Posts Tagged ‘MPDI (Minnesota Program Development Inc)’
My June 4, 2011 Post on Four Special Issue Resource Centers, Pt 3 of 3, “Same text, better formatting,” [From June 4, 2011 \ Updated Formatted, Publ. Here March 30, 2016].
Post title (with publish dates added), updated April 2022, to get the short-link. I also changed background-color to white (from light-blue) and removed the default font specs for this post. My new blog default font is “sans-serif” but too many paragraphs within this one copied “Georgia” which is more curly in look. I’m not re-doing fonts para. by para., so individual paragraphs will not all be in the same font. //LGH Apr. 22, 2022.
My June 4, 2011 Post on Four Special Issue Resource Centers, Pt 3 of 3, “Same text, better formatting,” [Updated Formatted, Publ. Here March 30, 2016]. (short-link ends “-3e7”)
Last post left off at my 2011 exclamation about,
WHO IS MPDI? …WHO are these guys??
WHY WE MIGHT CARE, WHO IS MPDI:
(I figure $18 million to one organization might get our attention. From HHS):
..and discovering (2016) that the HHS database “TAGGS.hhs.gov” quoted and featured SO MUCH in this blog, just has gotten a facelift. Over the years I have raised MANY questions about the integrity, organization (flexibility for the public) and reliability of this data, and even set up a blog in Fall 2013 to exhibit some of the seriousness of the issues: HHSGiveways, Government Shutdowns. The project was not finished, but the Pages and Posts up so far show-and-tell some of the accountability issues.
The new interface will take some getting used to.. but may make blogging easier, as it does produce those reports in several different formats. My most immediate concern was no field labeled “Recipient” (but a prompt to type in recipient name into “Keyword” field — and NO search field to input an EIN#. DUNS# option remains, but the EIN# Select Option does not seem to.
Report Totals of HHS Grants for 2016 at https://taggs.hhs.gov/SearchRecip, this morning, Year 2016 only, is $241,236,771,196, a.k.a. $241B, approximately one quarter-year’s worth. Maybe we should pay better attention…
Unlike Parts 1 and 2 (of this mini-series), most of this post is actually what was written in 2011, about two years after I first started this blog. Further down on the post is a photo of the building MPDI was in, which I also found interesting… I’ve attempted several clean-ups of the charts, especially, TAGGS.hhs.gov charts, shown then. I’ll mark 2016 Updates with a different background color and teal-green borders, like this:
UPDATE interjection:
If the charts are still hard to read below, I suggest use the “ADVANCED SEARCH” link at the new-user-interface-website “TAGGS.hhs.gov” — here’s a link. It’s a good habit to develop anyway!
The post might still be a little complicated reading. If a chart isn’t clear enough — re-run it. The conclusion of the matter (or at least, the post written 6/4/2011) I think still makes sense:
(Sorry about the laborious length of this post, which started when I saw several DAIP-type programs at a Family Justice Center ALLIANCE Conference in San Diego.)
Now, we need more “justice centers”? ?? At what point does a person get to say STOP? Where’s the justice, and why hasn’t domestic violence — or family violence — stopped by now, with all that intervention going on? Are we chasing the virtual Holy Grail here, or what?
While “Minnesota Program Development, Inc.” is not of the size and funding of “MDRC” — I feel it’s in the same business, with slightly different staffing and origins. It is in[to] the Development of PROGRAMS based on personal visions of the founders — and being spread with Technical Assistance and capacity building public funded help like a fast growing tree nurtured by the IRS and the dual prongs of HHS and DOJ (all EXECUTIVE BRANCH of USA) grants.
I understand that people want to respond to PROBLEMS and then start and continue PROGRAMS to solve them. But now the PROLIFERATION OF PROGRAMS has really become a major PROBLEM itself. These programs have tremendous leverage because of their existing structures, and relationships. Too much of the public remains clueless that half of them even exist.
And — people “served” doesn’t mean people — or even lives! — “saved.” Nor do judges (etc.) trained necessarily increase judicial ethics or “domestic violence awareness.” I see the grants, I see the people, I see the programs described, and you can’t beat those website — but where is the data that any of this is actually helping?
Instead, the Supervised Visitation Network is being used AGAINST the mothers and children it supposedly is to protect.
And, because we are here looking at “MPDI” which is in effect, Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs (with a new name), this quote from their website (link probably no longer current) showed their statewide influence as far back as 1991s. We might ask why it was so well-received in just a decade’s worth of operations (and how much any pre-1995 HHS grants may have helped with that reception):
(RESULTs/Accomplishments at “TheDuluthModel.org”) Due to DAIP’s success, in 1991 the Minnesota Legislature mandated that each of the 38 Legislative Assignment Districts establish an intervention project coordinated by a battered women’s advocacy group. As of 1997, there were 44 intervention projects in Minnesota.
This set up for the coordination of the entire criminal AND family AND social services AND nonprofit (Community referrals) system based on the ideas, in part derived from a Brazilian Christian Socialist / theology of the oppressed (Ellen Pence/Paolo Friere — look it up), and in part from a Toronto institutional ethnographist[?] professor (again, look it up), i.e., the art and practice of systems change to affect mothers, fathers, and children nationwide, and internationally. That takes a certain amount of arrogant, sheer, abusive/controlling/coercive narcissism to push through — which in some ways reminds me of characteristics of batterers as described by the same groups….
//LGH
This now begins the older post text:
WHY WE MIGHT CARE, WHO IS MPDI:
(I figure $18 million to one organization might get our attention. From HHS):
(HHS grants, from TAGGS.hhs.gov) RECIPIENT INFORMATION
Note: One EIN can be associated with several different organizations. Also, one DUNS number can be associated with multiple EINs. This occurs in cases where Dun and Bradstreet (D&B) has assigned more than one EIN to a recipient organization.
| Recipient Name | City | State | ZIP Code | County | DUNS Number | Sum of Awards |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MINNESOTA PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, INC | DULUTH | MN | 55802-2152 | ST. LOUIS | 193187069 | $ 18,027,387 |
Showing: 1 – 1 of 1 Recipients
(Note, this database only goes back to 1995, i.e., there are 14 previous organizational years unrecorded on the database).
| Recipient: | MINNESOTA PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT, INC |
| Address: | 202 EAST SUPERIOR STREET DULUTH, MN 55802-2152 |
| Country Name: | United States of America |
| County Name: | ST. LOUIS |
| HHS Region: | 5 |
| Type: | Other Social Services Organization |
| Class: | Non-Profit Private Non-Government Organizations |
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Re: My June 4, 2011 Post on Four Special Issue Resource Centers (Ellen Pence/MPDI): (Pt 2 of, well, now it’s 3), “Same text, better formatting, some updating”). [Publ. again March 29, 2016<~~].
You will notice that some grants refer to the “Special Issue Resource Center.” …
Given the column headings I selected, that of over perhaps twenty years, only THREE different women are shown: Ellen Pence and Denise Gamache headed up most of them as “Principal Investigator”, then in about 2000, mostly just Denise Gamache, and in 2016, I see a “Renee Gutman.”
Denise Gamache is now associated with “Battered Women’s Justice Project” (and was while working also at DAIP) which decided to “come out” (incorporate in MN) in the year 2013. I see that “Renee Gutmann” got her degree in 1993, and has worked for DAIP since 1993 (LinkedIn) and is characterized as “Accountant” for DAIP.
THIS POST IS:
Re: My June 4, 2011 Post on Four Special Issue Resource Centers (Ellen Pence/MPDI): (Pt 2 of, well, now it’s 3), “Same text, better formatting, some updating”). [Publ. again March 29, 2016<~~] (short-link ends “-3ck”).
Part 1 (most recent post) explains why I’m re-blogging it with some updates. It was recently reblogged on Red Herring Alert, in an interesting juxtaposition of articles.
This version of the same post makes some charts more readable. The gist of the material is the Ellen Pence / Casey Gwinn connection (representing the Duluth, MN-based “DAIP” as it now goes by, and the Family Justice Center concept (now called “Alliance for Hope International” as a California nonprofit of which the “Family Justice Center Alliance” has become a program). It also intersected with Telling Amy’s Story, and got under my skin at the time, as it still does.
As does the entire “Family Justice Center” setup. I still remember “connecting the dots” on discovering that the San Diego Family Justice Center Foundation (it’s full original, corporate name) existed to funnel money to Camp Hope, Inc. — but Camp Hope, Inc. wasn’t staying properly incorporated. No matter, shut down one version, file for a new one, move the money. It was a minor, minor detail — charitable registration number was so close, and more recently realizing it’d changed names AGAIN, that got me reviewing the earlier tax returns of this operations. I have been living IN California before, during, and while, this business model was created, funded, and replicated. It’s worth an entirely separate blog to alert people to what, exactly IS that business model — but I am only one person.
The fuller background on the original (a) philanthropic private wealthy couple and (b) public funds behind the multiple names surrounding both the San Diego Family Justice Center and the associated “Camp Hope” theme, are another separate story which I also learned considerably more fascinating background on this past summer. By doing, the usual thing — scrutinizing tax returns and looking up the entities and people named in them. Some of this is exposed below in the section with light-brown-background and teal borders. Actually, influence from “Fuller Seminary” leadership may have been involved so, “fuller background” could be a pun, also.
“Getting” the reality of the Family Justice Center Alliance is, I’d say, as important as getting the reality of the Duluth Model, CCR, treat everyone and let us be the train-the-trainer people concept. So I will continue to bring it up, where it ties into the other subject matter. Both involve replicating BUSINESS models. A close diagnosis of the original models then, is always appropriate — and by “diagnosis” I mean, accounting-wise. This can’t be just one organization, but involve the various related organizations (translation: “networks”) to construct something of a picture of operations. Even for people who weren’t “there,” right on scene locally — it can still be done.
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My June 4, 2011, Post on Four Special Issue Resource Centers (Ellen Pence/MPDI), a 2016 Intro (Pt 1 of 2)
Two excerpts from the post. Fair warning, I may still revise after publishing it today, 3/28/2016. Also, some of its many tags actually refer to the one I just published yesterday, which also has some (minor) revisions, relating to list of YE 2014 sub-grantees from Futures without Violence, towards the bottom of the post…I took that post from the middle of this one, in order to keep this one shorter, and linked with the “Part 2” for which it is “Part 1.”
ABOUT THIS POST
This “Part 1” INTRO commentary introduces occasioned by a re-post of my 6/4/2011 “Ellen Pence and Casey Gwinn — Will the real Minnesota Program Development Inc. please stand up?“by Dede Evavold on Red Herring Alert 3/15/2016 under the title “Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs,” In “Part 2,” I simply block-copied the text (but not comments on original post) of my June 4, 2011 post to clean up the html (formatting of quote and tables) for easier reading, and possibly updated broken links or some of its information.
and:
- Many of us may know about the 1994ff “VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) which brought funding (grants, presumably also contracts) through the USDOJ along certain lines.
- However, there was an earlier 1984 “FVPSA” (Family Violence Prevention Services Act) passed by Congress, from which some of these resource centers apparently date. HHS itself only dates to 1980 (before, there was HEW, Dept. of “Health, Education and Welfare).
As you can see from the excerpts, I’m (a) responding to a recent re-post from 2011, and, as ever (b) have certain topics I wish to continue talking about. As I learn, so I also teach. This post then concludes with some information about the Colorado-based NACC (National Association of Counsel for Children), as it came up in a Huffington Post article quoted by the re-blog and a reference to NCJFCJ’s “Project One.” For “Project One,” …”One World Order,” despite all the talk of desired outcomes protecting human rights, women, children, reducing poverty, increasing justice and equity, etc., this One World Order (Government) seems to be the overall agenda — total control of major aspects of life and commerce (including of domestic human livestock — which is a “resource” of a different kind — breeding and training).
Despite how “special” we in the USA may wish to believe our country is, and that in many respects, no question it IS quite special, a lot of this type of programming can be traced back — which I can say because I have been tracking several programs and operations back to originators and designers — to two countries, both of which attempted to and to a degree established empires: England (Great Britain), and Germany. Both tried this in Africa as we know (along with others) AFTER the USA fought England in a war for independence in the late 1700s. Include some Freud et al., for the 1900s, maybe a few more countries could be referenced.
What I would like to call attention to is the use of private corporations as a method, in addition to the combination of tax / tax-exemption to sway the outcomes AGAINST the individual rights and against individuals, in the name of services provided and problems solved. All I’m saying is, the “solutions” seem to trend in a certain expansion of scope and shrinking of accountability to taxpayers, which continues to turn up the heat on the public at large. It’s not good enough to provide even some very decent services while progressively compromising justice and fiscal accountability. Fiscal accountability is EVERYTHING when it comes to administering justice!!
My most recent post (published March 27, 2016 — yes, on Easter Day) fills in some background on the networked organizations involved in the HHS-funded “DVRN” (Domestic Violence Resource Network) as set up, I learned, under the “FVPSA.” In 2011, obviously, I didn’t know all this. It’s important information to know, however… In expanding such “resource centers” which then receive — and, to a degree, sometimes redistribute — public and private money both — the trail of public “ROI” (Return on Investment) of tax revenues continues to expand, become more complex, and become less carefully watched.
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Most have heard of the VAWA (passed 1994), But what about the earlier (passed 1984) FVPSA? Or, the “DVRN”? [Published March 27, 2016].
Post Title: Most have heard of the VAWA (passed 1994), But what about the earlier (passed 1984) FVPSA? Or, the “DVRN”? [Published March 27, 2016]. (shortlink ends “-3dk”). Looks like about 10,800 words.
UPDATE COMMENTS: (Font-change, date added to the title itself, and this short-linked title added to the body of post, added December 12, 2020, during my construction of a 2020 Table of Contents. No, I’m not going to go through and re-format this one otherwise!
I may refer to it in the context of there actually being an “FVSPA” in addition to the VAWA, which still seems conveniently ignored (though is most certainly known by grantee organizations in the network) when most talk about the state of “Prevention of Violence Against Women” movement in the USA, whether talking about it within the USA, or as seen from other countries.
I’m sure the membership of the DVRN has changed meanwhile, but as it’s not a specific organization, but an amorphous, mixed group of entities and non-entities CALLED the “DVRN,” this is still important to comprehend. As I understood the situation in March, 2016, obviously. Thanks for any time you spend reading this and other posts. //LGH Dec. 12, 2020.
(AS WRITTEN IN 2016…)
It seems to me that the national response to wife-beating and/or child abuse may have already been put on a sort of auto-pilot, knee-jerk response decades ago, and is simply being refined, fine-tuned, and turf-and-territory-protected ever since. The more I learn about HHS programs inspired or validated by Acts of Congress focused on stopping abuse or preventing family violence, reducing juvenile delinquency (etc. — remember my two “About NCJJ” recent posts** showing the privatization conflict of interest covered up by “NCJFCJ” which is also benefitting from the FVPSA-inspired funding as a “Special Issue Resource Center” ???) the more aware I become of what was set in motion, a lot of which I would take issue with, but probably “too late and too bad,” as it happens.
** link added 4/24/2022, in expectation of re-promoting ALL March, 2016, posts, and publishing some which had remained in draft: Updated title corrects “UNevada-Reno format, adds dates published/update (to the title itself) and corrects, which I hadn’t caught before, the spelling of “TUCSON.” //LGH: About University of Nevada, Reno-based NCJFCJ, Its Pittsburgh-based NCJJ, and NCJJ’s E.Hunter Hurst III (d.2012)’s Tucson-based, multi-million-dollar, NASDAQ-traded Company (“PRSC”): First, the Context [Publ. Mar. 10, 2016, More Font-Changes Apr. 24, 2022]. (short-link ends “-2Se” About 7,500 words)
Nevertheless, it’s still important to be aware of these things and come to some opinion on them.
But, let’s Look at the FVPSA-inspired, HHS-funded and facilitated “DVRN.” Like that “National” “Responsible” “Fatherhood” “Clearinghouse,” what the heck it is, or is doing, is less than clear from the official sources, such as HHS websites talking about the network, its member agencies, and its “special issue resource centers.”
I’m tempted to personal comments here, but they are stowed at the bottom of this post, for now.
File this under federalizing, evaluating and quality control (?) of EVERYTHING that relates to anyone under 21 — and their caretakers, which is almost everyone else..
The DVRN is multi-jurisdictional, subject-matter defined, and its presentation seems designed to confuse the readers and discourage identifying just how FEW organizations have been given control of policy, or operations designed to influence policy from the Executive Branch of government and so to speak “from the sidelines..”
This post follows logically from my attempt to explain “Domestic Abuse Intervention Programs” (in connection with a recent reblog of my 6/4/2011 post on this) as one of “Four Special Issue Resource Centers” — when the HHS report of those same Special Issue Resource Centers (numbering, actually 5, not 4) doesn’t even mention that organization’s name. In fact, it downplays actual names of recipient organizations in their description.
I trust this will be an interesting and illuminating post to why certain things seem so much the same from state to state when we (parents) go to court.
The “DVRN” – Domestic Violence Resource Network
(Described @ http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/fysb/fv-centers)
Family Violence Prevention & Services Resource Centers Listen
The Domestic Violence Resource Network (DVRN) is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to inform and strengthen domestic violence intervention and prevention efforts at the individual, community and societal levels.
It’s promoting awareness and policy through digital dissemination, with help from certain organizations…..
The DVRN works collaboratively to promote practices and strategies to improve our nation’s response to domestic violence and make safety and justice not just a priority, but also a reality.
Note the grammar — the “DVRN” is being given anthropomorphic qualities, as if it was a single living entity — or, in the case of “corporate persons” (our system in the USA), a single business entity. BUT, it’s not. It’s by definition networks synched along certain policies and practices, and also as to some of their sources of funding. But the network elements span different states.
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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?
Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History 