In Ireland ~ Children are the losers when parents go to court to battle

Its comforting to see someone familiar with Irish Family Law, which treats dads in a manner similar to Canada (talk about world pandemics) make a suggestion about compulsory courses on shared parenting and I would also add counselling prior to litigation. It is one of many reforms required in Famil Law in many countries to firstly try and save marriages and secondly to get agreement before hiring a greedy Lawyer who tend to raise the stakes and the resulting adversity. They are "hired guns" not mediators and want to obtain the best deal for their clients and their egos. Dr. Jayne Major has a comprehensive reform package elsewhere in this blog.MJM

Author and psychotherapist John Sharry: he has never seen court action useful in creating shared parenting.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

SHEILA WAYMAN

THE ADVERSARIAL legal system is no use at all in reaching the best solution for children when their parents separate, according to psycho- therapist and author John Sharry.

Judges, caught between two angry parents, think they can become little heroes and sort it out for the children, he says, “but the heroic thing to do would be to try to get the parents to sort it out”.

He believes the courts should make a course on shared parenting mandatory for parents before hearing disputes over custody and access. That would help to impress on parents the need for co-operation for the sake of the children.

Shared parenting, through which children have access to quality contact and care from both parents, has been proven to be the best outcome in most family break-ups, he argues.

The rate of marriage breakdown is on the rise in the Republic, with 6,222 separations and divorces in 2008, an increase of 15.6 per cent from 2001. Parental separation is second only to the death of a parent in the amount of stress it causes children.

“The single biggest factor in whether children will do well is the level of hostility between their parents,” says Sharry, co-author of a new edition of When Parents Separate: Helping Your Children Cope, published by Veritas. “If that is reduced and the parents can co-operate in the best interests of their children, then all the damage is mitigated.”

Working in the Mater Child and Adolescent Mental Health service in Dublin, Sharry says the fallout from parental separation is a significant issue in children’s mental health.

“At the end they usually only have one active parent, who is compromised. Everyone is in a worse situation.”

It does not have to be like that, he stresses, but shared parenting is challenging. He advises parents that going to court only increases the difficulties.

“When you fight your ex-partner over the children, everybody loses. A lot of money is spent and you can aggravate the difficulties for you and your children.”

He has worked with families who have made huge progress in drawing up a mediated agreement. “But when they go to solicitors, their differences are aggravated, their tensions are aggravated and then they all have a go in court.”

He has never seen court action useful in creating shared parenting. “If you impose a judgment, it is always second best to an agreement.”

He acknowledges that if there are power differences, for example where one parent is not letting the other see a child at all, the court can help to rebalance that, but it should then tell the parents to sort the arrangements. He also welcomes the increase in the use of collaborative law outside the court system to help parents reach agreement.

It is often not feasible for two former partners to live separately but nearby, particularly in the current economic climate. If they have to remain under the one roof, some do find ways to make it work for the children.

Sharry worked with one family where the father had moved into a separate part of the house. “It wasn’t great, but I think their children preferred that. The problem is if the partners want new partners, which they tend to do.”

There is an onus on parents to stay close after a break-up, Sharry explains. “Your desire might be to go to a new country and get away from the past. But if you are bringing children with you, you are really depriving them. Children are for life – it means you have a commitment to the place you have them,” he adds. “There are no easy outs.”

A new edition of When Parents Separate: Helping Your Children Cope , written by John Sharry and Eugene Donohoe, is published by Veritas, €8.

A talk of the same title will be given by John Sharry next Tuesday, November 3rd, in Donnycarney Community Centre, Dublin, 8pm-9.30pm, admission €20. To book, or for more information, see www.solutiontalk.ie or tel: 086-7340114.

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/health/2009/1027/1224257487235.html

The Feminists and Political Panderers are at it again ~ Stronger Protection For Women And Children

More pandering by the left to the feminists. It does not matter that DV is pretty much equal between genders, that the most dangerous place for a child is in the care of a single mom, that in some studies it shows females initiating DV in 70% of the cases, in more recent studies it shows females will suffer fewer injuries if they do not initiate the abuse, and there are no DV shelters for men even though they are seriously injured in a third of cases. The legislation is blatantly and prejudicially aimed at men but read further below over its origins. Restraining orders only work for honest people. If someone truly wants to harm their partner no piece of paper will stop them. Its like a padlock that will only keep honest people out. How many criminals will it keep out?

The genesis of the legislation was the death of Katelyn Sampson, a small innocent girl at the hands of a drug addicted female hooker, who was her guardian approved by Bentley's court system, and her Mother who gave her over to the addict was also hooked on drugs. They were recipients of the largess of Ontario taxpayers.

This kind of legislation is designed to pander to the DV Industry and the ideologues who work in academia, the Status Of Women offices and the AG's department.MJM


October 26, 2009 1:45 PM

McGuinty Government Reforms Family Justice For Ontarians

Restraining orders in Ontario have been strengthened to improve the security of those suffering from domestic violence, most of whom are women and children.

A breach of a restraining order made under the new provisions will now be prosecuted as a criminal offence. This increases the protections available to victims of domestic violence. For example, if a person is charged with breaching a restraining order and is likely to re-offend if released, a judge or justice of the peace can now detain this person until the trial.

This part of Ontario's family law reform legislation came into force on October 15, 2009. The legislation also expanded protections to allow partners who live together in a relationship for less than three years to apply for restraining orders.

QUICK FACTS

• A new evidentiary test sets out considerations for judges when granting restraining orders.
• The judiciary now has clear authority to order specific terms in restraining orders, to better protect victims of domestic violence and their children.

http://www.news.ontario.ca/mag/en/2009/10/stronger-protection-for-women-and-children.html

"These changes will mean victims of domestic violence will have increased protections in what is often their time of greatest need. More Ontarians will now have access to restraining orders, helping them to keep themselves and their children safe from harm."

– Chris Bentley
Attorney General

---

"Ontario's new family law reforms will offer more protection to women who are being abused and provide better opportunities for them to build brighter futures for themselves and their children. This is an important step in moving forward on our government's agenda to help women and children live free from fear of domestic violence."

– Laurel Broten
Minister Responsible for Women's Issues

LEARN MORE

• Read the legislation.
• Find out more about additional support for vulnerable Ontarians who come before family courts, through a new investment of $150 million over four years in Legal Aid Ontario.
• Learn how to make an application for a restraining order, by reading the ministry's new self-help guide.

CONTACTS

• Brendan Crawley
  Communications Branch
  (416) 326-2210
  

• Erin Moroz
  Minister's Office
  (416) 326-1785
  

Ministry of the Attorney General
ontario.ca/attorneygeneral

THE BEST Put Down LINE EVER? Major General Peter Cosgrove is an 'Australian treasure!'

This story is priceless and aroused a strong urge within me to have a verbal duel with a feminist. On a Monday morning no less. Unfortunately it is a hoax but a damn good one. http://www.snopes.com/military/reinwald.aspMJM


General Cosgrove was interviewed on the radio recently.

Read his reply to the lady who interviewed him concerning guns and children. Regardless of how you feel about gun laws you've got to love this!

This is one of the bes,t comeback lines of all time. It is a portion of an ABC radio interview between a female broadcaster and General Cosgrove who was about to sponsor a Boy Scout Troop visiting his military Headquarters.


FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
So, General Cosgrove, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?

GENERAL COSGROVE:
We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery and shooting.


FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
Shooting! That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?

GENERAL COSGROVE:
I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range.


FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?

GENERAL COSGROVE:
I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.


FEMALE INTERVIEWER:
But you're equipping them to become violent killers.

GENERAL COSGROVE:
Well, Ma'am, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you?

The radio cast went silent for 46 seconds and when it returned, the interview was over.

Caroline Overington in OZ out does herself ~ Replace shared care with Canada model

My letter to the editor of the Paper:

from	Mike Murphy
sender time		Sent at 17:43 (GMT-04:00). Current time there: 18:02. ✆
to		letters@theaustralian.com.au
cc		online@theaustralian.com.au
date		25 October 2009 17:43
subject		Caroline Overington "Replace shared care with Canada model"

My Dear Editor:

Re: Caroline Overington "Replace shared care with Canada model", October 29, 2009 http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,26259132-17044,00.html

I have followed Ms. Overington's feminist rants over the years and always wondered why there was no counter balancing to these views which are often factually incorrect. There is no exception with this article. I also find it interesting she gets her facts wrong from the Australian women's movement frequently but now dares venture to the top of the world and quotes from feminist lawyers reports which are famous for their lack of veracity and use of mendacity.

There is no difference in feminist discourse it appears no matter its national source. The information used is to promote feminist privilege and maternalist superiority often through the use of cherry picked statistics or pure fiction.

In Canada judges order maternal custody in over 90% of cases. They offer breadcrumbs to dads through the use of a legal fiction called joint custody but physical custody goes to mom who rules. Possession is not just 9/10ths of the law it is the whole of the law. Is this the model Australia aspires to by going backwards. Why doesn't Overington discus the Danish, Dutch, Belgian or French model? Perhaps even the German Cochem example? All are representative of shared parenting in practice and working for children and parents alike.

A few observations on her lack of sources and citation. "THE Rudd government has been urged to replace shared parenting laws with a model similar to that of Canada..." Urged by whom?

"The Australian understands that the Canadian model has been put to Attorney-General Robert McClelland..." Put to the AG by whom - a feminist lawyer group with less than 50 members in a country of 31 million? She quotes not just herself as "understanding" but your newspaper.

"Unlike the Australian family law regime, Canada does not require a court to presume that the best interests of the child are met by shared parenting" ..."It is unlikely that a breastfeeding baby would be placed in a shared care arrangement, as happens in Australia under the shared parenting law;" There is no shared parenting law in Canada, as yet, but bill C-422 is on the Parliamentary order table. If no shared parenting then the court presumes the status quo of maternal care which was the status quo in Australia prior to 2006.

Overington is using the non-existence of a shared parenting regime in Canada to propose Australia, in effect, go back to the status quo. Interesting circular logic. We call that a Non sequitur in most English speaking countries and indeed others.

"Canadian states and territories spell out some of the tests for the "best interests" principle." Overington needs to do more research on the socio-political and geographic nature of Canada. We have no states but we do have 3 territories on top of the world, one of which lays claim to the North Pole housing a magical figure called Santa Claus. Some of Overington's statements and conclusions are just as magical perhaps even mythological.

The Canadian Divorce Act, and most Provincially related Family legislation, is gender neutral but yet judges still award maternal custody in a 9-1 ratio to moms. I would suggest our judges need direction, as did yours, in balancing the gender difference. Our research by experts like Professor Edward Kruk, at the University Of British Columbia (the latter a Province) shows parents need a minimal 40% contact rate to maintain a parental bond. He also describes numerous negative social outcomes for children in sole care homes.

Can I recommend you hire a male reporter to help balance your reporting and opinion columns by feminists. It might make those like Overington actually do real research.

Mike Murphy

Promote Bill C-422 Equal Shared Parenting

Caroline Overington | October 26, 2009

Article from: The Australian

THE Rudd government has been urged to replace shared parenting laws with a model similar to that of Canada, where shared parenting after divorce is not necessarily considered in the best interests of the child.

The Australian understands that the Canadian model has been put to Attorney-General Robert McClelland as an option to consider as he wrestles with changes to the reforms introduced by the Howard government in 2006.

Canada places the interests of the child ahead of the right of either parent to insist upon a shared-care arrangement.

Unlike the Australian family law regime, Canada does not require a court to presume that the best interests of the child are met by shared parenting.

It encourages the courts to take into account the benefit to children of having a relationship with both parents after divorce, but also takes into account the roles played by each party before separation, and the consequences to children of too much disruption in their lives.

It is unlikely that a breastfeeding baby would be placed in a shared care arrangement, as happens in Australia under the shared parenting law; nor is it likely that children would be ordered into an arrangement that sees them woken from naps to visit their other parent, as also happens here. It is understood that the Canadian model has been put to Mr McClelland in the form of submissions from women lawyers, and from women's groups opposed to the shared parenting laws.

It is also understood that the main group representing divorced and separated men, the Shared Parenting Council, has put up no alternative to the current regime.

The group missed the deadline for submissions to the review of the law being chaired by retired family court judge Richard Chisholm. Rather than proceed without a paper from the fathers group, Professor Chisholm has offered to take a late submission.

Child custody in Canada is governed by the Divorce Act, which says that courts shall "take into consideration only the best interests of the child of the marriage".

That formulation is supported by case law, which also puts the interests of the child first.

Canadian states and territories spell out some of the tests for the "best interests" principle.

Some say any disruption of the child's life must be taken into account before shared care is considered.

Men's groups have tried to bring shared parenting to Canada, most recently in August, but so far they have failed.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,26259132-17044,00.html

MELANIE PHILLIPS: If we don't take children and benefits from incapable mothers, the alternative is social catastrophe

Saturday, Oct 24 2009

This Evening 11°C Tomorrow Morning 16°C 5-Day Forecast

By Melanie Phillips
Last updated at 10:06 AM on 07th September 2009

• Comments (149)
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Once again, Britain is recoiling from the sickening spectacle of childhood innocence being turned into its monstrous antithesis.

Two young brothers aged ten and 11 from Edlington, South Yorkshire, subjected two other little boys aged nine and 11 to sadistic attack and torture, leaving one fighting for his life.

What is so horrifying is that the attackers showed no empathy whatsoever with the suffering of another living being.

A sketch of the two brothers facing Sheffield Crown Court. They will be sentenced next month.

People call these boys 'evil' because such absence of feeling is inhuman. But they are not evil. They are children.

We are all born with the capacity for both good and bad. Everything depends on whether the immature child is raised in a way that develops the good and discourages the bad, or whether something goes wrong with that process.

To label these boys 'evil' is to let the real villains off the hook. These children are the product of evil attitudes within the adult world.

Their personalities have been warped and their ability to feel for others blocked off because they have been deprived of the essential condition for developing into normally functioning human beings: a secure and loving family in which the basics of civilised life are programmed into children's characters.

Instead, they were abandoned to fend for themselves in a pit of absolute degradation, cruelty and inhumanity.

More...

• MAIL COMMENT: Are we too slow to put children in care?
• Aged 10 and 11 these brothers were already known to be sadistic thugs. So, why were they free to torture two innocent boys?
• Torture brothers will 'be free at 18': Sadists who maimed two innocent boys will also get lifelong anonymity

Their mother, who has seven sons by three fathers, is an alcoholic and drug addict who left them to forage from rubbish bins and fed them cannabis to keep them quiet; their father is a drunken brute, who regularly beat them and forced them to watch violent horror films.

We know that there are thousands of other children being raised in broadly similar backgrounds. There are areas of the country where the overriding problem is not material poverty but social, cultural and spiritual disintegration - at the heart of which is the collapse of family life.

Children are being born to lone mothers who were themselves raised in shattered homes by mothers who in turn came from identical backgrounds. The outcome is households in which children are neglected and maltreated, subjected to drug and alcohol abuse, violence and emotional chaos; and where the cruelty and indifference they endure is often translated into the sadistic way they treat others.

Indeed, only last week we learned of another case, in West Yorkshire, where three boys aged 13 and 14 pleaded guilty to stripping, kicking and beating a 13-year-old with wire and bricks.

Of course, only a tiny minority of children grow into attackers or sadists. And many lone parents do a heroic job in raising their children to become responsible adults. But the fact remains that family disintegration sets up chronic disadvantages for a child. Where these are not addressed, a cycle of deprivation is often transmitted down through the generations which replaces civilised behaviour by sheer savagery.

For the past three decades, warnings that the disintegration of the family would result in social catastrophe were brushed aside. What was deemed more important was never to hurt the feelings of those living in fragmented households and to throw welfare benefits at them instead.

Those who objected that this merely fuelled family breakdown were told they were cruel and heartless because depriving such families of welfare benefits would harm the children.

Now in Edlington we can all see the result: four child victims, two of them horrifically attacked and tortured by two others whose very humanity has been taken away from them.

Barnardo's chief Martin Narey says babies should be removed from bad parents

The question now is what to do about a problem that has become a social and cultural emergency. When Iain Duncan Smith's Social Justice Commission refers to 'broken Britain', it is not exaggerating.

Mr Duncan Smith himself suggests various imaginative schemes to repair such families, such as ones where both mother and child are taken into care. But such projects are too expensive and intensive to be applied to all the shattered lives which are growing so exponentially.

The problem has to be tackled at source. That's why the head of Barnardo's, Martin Narey, has now said babies born to such mothers should be removed from them at birth and adopted.

That may sound harsh - but the alternative, in smashed personalities, brutality and sadism, is much harsher. And all the evidence suggests that adopted children generally do very well indeed.

By contrast, the care offered by social services is often worse than useless. Despite the fact that it knew all about the Edlington boys' previous history of sadistic behaviour, Doncaster social services - which itself has a record of gross inadequacy - placed them with a foster couple who not surprisingly were totally unable to control such deeply disturbed children.

Whatever needs to be done to address the weakness in social work, surely what is necessary is not just to try to pick up the pieces of shattered family life but to prevent it from breaking in the first place.

The key is to switch off the motor behind this catastrophe: the prevailing attitudes of a ruling elite which, pretending to be non-judgmental about family background, has actually smashed the traditional family to smithereens.

More from Melanie Phillips...

• MELANIE PHILLIPS: Our leaders are queuing to prove their virtue by denouncing the vile BNP. 19/10/09
• MELANIE PHILLIPS: At long last, a class act who might just save our schools... if his party lets him 12/10/09
• MELANIE PHILLIPS: If Cameron doesn't stop Blair being shoehorned as EU President, there'll be no point in him becoming Britain's Prime Minister 05/10/09
• MELANIE PHILLIPS: If the police won't tackle young thugs any more, then what ARE they for? 27/09/09
• MELANIE PHILLIPS: A dopey judge, a lesbian teacher and an insidious bid to lower the age of consent 22/09/09
• MELANIE PHILLIPS: If children are taught that patriotism is wrong, Britain's very identity is at stake 13/09/09
• MELANIE PHILLIPS: Mandy's new class war shows New Labour was always a cynical illusion 09/08/09
• MELANIE PHILLIPS: These mixed messages on drink and drugs are the road to social ruin 03/08/09
• VIEW FULL ARCHIVE

Far from alleviating poverty, distress and misery, these self-regarding 'progressives' instead created and perpetuated these ills. Holding that the real crime was not to produce neglected or emotionally disturbed children but to ' stigmatise' those who raised them in such a way, they incentivised family breakdown by handing out welfare benefits with no conditions attached to behaviour.

Through being paid automatically the birth of every child, child benefit has been an effective engine of mass fatherlessness. Other benefits, housing and child care payments offered to lone parents similarly rest on the assumption that the main problem to be addressed is always material poverty.

But this is merely one aspect of these mothers' desperate need, which is rooted overwhelmingly in the fact that they cannot cope with looking after themselves, let alone their children.

The independence afforded by the current benefits set-up is thus often a tragic delusion and cruel trap. Accordingly, a more humane response to unmarried motherhood is to treat it for what it really is - a potential disaster for both mother and baby.

Both should be looked after in motherand-baby units with specialised help. Turning off the benefits spigot would also remove the financial incentives that have made such disasters a commonplace - as indeed was intended by the well-heeled intelligentsia, who set out to make unmarried motherhood 'normal' but whose own income cushioned themselves against the worst of the damage that the removal of such constraints on behaviour inflicted upon the poor.

Hurling accusations of 'heartlessness' against their opponents concealed the fact that these 'progressives' were themselves causing unlimited damage and misery - not to mention a steady supply of jobs for themselves in interventionist programmes to 'rescue' the lives they were so cavalierly continuing to destroy.

It is those people who made morality into a dirty word. Since the essence of morality is feeling for others, and since the essence of psychopathy is the absence of any such feeling, is it any wonder that the result of the doctrines imposed by these 'progressives' has been the creation of psychopathic children?

The Edlington disaster can therefore be laid at their door. The next time they start moaning about flint-hearted 'moralisers' they should be firmly reminded of that fact. The rest of us have a society to rescue before it is all finally too late.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1211620/MELANIE-PHILLIPS.html#

6 Posed as Abuse Victims to Get Rent Subsidies, Officials Say

It will be interesting to see how far reaching the fraud is and whether any DV shelters are complicit. The latter perpetrate continuing fraud by their use of mythological, mendacious stats and denigration of men.MJM

October 21, 2009

By AL BAKER

In a notoriously expensive city, people will do anything to get a break on housing costs. They might hide a relative, change their name or suggest they earn less than they really do.

But six women went too far and were arrested in a particularly imaginative scheme for seeking the government’s help with rent payments, officials said on Tuesday.

The women have been charged with submitting fraudulent documents — including forged police reports and court orders — to portray themselves as victims of domestic violence in an apparent attempt to jump to the front of a long waiting list for government subsidized apartments, said Rose Gill Hearn, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Investigation.

Since she took her position in 2002, Ms. Gill Hearn has seen hundreds of housing fraud cases a year “of different permutations,” she said. “But this is the first time that D.O.I. has investigated and uncovered individuals who are engaging in housing fraud by posing as victims of domestic violence.”

The desire for lucrative government subsidies is deep.

As of Sept. 22, there were 127,764 families on the New York City Housing Authority’s waiting list for Section 8 vouchers, said Howard Marder, a spokesman for the agency.

The voucher program can be worth thousands of dollars a year; tenants who qualify for the subsidy must pay 30 percent of their adjusted gross income toward the rent, while the remainder is taken care of with federal money passed through the authority to a landlord.

The city Housing Authority is accepting Section 8 applications from only three groups of people: victims of domestic violence; those referred by prosecutors who are deemed intimidated witnesses in criminal cases; and certain people referred by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services.

It was similarities in some police reports and other documents — picked out by a Housing Authority manager — that drew attention to the six women in the current series of cases, officials said. The manager reported the irregularities, and the Department of Investigation began an inquiry in May.

On July 1, three people were arrested: Barbara Goss, 52, of Manhattan; Chevelle Richardson, 38; and Ms. Richardson’s daughter, Chandera Richardson, 20, officials said. The elder Ms. Richardson filed an application for Section 8 housing on Jan. 29 claiming that her daughter had been the victim of domestic violence, the officials said.

The application, and a similar one from Ms. Goss, included a court-issued temporary order of protection, a domestic incident report from the Police Department and a letter from Safe Horizon, an agency that works with domestic violence victims. All of the documents were forged, officials said.

On July 15, Shanelle Reed, 28, of Queens, was arrested and on Tuesday, Neri Garces, 44, of Yonkers, was arrested, officials said. The sixth woman, Deshanna Graham, 29, is in custody in Pennsylvania, officials said.

All of the cases are being prosecuted by the office of Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney. The women face charges including criminal possession of a forged instrument in the second degree and third degree, and offering a false instrument for filing.

It was not immediately clear if the six women collaborated. Asked about the cluster of cases arising at once, Ms. Gill Hearn said that the women were charged separately, but that the investigation was continuing.

A call to the Legal Aid Society, which has represented some of the women, was not immediately returned. Enrico Demarco, a lawyer appointed by the court to represent Ms. Garces, said after her arraignment on Tuesday that “at this point she is denying the allegations and has entered a plea of not guilty.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/nyregion/21housing.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1256407478-WwXhEqITLZQDqzVNu/nj5Q

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company