Let's Get Honest! Absolutely Uncommon Analysis of Family & Conciliation Courts' Operations, Practices, & History

This re-post of data from an earlier one gives a look in the public interest at some of the organizations and program labels where tax receipts are going — at least a fraction of them as reported about five years ago…

Its awkward title, Title IV-A HMRF-Grants-Dependent CORPORATE Grantees Started Running Out of Acronyms Years Ago, but not, Steam…Or ® and (™)’s With Which To Sell Proprietary Trainings, [shortlink ends “-8E2”; started Feb. 15, 2018] stems from my desire to update a much earlier one, named:

Another Reason (Besides Its Innate Irrationality) to Shelve the “National Healthy Marriage” Movement: It’s Running Out of Acronyms…. [Case-sensitive short-link ends “-Zh.” First published Jan 11, 2012; last previously edited Nov. 23, 2013; Current edit (primarily formatting and checking for expired links, incl. to logos) is Feb. 15, 2018].

IT’S NOW NOV. 2018.  I have a number of reasons for publishing it (finally) now, which I don’t feel like explaining yet, however (for a clue) recent Twitter is active with reports on “reunification” services in California’s SF Bay Area (and, “strangely” (given no mention of the AFCC with its 400-strong Ontario chapter is made in the report), also children exposed to it in Canada), particularly “Family Bridges.”  (“No Oversight for Programs Advertising They Reconnect Children with Alienated Parents” (NBCBayArea.com, the “bit.ly” shortlink ends “2yQrCzL”)

The “to the contrary” (or at least another) expert quoted, Linda Gottlieb, who runs “Turning Point” program (similar idea) it turns out has prior connections to the Minuchin Center for the Family (see Salvador Minuchin, who with other authors including Bernard Guerney, wrote “Families of the Slums” in 1967, and became famous for “Structural Family Therapy”).  Bernard Guerney shows up as marriage/family curriculum provider, and I caught this back in 2012, care of “NIRE” — National Institute of Relationship Enhancement®  See above link for more information; but I discovered this (and much more about how “PAS-entrenched Gottlieb is and with whom conferencing recently, as well as a look at the gradual decline in revenues at the Minuchin Family Center) with some basic background looks.  It had grabbed my attention long ago, but not in the reunification of alienated families contexts.

Other than this explanation and the next captioned image, this post (nice and short at under 3,500 words even with the table below) is published as it was last Feb. 2018..  Also be aware that the HHS table links probably no longer work as TAGGS.HHS.gov changed its database technology & user interface, it seems, back in 2013 (the post was drafted in 2012)…

Bernard Guerney of NIRE (screenprint from my 2012 post on “running out of acronyms” for marriage curricula.. Screenprint taken Nov 11, 2018. Click image above to enlarge if necessary

. . .

Image #1

Image #2

(Newsletter banner)

WHY DO THIS NOW?

One of the featured organizations on my 2011 (!) post showed up again, still running its classes, I guess, as published 2016 Winter edition of the Maryland Social Worker, which also featured a nice spread on the Family Transitions: Issues, Solutions and Policies Conference” article (Image#1).

In calling attention to that organization (NIRE®) Image #2), I remembered having posted on it, and related ones, years ago.

Looking up the older post and attempting a cleanup, I found the software got stuck — perhaps because of how the table below (taken directly from TAGGS.HHS.gov at the time), being fairly large (108 rows) came with so many extraneous excess codes,  

[[My latest post, “Families Change: The Sentence..” comments on the conference and its presence in the newsletter in more detail]].

Full title w/ shortlink of that post:

Whatever the reason (possibly also my computer / device, or internet access where I was doing this) it just got stuck.  This post was short enough (esp. without the table) and worth current readers taking another look at it, so I moved that table off-blog, used “global replace” on a text document to clean it up, and put it back here onto WordPress on a fresh post.

Disclaimer: These are still 2013 search results and don’t update for the interim years — and is just a snapshot of what was occurring back in 2011, with a 2013 (I saw) re-run at some point.

Excess formatting codes from TAGGS.hhs.gov Tables, for those who may have dared to copy them for personal study. Makes one wonder who designed it…

In light of imminent and current major restructuring of tax law and allegedly social services to the nation (see recent headline news), it might be time to “get vocal” on this type of activity: before cutting, say, “Food Stamps” for the hungry or needy, how about cutting the pork from this programming for the greedy and self-righteous? Take these 501©3s and others on the same funding stream off taxpayer subsidy, where they have been through this PRWORA-era, 1996ff, grants stream.

As the saying goes, “garbage (rationale, reasoning, justification) in, garbage out.”  Congress (that’s who votes on the Budgets, right?): Quit dumping on the public at its own expense through this funding stream and calling the “for the good of the people!” (i.e., healthy communities, healthy marriages, and so forth).  The rest of us: let’s describe what’s happening more specifically and more accurately using terms those who distribute the grants are already well aware of, but just not using so openly when selling the proprietary programs, or when  preaching it’s time to cut back “services.”

These are services?  Look at the table (and check out the 2011 post too!).

After the first images (how the earlier post began), here, I’m just reproducing one of the tables; the longest one near the bottom. I still recommend readers here return to and read the original post.  It pre-dates coverage by the Tables of Contents by over a year and was written just under two years into my research for the blog (I started about March, 2009…).

It also, in opening statement, reflects my natural (bodily) gut responses to realizing what had been taking place politically and policy-wise while many women in my situation were dealing with surviving a relationship that involved battering, with (our) young children in the home.

Some called that “marriage.” Technically speaking, maybe, but I think other words would better characterize it.  However such words are frowned upon almost the moment separate has taken place, in the courts.  The “protection” switch is flipped off and the courts’ and associated professionals ceaseless demands survivors just “pretend” it didn’t happen and focus instead on better cooperating “for the children” with former abuser… is flipped on.

Which doesn’t take long to recognize, however, recognizing whose policy it was takes a little more study!

Remember that each grantee in the “organization” column is supposed to have a legal business incorporation, if a 501©3 (tax-exempt) file Forms 990 or 990PF as required — faithfully AND accurately, and make them available somehow for  public inspection.  They are supposed to have proper EIN#s (whether for-profit or not-for profit) and the data entered OUGHT to represent accurately the real business name of grantee.

This table appears to have been a search on any grantee with the word “marriage” in its name, but I cannot say for sure so many years ago. It is alphabetical by organization name.  Just notice the organization name.  Also, not all “CFDA” numbers are “93086,” the one assigned specifically to HMRF funding.  CFDA#s are defined at TAGGS.HHS.Gov and probably also at “Grants.gov” (searchable) for more information.

Not all marriage/fatherhood grantees, obviously, would have the word “marriage in their business names (NIRE® certainly doesn’t), but it is symptomatic of alignment of purposes between the (mostly, I’ll bet) nonprofits and the programming.

Several of the grantees I have previously looked up (meaning, their tax returns and most likely corporate filings) and may have posted, so am not repeating that information here

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