughter will say, or realize, when she turns 18, soon.) I don’t see the category “shelter workers” there. I don’t see “domestic violence advocates” as a category, do you? Family law practitioners and treatment providers, You BETCHA!
Perhaps this next testimonial may explain why the D.A. was so resistant to allowing me to not lose, or help me regain, custody of my daughters when it was their FATHER, not their MOTHER who had taken them so long ago:
(The clear and blatant theme of this one appears to be that women are equally as violent as men. Hence, the publication “Partner” abuse (and “abuse” not “Violence’) Title: From “Ideology” to “Inclusion.”
Oops: http://www.cafcusa.org/2008%20conference.aspx
It appears these reviews are from the 2008 conference, which was merely “historic” and not “the conference of the decade.” Sorry in searching on the latter term a merely Grand conference got confused with the truly Grandiose, which is about how the language goes too. But it’s not truly likely that the same organizations, in alliance are likely to change directions themselves. They exist, many of them, to change directions of OTHER venues, and other people’s, well, court cases.
(Tell you what — this inclusion does not appear to work in reverse quite so well…)
But, who are the real stakeholders?
Why not instead just raise funds for subscriptions for women leaving abuse to some of the publications talking about us, and our children, and our batterers, and our stalkers, and our children’s abductors, and our options, and how to intervene.
If we could have some “supervised visitation” to some of these conferences, I’m sure we would be competent to stand up and dispel some illusions circulating around these topics. I have known for a long time what would and would not take this household towards safety and self-sufficiency and been asking for it from institutions that had it to offer, they said.
This has fallen mostly on deaf ears. So now I am more interested in talking to these people’s supervisors, and employers, which FYI, happens to be in many cases, the federal grants system.
(note: I talked myself into two such “Screening for Abuse (or, Domestic violence)” type conferences within recent years, AFTER I lost my kids, and while in PTSD, Poverty, dealing with stalking, and working one remaining job. I overcame the PTSD of speaking up, and was called “brave” for doing so, in front of many strangers. One was aimed at health professionals, and was nationwide. ANother was aimed at custody evaluators and was not, although I would characterize BOTH of them as having analyzed the problem of abuse pretty darn well.
It was extremely validating and didn’t make a damn bit of difference in the case, and I doubt will in a whole lot of others. Why?
Because INFORMATION is not MOTIVATION.
EDUCATION doesn’t produce behavior change unless the MOTIVATION to change exceeds the benefits of NOT changing.
Overcoming PTSD to speak in front of strangers, is not my definition of brave. My definition of “brave” entails facing potential death, which I have, not facing a strange audience. It entails facing down that man, with a loaded gun and crazy talk, in my own home, and not just once. The bravery THAT time related to the fact I was a mother, and young children were in the home. My definition of brave is, knowing the possible impact, telling my family to go take a hike and get a life, when they violated my boundaries post-restraining order, and made it consistently clear after this clear statement, that this was not on THEIR agenda.
Similarly SOME people need to start recognizing that surviving abuse may be luck, or it may show competence, and start getting a different attitude about who you are dealing with, when a person shows up not too coherent immediately after an incident. Or when they show up in court (repeatedly forced to, thanks to the family law venue, which specializes on hearsay vs. evidence) also not coherent enough, possibly because of who’s present, and because of the authoritatarian and “it could change on a dime” nature of the interchange.
At this public speaking at a conference for PROFESSIONALS in the FIELD time, I also almost spent a night on the street, because in the process of speaking up, I mislaid car keys, took a commute back home, and found out the keys were in another city. Getting them back took half a night, and more money (of the very little I’d gotten by chance the previous day, allowing me the commute to this conference), help from two friends by phone (my own cell being off) and it was cold, too. I then imposed on someone who was actually a music client (so to speak) to stay overnight so I might not, in the fatigue and stress, oversleep work the next mornign which at this point would’ve resulted in being dismissed.
About a year later (this being halfway through the court cases following child-stealing) I was indeed suddenly dismissed by this same group. Possibly they had what’s called “vicarious trauma” dealing year after year (and it was that) with my inability to get free from ONE abuser, and his friends, and the family law mishandling of a simple, simple restraining order renewal. Which I didn’t, FYI, get.)
I want to say something:
Since then, I have looked into the financing (funding, folks) of this same organization, and at its website. See my post on “the amazing, disappearing word “Mother.” (The group is not featured, but the principle applies). It is a premiere group in the war against violence, not against “women” but, well, “family violence.” I have to really question why in this same state, funds to shelters have been axed, but not to this group. I have to ALSO question why I couldn’t get simple help when I needed it (and that includes, to date) from any of the entities that exist to provide it, after some of the original ones made a few policy mistakes, major ones, in designing the original custody order.
So, why not just invite us to the conferences? Note: before, THAT, raise funds to make sure that their phone and internets stay on (and deal with on-line stalking as well). For example, the other year, had my phone been on, I trust I could’ve found a job and retained access to a moving vehicle through what’s called “work” — even though, through family law inanity, I lost custody on an overnight over a year earlier, all my profession in the aftermath (and buildup), and all hope of collecting any child support arrears in the process.
You know what these conferences are to me, any more? They are like ambulance-chasers. They are carpet baggers.
They are like a person with a boat with room in it, and not too far to BOAT to shore, but too far for most people, particularly people in danger of shock, or fatigue, or not in top marathon shape — they drive by in the boat and wave. Sometimes they grab a kid in the process. They congregate in boats, and talk to each other about the shipwrecks. They even SOS — the shore — for more gas, and refreshments — and “technical support” — to converse — exclusively with each other — about “how to rescue shipwrecked sailors.” SOMETIMES some of them even pull out a child or two, or three, and give the child into the care of other people making a living off the shipwrecks — OR the other parent that helped cause it. That’s bright.
Then they have conferences about “shared parenting.” Or, even about “the context of custody-switch.” Or sometimes even about “the advisability of mediation in family law cases involving allegations of domestic violence or child abuse.” I’ve read many of these, and they are (unlike this blog) generally copyedited, slick, and even have nice charts, sometimes color coded bar graphs, and the whole nine yards.
But what they don’t have is the voices of the people in the water which might show where they missed the boat in these discussion.
NOW — do I think ALL the people in ALL the conferences have impure motives and self-interest in the forefront of their minds?
NO — I know that ALL people are imperfect and have impure motives and self-interest to some degree, including me.
That’s what the Constitution is about, and why any sitting President is sworn, under oath and in public, to preserve, protect, and defend it. It’s about putting some restraint on tyranny.
This includes tyranny by simple exclusion from policy-making conferences.
It should NOT be necessary for almost every mother (or father) who goes through divorce to switch professions and join one that might help him or herself defend herself in a family law custody action, and it PARTICULARLY is not fair where one partner (and it’s most likely to be the female one) has a life in the balance. Not just an emotional economic life, but also a physical life to her or her kids.
TRUTH has a lot of depth and nuances, but the underlying principles are basic, and basically, SIMPLE. When we are talking about human behavior. As a teacher of many years, and I have taught, coached, directed, co-taught, co-directed and/or performed with beginners (tone-deaf) to professionals (in 3 venues: piano/vocal/choral), I know that the same basics work every time, as much as how people sing and their particular voices differ. Certain basics HAVE to be there, including: Air, vocal cords, something to sing, and to do it well — a REASON to sing.
Same for offices, lifestyles, businesses. There is income, expenses, cash flow, overhead, etc. There is some basic math involved.
What the extended decades-long (I’m approaching 10 years, I know others who have been in longer) nonending family law venue DOES is simply divert cash flow. It STOPS what existed before, and recreates a NEW version according to its paradigm. Many times, it stops the process and incentive for either parent to work.
So, IF the actual desire is to STOP VIOLENCE, or CHILD ABUSE and SAVE LIVES: I recommend starting to pay parents, particularly those who are experiencing stalking, abuse, or other threats, for some of these subscriptions, so we can keep up with what’s being proclaimed about us and our kids and our lifestyles,
Or, alternately, we could stop the conferences and get back to something halfway reasonable, like our own businesses. Right now, this thing is really getting out of hand. . . . . After a few years of chasing around the experts, and being ever so happy they had “analyzed” a situation well, I began to realize this is about where it stops. With the talk. (Well, not really, the dynamic of the situation is changing, but the “you’re making it up” folk are cancelling out the “you’re minimizing abuse” folk. Even when they “collaborate.”)
I actually DO have a life (still — not the same one, but a life) to get back to, and it’s clear that this is going to go on, well, forever. I DO have some things I wish to do in life than stop people so intent on stopping domestic violence, they have kept it going a good long while, and people so intent on sharing custody that they are not about to, ever, acknowledge that this is getting too many people hurt. No, “supervised visitation” is NOT a good alternatives, that I can see. For one, I was not offered it once in many years, although it would have been very appropriate given where the problems were happening in our case. Most people I know that HAVE supervised visitation (at their own expense) are women who got it AFTER they reported abuse. They lost custody and have to pay to see their kids.
Do I want to spend the rest of my life fixing this problem? No. I don’t think it’s going away soon. On the other hand, do I accept what has happened and zero accountability for what was stolen from my daughters, and me, and the unnecessary destruction involved? No. Do I want to lose something more if I confront again? No. Would you?
So. why not let the real stakeholders in on the discussions with the “stakeholders” in these systems? Why should we have to run around studying the industry, and finding out about each new conference half of us can’t attend anyhow? And with speakers we have already been exposed to their work, and a sometimes (I speak for myself) even know which grant or grants program is funding the thing and the policy? Have we become a nation of actually employed experts whose very jobs are robbing from the unemployed, whom they are studying?
(I do apologize for my sarcasm here. But my phone is only on today because someone had a good hair day, as opposed to a bad hair day, and another dribble of child support arrears showed up, enough for phone and not much more. In order to get some nonfoods (which is illegal on Food Stamps) rather than ask someone I know for this (again), I waited 2 hours to get a single coupon unredeemable except at one store — not nearby. I waited til the next day to redeem it. On that day, which involved approximately SIX total bus trips, none of them involving more than 10 mile radius total, and after having walked 2 of those miles without proper shoes, I took the baggage home (involving a sack of potatoes and more) and looked for work, a lead on charity cars, and more. Then my phone went off (as happens when one doesn’t pay in time). THIS MORNING, I talked the bus driver into letting me on half price, because the feet wouldn’t make a similar distance this time. It just so happened (couldn’t have been planned around or predicted) that — just under the deadline, a deadbeat Dad paid again. I reflected at how similar this was to life when I LIVED with this man (particularly as to unpredictable access to any kind of cash, and having to dedicate half a day or more to something that would take 20 min to an hour in a car).
The primary difference being then that I had the joy of a little company with my daughters, who were growing up still. I wonder where they are and what they are thinking today.
So, let’s change the dynamics:
Benefits (from OUR point of view, at least):
Detriments (possibly from publishers, conferrers, model code designers, and a WHOLE lot more):
I think those would be the primary differences. The question is, HOW would America Survive without the economy of pathology? And the paradigm of the us/them; subject/object expertise heirarchy?
What year do you think this was written?
(Scroll to bottom for answer).
I have pasted an entire section from an article I found on-line today, as I was thinking about the mental segmentation and disconnect between different types of justice (courts), between courts & police, between police & prosecutors (from what I can tell), between “domestic violence” professionals and “child abuse professionals” (meaning, these professionals desire to STOP domestic violence and child abuse, by analyzing and, based on analyses, communicating their results and asking for policy changes. Then, if the policy changes, the matter comes up, is the PRACTICE changed. Again, the typical mentality is to “train” the professionals to practice what’s right.
Very few actually deal with the realities of human nature, namely, that there is no single branch of employment, business, and no profession, where most of the employees are altruistic, and none of them are dangerously self-serving, or motivated by, for example, basic human greed, denial, or lust for power.
This excerpt is a sample of what I’d call honest writing, which shows how even a “model” practice that is published — certain perspectives were omitted. I would imagine that in this case, the voices of the people with these perspectives (the victims the model code was hoping to help) were not present for the dialogue. THAT is indeed a problem, this gap.
it’s really a matter of language. You see, calling an intersection of court, law enforcement, and social services workers when discussing issues that affect people who come under the category victims (i.e., of crimes) without including the victims — IN THOSE DISCUSSIONS — is exclusionary.
It is a larger subset of a larger divide, called “service-providers” (including the “service” of JUSTICE) vs. Recipients/clients.
I’ve blogged on another post here about the effect of stalking on me, and including through other family members. It is a total life-changer (and illegal). I do not know how to sustain regular employment around the degree of it that has come into my life, and have totally switched goals in order to accommodate, if possible, the safety factor. I know other women who have done this. It’s NOT a game, and NOT a joke, but every law enforcement officer I reported to treated it as such, and added in some verbal abuse to go along with my attempt to report. I have reported it to almost every agency or type of individual involved in my case, as I also reported the risk of child-stealing (which happened) and my concerns about the lethality factor in our case, a combo. of gut instinct, only to then find literature that shows my gut was right.
It is an odd feeling to find out how much of one’s life had already been discussed and conferenced about, and how long ago, and relate this to how many women have been killed since because even this (in its own words) “flawed” model still isn’t being followed.
Nevertheless, here it is. It is in off-blue (not “link” color) italics. Any bold or underlining, or variations from italic blue, are my additions,or emphases, except obviously the bolded section headings:
MY SUMMARY:
(I only commented on top part of article, for a pattern of asking questions. ALL of it brings up good points, and I hope was read).
I COME BACK TO CONCEPT OF SELF-DEFENSE, AND a Survive! mentality for women. (See my Toms River, NJ post). Don’t break any laws, but do like the Boy Scouts, “Be Prepared.” AND, prepare to survive. I suggest that women pretty much be very pro-active in figuring this out themselves and with their own resources, until such day arrives where model codes are appropriate, or if appropriate, enforced, and if enforced, enforced seriously.
I deeply regret the years of my
(1) calling out for others to help me, while
(2) trying to maintain and help myself both, and immediately leave the situation.
I would have been BETTER engaged in time and energy not to have bothered with the first part. Unfortunately, like many women leaving abuse, economics was a huge issue, not just recovery and safety. This is why any effort to address DV issues not taking into account economic issues is simply unrealistic. At this point, i also believe that any discussion of domestic violence which does NOT discuss the negative impact that the realm of family law has had upon all the research, all the laws, and all the protective meaures in place, will not make a major difference. The efforts cancel each other out.
(Verbal Confrontation, or even taking protective action, on my part just brought greater escalations and punishments. In fact, this was typically where it got physical). I am talking about both IN the battering relationship (in my case, called “marriage, co-habiting years” AND in the afterwards years (taking a stand as a separate woman, with children in the household.). I remember one year of emotionally healthy, solvent, sanity — while a restraining order was in place. There was a storm brewing, but the majority of the situation was a sense of growing prosperity and strength, and — apart from the source of this — peace. This was BEFORE I’d had a few hearings in the family law venue.
The only benefit I can see from the whole process is that I now caution women to avoid absolutely every facet of it possible, and go about establishing their own: Safety, solvency and self-determination. It is also necessary to understand that doing so is not just a threat to one’s ex, potentially, but also to the entire “SYSTEM” if you don’t do it “their” way. Which means becoming dependent on aspects of this for safey, solvency, and forking over self-determination to a parenting plan (or something similar) obtained through a custody evaluator or mediator, who are influenced by forces one doesn’t normally have input to deal with, in part because one doesn’t know they exist to start with.
Now, as to my doing this myself, it may entail abandoning this blog, also. However, speaking out is part of a healing process also, and it’s a vital part.
While advocates from more than once side of the fence now dialogue and collaborate with each other (as women and thereafter sometimes men (including men who killed them) continue to die, and children continue to suffer abuse, and some go missing — the one side of the fence that is often not heard — IN the policymaking discussions, IN print IN the publications on these matters, IN the professional organizations that make a livelihood dealing with these matters, and basically on the IN, not the OUT, in these discussions — will continue to be the people with most at stake — their lives.
It is common sometimes to list the “stakeholders” in each new conference. I have looked at many of these lists. Rarely are the actual parents, targeted child, or targeted spouse (when it comes to child abduction or domestic violence or stalking, ALL of which are related, by the way) invited to confer. And if they did, and what such people said WAS published, or broadcast, what about retaliation? Ever think about that?
WHEN WAS THE EXCERPT WRITTEN?
About 15 years after Toms River, NJ – – 1994:
Found at:
http://www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/bwjp/stalking/stalking.html#id2355674
Domestic Violence & Stalking: A Comment on the Model Anti-Stalking Code Proposed by the National Institute of Justice
Nancy K. D. Lemon
Battered Women’s Justice Project
Publication Date: December 1994
(And the blank date in the excerpt was Oct. 1993).
SHARE THIS POST on...
Like this:
Written by Let's Get Honest|She Looks It Up
August 26, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Posted in After HE Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Child Sexual Abuse, After She Speaks Up - Reporting Domestic Violence and/or Suicide Threats, Cast, Script, Characters, Scenery, Stage Directions, Context of Custody Switch, Designer Families, Domestic Violence vs Family Law, Fatal Assumptions, Funding Fathers - literally, History of Family Court, in Studies, Lethality Indicators - in News, Mandatory Mediation, Organizations, Foundations, Associations NGO Hybrids, Split Personality Court Orders, Vocabulary Lessons
Tagged with BWJP, CAFC, cafcusa, domestic violence, Due process, DV, Expert-itis, FAVTEA, Intimate partner violence, mincava, Model Codes, NIJ, Policy versus Practice, social commentary, Stalking, Studying Humans