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Thursday, January 24, 2013

WHEN IT COMES TO CUSTODY, FATHERHOOD FUNDED ACCESS AND VISITATION GRANTS PUT FATHERS IN THE DRIVERS' SEAT!

(This article is written by an author who chooses to write anonymously in order to protect him/herself from retaliation.)

All over the State of Connecticut mothers are talking about how Family Court disregards their concerns and actively engages in schemes which are intended to deny them the custody of their children.  Why is this happening, they ask?  

For some answers, all you need to do is look at a recent Superior Court Federal Access and Visitation grant application from July 7, 2010 which demonstrates how pro-father case rigging goes down in Connecticut.  Programs like this, funded by the federal government are meant to arbitrarily increase the number of noncustodial parents [fathers] who have "access" to their children.  

Thus, the grant application begins with the words, "I am pleased to submit Connecticut's renewal application for available federal funds to administer programs that support and facilitate non-custodial parents' [fathers]access and visitation with their children." 

THE TENTACLES OF FATHERHOOD FUNDING ARE EVERYWHERE!

Fatherhood funds are not just distributed to fathers in grant programs intended for family court such as the one I am reviewing in this article, they are also distributed elsewhere.  For example, the grant application makes reference to a major program "within the Department of Social Services called the John S. Martinez Fatherhood Initiatve of Connecticut."  For more information on this program check the following link:

http://www.ct.gov/fatherhood/site/default.asp 

According to the grant, "The goal of the program is to promote positive involvement and interaction of fathers with their children.  This program oversees six state-certified fatherhood programs across Connecticut and is funded by state funding and the Promoting Responsible Fatherhood federal grant."  While I have not yet had an opportunity to review this grant, I am assuming the latter involves millions and millions of dollars solely provided to fathers.

But do not be deceived, this fatherhood funding doesn't simply involve the Department of Social Services.  A Memorandum of Understanding which I just obtained indicates that fatherhood funding provides millions of additional dollars for fatherhood programs in Connecticut operated by not only the Department of Social Services, but also by the Department of Children and Families, the Department of Correction, the Department of Labor, the Department of Mental health and Addiction Services, the Department of Public health, the State Department of Education, the Judicial Branch Court Support Services Division, and the Judicial Branch Support Enforcement Services. 

We are talking about these millions of dollars being siphoned into every aspect of State government agencies and services, and all of these agencies and services combining together for the one central purpose of benefiting fathers. 

WHY ARE FATHERS DESERVING OF ALL THIS MONEY?  BECAUSE, THE IMPLICATION IS, WOMEN ARE DOING A BAD JOB OF PARENTING AND NEED FATHERS TO STRAIGHTEN THEM OUT!

The statement of purpose included in the Memorandum of Agreement I referred to above tries to make the case that mothers are just not doing a good job of parenting.  So, apparently, they need fathers to straighten them out.  Here is a sample of the commentary:

"Children growing up in families headed by a single mother are five times more likely than children in two-parent families to live in poverty."

"Children who suffer from father absence are at a high risk for dropping out of school, incarceration, drug use and teen parenthood."

"Children experience higher academic achievement when their fathers are involved in their lives, whether or not their fathers live with them, including obtaining better grades and less likely incidence of repeating a grade."

Of course, wouldn't another way of saying this be: if fathers are not abusive towards their ex spouses and children and pay their child support, the outcome will improve for the children.  How hard is that? 

In my view, the real question should be, are 100% of fathers so inept at parenting, so retarded, that they REQUIRE the State to set up federally funded programs to show them how to do their job as fathers?  Where 90% of the people on welfare are single mothers who are the victims of domestic violence, isn't the fact that so many single mothers have stepped up to the plate and escaped their relationships with violent offenders a good thing?

Is the "give fathers custody at all costs, ask questions later" policy one we really want to follow given that the court programs are directly and deliberately drawing from pools of unfit fathers?

If the facts cited about single mothers are true, then shouldn't we be focused on providing resources directly to the children, rather than to the fathers who voluntarily abuse and neglect them?  Who says these children are "suffering" or even entitled to the luxury of two parents?  Why does the child require a violent, dangerous, unfit, father in his life who has drug and mental health problems?

Clearly, these questions have not played any significant role in the minds of the architects of these federally funded fatherhood programs.

So what does this mean for mothers who go to Family Court in Connecticut?  The answer is that grant programs funded through this fatherhood money kicks in to give fathers the advantage in Superior Court.  The way this happens is as follows. 

FATHERS GET SPECIAL ATTENTION!

When cases come before the court, there are personnel within Family Services whose sole job it is to find ways to benefit fathers and increase their access to their children, regardless of whether these fathers are abusive or not.  And remember, Family Services is not needs based, so anyone regardless of income is eligible. 

Also, as a mother, keep in mind that when you go to Family Court no one tells you, by the way, while you are receiving services from Family Relations, your ex husband is receiving double the support and double the services behind your back.  

These custody switching schemes begin with the following: 

"Court Negotiations:  This is a process in which a Family Relations Councilor meets with the non-custodial parent [father] at the time of the Court or Magistrate hearing in Hartford.  The sole function of the Family Relations Counselor in this setting is to discuss access and visitation issues as well as other concerns regarding the development of a parenting plan."  Yes, there is a statement that the non-custodial parent should be involved in this discussion, but--surprise, surprise--"In most instances the custodial parent is not available and follow-up meetings are necessary." 

FATHERS GET FREE LEGAL ADVICE!

And what will happen if the mother refuses to cooperate and agree to access? Family Relations will assist the father in obtaining free legal representation, in other words "provide information and support in navigating the formal court process to bring the access issue before Family Matters Court." Again, we have this deceptive language which is used to make these gender biased programs palatable--"problem solving", "access issues", when what we are really talking about is a custody switching scheme.

Do custodial parents, i.e. mothers, know these secret meetings are taking place, that all these services are conducted with a behind the scenes understanding that they are intended to benefit fathers alone? Do mothers understand that they are participating in this grant program and that the grant puts the mediator and the Family Relations Counselor on commission to find in favor of fathers and noncustodial parents? Do they know that when they walk through the office door of a Family Relations Counselor they are headed for an ambush?  No they don't. 

Of course, my question is whether a program that is meant to arbitrarily increase the number of noncustodial parents who "access" their kids and in the process take custody rights away from mothers has a legitimate government purpose. I think not!

FATHERS GET FREE SUPERVISED VISITATION!
 
Underlying much of this discussion is the understanding that a considerable number of the fathers involved in these programs are violent offenders who have caused harm and damage to their ex-wives and children.  For example, in regard to mediation there is a statement that mediation can be conducted with the parties in separate rooms.  Of course, this is what would occur in situations where there has been abuse. 

Further, there is a lengthy discussion of supervised visitation programs, but not to worry, because the people who run these programs don't think supervised visitation will be necessary for very long!  "The vast majority of cases move quickly to unsupervised access once the bond is re-established."  Oh, really!  These are people who have "either never developed a relationship with their child, or who have had their relationship severed."  And why is that?  Because they have been in jail?  Because they have been involved in drugs or illegal activities?  Your guess is as good as mine! 

What this all amounts to is that unarmed, untrained personnel end up supervising violent offenders' access to children. Here is their idea of security:

"One of the requirements articulated in the most recent Request for Proposal was for the organizations to follow the standards and guidelines for supervised visitation practices, as outlined by the Supervised Visitation Network (SVN).  The protocol utilized by all current direct services providers is a staggered arrival and departure procedure to ensure the safety of the participants.  if requested by the  custodial parent, third parties can be utilized for the drop-off and pick-up of the child to the agency.  In addition, the agencies have telephones in each room where the services occur, in case of an emergency, they are able to contact help.  Further, one of the agencies utilizes panic buttons on their staff that would alert the local police department if an incident occurs."

A telephone call didn't do much to save the Powell children when their elderly, overweight visitation "supervisor" brought them to Josh Powell's house.  He chopped them up with an ax and blew the house up while the "supervisor" stood there chatting with 911 operators."

These subsidized supervised visitation programs appear to be only available to fathers who are getting assistance with their court cases.   In contrast, supervised visitation programs extort tens of thousands of dollars from protective mothers such as Susan Skipp and Sunny Kelly for access to their children, while fathers receive the same services for free.  In particular, Sunny Kelly, who was charged with PAS and lost custody to a diagnosed psychopath and child rapist, was charged $10,000 per month in a non-therapeutic setting to see her son.  She can't afford such extraordinary amounts of money, so she has not seen her son in a year.

FATHERS GET FREE COUNSELING!

Through the Families in Transition program, Fathers are also provided free counseling in order to remove the barriers which limit access to their children.  Of course, I have problem with this kind of wording.  These are not families any longer, if they ever were families.  Some father's were never married to the mother of their children.  Others are divorced, so there is no family in the traditional sense.  What this terminology reflects is the insistence upon expanding father's ability to control and manipulate his ex partner and children despite the fact that both parents have gone their separate ways. 

Or, as the grant application chooses to put it, the purpose of this counseling is to establish the father's relationship with children he hasn't seen in a long time and assist the child in "gain[ing] an important level of  comfort with the reintroduced parent."  It can also be used as a springboard to making referrals to other services such as "parent education, substance abuse evaluation, treatment, and testing."  Right, these children of single mothers would really suffer without their drug addicted fathers in their lives.

Under the laws of the State of Connecticut, a parent cannot be ordered into counseling or treatment after the divorce is closed.  Yet these programs routinely order mothers into treatment in order to promote access and visitation for fathers.  According to federal law, the Access and Visitation grant programs do not provide for involuntary counseling, advocacy, or therapy.  Yet this is exactly what the CSSD programs are doing with the money.  For more information see the following link:

http://www.acf.hhs.fov/programs/css/resource/final-rule-150-grants-to-states-for-access-and-visitation-programs
 
MAKE NO MISTAKE, THIS ABUSE OF WOMEN HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR A LONG TIME AND IT IS ENTRENCHED IN THE LEGAL AND SOCIAL CULTURE OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT

Returning to the grant application I started this article with what does that mean "renewal" application?  How long has this been going on?  According to the letter accompanying this grant application, "The Access and Visitation Grant will provide Connecticut with the opportunity to continue and expand the program that has been in place for over ten years."  In fact, the Connecticut Judicial Branch has been receiving this fatherhood funding to strengthen and support Fathers in their custody battles since 1997.  This is well over a decade during which considerable numbers of women have increasingly reported losing custody of their children to abusers in custody battles in family court that have been riddled with fraud, graft, and corruption.  

The result is a battleground where the State of Connecticut, funded with millions of dollars of federal money, is attacking and destroying the lives of innocent women and children.  This has got to stop, right now. 

WHAT DO WOMEN NEED TO KNOW

What mothers need to understand is that the Federal Government is only going to pay the Court to maintain services if mothers lose their court cases.  Mothers have absolutely no chance of winning because the checks are only cut to agencies that assist fathers--dysfunctional and dangerous ones.

But for the purposes of justifying the payments, the CSSD pilots are enrolling mothers involuntarily in Fatherhood programs without telling them, and then counting them off to the Federal Government as "parties served."  And since the mothers do not know they are enrolled and are not receiving services, they are not provided with the surveys referenced in the grant reports that state everyone is so pleased with the programs and the outcome of their cases. 

The programs scuttle all of the mother's due process rights and put CSSD administrators in charge of burying any evidence that might hinder a father's chances of increasing his parenting time and rights.  Otherwise, if there were a decrease in father's custodial time, then the feds would not pay up and that court administrator will lose his or her job.

15 comments:

  1. Thanks. Keep posting!

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  2. Federally funded misogyny, as if there wasn't enough misogyny without the funding. The ideas pushed over and over about adding a penised one (the sperm shooter) to the child's life somehow lifting the child out of poverty is so completely wrong, it's hard to believe that it is repeated over and over. A mother who has to use her financial resources and her time to fend off an abuser who wants custody is causing the mother to spend money on legal fees and other court ordered nonsense (extortion) instead of on her own child. This only increases poverty for children. How does giving an unemployed man custody and forcing the mother to pay him increase financial well being for a child? It doesn't! A mother living with her child without the unemployed man involved in any way will have more resources by not having to pay him, or pay legal fees. Adding an unemployed man to the house also drains money from the mother and child by him adding to the amount of housework the mother has to do, and by adding to the food bill. Abusive men, guys who don't want to work that go party instead, do not add value to children's lives and certainly not to mother's lives. The whole fatherhood program is nothing but misogyny designed to take children away from their mothers. The program is an abomination that epitomizes the many things wrong with the US and its waste of tax dollars on programs that inflict harm on others. Good men get married, don't cheat, work and are an asset to the mother and child. Men who don't do these things on their own should not be rewarded by stealing the child from the mother, and making the mother pay him. It's monstrous.

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    1. Yes that's common sense, but understand that a government is a form of incorporation that sets the rules, and raises money. (by the way, I"m one of those single mothers who got free, was self-sufficient, was attacked through the courts (endlessly) in order to FORCE a dependency on me such I couldn't fight back for my kids when they were stolen, which as it was done in our case, was a felony.

      So if it's even true, kids doing worse in Single Mothers household, that omits that since about 1996 (at a bare minimum) single mothers as a CLASS -- have been targeted for linguistic and economic elimination, sometimes it gets physical. WHY? It supposedly justifies more programming. Like many programs, they aren't really "successful" unless they truly "fail," in which case our public is so stupid, they'll allow and even vote for more programs by the same groups that started the crisis originally!

      Good comment. And I have to admit there was a point in time where I came to the conclusion that my own ex (not all men) had a few good points about him, primarily live sperm resulting in two wonderful kids. I certainly didn't go into the relationship thinking in those terms, but after a certain point . . . .

      We have to get the basic elements of this system IDENTIFIED, NAMED, and then how to respond to them. There is an Us/Them in the mix. Look at this site http://cafr1.com and understand how most of gov't wealth is not being shown to the public. If it were, most of our taxes wouldn't even be needed, and there'd be a decreasing, not increasing gap in power between collective gov't (at all levels) and individual workers, or smaller corps (collective).

      Once this is understood, you can basically "ditch" the Lundy Bancroft stuff saying, keep custody evaluations, just make them better. That's the wrong rhetoric. This is about money-laundering, not about kids, and once one of these programs (not PEOPLE) moves into the neighborhood, there it goes, downhill.

      Keep listening to the person who wrote the post. He/she has got the goods, and should be copied as to approach looking things up -- and keeping the conversation "on the money" and off the anecodtal melodrama. You can't "shame" heartless sociopaths flourishing in a profitable system into a conscience they don't have; they are already heavily invested into the prestige, and the money, it would seem. It may be possible to show the public (at large) what's being done with THEIR money and seek to pull the plug on funding abusers. Probably not, but maybe.

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  3. I think what is so amazing about this situation, just to add to what you are saying, is that we are talking millions of dollars for fathers infiltrating practically every area of State Government.

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  4. http://CTLawHelp.org/fatherhood-initiative-directory

    Anyone denying this program is nothing more than a pilot, or even that it's non- existent is delusional.

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  5. Just to respond to Anonymous at 12:26PM, there was a prior article on this blog about a pilot program for which there was a report in 2010, which was just a pilot program and which cost $300,000. This article is about a completely different program. What simply cannot be denied is that millions and millions of dollars have been poured into the State of CT for fatherhood programs which has led to an all out war against fit mothers in order to take their children from them. We have documented case after case where this has occurred where men whose abuse has been documented end up receiving residential custody of their children and/or sole custody while the mother is eliminated from the lives of the children. Shame on CT and shame on the corrupt judges, attorneys, and most particularly the mental health professionals who have colluded in these activities simply for money.

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  6. And shame on the fathers who lie and abuse and harm their families and children simply because they don't want to have to pay child support and they want total control of their ex wives and children.

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  7. Seriously? You seem to be one of those woman who has Parental alienation disorder.... I am a divorced father and your statements are ridiculous and make me think you are very angry at men... there are hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars, both tax, and charity for woman. You stated that 90% of the people who are poor are woman, which is so unrealistic... the reality is that men actually make up most of the homeless, and the only reason you think so many woman are poor is because you are looking at figures where people are RECIEVING help and aid, which this system does mostly for woman, I am not going to get into how horrible the divorce laws are in this country, but the reality is that men don't get much help, we don't get aid as much as woman do, and usually get told we don't qualify, though I am disabled, my wife gets 60% of my disability, I pay more because she gets government aid like food stamps etc, and I am left with only $350 a month, not even enough to pay rent.... I get $100 in food stamps, and had a 10,000 dollar bill racked up against me while i was unemployed and disabled... The woman at DHHS even said that it wasn't her problem that they left me homeless, nor did she care... No lawyers do much work for free, and since I have not even enough to survive I have little help there... Maine is the place this all has happened, but I can promise you that you have it so good.
    I just came from Asia, where I could actually survive for what little I had, and saw the lack of womans rights there, and you complaining is absurd. MEN have a right to be fathers, no matter what you want to think.. The irony is that so many men are good enough for the woman before divorce, but then after, suddenly the woman want to completely erase the mens access to the kids, like I'm currently going through.. I am not a wife beater nor do I deserve to be left homeless... Find your heart and compassion again... because our kids, yours and mine, need the parents to teach them love, and when they see there parents in divorce fighting and hating so much, it hurts them, and that is usually from the selfishness of both parents... But my ex wife is selfish in the way she thinks she owns the kids, and I DESERVE NO RIGHTS... The womans rights movement was great, you deserve freedom, but I ALSO THINK IT"S TIME FOR A FATHERS RIGHTS MOVEMENT where mens issues are addressed... Most of the homeless are made up of divorced men, who've been financially ruined by an archaic system that serves woman... Almost all men want to pay, and would if they had livable wages. Woman complain they make less than men, and it's true often, and yes unfair, but one benefit currently is that because of it, you still have jobs... MOST of the LOST JOBS in the past few decades have been MENS JOBS.... It is easier for a woman to find work than men these days, it's true... and men are the first to get pink slips, because they had higher salaries... WAKE UP, the system is broken, but not in the way you're saying... Be glad you are more privileged than 95% of woman in the world.. and most cultures DON'T EVEN allow for a woman to ever cut the man from the lives of the children. They believe that to be unthinkable. If a woman had a child with a man from a willing relationship, then that man has the same rights as the mother, no question no courts, no way that could be stopped short of serious issues, but in america, most woman these days seem to call an ex insulting them a serious threat, right?.. Freedom of speech is so horrible when it's interfering with a womans PARENTAL ALIENATION DISORDER, which NEEDS to finally be classified as what it really IS, A MENTAL DISEASE.... Woman don't need to use fists, when they are so good at lies and manipulation they have no need for it usually, if they want to hurt someone, they'll just usually find a gullible guy to do it for them... I hope you think on this, peace for you your children and your ex is what's needed... Just as it's what's needed for me and mine.

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    1. re: "I just came from Asia, where I could actually survive for what little I had, and saw the lack of womans rights there, and you complaining is absurd. MEN have a right to be fathers, no matter what you want to think.. The irony is that so many men are good enough for the woman before divorce, but then after, suddenly the woman want to completely erase the mens access to the kids, like I'm currently going through.. I am not a wife beater nor do I deserve to be left homeless..."
      ~ ~ ~ ~
      I don't approve of DHHS messing with your disability or racking up $10K. On the other hand, I also know women who are having their disability garnished after leaving violent marriages, one, to the point of homelessness (she worked FT living in a truck for as long as possible). I have been held at the verge of it for years because of the courts. No one can work and be in court half the time, unpredictably -- most employers, or clients, like the person to show up, in one piece, and not in shock because their kids just got kidnapped.

      ~ ~ However, if you are Just from Asia, I see you are a very fast learning -- you have learned how to pretend there isn't a fathers' rights movement already and cry about parental alienation.
      there is a private AND public-funded fatherhood movement, and has been for a while. When African-Americans got the vote, it specifically excluded women. Now we get up and a little independent, and there's a public, nationwide campaign against single mothers, who are to stay put and be scapegoated for the nation's poverty? DId we cause the problem?
      ~ ~ ~

      Good luck with whatever your disability is (some of us have some specifically from the marriage, i.e., physical, and some from long-term dealing with this craziness, i.e. PTSD). If you would quit yelling PAS you might be a father who could speak to the fact that the fatherhood programs aren't helping men like yourself (assuming that's true about not a wife-beater, etc.).

      And by the way, men tend to control media, do control Congress in the US, control much of religion (some groups, entirely), and as such I can say, quite competent about lies and manipulation. For example, those in power chose to manipulate the gender war so more of us would forget about where the money went, and who's buying up the assets and real estate of families stuck in the courts.



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  8. I respect your opinion, and clearly you have been going through a great deal. Remember, my blog is not addressed to the general population but to the small minority of high conflict divorces. Parental Alienation is an imaginary construct developed by Dr. Richard Gardner a pedophile who promoted the normalization of relationships between adults and boys. Parental Alienation Disorder has not been accepted into the DSM-5 and I doubt it will ever be considered a legitimate diagnosis because it simply isn't a legitimate mental disease. Bad behavior? Perhaps. But mental illness? No.

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    1. Are you a parent, or a bystander in this business, may I ask?    

      "High conflict divorce" is a term coined by AFCC that goes with Parental Alienation & other words, specialized courts, and treatment programs they keep coming up with, as cults tend to do.

      Dr. Richard Gardner is dead, but some protective parents groups have cognitive functions in neutral; to hear them, you'd think Parental Alienation was just drop-shipped across the decades to the nation.  Who did it, and how? Does food, gas, or water come with no delivery system, no truckdrivers, and free of charge?  So here, what's the distribution network, and how's it financed?  Exposing how it got here is more than half the problem.  And exposing that network is going to concern those who brought the term more than "any PR is good PR" protests of it, or of child abuse.  They changed paradigms -- we can too, but not without identifying, with names and appropriate labels, how it got changed.

      Dig in almost anywhere and see the system.  for example, Philip Stahl & Robert Simon? (see BOOKS, explore site:  http://www.dr-simon.com/pro_case_management.html).  Look at Warshak, similar ideas.  Conference, consult, publish (all of which are for pay right?).  They use the network differently than we bloggers do.

      http://www.parentingafterdivorce.com/pdfs/AlienationArticleForWJFL.pdf.  HIGH CONFLICT and ALIENATION used together.  
      2003 article:  notice who he's quoting incl. footnotes! (AFCC membership love to reference each other and their very limited set of collective ideas.
      ( cont'd.)

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    2. High conflict/parental alienation Gardner, cont'd (comment2)

      To see the distribution network (and its financing) is to see the RICO posing as government; also to see how deep, wide, and high the influence extends.  While it's daunting -- it's the truth, and has to be faced.  Talking about Gardner, instead of focusing on the network of influence in the courts; while we stand still, the network has reached another audience and developed another profession.  TIme to wake up!

      Look at "official" (published) usage of the term, notice where and who:
      http://www.washburnlaw.edu/faculty/scholarship/20092010.php
      Here, a LAW FACULTY (Washburn Univ, KS). Scroll down to Linda Henry Elrod and count the "high-conflict" titles: moderating a 2010 AFCC conference; (sixth under Presentations): "Kansas Custody Law and High Conflict Parents", Horizons: Solutions for Change, the Shawnee County Court Services Program for High Conflict Parents, Topeka, Kansas, January 14, 2010."
      OR the person's bio:
      http://washburnlaw.edu/faculty/elrod-linda.php (notice the fields she gravitates to, i.e., "CHILDREN's LAW."  "co-author of a family law textbook that has been used in 35 law schools. In 2000 she coordinated an international, interdisciplinary think tank on "High Conflict Custody Cases Reforming the System for Children." Professor Elrod has written dozens of articles and is a frequent CLE speaker."  This law prof. (since 1974) started the KS Family Law Section  http://www.adrmediate.com/pg6.cfm  Notice also into MEDIATION (ADR). 

      See what leverage & language saturation can do legally?  Shawnee has a High-Conflict Court (Connecticut's RFTD is one, just not called that)...   Or, "Multi-Disciplinary Collaboration is Key to Keeping Focus on Children in High Conflict Cases," 5th World Congress on Family Law and Children's Rights," Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, August 24, 2009."

      Point:  Linda H. Elrod is AFCC AND Law Faculty.  
      Conference Brochure:(note Platinum Sponsor)
      http://www.afccnet.org/Portals/0/PublicDocuments/Conferences/AFCCDenverProgram20100129web.pdf
      ~ ~ ~ ~
      Groups promoting/quoting that 2010 AFCC conference:
      http://www.naccchildlaw.org/event/id/101752/AFCCs-47th-Annual-Conference---Traversing-the-Trail-of-Alienation.htm (NACC  promotes GAL use in child custody conflicts...) 
      http://www.familylawfla.org/committees/adhoc/mandatoryparenting/materials/Workshop_67_Online_Parent_Education.pdf (Family Law Section of the Florida Bar).   Section Sponsor includes a woman related to the LInda Sacks case that tried to go to the Supreme Court. http://www.familylawfla.org/sponsorship/
      Networking...

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  9. Dr. Gardner promoted relationships between adults and children! Sorry!

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  10. (Last one for a while. Anyone who has enough sense to publish this post, might just get how the pieces of the puzzle (seem) to assemble. AFCC could care less if we complain about Richard Gardner-- they've already instituted parenting coordination, high-conflict courts, established mandatory mediation even in DV cases, and gotten ever-expanding funding from both HHS & DOJ and private foundations. THey also don't REALLY (I believe) how much we talk about domestic violence, batterers (Heck Battered Women's Justice Project now presents alongside AFCC).

    But if they (and again, the ABA and APA are a VERY powerful constituency nationwide; AFCC is where they meet. There are other nonprofits of judges, child support professionals, human service professionals, etc. that help coordinate the networks, and set the policies. None could've done it alone; it required strategy, persistence, and an obedient, and loyal membership, which most of AFCC are. People get invested in developing their personal careers around professions that are fabricated by this group. The federal government, which can't even keep track of itself anyhow (or produce an audited statement) doesn't mind if it fails, because they can keep going back tot he taxpayers and say, either fork it over, or we cut services (after people have become used to and dependent on the same). Or, we'll simply off-load a lot of prisoners to the streets, etc. and you can handle yourselves.

    Back to "parental alienation" and who cares if it's a symptom or not? ..

    I showed in recent "Ground Zero" blog post a CT attorney (citing Munro and others) warning parents that CT courts don't care if it's a legit mental syndrome or not -- they'll still take it into account in their rulings.  You "alienate," you lose.

    Nov. 2011
    http://familycourtmatters.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/yet-another-afcc-style-wet-dream-someone-needs-to-mop-up-around-here/
    and again, last May:  http://familycourtmatters.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/the-term-high-conflict-docketed-trademarked-franchised-and-distributed/ 

    So, I hope if you're not favorable to the concept of Parental Alienation, you'll drop its twin brother, "high conflict divorce;" have you thought about why you're using it so much?  

    I figure, if I can't drown 'em out, at least have some fun mocking it. These people have a collective group identity and really big egos (posing as humbly serving the kids), and deserve to be ridiculed.  Besides the end result is to alienate the kids from the good parent where "good" is pretty clear by human standards already (i.e., doesn't rape, beat, or lose one's children, etc.).  Takes one to know one.  

    Sorry about all the links in this reply. This comment has a different website (google platform).

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  11. I am hearing all that you are saying and generally agree. I didn't know the origin of the term "high conflict". What would you consider a better term?

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