Gender Polarization Impedes Family Law Reform | angiEmedia

I found this article published about 3 months ago, and agree with it completely.  Gender-based politics have lead to trauma and child abuse, while hate sites such as rightsformothers continues to espouse gender-hate speech against children who have NO contact with their moms for the exact same reasons that most fathers now do.

Gender Polarization Impedes Family Law Reform

Written by: Chris Share1
Use of Our Content (Reposting and Quoting)

December 9th, 2009

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Today I viewed a disturbing website. It’s called Justice4Mothers. The idea that mothers deserve justice is not disturbing. I believe that everybody deserves justice regardless of gender or sexual orientation. And it’s not that every one of the articles on the site is alarming, either. But one particular article riled me up a bit. The article is reposting of a twisted reposting entitled Attention Judges and Lawmakers: This is the REAL AGENDA of the Father’s Rights Movement.

I don’t consider myself a father’s rights activist, so the reason the reposted articles bother me is not that they put down father’s rights groups and I’m somehow personally offended by this. I’m an advocate for the rights of parents and children of both genders. There’s no question in my mind that sometimes its the mothers who are shafted by the courts, sometimes it is the fathers, and usually it is both. And usually, the children are victimized right along with one or both of their parents.

The main two reasons I’m alarmed by this article are:

1. The article is a mockery and distortion of author Rachel Alexander’s original work. I wouldn’t like to see this done to my writing and empathize with how Rachel Alexander feels about it.
2. The article serves to further harm all children and parents. It largely consists of a reposting of vitriolic tripe from an hack job reposting of her work at the web page How Fathers Can Win Custody to Avoid Paying Child Support.

Rachel Alexander

I compared the reposted articles versus the original article Guide: How Fathers Can Win Child Custody on the Intelligent Conservative. The World O’ Crap version is totally different from the Intelligent Conservative version. It appears to be a mockery of the original article. It quotes bits and pieces of the original work interspersed with extreme distortions to make the original words look ridiculous. But the Justice4Mothers reposting has made the matter worse by removing the formatting that made it somewhat clear what the original words were versus the spin-job.

Rachel Alexander is aware of the mockery being made of her article by the World O’ Crap website and their distorted hack job on her writing. View Rachel Alexander’s posting archive page and scroll down to the bottom. You will notice how displeased she is about that warped spin on her writing:

(from Rachel Alexander’s posting archive page)

Note to the haters: Ms. Alexander has never posted on a salon.com blog called World o Crap and to say otherwise is false as well as libelous.

Mother’s Rights Websites: Too Many Espouse Rabid Extremism

The tactics mentioned in the spin-job reposts are purported as being applied by men to ruin their ex-wives and ex-girlfriends to obtain 100% child custody. However, these same destructive and selfish tactics are applied by women, too. By perpetuating and spreading the distorted views from World O’ Crap, Justice4Mothers is doing children and parents, including mothers, a grave disservice. Sadly, it is just one of many “angry women” web sites that is creating such a bad impression of women and mothers. Without knowing more about the people behind these sites, I’d hazard a wild guess that they are either guys posing as extremist women to make a point or they are personality disordered vindictive and likely abusive women. But whatever the case may be, the result is not good.

Extremism and sexism are common problems with far too many “mother’s rights” web sites. We’ve been noticing recently that there are slew of them that are quoting from and linking to our articles. While typically this would be fine with us, it is alarming to see how these web sites distort the facts in an attempt to trash fathers and men in general that not only does a disservice to fathers, but also seriously harms children and good mothers, too.

Some of them appear to be going after particular men, going so far as to doctor photographs of fathers to make them look creepy. Canadian author Michael Murphy of the web site Parental Alienation Canada and others have been slammed by some of these web sites as he describes in his article The Cyber Stalkers from OZ are back again with their not so secret – secret service.

What these web sites are doing is not productive. Blindly stereotyping child custody warfare perpetrators by gender isn’t helpful. It actually increases the odds of these battles continuing, ensuring the demise of more children, parents, and families due to the ongoing systemic failure to reform the broken family law courts and family and domestic relations laws.

Balkanization Of Family Law Reform Advocates

Polarizing family law problems along gender lines serves the purposes of those who would like to perpetuate the tragedies of today long into the future. The polarization pushed by “gender rights” groups balkanizes those who oppose the current system. It serves the divide and conquer tactics of the power-elite in government and lobbying groups who conspire with them. These groups are happy to pit men and women against each other in a fight to the death over child custody.

The government and lobbying groups that interfere with family law reform regard divorce as a sort of financial equivalent to the energy output of nuclear fission. Break apart an atom by fission and you get some energy. Break apart lots of atoms and you get a chain reaction that might blow up a lot more than just the decomposing atoms.

Likewise, breaking apart lots of families releases large stores of cash. The people behind are often “irradiated” severely, leading to long term ruination by psychological, emotional, and financial devastation. Others are figuratively incinerated by the nuclear divorce blast. Both outcomes are desirable for many judges, lawyers, CPS social workers, police, psychologists, and collection workers who comprise the divorce, domestic violence, and child support industries. That’s because the destruction of children and families helps ensure their financial security by sucking the lifeblood out of families. Additional revenues are gained by hocking off the pieces of what remains after mommy and daddy have repeatedly shot each other with legal bullets for several years and the children have had holes blasted in their souls by the conflict.

Child support begets a whole new government bureaucracy that serves to take from some to give to others while taking a cut along the way and abusing anybody who disagrees. Money doesn’t lead to good parenting, but wars over child support money lead to damaged and even dead children and parents.

Then those damaged children turn into ready enablers of job security for CPS, police, and psychologists because they tend to become depressed, anxious, antisocial, and even criminal. Many of them will go on to abuse their own children in the future and repeat the mental illness, divorce, child abuse, and crime cycle.

Both Genders Culpable

Both men and women abuse the family law courts and their children. I understand that it is often very hard to be objective about this when your personal experience stems from the nightmare bullying, lying, harassment, and even parental alienation pulled on you and your family by your ex-wife or ex-husband. But the failure to be objective leads to false generalizations that only women or only men commit abuses and crimes in child custody battles. This is foolish, intellectually dishonest, and counterproductive. It is as moronic as generalizing that all men are evil genocidal maniacs because Hitler and Stalin were both men. It is just as idiotic as claiming that all women must be witches because in Salem they executed many of them and the common (but inaccurate) perception is that all were females.

American Divorce Courts: The New Salem Witch Trials

Sadly, family law courts and the polarized bickering around them today are much like the Salem witch trials. Reality has been tossed out the window. Due process has been stabbed in the back and left to die. Innocent people are being ruined by false and bizarre allegations. Children are being seriously harmed. And the insanity continues largely unabated. Meanwhile, the government and its power-hungry agents benefit from the chaos.

What’s In A Name?

There are many well-intentioned family law reform groups with the words mother, father, men, or women in their names. Unfortunately, there are many groups with such names which are not at all well-intentioned. If you’re fed up with the family law system and are thinking about starting a group in your area, do yourself a favor — avoid the gender bias in your name. Stick the words “parents” or “children” or “families” in your names and avoid any hint of identifiable gender bias that might get you lumped together with the gender extremists.

Gender Polarization Ensures No Solutions

Both the mother’s rights and father’s rights bigots are doing themselves and more importantly their children no good. The government and its parasitic allies enforce their family-busting policies to turn parents on each other to drain them of their assets and transform their children into fountains of money and job security. By polarizing the unquestionably wronged populace of broken families, the gender rights groups are simply enabling more of the same. These problems simply will not be fixed until there is a stop to the gender wars over child custody and family law.

Further Reading

Unconstitutional Child Custody Decisions

Republicans Fail to Offer Family-Friendly Policy Choices

Holding Family Law Judges Accountable

Men’s Rights: Feminism should be about equality — for males too

Cathy Young Criticizes Slate/Salon Hit Job on Family Court Reform Movement in Forbes

Battered women – and men

CPS, Child Custody, Children, Courts, Divorce, Family, Federal Government, Government Abuse, Legal, Police, Politics, Prosecutor

Canada, Child Custody, Children, dirty legal tactics, Divorce, false accusations in divorce, family law court, father’s rights, gender warfare, Government Abuse, Legal, men’s rights, Michael Murphy, mother’s rights, United States, women’s rights

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Gender Polarization Impedes Family Law Reform | angiEmedia.

Capitol Weekly: Preventing courts from considering parental alienation will harm kids

By Glenn Sacks, Michael Robinson | 02/25/10 12:00 AM PST

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In “Parental Alienation must be excluded” (Capitol Weekly, Feb. 8), Preston Thymes, the head of public relations for the domestic violence service provider Shelter Outreach Plus, criticizes efforts by Fathers & Families and others to promote recognition of Parental Alienation. While Thymes and Shelter Outreach Plus often do noble work in aiding battered women, Thymes misunderstands several key aspects of Parental Alienation and child custody battles.

The Family Law Section of the State Bar of California explains that alienation tactics often include:

“[C]ancel[ing] the other parent’s visit without telling the child that the visit has been cancelled, creating a ‘let down’ for the child when that parent does not ‘show up’ for the visit. Threats could also be made against the child for wanting to have visitation with the other parent – ‘Fine, if you want to see [your other parent] tonight, then you are grounded for the rest of the week.’

Guilt can also be used to influence a child to avoid visitation – ‘I’m not feeling well and I wish you would stay here with me, but if you have to see [your other parent] I will understand.’ Rewards can also be used – ‘Sure, you can see [your other parent] today, but I thought we would go play laser tag with your friends today.’”

Parental Alienation is a common, well-documented phenomenon that is the subject of numerous studies and articles in peer-reviewed scholarly journals. For example, a longitudinal study published by the American Bar Association in 2003 followed 700 “high conflict” divorce cases over a 12 year period and found that elements of PA were present in the vast majority of the cases studied.

At Fathers & Families, we receive thousands of heart-wrenching calls and letters from parents whose children have been taught to fear or hate them. Both mothers and fathers can be perpetrators of Parental Alienation, but the true victims are always the children.
Thymes asserts that recognizing Parental Alienation as a legitimate issue in custody cases would endanger abused children. But in genuine cases of domestic violence or child abuse, all sides agree that courts need to protect children from abusive parents. Yet there is a large body of evidence which shows that false accusations of domestic violence are a major problem in child custody cases.

Unfortunately, Shelter Outreach Plus, like many domestic violence service providers, displays a troubling lack of awareness of this problem. Thymes writes:
“At Shelter Outreach plus, we render any claims of Parental Alienation invalid…we absolutely do everything we can to keep [the father alleged to be abusive] away from those children [including] our legal advocates through restraining orders…”

Thymes apparently feels that a mere accusation equals the truth, and that judges should not even consider whether an accuser is misleading the court.
Thymes and Shelter Outreach Plus favor AB 612, a bill to bar litigants or custody evaluators from making any reference to Parental Alienation in family court. This deeply-flawed bill, which will be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee this spring, is opposed by practically all organizations which represent the professionals who work in the family law field.

Those listed as opposed include: the Judicial Council; the California Judges Association; the Family Law Section of the State Bar; the California Psychological Association; the Association of Certified Family Law Specialists; the Association of Family Conciliation Courts; and numerous others.

The California Psychological Association writes that the bill ignores the “significant scientific and agreed-upon knowledge base of the last 30 years on children who are alienated” and describes AB 612 as a “scientifically inaccurate measure [which] assumes the truth of any accusation of abuse.”

The Assembly analysis explains that AB 612 is so extreme that if it is passed, in court “something as simple as a child not wanting to visit a parent cannot, potentially as a matter of law, be caused by the other parent.”
The analysis notes:

”[A]ny broad restriction on the information the court can consider could well unintentionally compromise the court’s ability to make determinations that are in children’s best interests, and could inadvertently compromise child safety.”

Certainly there are fathers (and mothers) who have alienated their children through inept parenting, narcissism, drug or alcohol problems, or abuse, and who attempt to shift the blame to their exes by falsely claiming Parental Alienation. Sometimes, as research by Janet R. Johnston Ph.D. of San Jose State University confirms, Parental Alienation exists but is only one of several factors causing a deterioration of the parent-child bond.

Sometimes parental alienators are unaware of their harmful actions.

Nevertheless, Parental Alienation is a serious problem. When fact-finding in custody cases, judges and custody evaluators must be able to properly consider all available evidence. When abuse is alleged, the accusation merits serious consideration.

When Parental Alienation is alleged, the accusation merits serious consideration, too.

« Done

Capitol Weekly: Preventing courts from considering parental alienation will harm kids.

Divorce, Custody and Borderline Personality Disorder :: Illinois Divorce Lawyer Blog

The force of empirical evidence is overwhelming not only in the testing procedures, a.k.a. MMPI-II testing, but in the actions of parents that alienate children, make false allegations of abuse, and are reciprocal perpetrators of domestic violence.  Borderline Personality Disorder, with Histrionic Personality Disorder types are classic Parental Alienators.

Divorce, Custody and Borderline Personality Disorder

I have spent a good part of my legal career working in the area of divorce and custody in the context of a parent with suspected or diagnosed BPD and NPD traits. Borderline personalities in divorce cases make for higher conflict cases, and when the cases involve the custody of children, many times there are elements of domestic violence, false allegations of domestic violence or sexual abuse, distortion campaigns, and parental alienation. I was fortunate to write the foreword to, and help edit, Bill Eddy’s landmark book on divorcing a borderline or narcissist, Splitting.

Today I saw a reference to a recent Time Magazine article on BPD. “The Mystery of Borderline Personality Disorder,” by John Cloud.

“A 2008 study of nearly 35,000 adults in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that 5.9% — which would translate into 18 million Americans — had been given a BPD diagnosis. As recently as 2000, the American Psychiatric Association believed that only 2% had BPD. (In contrast, clinicians diagnose bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in about 1% of the population.) BPD has long been regarded as an illness disproportionately affecting women, but the latest research shows no difference in prevalence rates for men and women. Regardless of gender, people in their 20s are at higher risk for BPD than those older or younger.

What defines borderline personality disorder — and makes it so explosive — is the sufferers’ inability to calibrate their feelings and behavior. When faced with an event that makes them depressed or angry, they often become inconsolable or enraged. Such problems may be exacerbated by impulsive behaviors: overeating or substance abuse; suicide attempts; intentional self-injury.”

What concerns me most in cases involving personality disorders is the high likelihood of levels of parental alienation by the disordered parent, along with false allegations made by the disordered parent to harm the other parent’s custody case. If you are in a divorce with BPD or NPD, or contemplating a divorce from a disordered spouse, please contact my office to arrange an initial consultation.

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Divorce, Custody and Borderline Personality Disorder :: Illinois Divorce Lawyer Blog.

Injustices faced by non-custodial parents | Step Talk

Injustices faced by non-custodial parents

Submitted by stepmom008 on Wed, 02/24/2010 – 2:12pm.

I thought this was really interesting and very pertinent. It talks about father’s rights and the rights of the non-custodial parent as well as PAS:

http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/?p=6057

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Injustices faced by non-custodial parents | Step Talk.

Alec Baldwin is not Alone: Basement Psychologists can get away with murdering innocent minds… and filling them with lies and ugly thoughts…

Basement Psychologists can get away with murdering innocent minds… and filling them with lies and ugly thoughts…

In June it will be four years since Athena’s last ‘visitation’ with her father. We made a ‘legacy video’ that time. I asked Athena questions and she answered them. I still have the video. We laughed and talked and she held our dog close to her face telling the camera that Gracie was her favorite pet. Little did we know that months later she would be sitting in the basement of a quack psychologist’s home, drawing a picture on the white board of our family and dog, begging in her own subconscience mind to be rescued from what was about to happen. Hypnosis followed… then stronger drugs…. brainwashing… bribery… and then she began accusing her father of molesting her from age 3 to 13. Today we are without a bank account because of the fight to save her. The fight was fruitless. Parental alienation is nasty, and if you are not a public figure with lots of money like Alec Baldwin… forget it. It’s just a story you tell. A sad, true story.

Posted by chambrayblue

Alec Baldwin is not Alone: Basement Psychologists can get away with murdering innocent minds… and filling them with lies and ugly thoughts….

How to Address The Denial Of A Parent’s Court Ordered Access, Visitation, and/or Parental Rights | eHow.com

How to Address The Denial Of A Parent’s Court Ordered Access, Visitation, and/or Parental Rights

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By George McCasland
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The US Dept. of Health & Human Services conducted a study on this titled “The Survey of Absentee Parents”. The results showed that 60% of the fathers needed to file for enforcement of their court orders within six months of receiving it, and that within five years, lost all contact with the children due to frustration with the lack of help from the courts. This is why it’s so important to learn what you can be doing.

Part of the problem with getting visitation enforced is knowing what to do to prove your case.

Instructions

Things You’ll Need:

• Daily Journal
• Chronological Statement

1. Step 1

   See linked article on “How to Put Together Evidence of Denial of Visitation/Access in Violation of a Court Order”.

2. Step 2

   It’s most important that you keep a DAILY JOURNAL (see linked article) of all your activities, including any contact with the child(ren). There does not need to be any violence for a claim of violence to be filed. She can get a restraining order because she fears him due to her preventing him from seeing her child. A restraining order can be filed up to a year after a supposed event in many states. With the journal, you can look back and see what you were doing that day and who were witnesses to it, such as being 30 miles away, as was the case with one father.

   He was helping to remove a tree out of the roof of a neighbor’s house. Five months later, the mother claimed that on that night, she had shot out her car windows, and had a police report to prove it. She also claimed he bragged about it. With the Journal, he was able to produce witnesses at the Restraining Order Hearing to show she was lying. However, there’s a drawback to this. In my 20 years of experience, when the mother is unsuccessful in a false allegation of domestic violence, within two years she will progress to child abuse and/or child sexual abuse allegations.

3. Step 3

   See linked article on Recording Conversations. Remember, you can’t just record, you also have to transcribe the conversations your daily journal.

4. Step 4

   Take note here that in some states, denial of court order visitation is treated the same as Interference With Custody or Parental Abduction. Though Prosecuting Attorneys usually refuse to enforce the law, getting a police report can help as evidence. In Missouri, the law is RSMO 565.156 §5

5. Step 5

   If there’s an intent to deny access, prepare a “Notice of Intent to Exercise Visitation” letter stating the specific dates as laid out in your order. Add to this a “Notice of Intent to Exercise Parental Rights” in the same legal format of your other court papers. Sign both and make six copies. See links below for examples.

6. Step 6

   Mail the originals “CERTIFIED MAIL” and another set with just “DELIVERY CONFIRMATION” (75¢ + postage). If she rejects the Certified Letter, she will still receive the letter with Delivery Confirmation. Remember that these are two different type of mail. To get a Confirmation of Delivery printout, go to the USPS web site at the link below.

7. Step 7

   If the Certified letter or the Certified Letter Confirmation of Delivery Card, with her signature on it come back, attach either (letter unopened) to a copy of the “Notice of Intent to Exercise Visitation” letter and “Notice of Intent to Exercise Parental Rights”, plus the printout of the Delivery Confirmation from USPS. Take these documents to the County Courthouse and have the Clerk of the Court notarize and them place them in your case file. It’s very important that you repeat this process each time you are to exercise your visitation until either she obeys the orders or you go to court on it. This file gets read by the judge before any hearing, so he will see your effort to resolve this issue without involving the court.

   File the remaining copies for future use.

8. Step 8

   Repeat process for each time you are to exercise your visitation until she either obeys the orders or you go to court on it.

9. Step 9

   If the other parent continues to deny you access, you need to decide if you want to use an attorney or go Propria Persona (Pro Se) in taking an enforcement action to the courts. If you wish to use an attorney, you need to take the time to interview several attorneys before picking the one to work with (See linked article on how to do this). Prepare a Chronological Statement (see linked article in preparing one) expressing a history from the time you met her up until this need for action.

10. Step 10

    A common complain in dealing with these action in court is a claim of bias on the part of the judge. To address any potential of this it is best to use Court Watchers, which are person who are there to witness the proceedings, and not to give testimony. Aside from friends, contact the high school or college about students from government class getting credit for attending the hearing. Each should be equipped with a hard tablet, pen, and a Court Evaluation Form (see link below). They should not sit together in a group, being spread out in the gallery.

11. Step 11

    If you decide to represent yourself in court, check with your Clerk of the Court for forms for filing an enforcement action. If they do not have one specific for visitation, the ones for child support will work as a template. You need to produce a “Notice of Exercise of Parental Rights” See link for example), filing with the court and having the judge sign it. Serve or have it served on the other parent, depending on the requirements of your state. In Kansas, it can be sent Certified Mail.

12. Step 12

    For more extensive advice specific to your case, see Dads House Educational Group for association with other dealing with this situation.

13. Step 13

    Produce a “Notice of the Court of Denial of Exercise of Parental Rights” and “Motion to Show Cause for Contempt of Court of Denial of Visitation” (see links below) for filing with the court.

    Note: This is where it can get complicate in what choices you wish to make. If held in Contempt of Court, this is consider a “CHANGE OF CIRCUMSTANCES”, which is grounds for a Change in the Custody Arrangements. You or your attorney needs to have a Motion for Change of Custody ready to hand the judge (see article on custody changes).

//

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Tips & Warnings

• For Extensive advice on this, and association with others dealing in it, see Dads House in Yahoo! Groups. It’s Free. See link below
• In states like Missouri, you can file to have child support put on hold, not stopped, until action is taken to address denial of access.
• A common claim is that the kids won’t come, but that is likely to be a symptom of Parental Alienation Syndrome, so don’t think this is a rejection of you. Just make note of it. Do not ask for the children to say it to you directly.

Resources

• Dads House Educational Group
• Can We Tape
• The Fatherless Generation
• United States Post Office: Delivery Confirmation
• Notice of Intent Letter
• Notice of Intent to Exercise Parental Rights
• Notice of Exercise of Parental Rights
• Notice of the Court of Denial of Parental Rights
• Motion to Show Cause for Contempt of Court of Denial of Visitation
• Court Evaluation Form

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How to Address The Denial Of A Parent’s Court Ordered Access, Visitation, and/or Parental Rights | eHow.com.

Fathers-4-Justice Sault Ste. Marie: Ontario Children’s Aid and Misandry

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Ontario Children’s Aid and Misandry

Many men will attest to have seen a bias by CAS Protective Workers who are, it would appear, 95% female and some stridently feminist in their ideology. I can certainly speak to it, and can also say the local Algoma CAS and its sister organization Algoma Family Services, who deal with child mental health issues, have both shown me they care little about fathers. In one case a worker completely ignored my requests for help on the telephone and declared a conflict of interest so she could get out of providing service to me. I went over her head and finally got a supervisor to do her job.MJM

By Susan Longley


Please note concerns regarding  upcoming Ontario conference. (see OACAS web site).

A frightening trend in North American child welfare practice  is the growing alliance between child welfare services and those promoting anti violence against women (i.e. VAW sector).

This alliance has resulted in an increased denigration of male parents and general deterioration in efforts to address the best interests of children. The deeply rooted gender biased ideology of the latter sector remains deeply troubling and in complete  contradiction to male parents attempts to engage with child welfare services involved with their  children. This concern needs to be urgently addressed, partly to maintain service integrity but also to maintain an ethical stance towards families in general.

Male parents are frequently already marginalized from participating in services for their children. There is now an  increased propensity to isolate men even more so from their children’s lives. There remains a blatant contradiction between child welfare services who adopt the polemic and platitudes of the VAW sector. The child welfare mandate remains to enhance family life VAW sector is completely contradictory and opposed to such values.

It has become recently popular for child welfare services and VAW services to adopt certain kinds of inter agency protocols. These protocols are an embarrassment to child welfare practice in Canada. Blatantly unprofessional and academically dishonest theses protocols reflect misandric nonsense rather than legitimate protocol. These so called protocols must be abandoned and exposed for what they are. There are least two CASs in the Toronto region (see Peel CAS protocol with VAW sector)) have adopted such protocols. These agencies are allegedly family service agencies with no endorsement to promote such anti male rhetoric.

A review of these protocols disclose an incredulous gender bias which can only be described as sexism of the worst order. These professionally distasteful protocols are  written in total sympathy with VAW expectations with no accountability to the general public or their respective agency mandates. They contradict not only good social work practice but remain contradictory  to ethical guidelines established by their governing body  OASW.

These so-called protocols allege to address issues related to inter agency service provision and cooperation between public agencies but are in fact nothing more than an ideological treatise intended to alienate men further from appropriate child welfare practice.

These protocols refuse to acknowledges domestic violence in families other than that of men against women. Women remain the perpetual victim and men always the perpetrator. Any mention of domestic violence refuses to acknowledge  women ‘s violence against men. Programmes sponsored by child welfare services for children exposed to domestic violence ultimately define the perpetrator as male.

These protocols never hold women accountable for any acts of child abuse or inter personal violence. The identification of child abuse only mentioned in regard to men.  Any child welfare programmes delivered to “children exposed to family violence” refer to men only. Women are never identified as initiators of any domestic violence even when a so-called family agency is involved.

The suggestion that women may make false complaints regarding domestic violence in order to gain an upper hand on custody and access matters is not acknowledged. That women may fabricate or even lie is considered anathema.  The fact that women account for the majority of child abuse in not even mentioned. That VAW services and child welfare services advocate becoming increasingly involved in controversial custody and access matters remains extremely repugnant. The suggestion that child welfare services become more intrusive regarding access arrangements between children and their fathers is an outright abomination.

Please find a copy of a recent letter sent to Jeanette Lewis, Director of  the provincial OACAS (see web site) outlining my concerns regarding an anticipated conference involving Provincial Child Welfare Services and Violence Against Women Services. The purported agenda is to build understanding and cooperation between the two sectors. My cynical view, as previously suggested, indicates an alternate agenda. The VAW sector is given a further opportunity to impose a particular ideological gender politic on child welfare services.

“I notice with trepidation an anticipated 2010 Toronto conference co sponsored by Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies , The Ontario Women’s Directorate and various Violence Against Women programmes. The theme of the conference being the “Intersection of Women Abuse and Child Welfare Services.”

I was immediately troubled by the tone and wording of the conference details included in the call for papers especially given the propensity for child welfare services in Ontario and in general North America, to adopt a value preference embracing the practice of a certain feminist political and ideological agenda. A social work practice that has increasingly marginalized services to men and boys and a priori assumptions regarding male perpetrators and female victims.

I have outlined a few  of my concerns.
As many researchers have pointed out gender feminist theory has its limitations and family service agencies in particular must always be ethically accountable in providing services to both men and women especially where “best interests” of children are involved. One can already anticipate the usual presenters invited to provide discourse at such matters. It would be extremely naive to expect genuine debate or rational presentation between the sectors involved.  I will assume the usual feminist rhetoric and platitudes will rule the day.

Some academic  integrity needs to be maintained  and that the conference must reject any ideological and gender biased, misandric unbalanced research which has tended to place a certain anti male spin on issues related to woman abuse, child custody and other such politically charged issues.

There has been a long term feminist advocacy in this province (highlighted in proposals of the provincial domestic violence death review  panel and its recommendations ) to have child welfare services acquiesce to the values and political ideology of the violence against women sector.

This is viewed by many as a regressive and extremely ill advised road to go down. It is appears regressive for child welfare services in general, especially since their services have already become suspect for aligning themselves with principles that reject a family orientation and men in particular. Any child welfare services must be dispensed with fairness and remain gender neutral in practice.

I am concerned that any dialogue between CAS and VAW sectors becomes a mere “smoke screen” for advocating CAS become more feminized in their social work practice at the expense of academic and social work integrity. Not that the two sectors cannot collaborate on occasion and cooperate when appropriate in providing in shared client advocacy.


It seems vital and important to acknowledge the value differences between the two sectors and reject the propensity to gloss over the obvious political and ideological conflicts. It is imperative that these conflicts be clearly acknowledged and identified. This remains especially so in reference to mutual  protocols regarding advocacy and support of woman’s issues especially those issues related to custody access and the interaction between service providers regarding male clients and families in general .  It appears to me that the mandates of  the two sectors are severely different and are grounded in often opposed ideological principals. Just a few issues regarding the two sectors come to mind.

Definitions of Abuse and Victimization:

More stringent definition of abuse and victimization in general are required by both sectors. The CAS social workers remain accountable not only to the clients, the best interest of the child but also the court system especially when wards of the court are involved. What is considered abuse in the VAW sector cannot always be validated in the CAS sector.


CAS are obliged to involve male fathers and partners regardless if they have been identified as so called perpetrators or offenders.

Validation

The feminist principle of “validating” the “stories” of violence against women and children has always been troublesome for social workers in the CAS sector. Not to deny supportive advocacy for all clients (a basic social work value)  CAS social workers have always had to depend on not only “clients narratives” but also collaboration efforts to seek alternate sources of  information. The VAW sector do not require such gender neutral language of exploration and context for service. It appears that a higher standard of accountability and transparency is required.

Gender Bias / Male Clients and Partners:

Gender biased practice has been generally the order of the day. Given the long history of feminist advocacy many would argue that CAS have acquiesced far to willingly to certain  feminist theory at the expense of gender neutral practice. This must be recognised and the matter dealt with in an honest and forthright manner. Children’s best interest require addressing issues with both parents where possible.

CAS social workers when in court regarding children’s interests must prove that they have attempted involved both parents (and even other partners as defined as parents ) Fathers and or partners in a parenting role can never be ignored in CAS social work. The issues regarding custody and access assessments during divorce remains a highly contentious one, as do the issues related to counselling of couples where violence has occurred. Protocols regarding children’s access to both parents where domestic violence is disputed also remains highly contentious. These issues must be debated within the reality of both male and female experience.

Academic Research and Domestic Violence Findings:

The academic literature regarding domestic violence has and continues to be long dominated by a certain type of feminist ideology and both the  CAS and VAW sectors have been very much influenced in their practice by certain political views. This must change. The literature is much more divergent in findings and recommendations for practice than previously acknowledged. This is particularly so when discussing woman abuse and domestic violence. The divergent literature has always been available but to many practitioners who accepted certain dissident views were quickly rejected ostracized or threatened.

A modest appeal to Richard Gelles article January 2007 Family Court Review sums up these concerns regarding academic integrity with succinct clarity. Need I mention Don Dutton’s “Rethinking Domestic Violence.”


These are some of my concerns regarding the two sectors having authentic dialogue. This can only be achieved with honesty and respect. Some would also claim an appeal to rational discourse mixed with a modicum of intellectual integrity can also help.

Regards Susan

Fathers-4-Justice Sault Ste. Marie: Ontario Children’s Aid and Misandry.

Pajamas Media » The Domestic Violence Industry’s War on Men

The Domestic Violence Industry’s War on Men

By painting all males as brutes, feminists hope to reduce half the population to a state of dhimmitude.

January 21, 2010 – by Barbara Kay

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The industry that has grown up around domestic violence (DV), or, as it is more precisely situated these days in research circles, intimate partner violence (IPV), began in good faith decades ago as a legitimate campaign to help women trapped in abusive relationships.

Over the years, as the triumphalist feminist revolution’s long march through the institutions of the West proceeded with eerily unchallenged vigor, DV emerged as a highly politicized touchstone justifying women’s entitlements — legal, economic, familial — at the expense of boys’ and men’s human rights.

A tipping point in the DV chronology, when the focus amongst militant feminists shifted from helping individual women to the more totalitarian ambition of reducing the male population to cultural dhimmitude, can be traced back in time to December 6, 1989, and in space to a school two miles north of my front door.

December 6, 2009, marked the 20th anniversary of a unique tragedy in Western history, the systematic massacre of 14 women engineering students, with injury to 13 others, at Montreal’s École Polytechnique by a lone young gunman, Marc Lepine, who killed himself at the end of his shooting spree.

As an act of violence against women, the Montreal Massacre had no prequel or sequel. Lepine — his real name was Gamil Gharbi, but Lepine chose to identify with his québécois mother rather than his brutal, misogynistic, Algerian-born father — was a sociopath, unaligned with any faith, political movement, or identity grievance group. He was no jihadi. Although one could argue that the massacre presented elements of an honor killing, Lepine’s crime was essentially sui generis.

Ironically enough, if he were a jihadi, feminists would have been stymied in their rush to collective judgment, for the standard reflex following jihadist incidents is to repudiate any linkage of the act with Islam and to warn against expressions of Islamophobia.

But in the case of the Montreal Massacre, a diametrically opposed instinct prevailed. Because Lepine’s only distinguishing feature was his maleness, the tragedy sanctioned unbridled hostility toward all heterosexual men. Indeed, for elite feminist apparatchiks, then in their most muscular and misandric phase, bliss it was in that bloody Montreal dawn to be alive.

Brazenly, without bothering to adduce any substantiating chain of evidence, there being none, feminist spokeswomen linked the horrific crime of a lone sociopath to the general phenomenon of domestic violence against women. Marc Lepine “became” all men who want to control women — eventually all heterosexual men — and December 6 achieved instant sacralised status as a day of national mourning that, for fevered rhetoric and solemnity, eclipsed even 9/11 memorials.

As I wrote in a December 2007 National Post column:

By contrast [to Americans’ lessening interest in 9/11 memorials], the Canadian public never seems to weary of the annual December 6 tribute to the 1989 Montreal Polytechnique shooting massacre of 14 women. Indeed, 12/6’s branding power burgeons with every anniversary: The theme of violence against women dominates the media; new physical memorials are constructed; additional programs decrying domestic violence against women are entrenched in school curricula; masses of white ribbons are distributed; more stringent gun control is more strenuously urged. Their cumulative effect is to link all Canadian men to a global conspiracy against women of jihadist proportions.

Feminists everywhere in the West appropriated its emotive themes to lend greater credence to an already widespread pernicious tripartite myth: namely, that all men — the “patriarchy” — are inherently prone to violence against women, that all women are potential victims of male aggression, and that female violence against men is never unprovoked, but always an act of self-defense against overt or covert male aggression.

The unspoken corollary to these falsehoods is that violence perpetrated against males, whether by other males or by females, is deemed unworthy of official recognition or more than minimal legal redress, and that while female suffering must be acknowledged as socially intolerable, male suffering may not make a parallel moral claim.

In fact, as any number of peer-reviewed research and government statistics make clear, although women are far more likely to report domestic abuse, equal numbers of men and women experience some form of DV during their lifetimes; men and women initiate abuse in equal measure; and far from any inherent “patriarchal” instinct to control women, DV — in Judeo-Christian culture at any rate — is almost always attributable to individual psychological dysfunction (see citation for Abusegate RADAR report below).

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Barbara Kay is a weekly columnist in the comment pages of Canada’s National Post newspaper.

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Pajamas Media » The Domestic Violence Industry’s War on Men.

Out of the FOG – Parental Alienation

Parental Alienation and Parental Alienation Syndrome

Definition: Parental Alienation is a term which is used to describe the process of one divorced parent inappropriately influencing a child into thinking that the other parent is bad, evil or worthless.

Definition: Parental Alienation Syndrome is the resulting condition that a child who has been subjected to Parental Alienation can have, in which, under the influence of an adult whom they trust, inappropriately believe that one of their parents is worthless, bad or evil.

Definition: Hostile Aggressive Parenting (HAP), also known as Parental Alienation, is a term which is used to describe the process of one divorced parent inappropriately influencing a child into thinking that the other parent is bad, evil or worthless.

Description

In general, alienation means interfering with or cutting off a person from relationships with others. This can occur in a number of ways, including criticism, manipulation, threats, distorted reporting or control. Click Here for More Information on Alienation in General.

The most widely reported form of alienation is parental alienation – where a parent tries to sabotage the relationship their child has with the other parent. This is quite common when divorcing someone who has a personality disorder.

Examples:

Parental Alienation can take many forms including:

• Verbal criticism of the other parent – derogatory comments, telling stories about the other parent, portraying their bad side, picking up on their faults, highlighting their mistakes, drawing unfavorable comparisons between them and others.
• Withholding or discouraging contact with the other parent – not allowing visits or keeping visits inappropriately short. Moving to another geographic location to limit contact, forgetting or impeding visitation rights, forcing the other parent to jump through hoops or meet inappropriate criteria or conditions in order to see the children.
• Denying phone contact or sabotaging phone contact by not picking up the phone, turning the phone off, being out when the phone call comes. etc.
• Intimidating the child – making the child feel bad for loving the other parent, criticizing or mocking the child’s interest in the other parent or discouraging the child from spending time with the other parent. Forcing the child to meet stringent criteria or perform extra chores or pass certain tests in order to be “rewarded” with contact with the other parent. Punishing the child by removal of affection or privileges after spending time with the other parent.

What it feels like:

Parental alienation is a form of emotional child abuse. Children instinctively love both parents and feel immense stress when asked by one parent to choose between them and the other parent. When a child is told that one of their parents is bad they identify with that parent and they feel as though they themselves are bad. They feel shame for who they are and they feel shame for secretly loving the other parent.

It is absolutely critical to a child’s sense of security and self esteem that they be allowed to love both of their biological parents. That doesn’t mean you have to condone bad behavior. It does mean though that you have to allow the child to love who they love and to feel what they feel without shame or punishment or control or manipulation.

It is very common for divorcing parents to feel anger at the other parent and to express that anger in front of the children. However, it is highly inappropriate for parents to put children in that position. If you need validation for the way you feel towards your ex-spouse you should talk to a friend or a therapist about it – not to the children.

It’s also common for people with personality disorders to launch their distortion campaigns about the other parent in front of the children. This is highly destructive.

What NOT to Do:

• Don’t verbally berate your child’s other parent in front of them – no matter what they have done. When a child hears that his parent is bad he hears you say that he is bad.
• Don’t try to discourage your child’s love for their parent. Separate your feelings from your child’s feelings and understand that they will make up their own mind about what they think.
• Don’t limit your child’s contact with the other parent – except when they are in danger of abuse.
• Don’t lie to your children. Be honest with them if they ask a question – but don’t take it as a license to say more than you really need to. If, for example, your child asks you “did mommy do something wrong?” you can say “I think mommy made a mistake” and leave it at that.
• Don’t discuss grown up issues with children.
• Don’t interrogate your child about what the other parent says or does. If they want to tell you something let them, but leave it at that.
• Don’t try to compensate for a parent who is trying to alienate you with gifts or strange behavior. Just be you. Your child is able to separate fact from fiction in cartoons. They can do it in real life too.

What TO Do:

• Put the best interests of your child ahead of any personal feelings you may have.
• Affirm your child. Tell them you love them. Praise their accomplishments, encourage them to be all they can be.
• Be consistent and reliable. Keep your promises.
• Document clearly incidents where you feel the other parent is trying to alienate your children from you.
• Consult with a COMPETENT attorney about your options. In general, courts do not look favorably on parents who try to alienate their children from the other parent. However, your complaints should be specific and unemotional – with the best interests of the child at heart.
• Confront the other parent unemotionally and clearly – in writing is best – if you feel that they are making a mistake. Keep a record of what you have written.
• Report any acts of violence, threats of violence or self harm immediately to the authorities.

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For More Information & Support

If you suspect you may be related to – or in a relationship with – someone who suffers from a personality disorder, we encourage you to learn all you can about personality disorders and get support to help you to cope. Explore our site to learn about more Common Traits & Behaviors of Personality Disorders or discover real life stories and discuss your own situation in our Support Forum.

Out of the FOG – Parental Alienation.

Parental Alienation – Dr. L.F. Lowenstein – Southern England Psychological Services

Parental Alienation – Dr. L.F. Lowenstein – Southern England

The comparison of parental alienation to the “Stockholm syndrome” Ludwig.F. Lowenstein Ph.D Southern England Psychological Services 2006 What follows is in great part fact and what is not fact is based on supposition and psychological assessment of how the Stockholm Syndrome develops and how it has worked in the case of Natascha Kampusch recently reported in the press. She was abducted and kept in a prison in an underground cell without natural light and air being pumped into her enclosure. The Stockholm Syndrome was coined in 1973 by Nils Bejerot, a psychiatrist, while working for the police. It occurred that there was a bank robbery and four bank clerks were taken hostage by an armed robber who threatened to kill them. To the surprise of the police, the hostages stated that they had no wish to be rescued indicating that they felt sympathy for their captor. It was assumed that the feeling of stress and helplessness and possibly a desire to survive led to this unlikely scenario. All the captives were eventually released without harm. The hostage taker himself must have been influenced by the behaviour of his victims as they were influenced by him. One can only wonder how this phenomenon occurred after such a short captivity. In the case of Natascha Kampusch her period of captivity of eight years probably brought about deeper psychological changes and more enduring ones. As a specialist in the area of parental alienation and parental alienation syndrome where I have acted as a psychological expert in the courts, there appears to be a considerable similarity between parental alienation and the Stockholm Syndrome. The alienator in the case of the Stockholm Syndrome also needs to extinguish any desire in the victim’s past, seeking to demonstrate any allegiance to anyone other than the powerful captor of that individual. Here too is demonstrated the power of the alienator and the insignificance of the power of the alienated party/parties. It is almost certain that Natascha Kampusch had opportunity in the past to escape from her captor, yet chose not to do so. This was despite her initial closeness to her family. A combination of fear, indoctrination and “learned helplessness”, promoted the total loyalty and obedience of the child to her captor. This captor was no longer viewed, as was the case initially, as evil but as necessary to the child’s well-being and her survival. A similar scenario occurs in the case of children who are alienated against an absent parent. My forthcoming book about to be published and my website http://www.parental-alienation.info provides information as to why Natascha may have remained so slavishly with her captor for eight years of her young life. Why she decided finally to escape her enslavement will in due course be established. I will attempt to explain what might have occurred to finally induce her to escape. A child who has had a good relationship with the now shunned parent will state: “I don’t need my father/mother; I only need my mother/father. Such a statement is based on the brainwashing received and the power of the alienator who is indoctrinating the child to sideline the previously loving parent. In the case of the Stockholm Syndrome, we have in some ways a similar scenario. Here the two natural loving parents have been sidelined by the work of subtle or direct alienation by the perpetrator of the abduction of the young girl. At age 10, the child is helpless to resist the power of her abductor. To the question: “How does the abductor eventually become her benefactor?”, we may note the process is not so dissimilar to the brainwashing carried by the custodial parent. This is done for the double reason of: 1) Gaining the total control over the child and consequently its dependence upon them. 2) To sideline the other parent and to do all possible to prevent and/or curtail contact between the child and the absent parent/parents. The primary reason for such behaviour is the intractable hostility of the custodial parents towards one another. This reason does not exist in the case of the abductor of a child such as occurred in the case of Natascha Kambusch. Nevertheless the captor wished to totally alienate or eliminate the child’s loyalty or any feeling towards her natural parents. Due to the long period away from her parents and a total dependence for survival on her captor, Natascha’s closeness to her family gradually faded. She may even have felt that her own parents were making little or no effort to find her and rescue her. This view may also have been inculcated by her captor. Her captor’s total mastery and control over her, eventually gave her a feeling of security. She could depend on the man to look after her with food, shelter, warmth, protection and hence led to her survival. Such behaviour on the part of the captor led over time not only to “learned helplessness” and dependence, but in a sense to gratefulness. As he was the only human being in her life this was likely to happen. She therefore became a ready victim of what is commonly termed the “Stockholm Syndrome” or the victim of “Parental Alienation.” This led even to her beginning to love her captor. This view has been substantiated by the fact that Natascha found it difficult to live and feel any real closeness to her natural parents once she was rescued or once she ran away from her captor. She even pined for the loss of the captor who had since committed suicide. Even her speech had been altered from the native Austrian or Viennese dialect to the North German speech due to the fact that she only had access to the outside world via radio and television. This again, however, was carefully monitored by her captor. He controlled what she could see on television and listen to on the radio from outside her underground cell. There was little in Natascha’s present life to remind her of her past except for the dress that she wore when she was captured. While she developed physically from 10-18 years, her weight changed but little. Why did she decide eventually to leave her captor? This is a question that requires an answer. It is the view of the current author that the answer lies in the fact that she may have had a quarrel with her captor, possibly over a very minor issue. The result was her leaving her captor and then regretting doing so, especially after she heard of his death. By the time her captor, undoubtedly fearing the retribution by the law, had ended his life, she had pined for him. After eight years or living in close proximity to his victim, some form of intimacy undoubtedly occurred including a sexual one. This led to a mutual need and even dependence. It is likely that the “learned helplessness” of the victim succumbed eventually a caring, perhaps even loving relationship developing. It is also likely that the psychological explanation is that attribution, helplessness and depression in the victim for the loss of her parents quickly gave way to seeking to make the best of her situation while under the total domination of her captor. Again the same scenario occurs in the case of parental alienation where the power of the dominant custodial parent programmes the child/children to eschew or marginalise the absent parent. That absent parent no longer appears to be important and is even likely to be viewed as damaging to the child’s survival.

www.parental-alienation.info

Psychological Services.

Stop Parental Alienation of Children (SPAC)

The Problem of Parental Alienation

What Is Parental Alienation?

Parental alienation occurs any time that a parent, relative or friend speaks badly about another parent so that a child can hear what is being said. Alienating behavior may be mild, moderate or severe. All parents are likely to “lose it” and be inappropriate with their words around children, however, when there is a predominance of negative messages being communicated to a child, these messages can seriously erode the child’s psychological well-being. In severe cases of parental alienation, children are manipulated and brainwashed (programmed) into such states of confusion that their perception of events and people around them are severely distorted.

Parental alienation in its most severe form is a heinous form of child abuse and neglect. It is a dangerous manipulation of children’s minds to alter their perception of reality about another parent. The purpose of marginalizing this parent is that he or she has no means to be an effective parent or to cut that parent out of a child’s life entirely, called a parentectomy.

The Tragic Result

Severe cases of parental alienation have the characteristics of being complicated in two ways. Combative parents duel with conflicting stories of “he said / she said,” and make it very difficult to determine who is telling the truth. Brainwashed children often support the side of the offending parent with dramatic stories of how they have been abused by the target parent. As target parents argue their position, they often seem defensive even when they are telling the truth. Programmed children lose their own sense of reason and their ability to express their own choice in the matter. If the alienator is not contained, these manipulations of the child’s mind become the incubator of their own future psychological problems. These children have an altered perception of reality that is not in their best interest or in the best interest of society.

Unfortunately, in many cases, fully capable parents and their extended family and friends who love the child and would provide a nurturing and healthy family life are eliminated. Once the cutting out of a parent has occurred the child is left under the full care of the most disturbed and dysfunctional parent. These tragedies are played out in our family law courts daily.

Target parents find that normal methods of handling parental conflict such as mediation and therapy do not work. They are forced to appeal to a judge to make a decision that will enable them to continue to see their children. This is often an expensive and perilous path that rarely results in a satisfying outcome as few people, including judges, attorneys and therapists understand the nature of the problem.

For more information about Stop Parental Alienation of Children (SPAC) go to “Become Informed“.

If you are reorganizing your family there is considerable amount of help available to you. One of the first places to start is by taking a parent education course that is offered at www.breakthroughparentingonline.com.

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Parental Alienation Syndrome to be highlighted on ABC’s 20/20 | Brainwashing Children

What could given further credence to PAS would be to allow the “pig pen mummies” onto the show and spew their hatred about “abusers” and “protective” parents horsehit. And when the hosts ask them why the “abusers” have the children and not them, let see them explain about Borderline, Histrionic and Paranoid Personality Disorders, whores of the court, and why suborning children is not a crime. (Suborning is the legal way of saying you made the children lie for you, “anonymous” mummies.)

Parental Alienation Syndrome to be highlighted on ABC’s 20/20

Posted on 14. Dec, 2009 by admin in Brainwashing

ABC News’ show 20/20 will be featuring a segment this Friday, with a brief appearance by Dr. Richard Warshak, the foremost author and psychologist on parental alienation syndrome, aka “children brainwashed to hate a parent.”

From Dr. Warshak’s site,

I expect this show to have a major impact in educating the public about the suffering of children who have been turned against a parent, and about what can be done to help ease a child’s transition back to a rejected parent.

The segment will be anchored by 20/20 reporter Chris Cuomo. This topic, mental child abuse, is vastly misunderstood by parents, therapists, judges, and lawyers alike, so I’m excited that it will be in front of a national audience. Dr. Warshak is the foremost authority on parent-child alienation, so ABC did great in choosing to interview him.

The segment should air in the first hour of the 2 hour show (9-11pm EST). expect this show to have a major impact in educating the public about the suffering of children who have been turned against a parent, and about what can be done to help ease a child’s transition back to a rejected parent.

Parental Alienation Syndrome to be highlighted on ABC’s 20/20 | Brainwashing Children.

“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.”

Ex-Etiquette: My son’s mother won’t stop calling him on my time – Sacramento Living – Sacramento Food and Wine, Home, Health | Sacramento Bee

Ex-Etiquette: My son’s mother won’t stop calling him on my time

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Published: Tuesday, Dec. 8, 2009 – 5:07 am

Q. Is it OK to put a limit of one 10-minute phone call on my 11-year-old son to his mother on my every other weekend visits? They call each other morning, noon, and night and stay on the phone for 20-60 minutes each time. When he gets off the phone with her his mood has soured.

A. Sometimes in situations like this, a parent will say it’s because their child has told them they hate going to visit the other parent, so they’re trying to make it easier by reminding him or her the time away will be over soon. In other cases, the parent is afraid their child will forget them or like it more with the other parent – so they call to remind the child how much they’re loved, often talking about what the child left behind when he or she is away with comments like, “Don’t worry, I fed your puppy,” or, even more underhandedly, “Your puppy misses you when you are gone!” In yet other cases, constant phone calls are simply a tool to alienate the child from the other parent. Parents who use this tact must understand the lasting psychological impact this behavior has on their child. For more information, type in Parental Alienation Syndrome, in the Bonus Families Web site search engine.

While each case should be examined individually, it’s not uncommon for a child to tell an anxious parent exactly what he or she thinks the parent wants to hear – even if it’s untrue. “I hate going to Dad’s! It’s boring” even if the truth is that Dad just bought him a new X-box and he’s dying to get over there. That’s when the parents end up in a counselor’s office looking for a custody change because they think they are doing exactly what their child wants. In actuality, neither knows the truth.

To eliminate this issue, phone calls should be limited to one a day – a “Hi ya son, good to hear your voice” phone call is all that’s needed. Also, the parents must improve their communication with each other. The more the parents talk directly to each other, the less room there is for the child to interpret by himself. Help him to cope by supporting the other parent’s visitation. It is in his best interest.

(East Jann Blackstone-Ford, Ph.D., and her husband’s ex-wife, Sharyl Jupe, authors of “Ex-Etiquette for Parents,” are the founders of Bonus Families (www.bonusfamilies.com). Reach them at ee@bonusfamilies.com.)

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Ex-Etiquette: My son’s mother won’t stop calling him on my time – Sacramento Living – Sacramento Food and Wine, Home, Health | Sacramento Bee.

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.

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.

We don’t ever see Daddy any more – Stories of children from broken homes | The Sun |Features

We don’t ever see Daddy any more

Families torn apart … the stories behind the divorces

MyView

By DEIDRE SANDERS

Sun Agony Aunt

WHEN parents are breaking up, the tragedy is that they are often so caught up in their own anger, hurt and turmoil that they have little attention to spare for their children.

Fighting over the home and maybe furious their partner has found a new love, they lash out, little realising that children can’t help identifying with both parents, wanting to love and be loved by them both equally.

Using kids as pawns in the battle is setting them up for long-term emotional damage.

Even if parents cannot live lovingly together, they owe it to their children to remember they can never have another mum or dad.

Unless contact with one parent is going to be dangerous because of violence, drugs, alcohol or mental health problems, both should make every effort to ensure it’s easy and comfortable for the kids to be with them both regularly, even if it means swallowing your rage while you negotiate contact arrangements.

Because this is such a common problem, I have written a special Kids In The Middle guide for separating parents and children on how to handle the hurdles.

Call 0845 602 2290 or go to http://tiny.cc/FGF9j for a free copy.

THOUSANDS of British kids never see their dad again once their parents break up, a shocking new survey has revealed.

More than one in three youngsters – 38 per cent – go without having their father around after their parents split, and nearly one in ten are so traumatised they consider SUICIDE.

The findings, by a leading law firm, also discovered children are being caught in bitter custody battles, and many later turn to drink and drugs.

Sandra Davis, head of family law firm Mishcon de Reya, which surveyed 4,000 people, said: “This research shows that, despite their best intentions, parents are often using their children as emotional footballs.”

Here NIKKI WATKINS, NICK FRANCIS and JENNA SLOAN speak to four people who have been affected by divorce.

We hear from a mum whose husband left for Australia, a man who tracked down his long-lost dad and two fathers who haven’t seen their kids in years.

 

---

 

Richard

RICHARD separated from his long-term partner in May 1998, after six years.

The 43-year-old, from Carshalton, Surrey, who is on sick leave from his job as a train-driving instructor, has not seen his 15-year-old daughter for more than eight years, despite suffering with leukaemia.

His ex-partner moved 600 miles away, which makes visiting impossible as his leukaemia treatment is carried out in his home town.

Richard says: “We came to an understanding about contact times that worked out initially.

“Then my ex started mucking about with it. I said, ‘we need to sort this out’, as I didn’t want to go down the route of court because it is expensive and pits parent against parent.

“It becomes a battle of parents rather than what is right for the child.

“The advice I got at the time was to avoid the court system.

“I said that it was in our daughter’s best interests to continue seeing me.”

Richard eventually ended up seeking the advice of a solicitor.

He says: “The day before we were due for a directions hearing my ex phoned me and asked me what I wanted. I said the same as before and she said, ‘that is fine’.

But the situation changed when Richard’s ex got engaged and moved to Scotland.

Richard says: “I got a letter from her solicitor saying the contact schedule wouldn’t work.”

He has since been diagnosed with leukaemia and when faced with chemotherapy told doctors not to worry about his fertility, as he was too traumatised to have more children.

He wrote to his ex and daughter to explain about his illness, but says he got no response.

Richard says: “I don’t get anything back – I haven’t in eight years. I just want an acknowledgement to say my daughter is aware of what has happened and sends her love. It’s an awful situation.

“I know they get to the address because everything is recorded delivery, the birthday presents and Easter eggs.

“I had to have counselling about losing my daughter. It has affected me in a big, big way.

“Children have a right to know both parents.”

 

---

 

Melanie Crow

MELANIE divorced her husband of 13 years after he left her and their two sons without warning.

When Melanie, 33, came home one day to find hubby Trevor leaving, she thought for a moment that he was going to the shops – before realising he meant he was going for good.

Husband left for Australia … Melanie Crow

North News

He left for a new life in Australia, since then having no contact with sons Oliver, then 3, and Joshua, then 8.

Melanie, a photographer from Durham, says: “Trevor left on March 8, 2008. I wasn’t aware of any real problems in our marriage, just the usual bickering. I came home from work and he said he was leaving.

“My oldest boy Joshua, who is now ten, has a lot of issues and has to see a counsellor.

“Because he was there when his dad was packing his things in the car, he blames himself for his dad leaving.

“My other son, Ollie, who’s five, was only three when his dad left so I think he has got off a bit lighter.

“They are both very clingy, though. I con-stantly have to reassure them.

“I’m worried about how it’s going to affect Ollie in the future. I also worry about my boys because there isn’t a male role model in the house.

“Trevor has my numbers and can get in touch with the boys if he wants, he just chooses not to.

“He took me to court this year to try and get access.

“We came to an agreement that he could come and see them over the summer but just one week before he was due, he cancelled.

“After spending thousands of pounds on a court case in this country, despite not having paid any money for the boys, he goes and disappoints them like that.

“If Trevor is the kind of man who can do this to his family then he’s not the sort of person I want around my kids.”

 

---

 

James Taylor

JAMES TAYLOR tracked down his long-lost dad, James Dennis, 52, through the internet after his parents divorced.

James 33, a mortgage adviser from Glasgow. says: “My mum and dad married when they were 17 and 18, which was very young.

“My dad, who was a welder, moved to Reading to find work and initially my mum went with him. But things didn’t work out and my mum came back to Scotland.

“My parents ended up divorcing and lost contact. I think it was a combination of the pressure on them, as they were so young, and the distance between them.

“I was their only child, and I saw my dad once when I was about seven, but that was it. It didn’t really occur to me to ask about him.

“All I’d ever known was my mum, Brenda, who remarried. But when I went to secondary school I began to wonder why I didn’t have a dad like the other kids did.

“When I was 17 my mum passed away due to complications in childbirth. It really made me think about things and start to question who my family was.

“I have four step-daughters with my wife Georgina and we have a boy Joshua, who is seven. I also have two step-granddaughters.

“Having my own children did make me think even more about getting in touch with my dad. My wife was very supportive but I was worried about finding Dad. What if he didn’t like me?

“In 2006 I logged on to the Genes Reunited website and typed in my father’s name. I hadn’t seen him for 23 years. One match came up that turned out to be my aunt, I was delighted when I got an email from her.

“She passed my contact details on to my dad and we arranged to meet.

“Going to meet him for the first time was very emotional. I’d only seen him in his old wedding picture, with long hair in the 1970s, so I didn’t recognise him straight away.

“But when it finally dawned on me that this was my dad I was thrilled. We have some of the same characteristics – our eyes are similar – and we have similar mannerisms too.

“And I have a half-brother and half-sister that I’d never met, along with aunties, uncles and cousins. I’m so glad I logged on to that website.”

 

---

 

Paul

DAD Paul is a full-time carer for his elderly father.

He split with his wife of 25 years and lost contact with his son, then aged seven, 12 years ago.

Lost contact with son … Paul

Paul, 57, from Hampshire, is still coming to terms with his loss. He says: “My wife decided that she wanted the relationship to finish and we divorced.

“Very quickly it became difficult to have contact with my son.

“You get cursory visits once every two weeks. It was difficult right from the beginning, but I saw him for about a year, every other weekend. That isn’t sufficient for a relationship.”

Paul went to court to try tomaintain the contact but thesituation deteriorated.

He says: “If one parent is trying hard to stop contact, the court doesn’t really do anything to enforce contact with the absent parent.”

That is why Paul finds the new statistics about so many children not seeing their fathers unsurprising.

He says: “I wrote many articles and did some charity work for a time for all of the charity groups who were trying to get the system changed.

“I did it because there are probably about a million kids out there who have not got what you could call a decent family.

“If you include the extended family then the number of people involved is just colossal. The figure of 38 per cent doesn’t surprise me at all. It almost destroys you. You miss everything.

“I don’t even know categorically if my son is alive – simple as that.

“I took it all the way to the highest court and that got me experienced in the legal system.

“So I was advising other people how to keep the cost down and how to do it themselves.

“I have moved on now – it took me several years to get to that stage and it was a very desperate state. I have been divorced 12 years now and I fought for five years in the courts. My life could always be better.

“More than anything I would want my son to know that I care and that I am still caring.”

Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/2733162/Stories-of-children-from-broken-homes.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=Features#ixzz0XpR5caRE

Stories of children from broken homes | The Sun |Features.

Parental Alienation Syndrome – PasKids.com

PasKids.com Parental Alienation Syndrome.

› Forum Home Parental Alienation Articles Resources

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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.

Austrailian Women Set Up WebSite to Promote More False Allegations in Family Court

After carefully going through this website, I saw this was not about fairness in family court and protecting children’s right to have both parents in their lives.  Australian mums are not into co-parenting.

They believe they own their children and will stop at nothing to steal children.

This website is almost as disgusting as StopFamilyViolence.Org, another waste of tax dollars.

Nope, this is a full out effort to show women, how to lie cheat and steal children through allegations of domestic violence.  They even went so far as to bring out women in bandages and bruises.

The point of this website is to make it appear that the only reason for divorce is because of domestic violence.  We all know this is more of the same nonsense that goes on here in the U.S.

What a load of crock.  Australian mummies.  Guess which one is Annabelle?  She is the one that looks like a pig!

 

22 June 2009 – Canberra – Bandage Parade Protest at Parliament House makes an impact

Concerned parents and professionals gathered in Canberra on Monday June 22, 2009, to protest current family laws.

Sprawling across the lawns of Parliament House, wrapped in bloodied bandages, arm slings seated in wheelchairs, some pushing injured dolls in strollers, the shock-value message was loud and clear – children are suffering at the hands of abusive parents, due to the Family Law Act…more

Family Court Youtube Campaign

Childrens Stories	Australian Journalists	National Professionals	Parents Stories – VIC	Parents Stories – SA
Parents Stories – NSW	Parents Stories – WA	Parents Stories – QLD	Childrens Drawings

Safer Family Law | Home.

Parental Due Process Act

November 21, 4:36 PMSan Diego Courts ExaminerGregory Smart

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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.