The Foundation for the Child Victims of the Family Courts works hard to help you in your time of need. No matter what stage of conflict you are in, we are here to provide you with the help, guidance, and support to understand the challenges of your case and to function within the system.
How Does the Process Start?
The Foundation, now in its tenth year of service, protects parents and vulnerable children all over the US. The Foundation aggressively confronts and seeks to remedy violations of a parent’s or child’s due process violations, access to the Court, and issues of professional malpractice.
The process begins with a confidential phone call to our office at 866-553-6931. After learning about your situation and understanding the big picture, we then formulate a comprehensive strategy. Cases receive analytical evaluation and ongoing therapeutic intervention with support for the client (s).
Our services are extremely labor intensive beginning with court document review. Document review consists of but is not limited to, the court record, beginning with the initial Petition, Motions, Orders and transcripts. We ask our clients to make time for detailed personal histories case timelines, the compilation of information on witnesses and other collateral contacts. Based on an initial assessment, with a contribution by a variety of experts, we formulate an intervention plan, review our recommendations with the client, and prepare to move forward.
We Go Above and Beyond For Our Clients
The Foundation goes beyond normally expected forensic and legal services, as we deal with the following issues on a regular basis:
Reversal of wrongful transfer of children and custody from the hands of the Protective Parent to the hands of the Abuser
These cases most often revolve around issues of extreme psychopathology or criminal behavior such as sexual and psychological abuse. Identifying factual information entwined with mental health and psychodynamic material always requires careful ethical expert witness testimony and a nuanced understanding of the multiple issues in play.
Addressing child sexual and emotional abuse
The Foundation has seen a history of child abuse very poorly addressed by the Family Courts. Children are not only silenced, or allowed a voice in their own story or their own fate, but are often maligned and discredited by authorities during custody proceedings. The truth of children is often suppressed by those who may have an equity position in the outcome of the case in clear violation of their safety, privacy, and civil rights.
In Family Court, we all too often find that children have no voice and no rights. In such cases, we refer to them as “prisoners of the court”.
Our experience has indicated that judges, lawyers, and other court officials routinely do not understand the nuances of psychoanalytic/psychodynamic analysis or psychotherapeutic intervention as a treatment modality. Courts tend to deal with therapeutic intervention as an “arm of the court process,” either for developing proof/evidence of abuse, or correcting the “thinking” of Protective Parents and children whose complaints of abuse and heinous crimes were found by the court to be “unfounded.” The court’s directives in these situations is to order the “losing party” to find a new therapist, approved by the court, to correct the client’s thinking. The Foundation does not support adherence to this form of surrender to wrongful judicial orders.
Cases hinge on the legal model of logic – logic that can argue both sides of a dispute as a legalistic maneuver which decides right and wrong/guilty and innocent. Guilt and innocence, even under conditions of indisputable physical evidence of abuse, can be argued in such a manner as to raise doubt as to the identity of the abuser, thus failing to protect the subject child. Courts have been notoriously resistant to admitting child testimony, even in the form of in camera interviews with judges. This complex of issues presents unique challenges to defending protective parents and children presenting abuse charges in the context of custody litigation.
Sexual and psychological abuse are often physically untraceable. Subjects may hide/deny symptoms of harm. The process of engaging subjects in disclosure and articulation of harm requiring the subtle investigation of experts, and the articulation of their professional findings to inquiring judges, which is what the Foundation strives to do.
Addressing Parental Alienation
Parental Alienation (PA) is an extremely complex and multi-dimensional concept. The central theme is often the alienation of a child/children from the love and loyalty of one parent to the exclusive attachment to the other parent. A central theme of Parental Alienation is intense hostility, without reason, on the part of the child toward the parent who has seduced/compelled the child into favor. The elements that compose the dynamic of PA tend to involve highly complex psychological mechanisms of nuance and duality, issues not well understood or well regarded by the Court’s tendency to a right/wrong, innocent/guilty paradigm.
The Foundation is deeply concerned with issues resulting from antiquated state and Federal public policies which determine custody and child welfare practices. As we know from direct experience, and as widely reported in the media, the system of “Child Protective Services” is a mass bureaucracy staffed with poorly educated, poorly supervised personnel driven by the power of the authority they possess.
“Child Protective Services” otherwise known as CPS is a massive bureaucratic state agency that wields enormous power under statutory authority of immunity from prosecution. The Attorney General’s Office is the legal arm of authority prosecuting parents. The caseworker staff tends to lack skills or methodology for understanding complex personality dynamics. The inability to differentiate sociopathic and psychopathic personality constellations presented by the most dangerous of the child abusers responsible for crimes perpetrated by the population for which CPS caseworkers are responsible makes it more likely that the abuser will become the preferred parent in the estimation of the first responder to a scene of abuse.
Dealing with government/administrative agencies is a major focus of engagement, strategy, and study. The Foundation focuses not only on issues related to individual cases, but the analysis, critique, and intervention that applies to agency oversight and public policy.
Assisting Disenfranchised Parents
The Foundation is frequently contacted by people who need assistance, but who have not engaged our services. Some have “given up,” having been defeated at some point in the litigation process because of failure of funding, energy, humiliation, guilt, or fear. Many of these contacts remain in touch with us for years and we continue to hear their thoughts and feelings unfold, learn from them and write about them.
Some contacts are parents whose children have been seized by the Courts and transferred to the children’s abuser. These parents have either had their rights terminated by the courts, sanctions or exist with limited visitation orders. Coerced consent orders are sometimes filed, where improper communications through lawyers/judges inform the parent that unless some contingency is completed, that parent will never see their child again. These matters are very much front and center of the knowledge and arsenal of tactics and techniques with which the Foundation challenges the Courts. The Foundation was created to amplify these issues in the public forum, to bring them to public and professional consciousness, hence the focus on Foundation ‘think tank” conferences and legal and mental health workshops.
Giving Voice to the Voiceless
The Foundation has, over the years, written about those who fear to fight the Family Courts. We write about our clients, under aliases and strict confidentiality, and about people who have chosen not to work with us, who feel defeated by a judicial system that was created to defend them, but which has failed them. The Foundation plans to create an FCVFC Press to write about topics that we have been unable to publish because the topics are considered too controversial for mainstream publishers.
Some of our articles are already published on various websites and online press. Our desire is to greatly expand our publishing work and speaking engagements and to engage in public policy creation to create a more responsive and caring Family Court system.
Fighting Retaliation against “Whistleblowers”:
As The Foundation has been thrust into the role of “public crusader” in relation to the Family Court and child care system, we have become interested in protecting “whistleblowers” who assist other vulnerable populations. Government agencies, with their endless resources, viciously pursue those who speak on the part of vulnerable populations, especially vulnerable populations that are battling against formidable entities. Neither the Courts nor government entities take kindly to whistleblowers jeopardizing enormous source of funding and financial opportunities. The Foundation finds itself in the unenviable position of having clients desire our services, but at the same time fearing the tactics used by adversarial agencies and Courts, and hostile family members.
The Foundation is fearless in exposing situations of possible corruption and fraud when the client’s or their child’s reputation is at stake, especially when one of our clients is the subject of libel, defamation, and fraud. The tools the Foundation uses to deal with judicial malfeasance rests upon shedding air and light onto the malefactor, aggressive legal action, expert witness testimony, investigation of the source of corruption and publication of the machinations of such acts.
Forensic Consultation
The focus of Forensic Consultation is the review and evaluation, analysis, and scrutiny of evidence that appears in a court case: evidence validity, flaws in evidence, evidence not provided, fraudulent evidence, evidence critique, evidence that needs to be provided to support the client’s case.
Forensic Consultation takes place in the context of the entire court case, as we deal with the analysis of your case and plan strategy to win custody and regain your legal rights!
Forensic Advocacy
The focus of Forensic Advocacy is the ability to analyze complex material and integrate such material in the litigation rhetoric. Capturing and translating our client’s in-depth knowledge understanding of their case with our understanding of Court dynamics creates a complete, thorough case litigation narrative.
There are multiple dimensions of advocacy which extend beyond supporting the client in the immediate courtroom process. Services that are provided include, but are not limited to:
- Intervention with social service
- Government & private agencies
- Physicians
- Mental health professional
ABUSE OF DUE PROCESS/ FAILURE OF EQUAL ACCESS TO THE COURTS
Evidence-based case evaluation is a tool in the exposure of Judicial/Legal Fraud, Corruption, Malfeasance, Abuse of Power, Abuse of Due Process Rights if any. The Foundation stands against Legal/Judicial intimidation of court litigants, and in support of those professionals who fight for children and families by reporting the suppression of evidence which indicated the presence of sexual abuse, domestic violence, physical abuse of children by the abusive party.
The ability of the Court and it’s labyrinth of connecting governmental institutions provides the basis for the disenfranchisement of numerous professionals, including numerous lawyers, psychologists, social workers, and all levels of mental health and medical professionals who defend and advocate for their clients. Professionals who are thus attacked are rendered impotent by the Courts to protect their clients.
The chilling effect of attacks against professionals who speak out on controversial issues is that future professionals are reluctant or overtly unwilling to confront controversial issues, preserving the veil of secrecy and culture of corruption that currently exists.
The lack of public awareness and the alienation of the public against whistleblowers who support the public welfare is an issue to be defined by The Foundation.
VIOLATION OF DUE PROCESS AND EQUAL ACCESS TO THE COURTS
Judicial and legal fraud and malfeasance exist in courts across the country. The damage caused by these institutions to families and children is devastating. Numerous people know of the problem; few are willing to step up to the task of dealing with the problems, even those who possess evidence within their own cases. Families who do not deal with these issues, where they exist, in their own court cases for fear of retaliation expected, face devastation as a result of their own fear, denial, and apathy. Corruption is empowered and further institutionalized through denial and apathy when litigants fail to confront such issues where they are known to exist.
Identifying and confronting the above issues is a large part of the work of each case accepted by The Foundation as is restoring our client’s reputation and credibility within the community.
The Foundation praises the work of the many honest, ethical, hard-working members of the legal/judicial/law enforcement community, whose work, efforts and reputation are impaired by the existence of fraud and abuse of power.
Filing Complaints
The Foundation for the Child Victims of the Family Courts is committed to filing complaints against court officials, expert witness providers to the courts and all court actors who violate their fiduciary responsibility to their clients.
We publish those complaints as part of writing that elucidates the core issues of concern to the Foundation and that benefits the client.
We want the public to be aware that writing a general complaint about a provider is not adequate. That complaint must be forwarded to the licensing board that supports this providers’ services to the courts and the client litigant.
THE PROCESS OF CLIENT ENGAGEMENT
The importance of understanding our process and ability to be an active participant in your case is critical to the success of each client’s situation.
The Consultation will review basic issues of your situation re legal status – what state, what court, when did litigation begin, presenting problem. If you have an attorney, what is your current relationship with your attorney? If you do not have an attorney, what is your plan for how you wish to proceed in defending your case?
If the consult evolves into a mutual agreement between the Client and the FCVFC for the process to move forward, we will present the client with a Preliminary Memorandum of Understanding that addresses moving forward with the Evaluation and formation of an Intervention plan. Payment for the Evaluation is expected prior to beginning court document review.
The Evaluation process begins with a member of the team reviewing initial intake material and documents, then gathering other relevant team members for engagement in review preparation and intervention planning, At all phases of case review, the client is kept aware of the schedule of work and needs to be available to answer questions as well as to approve court filings or other types of actions initiated to assist with your case.
Beyond the initial Evaluation, long-term planning and intervention is assessed. The client has the opportunity of moving forward at this point of case status discussion.
Let’s Work Together
There are many ways that we can fight for your rights and protections but we can’t do without you taking the all-important first step.
Contact Us Today
Speak with us by calling us at 866-553-6931 to schedule a consultation. You can also email us at info@fcvfc.org or write to us through the contact form here.
