Embezzlment Probe for Misue of DV Funds… Why is this a surprise?

The Domestic Violence Industry targeting all men as violence perpetrators is a multi-billion dollar industry across the USA funded in large part by your governments at the federal and state level with assistance from politically correct gullible companies and naive men who want to appear chivalrous and “feminine”.  This person is only the tip of a very, very large iceberg that no one wants to explore as it might explode feminist myths about patriarchy and heaven forbid open the door to female violence against men. (Tiger Woods, Mary K. Blige slugging hubby while opening a DV shelter for women only, and the missing info on Chris Brown getting clubbed by a stiletto  heal before he overreacted. Did Charlie Sheen actually do that to his wife or was he set up by false allegations?  Watch the Tyra Banks show on Thursday this week to see more about men getting abused every 38 seconds.- MJM

I agree completely with the above statement. Many mentally ill women who suffer from Parental Alienation Syndrome use Restraining Orders and false allegations of Domestic Violence to achieve their ends: destroy father’s rights to custody in the name of money, profit and greed. – Parental Rights

Ex-UC Davis staffer under new scrutiny in embezzlement probe

ShareThis

By Hudson Sangree
hsangree@sacbee.com

Published: Friday, Jan. 1, 2010 – 12:00 am | Page 4B

Last Modified: Sunday, Jan. 3, 2010 – 4:55 pm

A former University of California, Davis, employee whom officials have accused of inflating crime statistics may have funneled university money into a private account and paid her mortgage with it, campus police said in a court document released this week.

As part of their embezzlement probe of Jennifer Beeman, investigators also raised the question of whether she had appropriately paid $540,000 to a Bay Area woman and her companies over a seven-year period.

Reached at home Thursday, Beeman declined to comment.

Police detailed their suspicions regarding Beeman, the former director of the UC Davis Campus Violence Prevention Program, in court papers filed as they sought a search warrant in early December.

Yolo Superior Court made the statement available this week.

In it, UC Davis Police Sgt. Paul Henoch wrote that Beeman, 52, first came under scrutiny in September 2008 for overstating her travel expenses.

Further investigation showed that she had asked for reimbursement for airfare to San Diego when her ticket had already been paid for by an outside group. She had also submitted travel mileage for meetings she did not attend, Henoch wrote.

University officials requested an internal audit and placed Beeman on administrative leave.

In February 2009, the audit concluded that Beeman had improperly submitted travel expenses of more than $1,000.

In October, campus officials said she had repaid $1,372 and retired in June.

On the same day, they also revealed Beeman had grossly inflated the number of forcible sexual offenses in three years of mandatory reports to the federal government. No reason was given.

Administrators also said in October that police were pursuing a second investigation into Beeman’s finances.

Details of that investigation were spelled out in a Dec. 1 statement by Henoch. He wrote that investigators had learned in early 2009 that Beeman had a “secret” checking account for a campus program called Take Back the Night.

Beeman told a co-worker that she had paid her home mortgage from the account, he wrote.

The account was located in July at the USE Credit Union, with Beeman listed as the only signatory, the police sergeant said in his statement.

Auditors found that nearly $12,000 in university funds had been deposited into the account, and Beeman had withdrawn $5,400 for personal use between January 2002 to March 2009, Henoch wrote.

The auditors also found that Beeman had authorized $25,000 in payments of federal grant funds to a company run by a woman named Granate Sosnoff to produce a campus anti-violence guide that was never completed, he wrote.

In November, Henoch said he discovered that the Campus Violence Prevention Program had paid Sosnoff and various media and marketing firms that she controlled more than $540,000 between May 2000 and April 2007.

“At this time it is unknown what type of relationship Beeman and Sosnoff have over the years,” he wrote, “if it is strictly business or if monies have exchanged hands between them.”

Sosnoff, who lives in Oakland, did not respond to a phone message Thursday.

The 47-year-old woman developed a series of acclaimed rape awareness posters for the university that were paid for with federal grant dollars.

The striking posters for the campaign, called “Voices Not Victims,” were featured in Ms. magazine and sought by other universities and the Ford Foundation’s office in Africa, according to a university press release from 2001.

The search warrant approved in December by Yolo Superior Court Judge Thomas Warriner sought bank records for both Beeman and Sosnoff.

UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza said Thursday that, to her knowledge, the banks have not yet returned the requested records.

No decisions about whether to charge Beeman or Sosnoff will be made until they do, she said.

“This is an open investigation,” Spicuzza said. “We’re going to look at everything.”

ShareThis

// Buzz up!

---

Call The Bee’s Hudson Sangree, (916) 321-1191. Bee researcher Pete Basofin contributed to this report.

About Comments

Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the “report abuse” button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.

What You Should Know About Comments on Sacbee.com

Sacbee.com is happy to provide a forum for reader interaction, discussion, feedback and reaction to our stories. However, we reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments or ban users who can’t play nice. (See our full terms of service here.)

Here are some rules of the road:

• Keep your comments civil. Don’t insult one another or the subjects of our articles. If you think a comment violates our guidelines click the “report abuse” button to notify the moderators. Responding to the comment will only encourage bad behavior.

• Don’t use profanities, vulgarities or hate speech. This is a general interest news site. Sometimes, there are children present. Don’t say anything in a way you wouldn’t want your own child to hear.

• Do not attack other users; focus your comments on issues, not individuals.

• Stay on topic. Only post comments relevant to the article at hand. If you want to discuss an issue with a specific user, click on his profile name and send him a direct message.

• Do not copy and paste outside material into the comment box.

• Don’t repeat the same comment over and over. We heard you the first time.

• Do not use the commenting system for advertising. That’s spam and it isn’t allowed.

• Don’t use all capital letters. That’s akin to yelling and not appreciated by the audience.

You should also know that The Sacramento Bee does not screen comments before they are posted. You are more likely to see inappropriate comments before our staff does, so we ask that you click the “report abuse” button to submit those comments for moderator review. You also may notify us via email at feedback@sacbee.com. Note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us the profile name of the user who made the comment. Remember, comment moderation is subjective. You may find some material objectionable that we won’t and vice versa.

If you submit a comment, the user name of your account will appear along with it. Users cannot remove their own comments once they have submitted them, but you may ask our staff to retract one of your comments by sending an email to feedback@sacbee.com. Again, make sure you note the headline on which the comment is made and tell us your profile name.

Ex-UC Davis staffer under new scrutiny in embezzlement probe – Sacramento News – Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee.

House Divided: Hate Thy Father | Psychology Today

Parenting

House Divided: Hate Thy Father

In an era of bitter divorce battles, parents often use children as hammers to bash each other, manipulating not only the legal system but also their children’s affections. Can a broken parent-child bond be restored?

By Mark Teich, published on May 01, 2007 – last reviewed on July 24, 2007

In 1978, after Cathy Mannis and her future husband moved into the same cooperative at U.C. Berkeley, they ran into each other often. She was not immediately smitten. “I detested him at first, and I should have stayed with that feeling,” recalls Cathy Mannis of her now ex-husband. “He was overweight and always very critical. Then he lost weight, became cuter, and started paying attention to me. He was going to be a doctor and he seemed so trustworthy; he said he would never desert his family as his own father had done to him.” They started dating, and she ultimately cared for him enough to marry him. “I thought he’d be a good father, and I was dying to be a mother. I thought we’d have a good life.”

She worked full-time as a legal secretary to put him through medical school. She also bought the two of them a town house with money she’d saved before marriage. When she gave birth to a boy, Matt (not his real name), she was as happy as she’d ever been. Over time, she saw signs that her husband was cheating on her, but she always forgave him.

Their second son, Robby, was born autistic, and things went downhill fast. The boy had speech and learning problems and was frequently out of control. Her husband was appalled. “He’s dumber than a fish,” he said.

Still, they had one more child, Harry (the name has been changed), hoping to give Matt a sibling without Robby’s problems. Harry turned out normal, but he bonded most closely with Robby; they became inseparable.

When Cathy once again became convinced her husband was cheating—he inexplicably never came home one night—she finally threw him out. He filed for divorce before she could forgive him again.

Cathy was granted primary custody of the kids, and her ex soon married the woman he’d been seeing on the side. Because of all she had to do to help Robby as well as her other two kids, Cathy could no longer hold a full-time job. Meanwhile, her ex declared two bankruptcies and, at one point, even mental disability, all of which kept alimony payments to a trickle.

Eventually Cathy was so broke that her electricity was turned off; she and the boys ate dinner by candlelight. Then she became so ill she had to be hospitalized for life-threatening surgery. She had no choice but to leave the kids with her ex. “He promised to return them when my health and finances improved,” she says.

That was almost seven years ago. Her health has long since returned and she has a good job she can do from home, but the only child ever restored to her, despite nonstop court battles, was Robby. In fact, her ex got the courts to rule that the children should be permanently separated, leaving the other two children with him, since Robby was a “threat” to his younger brother’s well-being.

Through all those years, Cathy says she faced a campaign of systematic alienation from Matt and Harry. “When I called to speak to them, I was usually greeted with coldness or anger, and often the boys weren’t brought to the phone. Then my ex sent letters warning me not to call them at home at all. Whenever the kids came to stay with me, they’d report, ‘Dad says you’re evil. He says you wrecked the marriage.’ ” Then he moved thousands of miles away, making it vastly more difficult for her to see her children.

As time has passed, the boys have increasingly pulled away. Matt, now grown and serving in the military, never speaks to Cathy. Thirteen-year-old Harry used to say, “Mommy, why can’t I stay with you? All the other kids I know live with their moms,” before leaving visits with her. Now he often appears detached from her and uninterested in Robby, whom he once adored. His friends at his new home think his stepmother is his mom, because that’s how she introduces herself. “She told me she would take my kids, and she did. The alienation is complete,” rues Cathy. “All I ever wanted was to be a mom.”

Divorcing parents have long bashed each other in hopes of winning points with kids. But today, the strategy of blame encompasses a psychological concept of parental alienation that is increasingly used—and misused—in the courts.

On the one hand, with so many contentious divorces, parents like Cathy Mannis have been tragically alienated from the children they love. On the other hand, parental alienation has been seized as a strategic tool in custody fights, its effects exploited in the courtroom, often to the detriment of loving parents protecting children from true neglect or abuse. With the impact of alienation so devastating—and false accusations so prevalent—it may take a judge with the wisdom of Solomon to differentiate between the two faces of alienation: a truly toxic parent and his or her victimized children versus manipulation of the legal system to claim damage where none exists.

A Symptom Of Our Time?

Disturbed by the potential for alienation, many divorce courts have today instituted aggressive steps to intervene where they once just stood by. And with good reason: Alienation is ruinous to all involved. “In pathological or irrational alienation, the parent has done nothing to deserve that level of hatred or rejection from the child,” explains University of Texas psychologist Richard Warshak, author of Divorce Poison: Protecting the Parent-Child Bond from a Vindictive Ex. “It often seems to happen almost overnight, and neither the rejected parent nor even the rejecting child understands why.”

Often, in fact, it’s the emotionally healthier parent who gets rejected, Warshak adds. That parent tends to understand that it’s not in the child’s best interests to lose the other parent. In contrast, the alienating parent craves revenge against the ex—then uses the child to exact that punishment. “It’s a form of abuse,” Warshak says. “Both parent and child are victims.”

House Divided: Hate Thy Father | Psychology Today.

Mental Disorder/Illness Opposition to Parental Alienation Syndrome – Part 1

When I first discovered the term of Parental Alienation Syndrome, I thought that everyone was in agreement that it was valid since proof of alienating tactics can be seen in parents that train children to hate, and vilify the other parent.

Isn’t it obvious that anyone who does this is mentally ill? To judges, attorneys and parents everyone seems to agree, a parent that does this to a child is an abuser.  Since the vast majority of women have sole custody, most of the abusers are women.  But Parental Alienationn is a gender-neutral sickness, because I have friends that are women that are alienated from the children.  By the dads.

Further reading showed that Parental Alienation Syndrome is generated and perpetuated by an axis of disorders listed in the current DSM book. These include paranoia, histrionic, and borderline disorders. There are a few more that can be added to this disorder, but I have read that these are the core disorders that make up this syndrome.

The American Psychological Association uses a test, shortnamed the MMPI-II test that can actually indicate any of the above mentioned disorder exist.  Collectively and through actions by the abusive parent, this makes up Parental Alienation Syndrome.

By itself, the test does not indicate mental illness.

But answers to the test point to actions and activities that mentally ill persons see as OK.  Denial, lying, slander, libel, self-medicating, etc. are OK with these folk since to them, the end justifies the means.  Sociopathic behavior is fine and dandy, with Parental alienators.

For dozens of children’s and parent’s rights activists, a group of “Anon…..s.” or members of  the Pig Pen as we call them spend their days attacking fathers and children through lies and slander.  They also attack women from time to time, so women are “abusers,” too.

They have also been creating fake IDs on Facebook, and joining father’s groups to stalk them there. Just recently, a person known as “Randi James” (not real name, obviously) was de-friend-ed by dozens of men (and a few women) when she spewed her bittternes against fathers in a comment thread on Facebook.

If you read some of the hatred that comes from their hate websites you can see why they lost their kids and

1. Denial – Everyone else to blame for their problems. They are “victims” or “battered women”.
2. Paranoia – Most alienates are paranoid and hide while they lie. they imagine they are being stalked.
3. Lying – See 1, also they will say anything to win in family court, especially false allegations of abuse, etc. Besides lying in court, they when they blog, or write or when they talk to you.
4. Hate – See, 1 2.3. above.

There are some websites that glorify in blaming others for “their problems”. Primarily being no one believes them. Either they were “battered” women, or married to “abusers” or the children are now in the hands of “abusers”.

You will also find vicious attacks on Dr. Richard Gardner (he is dead, it is OK to attack a dead person.)  All the stuff about Dr. Garnder is made up.   Attacks on fathers, activists for children, etc. are their primary targets. They go after live dads, too, but never with their own names, since they fear libel and slander laws.

Despite the fact that women are playing on their “home field” in Family Court, these women of the “pig pen” lost a fight that bookies had them winning.

Why is this? See the list above. Nuff said.  Part 2 to come.

“Abusive” Parents Alienate and Psychologically “Batter” Children

Parents following divorce are called upon to cooperate with the other parent after divorce in case involving children.  Those parents who cannot put aside the anger, hate, and mental illness problems usually wind up “abusing” the children by alienating them from the the other parent.

Alienation has been called a form of psychological “battering” of children.  For children that suffer from a custodial parent’s “battering“, I refer to an article from Jayne Major, Ph.D., an expert in the abuse that “abusive ” that accurately can describe the behavior of parents that commit Parental Alienation against a child”

“The alienating parent’s hatred can have no bounds. The severest form will bring out every horrible allegation known, including claims of domestic violence, stalking and the sexual molestation of the child. Many fathers say that there have been repeated calls to the Department of Family and Child Services alleging child abuse and neglect.

In most cases the investigators report that they found nothing wrong. However, the indoctrinating parent feels that these reports are not fabrications, but very, very real. She can describe the horror of what happen in great detail. Regardless of the actual truth, in her mind, it did happen.

Most of the alienated fathers that I work with are continually befuddled by her lying. “How can she lie like that?” They don’t realize that these lies are not based on rational thinking. They are incapable of understanding the difference between what is true and what they want to be true. A vital part of fighting PAS is to understand the severity of the psychological disturbance that is the source of it.”

For parents on the other end of this intense hatred from the “abusive” parent, most psychologist counsel being as actively involved with your children as possible, but sometimes, the psychological “battering” by the alienating parent eventually turns the child against the targeted parent. In some cases, the child loses all touch with reality, and becomes a carbon copy of the “abusive” parents and hates the everyone and the world.

That is why is has become even more imperative that Parental Alienation, Parental Alienation Syndrome or even Parental Alienation Disorder (as it has been suggested) be included in the next version of the American Psychological Association DSM book. With recognition by the APA, children can get real help for their problems and can be psychologically rescued from “abusive” and parents that “batter.”

Fathers & Families Files Official Response to Elkins Task Force Recommendations on California Family Law Reforms « Fathers & Families

Fathers & Families Files Official Response to Elkins Task Force Recommendations on California Family Law Reforms

December 7th, 2009 by Glenn Sacks, MA, Executive Director

“[Family law litigants should not be subjected to second-class status or deprived of access to justice. Litigants with other civil claims are entitled to resolve their disputes in the usual adversary trial proceeding governed by the rules of evidence established by statute. It is at least as important that courts employ fair proceedings when the stakes involve a judgment providing for custody in the best interest of a child and governing a parent’s future involvement in his or her child’s life…”–Elkins v. Superior Court (2007)

Family law takes up more court calendar time than any other form of law in California, yet it receives the least amount of funding. Moreover, the public’s trust and confidence in the family court system is lower than that of any other area of law the judicial system handles.

The Elkins Family Law Task Force is conducting a comprehensive review of family law proceedings and will recommend to the Judicial Council of California proposals that increase access to justice for all family law litigants. The Task Force grew out of the Elkins decision referenced above–to learn more, click here and go to page 3.

The Elkins Family Law Task Force recently issued its draft recommendations and Fathers & Families has submitted its official comments in response. Fathers & Families’ comments, which were submitted by F & F Board Member Elizabeth Barton, PhD of the University of California at Irvine, are here.

Elkins’ recommendations concern 21 family court issues, including: Enhancing Mechanisms to Handle Perjury; the Right to Present Live Testimony at Hearings; Contested Child Custody; Streamlining Family Law Forms and Procedures; and numerous others.

While Fathers & Families feels that many of the recommendations lack sufficient substantive detail, we believe that this will be addressed in the Task Force’s final recommendations to the Judicial Council in Spring 2010. We are encouraged that the recommendations address transparency, due process, and education.

Many of the issues the Elkins Commission is taking up, such as conflict reduction, improving transparency, and protecting all parties’ due process rights, were first addressed by Fathers & Families’ legislative representative Michael Robinson during his work on AB 402 in 2006.

AB 402, a family law bill sponsored by then-California Assemblyman Mervyn M. Dymally, codified collaborative law practice into our family law codes. The current adversarial litigation process escalates conflict between divorcing parents instead of reducing it. Collaborative Law is a better option.

Among other provisions, AB 402 mandated a written statement of decision in all hearings or trials involving child custody. While this provision was already part of the Codes of Civil Procedure, it was not always being followed.

Robinson also attempted to add provisions for stronger enforcement of child custody orders by adding a new SECTION. 4. Family Code 3022 as part of AB 402. There was strong support for this provision from the California Judges Association and the Family Law Section of the State Bar. This provision was lost, but Fathers & Families is continuing to pursue this goal in Sacramento.

During the Work Group that AB 402 established (similar to the Elkins Task Force), Donna Hitchens, Presiding Judge of the San Francisco Family Court, commented:

You have no idea how many children’s college educations I have seen unnecessarily wasted in my court room. This must be stopped.

Fathers & Families will continue its close monitoring of the Elkins Task Force and will be reporting on future developments.

The next event is the Task Force’s two-day meeting February 1 & 2, 2010 in the Judicial Council Conference Center of the Administrative Office of the Courts in San Francisco. Fathers & Families will have a representative speaking at this meeting, and will post its presentation on our E-Newsletter and on www.FathersandFamilies.org.

Fathers & Families is also working on 2010 legislation to codify some of the Elkins Task Force’s most important recommendations–stay tuned for more details.

California law has an enormous impact on the laws of other states, as well as federal law. For example, many of the misguided domestic violence laws that have separated so many innocent fathers from their children emanated from the legislation passed in California in the mid-1990s in the wake of the OJ Simpson trial.

In addition, many of those reading this participated in our successful 2005 campaign to pass California SB 1082, a military parents bill. Since then 30 states have passed bills based in part on SB 1082.

Fathers & Families is the only family court reform organization with a fulltime lobbyist working inside the capitol of California or any other major state, and we probably have the only fulltime family court reform lobbyist in the country. This important work costs money–please support it by giving here.

The family court system has become so damaging and dysfunctional because for 40 years our opponents have passed, defeated, and amended legislation while our side usually didn’t show up. We’re there now, and we’re growing stronger–become a part of it by filling out our Volunteer Form here.

Bookmark This Post:

Fathers & Families Files Official Response to Elkins Task Force Recommendations on California Family Law Reforms « Fathers & Families.

Stuart Showalter Law Blawg: Custody discussions with Legislators this week

Friday, December 4, 2009

Custody discussions with Legislators this week

On Tuesday 01 December 2009 I attended a discussion forum on the proposed constitutional amendment to cap property taxes. The event was hosted by the Meridian-Kessler Neighborhood Association with the help of Aaron Smith of WatchDog Indiana. Senators, Breaux, Schnieder and Taylor along with Representatives Delaney and Noe attended the event.

There was lively discussion and debate about the merits of and potential problems with a constitutional limit on property taxes. Although I live in Lebanon now, I grew up in the MKNA area. This provided an opportunity to see quite a few people I know and to also make some new acquaintances. But, taxes are not my issue so I will move on to child custody issues.

Before and after the event I had the opportunity to speak with most of the legislators. Senator Schneider is the state’s newest senator after having replace Terresa Lubbers in August of this year. Lubbers took a job as the Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education. Senator Schneider is a fiscal conservative who expressed interest in child custody matters and would like to be included in our efforts.

Senator Taylor and I spoke about some legislation that we have been working on since the last session. Senator Taylor sat on the Indiana Child Custody and Support Advisory Committee [ICCSAC] as a freshman member this year. He believes that he will be able to sponsor two of our bills.

Representative Noe and I discussed family law issues in general and where we would like to see Indiana headed in that arena. Representative Noe is the legislator I have worked with the longest on child custody issues. She is very firmly is support of children having access to and the care and support of both parents and other child-friendly legislation. She may be able to sponsor a bill for us although limited to only five this session.

On Tuesday I spoke with Senator Boots about a bill that I proposed to bring conformity to Indiana’s adoption and paternity laws. Back in July of this year I wrote about the rare but important need for this bill and contacted Senator Boots then. I am very appreciative that Senator Boots had submitted that bill on Monday.

I do believe that this bill will go through the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Senator Bray. I am confident that Senator Bray will set this bill for a hearing and that, with proper testimonial support, it will get passed. I would appreciate anyone having experience as a party, especially pro se, or attorney who has filed a paternity action while an adoption action involving the same child was pending to please contact me.

Indiana Custodial Rights Advocates currently has six bills we are seeking to get passed during this short session of the General Assembly. We would like to have the remaining five bills submitted by opening day on 05 January 2010. We are starting to make substantive progress to make Indiana a more child-friendly state but do need additional help. If you can do as little as forward an email please contact us.

Members of the Indiana Custodial Rights Advocates will be meeting again on 21 December 2009 at 7:30pm at the Marrott in Indianapolis. Our legislative liaisons will be attending the opening day of the second session of the 116th Assembly at the State House on Tuesday, 05 January 2010.

If you would like to assist us or meet your legislators on opening day please contact me.

Subscribe

Indiana Custodial Rights Advocates

©2009 Stuart Showalter, LLC. Permission is granted to all non-commercial entities to reproduce this article in it’s entirety with credit given.

Posted by Indiana Custodial Rights Advocates at 9:45 AM

Labels: adoption rights, child custody, joint legal custody, paternity statute

Stuart Showalter Law Blawg: Custody discussions with Legislators this week.

How to deal with ‘toxic’ parents – The Toronto Star 14MAR09

How to deal with ‘toxic’ parents
Courts ill-equipped to handle parental alienation, leaving children at greater risk of emotional damage

The Toronto Star, Susan Pigg LIVING REPORTER, March 14, 2009

When Toronto lawyer Brian Ludmer speaks about the suffering caused by parental alienation, the words come from his head and his heart.

He’s seen the devastation of a mother’s orchestrated campaign to make her children hate their father, or how a dad can use a 4-year-old as a weapon against his mother in the ugly aftermath of divorce.

The team at Family Solutions, which helps families move past bitter and angry divorces: (from left) Barbara Fidler, Helen Radovanovic, Linda Chodos, Jan Schloss and Ted Horowitz.

Ludmer is, by training, a corporate lawyer. But he’s being “swamped” by desperate parents looking for help reconnecting with their children. “Experts in this field will tell you that they’ve never met a lawyer who understands this the way that I do,” says Ludmer.

That’s because he’s also lived it.

“Parental alienation is a plague. It’s rampant out there,” says Ludmer, 48, who declined to talk about his own case for fear of upsetting his children. “This stuff has been going on for a hundred years. It’s just that now it has a name.”

Later this month, Ludmer will address the first international conference on parental alienation in Toronto. He’ll join the growing chorus of parents, judges, lawyers, social workers and mental health professionals who believe the courts are ill-equipped to deal with “toxic” parents.

“Canada seems to be a hotbed of parental alienation court activity,” says Amy Baker, a New York-based researcher who’s written two books, one chronicling the emotional suffering that travels in parental alienation’s wake.

“I think there are some very brave judges who are willing to really think through the implications of alienation and really try to deal with it.

“The bottom line is that to turn a child against a parent is to turn a child against himself.”

Two months ago, a Toronto judge stripped a mother of custody of her three daughters after a decade-long campaign to keep the kids from their father. She was ordered to pick up the tab for a U.S. program aimed at helping the girls, ages 9 to 14, reconnect with their dad.

This week, an 18-year-old from Mississauga asked to be awarded custody of his two younger brothers caught up in a decade of family “warfare.” He also asked that parental alienation experts, such as psychologists Randy Rand and Richard Warshak, be forbidden from further contact with the boys. He called programs, such as their controversial Family Workshop for Alienated Children, “voodoo science.”

But there’s so much concern about the snail’s pace of the overloaded family court system and the lack of treatment facilities in Canada that Ludmer has been working with a group of professionals on plans for Toronto’s first Family Reunification Clinic. They hope to have the facility open within a year, offering treatment based on the work of Rand and Warshak.

“The most important part (of undoing alienation) is the after care,” says Ludmer, who’s handled more than 50 parental alienation cases in the last four years. “We don’t want to be bundling kids on a plane and sending them off to the United States. This will make it easier and less disruptive to get the whole family the help they need.”

The planned centre is sure to set off a storm of controversy among those who consider Warshak and Rand’s work cult-like “deprogramming” and question whether Parental Alienation Syndrome isn’t just an excuse for bad, or even abusive, parents.

“I think the therapy often does way more harm than any so-called parental alienation could do. It demoralizes kids, it makes them feel like they’re not being listened to and involved. It demeans them,” says Joyanna Silberg of the U.S.-based Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence, a group of health professionals.

“One of the reasons this is so controversial is because it’s become an industry – a money-making industry – where purveyors of these so-called therapies and evaluation procedures are using things that the scientific community doesn’t automatically accept, but know that judges are accepting in court to affect children’s lives in an extreme way.”

Veteran family court judge Harvey Brownstone sums up the growing debate best: “The jury is still out on the whole issue of parental alienation. When a child adamantly refuses to see a parent, it is not easy to know why. It could be they’re bored, or that they don’t like the parent’s new partner. The situation is usually layered and complex.”

If there is a growing certainty about one thing, it’s that these cases need to be dealt with quickly.

“Time is the enemy of the alienated parent,” says Baker, whose book Breaking the Ties that Bind, chronicles the difficult lives of 40 adults who were alienated as children. Since the books, she’s met hundreds of others, including one who went as far as plastic surgery to wipe out the shame of looking like his father. “These cases should be fast-tracked because alienating parents exploit the ability for the courts to delay things to their benefit. The more time they have with the kid, the more time that kid is going to resist reconciliation.”

Veteran family law lawyer Jeffery Wilson – who was involved in Ontario’s first court case around alienation in 1981 and is representing the Mississauga teen fighting for his brothers – believes it’s time for more drastic measures. It’s been estimated that some 60 per cent of litigants in “high-conflict” divorces suffer from personality disorders that can turn a discussion of “Who gets the kids for Christmas?” into a months-long power struggle marked by what Ludmer calls “bad messaging and bad-mouthing.”

Wilson is calling for a government-funded “High-Conflict Response Team” that could step in before these cases hit the courts. They would have the power to sort out complex disputes, impose binding judgments and get the kids – and their parents – counselling and treatment.

Family Solutions is a North York-based team of well-respected psychologists and social workers who started meeting five years ago to compare notes on difficult cases. Now they offer everything from mediation to intensive counselling in high-conflict divorces. They’ve seen a significant growth in parental alienation and have had some success with clients who’ve worked with Rand and Warshak.

“There’s a lot of work we still need to do,” acknowledges Linda Chodos, a social worker with Family Solutions. “We don’t yet have a lot of evidence-based research that shows what kind of intervention works best.”

Rand and Warshak are based in California and Texas respectively and, in the first phase of their workshop, meet the children and the alienated parent for “educational” sessions that can include simple outings where they start to get reacquainted. (Rand apparently travelled to meet the siblings of the 18-year-old in a Montreal hotel room, but their mother, who claims to have been alienated by the father, gave up a day later when they refused to participate in the four-day session.)

“It’s to give the child a break – a chance to catch his or her breath and to give them just a few days not to be torn between the two parents,” says Ted Horowitz, a veteran social worker with Family Solutions.

The alienator is brought in as part of the second part of the program, all of which is aimed at making them aware of the damage they are doing and the need to form a new partnership around parenting.

“There is no deprogramming and never has been,” says Jacqueline Vanbetlehem, a mental health therapist with Family Solutions. “You have to really look at the circumstances of the family before you even recommend such a program. Sometimes the court intervention is a relief to these children because they don’t have to choose (between parents) anymore.”

Warshak told the Ontario Bar Association’s annual meeting last month that 17 out of 21 children who have completed the “expensive” program have forged good relationships with the other parent that continue more than two years later. The results are currently undergoing peer review.

“One of the misperceptions around this is that it’s meant to shift allegiances from one parent to the other,” says Horowitz. “The idea is to balance the family – to pull them together. Both parents need to be part of the treatment, and the children need to see their parents working together.”

How to deal with ‘toxic’ parents – The Toronto Star 14MAR09.

Part II: The State Preference for Splitting up Families Using the ‘Best Interests of the Child’ | Glenn Sacks on MND

Part II: The State Preference for Splitting up Families Using the ‘Best Interests of the Child’

Saturday, November 28, 2009

By Robert Franklin, Esq.

As I said in my previous post on the “best interests of the child,” the authors of the 1973 book, “Beyond the Best Interests of the Child” were so shocked at its misuse by courts, child welfare agencies and adoption agencies, that they wrote another book in 1979 to correct the misinterpretations.

There they clearly stated that the best interests of the child were presumptively served by maintaining intact families unless certain extreme things had occurred.  Those things were the death, incarceration or incapacity of a parent, divorce and custody matters, request by a parent to terminate their rights, sexual abuse of a child by a parent, serious bodily injury done to a child by a parent, repeated injury done to a child by a parent and the refusal by the parents to authorize lifesaving medical care for the child.  Period.  According to the authors, no other situation warranted state intrusion into parental care of children.

Would anyone care to guess which book is cited time and again as authority by appellate courts, and which book is virtually ignored?  California civil rights attorney Catherine Campbell wrote in 2000 that “little notice was taken” of the authors’ second book in which they strove mightily to stop their first book’s being used to take children from parents.  It’s message, Campbell added “was not what child abuse crusaders wanted to hear, and it was not heard.”  Indeed.  The same year as her article, I did a Lexis/Nexis search of state and federal appellate court opinions.  Goldstein, Freud and Solnit’s first book had been cited 279 times versus 46 times for their second.

Campbell pointed out that those adults and children who are most abused by the “best interests of the child” are overwhelmingly poor.  They are the most apt to be found wanting as parents and least able to combat the system of child removal and placement that Campbell called “a form of legalized kidnapping.”

Come to think of it, the New Mexico case I sketched in my first post on this topic involved a man who was poor – he was a laborer.  The fact that he provided for his children and loved and cared for them, and ultimately did everything in his power to stop the adoption train that inexorably took his child from him, mattered little.  As always, state power is wielded most savagely against those least able to oppose it.

And in the arena of family courts and child welfare agencies, among the relatively powerless must be counted fathers.  That’s not because fathers are necessarily poor; of course they’re not.  Fathers aren’t necessarily poor in money, but in family court, they are poor in what matters at least as much – rights.  The range of methods used to separate fathers from their children is truly astonishing, and often enough justified by “the best interests of the child.”

Should a father be informed about the adoption of his child?  No, the child is better off with its adoptive parents.  If he finds out about the adoption and tries to stop it (as in the New Mexico case), he’ll find the child already placed with the new parents and thus its “best interests” lie with them, not him.  Should the dad be notified before his child is placed in foster care?  Not so much; only about half of them are.  What if Mom concealed her pregnancy from him until months or even years later, can he get custody?  Probably not, because, well you know, the child would be upset by a new adult entering its life so, sorry Dad.  What about a plain vanilla divorce and custody case?  Can he get primary custody?  Not likely; just 16% of dads in the United States manage that.

But who’s griping?  It’s all in the child’s best interests, right?

Back to Goldstein, Freud and Solnit, though.  Here‘s a case that, as the article shows, warrants little comment (Dallas Morning News, 11/27/09).  A man and his wife have a “history” of drug use.  He walked into a bakery with their baby in a car seat, placed the child on a table, ordered and walked out without the baby.  Now, no one would argue that that’s appropriate childcare.  Obviously it’s not.  But the question the authors want us to ask is this: “Is it behavior that warrants taking the child from its parents in favor of foster care?”  After all,

[T]o acknowledge that some parents…may threaten the well-being of their children is not to suggest that state legislatures, courts or administrative agencies can always offer such children something better…By its intrusion the state may make a bad situation worse; indeed, it may turn a tolerable or even a good stiuation into a bad one.”

Stumble It!

Part II: The State Preference for Splitting up Families Using the ‘Best Interests of the Child’ | Glenn Sacks on MND.

Northern Star Online: Fathers’ rights are unfairly discriminated against in family courts

By AARON BROOKS

Last updated on 11/29/2009 at 10:50 p.m.

When President Clinton signed into law the Adoption and Safe Families Act on Nov. 19, 1997, he unbalanced the scales of justice and removed the blindfold of Themis.

A change of philosophy was at hand. No longer did courts seek family preservation; instead, prompted by an extreme minority of neglectful parents, the courts now choose to terminate the parental rights’ of parents that are allegedly harmful.

On Nov. 24, 2009, I interviewed Chicago’s fathers’ rights author, activist and attorney Jeffery Leving about my perception of Themis as a sexist.

“When I started in 79, non-custodial fathers were a class of human beings badly discriminated against, and no one cared. Every once in a while I change a law, reunite a father with his child, and it inspires me and gives me hope for future changes,” Leving said.

To clarify, a non-custodial father refers to a father without physical and/or legal custody of his child by a court order. Leving discussed how in today’s society, these men are still difficult to represent due to “discrimination of our legal system.”

A precedent of sexism seems almost too obvious within our family courts.

“There has been a long history of discrimination in our legal system. Non-custodial men anger people in the position’s power. A judge told me, ‘If a father is accused of abuse, even if he did not do it, he did something else.’ Another judge said, ‘Men are biological requirements, but social accidents,’” Leving said.

The father’s right’s attorney went on to express how society’s expectation of a man’s responsibility is hypocritical. Society wants a man to be responsible while they actually believe he isn’t.

“So when a father wants to step up to the plate, they immediately think it is to get out of paying child support, to hurt the mother or for some other inappropriate reason. Fathers seem to be targeted no matter what they do.”

So, it is obvious that men are not equal in divorce and parental right cases. Due to gender stereotypes in society, women tend to have it much easier. Although the mother physically carries and gives birth to the child, the paternal father’s consent should also be held with high respect as well.

“My opinion is that the father’s consent is necessary, and it is justified to prevent the hardships and trauma that are unavoidable when a father is notified only after the adoption. Not only are men kicked to the curb, but if they appeal it could take years for them to be reunited with their child, and that is traumatizing for everyone involved.”

Besides prejudice, money is a big issue. Leving explained that children are worth a lot of money and the adoption agency is a multi-billion dollar industry. Couples unable to have children of their own will pay any cost in order to get a child. This puts the many young fathers at a disadvantage, since they hardly have the money to compete with both the adoption agency and eager couples.

When it comes to family court rulings and rights of the paternal father, the situation is plainly unfair. Sure there are circumstances to each individual situation, but the entire system is in dire need of evaluation.

Northern Star Online: Fathers’ rights are unfairly discriminated against in family courts.

The ‘Best Interests of the Child’ Concept – Misused from the Beginning | Glenn Sacks on MND

Saturday, November 28, 2009

By Robert Franklin, Esq.

Even the casual observer of family law and practice can be struck by the astonishing, er, flexibility of the term “best interests of the child.”  For example, in 1995, a New Mexico court approved of the outright theft of a child by an adoption agency and his subsequent placement with an adoptive couple as in the “best interests of the child.”

The boy had lived with the mother and father for all his year and a half of life.  One weekend when the father was out of town working, the mother took the child to the adoption agency, lied about the father’s whereabouts and gave the child up for adoption.  Two days later, the father informed the adoption agency that he had no intention of giving up the child.  But the agency kept the child with the adoptive parents anyway and let the glacial pace of the judicial system do the rest.

A year and a half later, the child was deemed to have “bonded” with the adoptive parents and the father was out of luck.  The “best interests of the child,” you understand, meant that breaking those new bonds was impermissible.  At the same time, the “best interests of the child” did permit breaking the bonds between the father and the child.  That’s what I mean when I say the concept is “flexible.”

The conduct of the mother and the agency violated New Mexico civil law, and the father sued them and won a judgment for monetary damages.  Those damages were never paid as the agency receded behind the impenetrable veil of bankruptcy.

Given the mutability of the ‘best interests’ standard, it’s interesting to know a little of its history.  In 1973, Joseph Goldstein, Anna Freud and Albert Solnit published a book that would have enormous influence on family courts and child protective agencies nationwide, albeit not the one they intended.  They were, respectively, a law professor at Yale, a child psychologist and a researcher at the Child Study Center at Yale.  Their book was entitled “Beyond the Best Interests of the Child.”  It was an effort to guide courts and placement agencies that had to decide issues of family dissolution and child custody about how best to do that.

But by 1979, the same authors were so horrified at the misuse of their book by those very courts and child protective agencies that they wrote another one entitled “Before the Best Interests of the Child.”

With their first book, they meant well; they truly didn’t anticipate the distortions to which judges, social workers and child welfare agencies would subject its message.  In it, they were dealing only with cases in which a family had already broken down and required intervention by the state to protect the children.  The authors limited their discussion to that.  The “best interests of the child” concept was discussed solely as a goal to be obtained after family breakdown.

But the courts and other state agencies had no intention of limiting their use of the book’s concepts in the same way the authors did.  In direct contradiction to the authors’ intentions, states began using the “best interests of the child” concept to achieve family breakdown by state intervention and removal of the children.

That’s what horrified the authors and prompted them to publish “Before the Best Interests of the Child” in 1979.  Here’s what they said:

[W]e believe that a child’s need for continuity of care by autonomous parents requires acknowledging that parents should generally be entitled to raise their children as they think best, free of state interference.  This conviction finds expression in our preference for minimum state intervention and prompts restraint in defining justifications for coercively intruding on family relationships…

So long as a child is a member of a functioning family, his paramount interest lies in the preservation of his family.  Thus our preference for making a child’s interests paramount is not to be construed as a justification in and of itself for intrusion.  (Emphasis in the original.)

I’ll write a bit more on this later, but remember what the authors said: the child’s “paramount interests lies in the preservation of his family.”

It’s a concept that escaped the New Mexico courts back in 1995, even as it continues to escape so many today.

How to Win Shared Custody Here are the litigation secrets to winning shared physical & legal custody from Boston trial lawyer Nick Palermo, Esquire who has won these cases for 24 years. It costs $5,000 or more in legal fees to gain the knowledge and guidance contained in this $10 handbook–The Ten Essential Elements to Winning Joint Shared Physical and Legal Custody. www.TenEssentialElements.com

Stumble It!

The ‘Best Interests of the Child’ Concept – Misused from the Beginning | Glenn Sacks on MND.

Parental Alienation Syndrome – PasKids.com

PasKids.com Parental Alienation Syndrome.

› Forum Home Parental Alienation Articles Resources

---

What is Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS)?

This is the definition of PAS as described by R.A. Gardner who discovered the syndrome and has become an expert in dealing with the issue.

Gardner’s definition of PAS is:

“The parental alienation syndrome (PAS) is a disorder that arises primarily in the context of child-custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the target parent.”

(Excerpted from: Gardner, R.A. (1998). The Parental Alienation Syndrome, Second Edition, Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.)

Basically, this means that through verbal and non verbal thoughts, actions and mannerisms, a child is emotionally abused (brainwashed) into thinking the other parent is the enemy. This ranges from bad mouthing the other parent infront of the children, to withholding visits, to pre-arranging the activities for the children while visiting with the other parent.

Stages of Parental Alienations Syndrome:

Children who are victims of PAS often go through different Stages as they experience the depth of the alienation.

Stage 1 – Mild | Stage 2 – Moderate | Stage 3 – Severe |

Types of Alienators:

With PAS there are three types of Alienators:

Naive Alienator | Active Alienator | Obsessed Alienator |

Parental Alienation Syndrome – PAS.

Parental Alienation Syndrome to be Viewed as a Form of Child Abuse | ParentsElite

Parental Alienation Syndrome to be Viewed as a Form of Child Abuse

Image from abdoukili.wordpress.com

Health experts from ten different nations are making an effort to include Parental Alienation Syndrome in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is published by the American Psychiatric Association.

Parental Alienation Syndrome is a behaviour exhibited by one parent where he threatens or makes his child fear his other parent, often attempting to turn the child against his other parent. This sort of behaviour may lead to the child developing a chronic psychological disorder, affecting his physical and mental state of health. This Syndrome often includes false accusations by one parent of mistreatment, abuse, domestic violence, and neglecting the child, by the other parent.

Since such behaviour can greatly distress the child affecting his state of mind, health care professionals must view this behaviour as a form of child abuse.

Fifty mental health experts are campaigning in an attempt to include this Syndrome in the 2012 edition of the Mental Disorders Manual.

Related posts:

1. Parenting Education Important to Check Child Abuse
2. Aggressive Behaviour in Children Increases if Parents are Negative towards them
3. Four Effective Theories for Parental Training
4. Poor Parenting can lead to Crime
5. Dealing with a Parent-Teacher Meeting
6. Effective Parenting comes with Instincts
7. Impulsivity is a Risk Factor for Drug Abuse?
8. Aggressive Children have Lesser Number of Friends
9. Communication between a Child and a Parent is Extremely Vital
10. A Child’s Interests Should Have Greater Priority in Divorces Cases

Filed Under: News

Leave a Reply | Trackback URL

Parental Alienation Syndrome to be Viewed as a Form of Child Abuse | ParentsElite.

Separation, Divorce and Parental Alienation Syndrome | Psychology Today

November 23, 2009, Relationships

Splitting up shouldn’t mean splitting the kids.

The term “splitting” refers to a familiar tactic often used by children to manipulate their parents — if Mommy says, “No.”, then go ask Daddy.

For parent couples in the throes of separation or divorce, the adult version of splitting — largely characterized by one parent vilifying the other in order to manipulate the children into choosing sides and, ultimately, alienating the other parent from them — can be much more insidious.

The children may, at first, be only pawns — tools for gaining some sense of leverage or perceived control — but, in due course, they can become nothing more than weapons of vengeance, unwitting victims of ego and arrogance.

We are not alone in our relationship, nor is our partner. Establishing any relationship is an act of social co-creation in which all parties must be both responsible to, and accountable for, their actions, inactions and the consequences held therein. To that point, a relationship – any relationship — demands cultivation; it doesn’t just happen.xxxx

Related Articles

• House Divided: Hate Thy Father
• Are you genetically predisposed to leave your mate?
• Parenting: Here Comes Trouble
• PT Bookshelf
• Head to Head: To Hit or Not to Hit

Should a relationship break, it is vital that both parties step back, take a moment to examine their personal role in that break, and hold onto that self-revelation. When the break is something not mutually agreed upon, the “wronged partner” – a term used quite loosely here – in denial and ignorance of their own responsibility, will often attempt to exercise some means for regaining a perceived semblance of control.

When benign, these means can appear as gestures of reconciliation, promises of change, pleas to seek counseling and all manner of self-effacing behavior. In instances more menacing, money is hidden; credit cards cancelled; documents disappear; cell phones are checked; computers scoured and private detectives hired, even when there is nothing to detect. A pattern of latent abuse [1, 2] emerges, escalating from a point somewhat removed from normal, to one that veers dangerously close to pathological.

These efforts to regain control are often fruitless; mostly because they are generally an illusion in the first place. Their abject futility, however, can foster a further, even more ominous, escalation – the co-opting of social connections. Friends, family, co-workers – anyone who will listen to the spinning of fantastical yarns that describe the evils of the other is approached, for good, ill or indifference.

Couched within this drama of social distortion, the saddest moment of all can come when an otherwise reasonable adult utters to a child fateful words that might go something like, “I don’t want a divorce. This is all your mother’s idea. She’s just a selfish bitch.” In that moment, in an ego-driven and one way war of wills, the child becomes so much collateral damage.

The mechanism of parental alienation is fueled by a gross failure of emotional intelligence, and further compelled by the anger and resentment of ego. It is roundly destructive to everyone involved; disrupting or destroying familial connections, rending the fabric of the post-marital relationship and effectively compromising any chance at successful co-parenting.

Indeed, the most oppressive aspect of parental alienation is that it creates a false issue — or set of false issues — for children whom it is very likely do not have the social or emotional intelligence to discriminate between fact and fancy. The inaccuracies and misinformation proffered by one parent in service of discrediting the other shakes the very foundations of a child’s model of the world, leaving them stranded outside the bounds of the very structure and consistency upon which they thrive.

Children caught up in this system of abuse [1, 2] are subject to a campaign of unjustified and unjustifiable denigration focused on one parent and perpetrated by the other. In mild cases, there is some programming fostered on the part of the alienating parent, but, all in all, relationships remain intact.

In moderate cases of parental alienation , the level of programming escalates, introducing two artifacts – firstly, the relationship with the targeted parent is more disrupted, created anxiety for the kids and, second, the children become co-opted into the alienating parent’s system of unjustified accusation and begin to believe it, causing a whole separate set of psychosocial issues for them.

In severe cases, the programming has taken hold and the child/children come to develop an irrational and unfounded hatred of the targeted parent, often disrupting the parent/child bond to the point of breaking.

While this all sounds like a horribly Machiavellian system of social pathology – and, at its worst, it is — some space needs to be held for the unintentional or naïve alienation fostered by simple resentment and frustration. Snarky remarks about financial matters, living arrangements or general behavior not personally directed at the other parent constitute a sort of indirect and somewhat unintentional alienation that a child may or may not take to heart.

A more active, and destructive, form of this is compassed by critical comments that remind a child about past disappointments or situations that had negative outcomes. It might also include more personal attacks on character, or descriptions of alleged (and typically false) activities that would reflect on character.

In severe cases, attempts at alienation are obsessive and irrational. The alienating parent literally subjugates the child, enmeshing them in their own irrational belief system and making it virtually impossible for them to think for themselves. The child is interjected into the social reality of the targeted parent as the mouthpiece of hatred for the alienating parent and, objectified in this way, becomes nothing more – and nothing less – than a weapon of social and emotional destruction.

The take away here is fairly straightforward — if we can’t figure out how to be married, fine, but, with children involved, we need to figure out how to be divorced; and certainly not at the expense of the children’s state of mind simply for our own small, petty and vindictive satisfactions.

So, play nice — and if you see this happening or catch yourself doing it, either speak up, or knock it off. In the end, it serves no one and the only ones who suffer are the kids.

References

Gardner, R.A. (1998). The Parental Alienation Syndrome, Second Edition, Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc.

© 2009 Michael J. Formica , All Rights Reserved

Michael’s Mailing List |  Michael’s eMail |  Follow Michael on Twitter

Michael on Facebook |  The Integral Life Institute on Facebook

Separation, Divorce and Parental Alienation Syndrome | Psychology Today.

Men’s Rights – Feminism should be about equality for males, too. – Reason Magazine

Men’s Rights

Feminism should be about equality for males, too.

Cathy Young | November 23, 2009

Earlier this month DoubleX, Slate’s short-lived female-oriented publication (launched six months ago and about to be folded back into the parent site as a women’s section), ran an article ringing the alarm about the dire threat posed by the power of the men’s rights movement. But the article, written by New York-based freelance writer Kathryn Joyce and titled “Men’s Rights’ Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective,” says more about the state of feminism—and journalistic bias—than it does about men’s groups.

Joyce’s indictment is directed at a loose network of activists seeking to raise awareness and change policy on such issues as false accusations of domestic violence, the plight of divorced fathers denied access to children, and domestic abuse of men. In her view, groups such as RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting) and individuals like columnist and radio talk show host Glenn Sacks are merely “respectable” and “savvy” faces for what is actually an anti-female backlash from “angry white men.”

As proof of this underlying misogyny, Joyce asserts that men who commit “acts of violence perceived to be in opposition to a feminist status quo” are routinely lionized in the men’s movement. This claim is purportedly backed up with a reference that, in fact, does not in any way support it: an article in Foreign Policy about the decline of male dominance around the globe. Joyce’s one specific example is that the diary of George Sodini, a Pittsburgh man who opened fire on women in a gym in retaliation for feeling rejected by women, was reposted online by the blogger “Angry Harry” as a wake-up call to the Western world that “it cannot continue to treat men so appallingly and get away with it.” But does this have anything to do with more mainstream men’s rights groups? The original version of the article claimed that Sacks, who called “Harry” an “idiot” in his interview with Joyce, nonetheless “cautiously defends” the blogger; DoubleX later ran a correction on this point.

Sacks himself admits to Joyce that the men’s movement has a “not-insubstantial lunatic fringe.” Yet in her eyes, even the mainstream men’s groups are promoting a dangerous agenda, above all infiltrating mainstream opinion with the view that reports of domestic violence are exaggerated and that a lot of spousal abuse is female-perpetrated. The latter claim, Joyce asserts, comes from “a small group of social scientists” led by “sociologist Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire, who has written extensively on female violence.” (In fact, Straus, founder of the renowned Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, is a pre-eminent scholar on family violence in general and was the first to conduct national surveys on the prevalence of wife-beating.)

Joyce repeats common critiques of Straus’ research: For instance, he equates “a woman pushing a man in self-defense to a man pushing a woman down the stairs” or “a single act of female violence with years of male abuse.” Yet these charges have been long refuted: Straus’ studies measure the frequency of violence and specifically inquire about which partner initiated the physical violence. Furthermore, Joyce fails to mention that virtually all social scientists studying domestic violence, including self-identified feminists such as University of Pittsburgh psychologist Irene Frieze, find high rates of mutual aggression.

Reviews of hundreds of existing studies, such as one conducted by University of Central Lancashire psychologist John Archer in a 2000 article in Psychological Bulletin, have found that at least in Western countries, women are as likely to initiate partner violence as men. While the consequences to women are more severe—they are twice as likely to report injuries and about three times more likely to fear an abusive spouse—these findings also show that men hardly escape unscathed. Joyce claims that “Straus’ research is starting to move public opinion,” but in fact, some of the strongest recent challenges to the conventional feminist view of domestic violence—as almost invariably involving female victims and male batterers—come from female scholars like New York University psychologist Linda Mills.

Contrary to Joyce’s claims, these challenges, so far, have made very limited inroads into public opinion. One of her examples of the scary power of men’s rights groups is that “a Los Angeles conference this July dedicated to discussing male victims of domestic violence, ‘From Ideology to Inclusion 2009: New Directions in Domestic Violence Research and Intervention,’ received positive mainstream press for its ‘inclusive’ efforts.'” In fact, the conference—which featured leading researchers on domestic violence from several countries, half of them women, and focused on much more than just male victims—received virtually no mainstream press coverage. One of the very few exceptions was a column I wrote for The Boston Globe, also reprinted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Whatever minor successes men’s groups may have achieved, the reality is that public policy on domestic violence in the U.S. is heavily dominated by feminist advocacy groups. For the most part, these groups embrace a rigid orthodoxy that treats domestic violence as male terrorism against women, rooted in patriarchal power and intended to enforce it. They also have a record of making grotesquely exaggerated, thoroughly debunked claims about an epidemic of violence against women—for instance, that battering causes more hospital visits by women every year than car accidents, muggings, and cancer combined.

These advocacy groups practically designed the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, and they dominate the state coalitions against domestic violence to which local domestic violence programs must belong in order to qualify for federal funds. As a result of the advocates’ influence, federal assistance is denied to programs that offer joint counseling to couples in which there is domestic violence, and court-mandated treatment for violent men downplays drug and alcohol abuse (since it’s all about the patriarchy).

Against the backdrop of this enforced party line, Joyce is alarmed by the smallest signs that men’s rights groups may be gaining even a modest voice in framing domestic violence policy. She points out that in a few states, men’s rights activists have succeeded in “criminalizing false claims of domestic violence in custody cases” (this is apparently meant to be a bad thing) and “winning rulings that women-only shelters are discriminatory” (in fact, the California Court of Appeals ruled last year that state-funded domestic violence programs that refuse to provide service to abused men violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection, but also emphasized that the services need not be identical and coed shelters are not required).

To bolster her case, Joyce consistently quotes advocates—or scholars explicitly allied with the advocacy movement, such as Edward Gondolf of the Mid-Atlantic Addiction Research and Training Institute—to discredit the claims of the men’s movement. She also repeats uncorroborated allegations that many leaders of the movement are themselves abusers, but offers only one specific example: eccentric British activist Jason Hatch, who once scaled Buckingham Palace in a Batman costume to protest injustices against fathers, and who was taken to court for allegedly threatening one of his ex-wives during a custody dispute.

The article is laced with the presumption that, with regard to both general data and individual cases, any charge of domestic violence made by a woman against a man must be true.

One case Joyce uses to illustrate her thesis is that of Genia Shockome, who claimed to have been severely battered by her ex-husband Tim and lost custody of her two children after being accused of intentionally alienating them from their father. Yet Joyce never mentions that Shockome’s claims of violent abuse were unsupported by any evidence, that she herself did not mention any abuse in her initial divorce complaint, or that three custody evaluators—including a feminist psychologist who had worked with the Battered Women’s Justice Center at Pace University—sided with the father.

More than a quarter-century ago, British feminist philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards wrote, “No feminist whose concern for women stems from a concern for justice in general can ever legitimately allow her only interest to be the advantage of women.” Joyce’s article is a stark example of feminism as exclusive concern with women and their perceived advantage, rather than justice or truth.

Cathy Young is a contributing editor at Reason magazine and a columnist for RealClearPolitics.com. She is the author of Ceasefire: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality. This article originally appeared at Forbes.

Men’s Rights – Reason Magazine.

Parental Due Process Act

November 21, 4:36 PMSan Diego Courts ExaminerGregory Smart

Previous

2 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the San Diego Courts Examiner. Read Examiner.com’s terms of use.

 

Email Address Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

//

CA State Senate
State of CA

There is currently an effort in the State of California to have the model legislation (below) passed in an effort to ensure Parental Due Process in the Juvenile Dependency Courts.

The model legislation was written by a team of attorneys at Pacific Justice Institute http://www.pacificjustice.org/ in Sacramento California.

Anyone wishing to get involved and/or support this legislation please contact Greg Smart at cpsvictim@gmail.com

Model State Legislation

Parental Due Process Act

Model State Legislation

A BILL
To protect the fundamental due process rights of a parent in proceedings to terminate parental rights.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This shall be cited as the “Parental Due Process Act.”

SECTION 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSES.
(a) FINDINGS- the legislature finds that–
(1) Parental rights are so fundamental to the human condition so as to be deemed inalienable. Termination of parental rights equals or exceeds the detriment of criminal sanctions.
(2) The “liberty interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests” recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court. Troxel v. Granville, 527 U.S. 1069 (1999). Moreover, the companionship, care, custody, and management of a parent over his or her child is an interest far more precious than any property right. May v. Anderson, 345 U.S. 528, 533, (1952). As such, the parent-child relationship is an important interest that undeniably warrants deference and, absent a powerful countervailing interest, protection. Stanley v. Illinois, 405 U.S. 645 (1972).
(3) State and local family services, child protective agencies, and courts have not recognized the rights of parents as inalienable, and, as a result, have failed to provide fundamental due process rights in the investigation and legal proceedings to determine abuse, neglect, and the termination of parental rights.
(b) PURPOSE- The purpose of this Act is to provide core fundamental due process rights to parents whose parental rights are subject to termination.

SECTION 3. DEFINITIONS.
As used in this Act:
(1) “Hearing” means any judicial or administrative hearing;
(2) “law enforcement officer” means an employee, the duties of whose position are primarily the prevention, investigation, apprehension, or detention of individuals suspected or convicted of offenses against the criminal laws, including an employee engaged in this activity who is transferred to a supervisory or administrative position, or serving as a probation or pretrial services officer;
(3) “agency” means any state or local government;
(4) “Duress” consists of:
a. Unlawful confinement of the person of the party, or of the husband or wife of such party, or of an ancestor, descendant, or adopted child of such party, husband, or wife;
b. Unlawful detention of the property of any such person; or,
c. Confinement of such person, lawful in form, but fraudulently
obtained, or fraudulently made unjustly harassing or oppressive.
(5) “Actual fraud” consists of any of the following acts, committed by a party, or with his connivance, with intent to deceive another party thereto, or to induce him to enter into an agreement or to rely upon it to his detriment:
a. The suggestion, as a fact, of that which is not true by one
who does not believe it to be true;
b. The positive assertion, in a manner not warranted by the
information of the person making it, of that which is not true,
though he believes it to be true;
c. The suppression of that which is true, by one having knowledge
or belief of the fact;
d. A promise made without any intention of performing it; or,
e. Any other act fitted to deceive.
(4) “Undue influence” consists of:
a. In the use, by one in whom a confidence is reposed by another,
or who holds a real or apparent authority over him, of such
confidence or authority for the purpose of obtaining an unfair
advantage over him;
b. In taking an unfair advantage of another’s weakness of mind; or,
c. In taking a grossly oppressive and unfair advantage of another’s necessities or distress.
(5) “Malice” means conduct that is intended by the person to cause injury or despicable conduct that is carried out with a willful and conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others;
(6) “Emergency” means exigent circumstances in which immediate action is required to prevent the imminent physical injury or death of a child.
SECTION 4. HEARINGS OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.
(a) Upon the request of a parent, guardian or custodian, the right to have proceedings open to the public shall be guaranteed in the following circumstances:
(1) any hearing for the purpose of terminating parental rights;
(2) any hearing for the purpose of determining if a child is or has been deprived.
(b) Notwithstanding subsection (a), a judge may, upon consideration of written motion and papers filed in opposition, exclude the public if it is determined, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the safety of the child would be in jeopardy by a public hearing.
If the public is excluded from the hearing, the following people may attend the
closed hearing unless the judge finds it is not in the best interests of the child:
(i) the child’s relatives;
(ii) the child’s foster parents, if the child resides in foster care; and,
(iii) any person requested by the parent.

SECTION 5. TRIAL BY JURY.
Upon the request of a parent, guardian or custodian, the right to a trial by jury shall be guaranteed in the following circumstances:
(1) any hearing to terminate parental rights;
(2) any hearing to determine if a child is or has been deprived.

SECTION 6. RELIGIOUS/CULTURAL/MORAL/ETHNIC VALUES AND BELIEFS OF PARENTS

In placing the legal custody or guardianship of a child with an individual or a private agency, a court shall take into consideration the religious, cultural, moral and ethnic values of the child or of his/her parents, if such values are known or ascertainable by the exercise of reasonable care.

SECTION 7. ELECTRONIC OR DIGITAL RECORDING OF INTERVIEWS

Except in the case of an emergency, any law enforcement officer, agent or employee for a state’s health and welfare department or child protective services, or mental health professional, who interviews a child for the purposes of investigation, shall electronically and/or digitally cause to be made an audio and visual recording of all questioning of, and interviews with, children. All recordings made pursuant to subsection (a) shall be made available to the parent, guardian or custodian of a child not later than ten days prior to any hearing to terminate parental rights or to determine if a child is or has been deprived.

SECTION 8. EVIDENCE IN FACT-FINDING HEARINGS

(a) Only evidence that is competent, material and relevant may be admitted in a
fact-finding hearing.
(b) Any determination at the conclusion of a fact-finding hearing that
a respondent did an act or acts must be based on proof beyond a
reasonable doubt. For this purpose, an uncorroborated confession made
out of court by a respondent is not sufficient.

SECTION 9. RIGHT TO A SPEEDY TRIAL
(a) In that removal of a child from a home for even brief periods is an extreme hardship on families, upon the request of a parent, guardian or custodian, the right to a speedy trial shall be guaranteed in the following circumstances:
(1) any hearing to terminate parental rights;
(2) any hearing to determine if a child is or has been deprived.
(b) A hearing, as described in subsection a, shall be conducted within thirty days of any type of removal of a child. In the event that the thirtieth day falls on a legal holiday or other day when the court is not in session, the hearing shall be conducted prior to the thirtieth day. In no event shall a hearing be conducted beyond the thirtieth day after the removal of a child if the right to a speedy trial has been exercised.
SECTION 10. WAIVER OF RIGHTS
The rights of a parent or guardian as described in this Act cannot be waived, neither can parental rights be terminated, if said waiver is due to:
(1) mistake;
(2) fraud;
(3) undue influence; or
(4) duress.

SECTION 11. IMMUNITY

(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the civil immunity of juvenile court social workers, agents or employees of a health and welfare department or child protective services or law enforcement official authorized to initiate or conduct investigations or proceedings shall not extend to any of the following:
(1) Perjury;
(2) Fabrication of evidence;
(3) Failure to disclose known exculpatory evidence;
(4) Obtaining testimony by duress, fraud, or undue influence.

(b) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any prosecutor, investigator, agent or employee of a state’s health and welfare department or child protective services who induces a parent to waive any of his or her rights under this Act by
(1) fraud;
(2) undue influence; or
(3) duress shall be subject to civil liability.

SECTION 12. DAMAGES
In the case of a determination by a court or jury of any violation of a parent’s rights under this Act, damages shall be presumed.
SECTION 13. ATTORNEYS FEES

Subsections (b) and (c) of section 722 of the Revised Statutes (42 U.S.C. 1988 (b) and (c)) (concerning the award of attorney’s and expert fees) shall apply to cases brought or defended under this Act.

SECTION 14. SEVERABILITY

If any provision of this Act or of an amendment made by this Act, or any application of such provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be unconstitutional, the remainder of this Act, the amendments made by this Act, and the application of the provision to any other person or circumstance shall not be affected.

New CA Legislation – Parental Due Process Act.

Report: 20% of Divorced Parents Want to Make Other Parent’s Contact with Child ‘as Unpleasant as Possible’ | Glenn Sacks on MND

Thursday, November 19, 2009

By Robert Franklin, Esq.

When parents are at loggerheads, there should be much more done to sustain the interests of the father and child. When a mother turns her child against the father, when a mother refuses to comply with a court order on contact, nothing is done because it is felt sanctions against her would not be in the interests of the child. But is the situation as it stands in that child’s interests? We pay only lip service to the rights of a child to have contact with a father and we need to do better.

This article is another one to address the findings of the Mishcon de Reya report on the impacts of divorce in the United Kingdom (The Times, 11/17/09).  I discussed another article in the Telegraph in a previous piece, but this one adds information and some suggestions.

For example, the report found that more than one-third of children lose all contact with their fathers after divorce.  It goes on to report just why that is.

But what makes keeping in touch so difficult?

One answer could be suggested by a finding of the Mishcon de Reya report — one in five divorcing spouses admitted to having the primary objective of making the experience as unpleasant as possible for his or her former partner.

Parenthetically, I wonder what all those people who deny the existence of parental alienation of children have to say about that.  When 20% cite that very thing as their “primary objective” post-divorce, it’s hard to figure how they can pretend parental alienation is a figment of some evil FRA’s imagination.  My guess is that we’ll never know since they’ll probably give that datum a pass.

And given that it’s fathers, not mothers whom children are losing, and it’s mothers, not fathers who get primary custody in 85% – 90% of cases, it’s not hard to figure out who’s doing most of the alienating.

But the article goes on to site some fairly commonsense things divorcing fathers and mothers can do to make things better.  Unfortunately, many of those seem to assume some sort of residual goodwill between the exes.  And if that existed, the problems children have stemming from divorce would probably be much fewer and less severe.

I suspect that there is a large percentage of parents who truly do their best to get along after they split and who mostly succeed.  I also suspect that there is some percentage who will remain out to get the other regardless of everything.  And I finally suspect that there are a lot of parents for whom counselling and mediation would be a great help.  It’s not that they’ll feel much better about the other spouse, but they can learn to focus on the child’s wellbeing and understand that, while he/she may want nothing to do with the other spouse, the child doesn’t feel the same way.

Stephen Baskerville’s Taken Into Custody Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family by Stephen Baskerville, Ph.D. examines one of the greatest and most destructive civil rights abuses in America today–our family law system. Baskerville has authored many articles on fatherhood and family issues and is a frequent media commentator. To learn more or to purchase Taken Into Custody, click here.

Stumble It!

Report: 20% of Divorced Parents Want to Make Other Parent’s Contact with Child ‘as Unpleasant as Possible’ | Glenn Sacks on MND.

Michael Robinson is now Fathers & Families’ full-time legislative representative in Sacramento

A Major Announcement from Fathers & Families

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

By Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers & Families

In a move that will change the course of the family court reform movement, Fathers & Families has just hired two experienced, accomplished legislative representatives. Soon we will be launching campaigns in support of our family court reform legislation—to get involved, please click here.

California

Readers of www.GlennSacks.com are familiar with Michael Robinson’s work in Sacramento on family court reform legislation, and Robinson and I have often worked together. In 2004 and again in 2006, we helped scuttle two bills (SB 730 and SB 1482) that would have led to unrestricted post-divorce move-aways. This was an important victory for California’s children of divorce, and one that surprised many Sacramento insiders, including Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Walters.

Robinson and I also worked together to pass family law legislation to help military parents (SB 1082) and on shared parenting and domestic violence reform bills. In 2007 and again this year, Robinson helped build a professional coalition to scuttle AB 612, a bill that would have banned target parents of Parental Alienation from raising PA as an issue in their cases.

Robinson has also been instrumental in passing legislation on paternity fraud (AB 252 and SB 1333), noncustodial parents’ access to school records (AB 164), Collaborative Law (AB 402, AB 189, AB 3051), and protection for disabled veterans with child support obligations (SB 285). He helped create the COAP program, which allows mothers and fathers who are unfairly saddled with inflated, unpayable child support arrearages to settle them for modest cash payments.

Michael Robinson is now Fathers & Families‘ full-time legislative representative in Sacramento, and we will be introducing several family court reform bills into the California legislature in February. Starting soon, Fathers & Families activists will be meeting with legislators throughout the state. We want your participation–to get involved, please click here.

Massachusetts

Enzo Pastore, our new deputy director, has worked on health care reform legislation in Washington DC, Albany, NY, and Boston, MA for 15 years. Pastore designed and promoted model prescription drug legislation that was introduced in 27 states in 2001. He led a successful legislative campaign in New York in 2007 to fund special housing for senior citizens and the disabled. In 2005, he helped defeat a federal Bush initiative that would have drastically cut Medicaid funding and services.

In January, we will launch our campaign to pass HB 1400, the Massachusetts Shared Parenting bill, and Pastore will be spearheading our campaign.

Through Fathers & Families’ efforts, over one-quarter of the Massachusetts Legislature has expressed clear, public support for our Shared Parenting Bill, many of them signing on as co-sponsors. We gathered thousands of signatures to place shared parenting on the 2004 Massachusetts ballot and led a successful campaign for its passage, winning 86% of the vote. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick told the Legislature that if they pass Fathers & Families’ Shared Parenting, he will sign it, and F & F recently met with Governor Patrick.

We need volunteers to meet with legislators, do media work, and help build our campaign–to volunteer, please click here.

Federal Legislation, plus Legislation in Texas & Many Other States

Robinson has worked with legislators and staffers in many other states on military parent legislation, and many states have passed bills modeled in part on SB 1082, the military parents bill we passed in California in 2005. These include: Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Ohio, Michigan, Oklahoma, Utah, Mississippi, Alaska, Missouri, and others.

Robinson worked with Texas Senator Jane Nelson to pass SB 279, a bill to protect military parents’ custody rights which was signed by Texas Governor Rick Perry earlier this year.

Robinson worked with Mark Sullivan, Committee Chair of the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association’s Military Committee, on the National Defense Reauthorization Act (HR 2647), which was signed by President Obama last month. The bill mandates that the Secretary of Defense produce a report on child custody litigation involving members of the Armed Forces, as well as international intrafamilial abductions of servicemembers’ children.

The Secretary of Defense will submit its report to the Armed Services Committees of the Senate and the House of Representatives by the end of March. Robinson says:

“Fathers & Families can play a major role in the implementation of this legislation. We need to make sure that the impact isn’t watered down, that it’s powerful, not sugar-coated.”

This problem affects both fathers and mothers who serve. If you are a military mother or father whose custody rights have been adversely affected due to your service, we want to make sure your story is included in the Secretary of Defense’s report. To submit your story for inclusion, please fill out our form here.

Prominent Biotechnology Executive Mark Benedyk, PhD Joins Our Board of Directors

Dr. Benedyk is the head of The Pfizer Incubator, LLC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pfizer, Inc., the world’s largest research-based pharmaceutical company. The Pfizer Incubator was initiated by Pfizer to support life science start-ups and to explore novel approaches to discovering new medicines.

Dr. Benedyk has over 15 years experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, where he has been involved in business development, product management, and corporate fundraising. His business strategy and fundraising skills will be invaluable for Fathers & Families, and we welcome him as our newest national board member.

What You Can Do

Experienced legislative experts like Robinson and Pastore cost money, as does the organizational work we do surrounding their efforts–please make a tax-deductible gift to support our important work by clicking here.

One very affordable way to help build Fathers & Families is to make a monthly gift–to do so, click here and enter an amount under “monthly contribution.”

The Family Court Reform Movement will not progress unless we engage in the political process on a professional level, as our opponents do.

Fathers & Families has the largest membership base, the highest media profile, the most funding, and now the best legislative advocates of any family court reform organization. The time to take this movement to a higher level is now, and it takes money to do it–please give generously by clicking here.

To volunteer to help, please click here.

Together with you in the love of our children,

Glenn Sacks, MA
Executive Director, Fathers & Families

Ned Holstein, M.D., M.S.
Founder, Chairman of the Board, Fathers & Families

A Major Announcement from Fathers & Families | Glenn Sacks on MND.

Crystel Strelioff’s family; History of PAS

November 18, 12:56 PMLA Family Courts ExaminerLaura Lynn

Previous

1 comment Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the LA Family Courts Examiner. Read Examiner.com’s terms of use.

Email Address Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

//

PAS, Parental Alienation Syndrome knows no gender boundaries. You may not like the term PAS, but there is a behavior exhibited by some parents that cause the children to tell lies, and maybe even begin to believe those lies, about another parent.

There was some discussion about Crystel Strelioff, serving time for abducting her children. One of the children, now an adult, spoke at the Elkins Family Task Force Hearing in Los Angeles recently. He implied that his father had sexually abused him for 15 years while the court stood by.

I am certain tragedies like that do happen, but I am equally certain that in this particular case, there was no abuse by the father. The father had no contact with the son since 2004 and very little contact before that.

But, here is deposition testimony from court appointed evaluator Joanne Feigin in regards to Crystel’s brother Tim. The children’s names have been changed and their parent’s identity slightly veiled. Otherwise, this testimony is verbatim. There was no cross examination in regards to these statements.

Lawyer: At that time you interviewed the child again, this is since the last — since report number one, at that interview the child told you that his dad [Tim] told him to say to you “I want 100 percent with my dad and no time with mom”; is that correct?

Joanne Feigin: Yes.

Lawyer: As a matter of fact, you state in your report on page 24 that the child clearly — you use the word “clearly” — indicated that his father had told him very explicitly — and you use the word “explicitly” –to talk to [Ms. Feigin] about his preference and what to say about it. Is that correct?

Joanne Feigin: Correct.

Later…about an anti-drug video made by Tim with the mother acting as the drug addict, a video given to Joanne Feigin by either Tim or Crystel’s mother Helen, given without the soundtrack and only an explanation they thought the mother was using drugs…

Lawyer: Now, also in report one, I’m just going to just hit on this because you testified to it, that Tim alleged that the mother was using cocaine; correct?

Joanne Feigin: Correct.

Lawyer: He showed you a video which involved the mother?

Joanne Feigin: Correct.

Lawyer: And I think you even stated in the report that the father was disingenuous and deceptive; is that correct?

Joanne Feigin: Correct.

Lawyer: And that’s relating to the video?

Joanne Feigin: Yes.

Lawyer: And how he labeled it?

Joanne Feigin: Yes.

If Crystel’s family was showing this deceptive tape to the court appointed evaluator, who else did they show it to? The children?

And why, after this testimony, did the LASC commissioner transfer custody of the children from the mother to the father? Whether you call it PAS or just “lies told about one parent by the other parent”, isn’t this behavior that does not foster a relationship between both parents?

Crystel Strelioff’s family; History of PAS.

Mother Abducts Children; Is Punished! Father Gets Custody!

Men also abduct children, too. But Parental Alienation Syndrome is the pariah that hangs around the neck of twice as many moms that steal kids, still. Parental Alienation has nothing to do with “batterers getting custody” or “abusers stealing children” and the hysterical members of what we call the “pig pen” moan and whine about. No, Parental Alienation is a pattern of denigration that one parent uses to tear down and destroy the child’s relationship with the other parent – in 2 of 3 cases the father. That is primarily why the pigs are squealing.

Mother Abducts Children; Is Punished! Father Gets Custody!
Friday, November 13, 2009
By Robert Franklin, Esq.

It’s good to read a story like this one that actually makes sense (Courier News, 11/10/09). It’s not fraught with silly claims or absurd reasoning. No misinformation, no disinformation.

Back in April of 2000, a Kane County, Illinois judge issued an order in the custody case of two children of Crystel Strelioff and her ex-husband Brian Strelioff. From reading the article, it looks like the order gave her custody, him visitation and included a clause prohibiting her from moving out of the jurisdiction without prior court approval.

Crystel did exactly that, though, in 2004, when she moved to California with the children. In February of this year, a Kane County jury convicted her of four counts of child abduction and last Friday she was sentenced to three years in prison less 185 days for time served. She was also required to pay her ex-husband $73,340 in restitution. A family court judge has placed the only child who is still a minor in the custody of Brian Strelioff. A court psychologist described Crystel’s abduction as “a form of parental alienation” aimed at Brian.

How sensible. A mother abducted two children and was actually punished by a criminal court. A family court called the behavior what it was, “parental alienation,” and placed the child in the father’s custody. No one claimed phantom child abuse by the father. No one manufactured any statistics about men relentlessly menacing children. No expert witnesses explained how every act of maternal kidnapping is in some way justified. No one claimed, against mountains of contrary evidence, that parental alienation is a scam cooked up by evil advocates for fathers’ rights.

Think of it: a crime, due process, reasonable punishment and paternal custody.

It shouldn’t amaze me, but it does.
Lisa Scott’s RealFamilyLaw.com
Shared Parenting Advocate/Family Law Attorney Lisa Scott’s RealFamilyLaw.com exposes the truth about what is happening in our family law system. Lisa, the all-time leader in appearances on His Side with Glenn Sacks, says that she was “tired of having her stuff rejected by elitist bar publications and politically-correct newspapers” and decided to start her own website. RealFamilyLaw.com

Parental Alienation and the DSM-V: A Call to Action

Parental Alienation and the DSM-V

A large group of mental health professionals, legal professionals, and other individuals have submitted a formal proposal to have the concept of parental alienation included in the next editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). The proposal was submitted in November 2009. The authors of the 2009 proposal, who are listed below, represent eleven countries.

Please write to the following individuals and encourage them to include parental alienation in DSM-V:

David J. Kupfer, M.D. Dr. Kupfer is chair of the DSM-V Task Force. His address is: Western Psychiatric Institute, 3811 O’Hara Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213.

Darrel A. Regier, M.D. Dr. Regier is vice-chair of the DSM-V Task Force. His address is: American Psychiatric Association, 1000 Wilson Blvd., Suite 1825, Arlington, VA 22209-3901.

Daniel S. Pine, M.D. D. Dr. Pine is chair of the DSM-V Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence Work Group. His address is: NIMH, 15K North Drive, MSC 2670, Bethesda, MD 20892-2670.

Principal author of Parental Alienation, DSM-V, and ICD-11 are: William Bernet, M.D. Contributing authors: José M. Aguilar, Ph.D. (Spain), Katherine Andre, Ph.D., Mila Arch Marin, Ph.D. (Spain), Eduard Bakalář, C.Sc. (Czech Republic), Amy J. L. Baker, Ph.D., Paul Bensussan, M.D. (France), Alice C. Bernet, M.S.N., Kristin Bernet, M.L.I.S., Barry S. Bien, L.L.B., Wilfrid von Boch-Galhau, M.D. (Germany), J. Michael Bone, Ph.D., Barry Bricklin, Ph.D., Andrew J. Chambers, J.D., Arantxa Coca Vila (Spain), Gagan Dhaliwal, M.D., Benoit van Dieren, Ph.D. (Belgium), Christian T. Dum, Ph.D. (Germany), John E. Dunne, M.D., Robert A. Evans, Ph.D., Robert Bruce Fane, Ed.D., Bradley W. Freeman, M.D., Prof. Guglielmo Gulotta (Italy), Anja Hannuniemi, LL.Lic. (Finland), Lena Hellblom Sjögren, Ph.D. (Sweden), Larry Hellmann, J.D., Steve Herman, Ph.D., Adolfo Jarne Esparcia, Ph.D. (Spain), Allan M. Josephson, M.D., Joseph Kenan, M.D., Ursula Kodjoe, M.A. (Germany), Douglas A. Kramer, M.D., M.S., Ken Lewis, Ph.D., Moira Liberatore, Psy.D. (Italy), Demosthenes Lorandos, Ph.D., J.D., Ludwig F. Lowenstein, Ph.D. (United Kingdom), Domènec Luengo Ballester, Ph.D. (Spain), Jayne A. Major, Ph.D., Eric G. Mart, Ph.D., Kim Masters, M.D., David McMillan, Ph.D., John E. Meeks, M.D., Steven G. Miller, M.D., Martha J. Morelock, Ph.D., Stephen L. Morrison, Ph.D., Wade Myers, M.D., Olga Odinetz, Ph.D. (France), Jeff Opperman, S. Richard Sauber, Ph.D., Thomas E. Schacht, Psy.D., Jesse Shaver, Ph.D., M.D., Bela Sood, M.D., Richard K. Stephens, Julie Lounds Taylor, Ph.D., Asunción Tejedor Huerta, Ph.D. (Spain), Hubert Van Gijseghem, Ph.D. (Canada), James S. Walker, Ph.D., Randy Warren, J.D., Monty N. Weinstein, Psy.D., Katie Wilson, M.D., and Abe Worenklein, Ph.D. (Canada).

Tags: Parental Alienation

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 14th, 2009 at 2:59 am and is filed under Advocacy, DSM-V, Parental Alienation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.