Posted by: "Stan Rains" patriotdad2004@yahoo.com patriotdad2004
Mon May 10, 2010 1:40 pm (PDT)
Mike McCormick of ACFC at www.acfc.org needs verifiable stories of false allegations, false arrests, etc. as he and a coalition of several other groups and individuals work to offset the input from the various advocacy groups growing fat on VAWA funds.
Here is Mike's request below:
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Dear Reader
Here's a roundup of recent events and news relating to shared parenting.
VAWA Reauthorization Hearings Reveal Robust Support
Members of the U.S. Senate judiciary committee batted around the question of whether recessions increase domestic violence while discussing the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The tenor of Senators’ questions and answers from witnesses -- most of them employees of the domestic violence industry -- suggested the primary questions were about how much and in what way to expand the act while reauthorizing.
The May 5 hearing was titled “The Increased Importance of the Violence Against Women Act in a Time of Economic Crisis.” Witnesses said certain features of the recent recession suggest it might be worse than prior downturns, which were not found to increase in domestic violence. However they presented little evidence supporting the idea that the recession has actually increased violence against women.
Witnesses included Susan Carbon, a former family court judge President Obama appointed last fall to direct the federal Office on Violence Against Women. Carbon noted that her office had distributed more than $4 billion in grants under VAWA since 1996, and stressed the need to improve financial support of domestic violence victims. In response to a question about how the law could be improved, she said she’d like to increase efforts to prevent violence as well as provide services to victims. She also requested expanded services for sexual assault.
Other witnesses included Auburn Watersong, from the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, Lolita Ulloa from the victim services division of the Hennepin County Attorney's Office in Minneapolis, and Richard Gelles, a domestic violence researcher and dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice.
ACFC's Executive Director Michael McCormick attended the hearing and Thursday joined with 20 other individuals in an effort organized by SAVE to talk with members of Congress about concerns with VAWA.
Dr. Richard Gelles of the University of Pennsylvania made this observation about the family courts during the hearing: "Family Courts are at the epicenter of junk science." A growing number of researchers are expressing concern about the effect of ideology and advocacy on policy. We support efforts aimed at incorporating empirically supported practices and solid social science research into statute development.
You can learn more about the hearing, including watching a webcast of the event, at the judiciary committee website here.
As the VAWA reauthorization gets underway please send us your stories of fales allegations to gain advantage in custody situations, or instances where you may have been falsely arrested or had a false restraining order issued. Send your story (be brief and include the state and county involved) to info@acfc.org.
Child Support Office’s Puzzling Endorsement
The Texas Shared Parenting Project is getting “rave reviews,” according to the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement, despite an evaluation that indicated the federally funded project did little more than indicate that its approach was largely ineffective.
An article the OCSE’s January newsletter offered the endorsement and described the parenting project’s methodology. It consisted of showing a group of volunteer parents a 15-minute video on parental conflict’s negative effects on children, followed by a 45-minute facilitated session on co-parenting and visitation. According to the article, the project generated more parental agreement, faster disposition of child support and medical support issues and, in one instance, a significant increase in support payment rates.
That’s a rather loose interpretation of what was actually said in an evaluation prepared for the Texas Attorney General by the Center For Policy Research in Denver. That report noted that the pilot project was intended “to educate and assist parents with access and visitation problems, in order to decrease the number of cases sent to court and increase parent-child contact and regular payment of child support.” In general, however, it found that any improvements in these areas compared to a control group of parents that didn’t go through the program were either insignificant, inconsistent or possibly due to other factors.
On the specific issue of shared parenting, the evaluation found “no significant differences between experimental and comparison cases with respect to amounts of parent-child contact either prior to or following the scheduled meeting with the CSO.” In other words, kids spent about the same amount of time with their parents after the program.
It’s probably incorrect to denounce the project as a total failure. If nothing else, it suggested that such brief video and face-to-face education and counseling sessions weren’t that effective. And there were some promising results. For instance, standard parenting orders were established in 85 percent of the cases that went through the program, up from 70 percent in the control group. And, to be sure, child support workers did enthusiastically endorse the project, according to the report.
Still, if this inconclusive project funded under the federal Access and Visitation grants program is worthy of a rave, it would be interesting to see one judged a failure.
Read the OCSE report on the Texas Shared Parenting Project here.
While the Senate debates VAWA funding issues, the question of funding ACFC comes to a simple question: Will you or won’t you? We rely on donations from members and others to support our mission of education on the importance of children having two actively involved fit parents. Please visit our website or click this link and donate today. Thank you.
ACFC
Darrick Scott-Farnsworth
Executive Director www.AChildsRight.net www.daddyblogger.com
Cell 269 209-7144 or Nextel DC ID 130*112*19287
True Conservative: Pro-Life, Liberty and Property
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