Down the "Training & Qualification" Rabbit Hole

Neither Trained Judges nor Qualified Appointees Will Make a Dent in the Crisis

The “Training & Qualification” Rabbit Hole is one of the many rabbit holes women go down when searching for the reason they lost custody or were unable to protect their children in Family Court.

Women who’ve gone down this rabbit hole have been led to believe that if judges are trained and appointees qualified, mothers wouldn’t lose custody. This is one of the most prevalent and insidious misconceptions of all, since the most common solution being proposed to end the Custody Crisis is judicial training.

The truth is, neither trained judges nor qualified appointees will make a dent in the Crisis—because lack of knowledge is not why it is happening. This is just another red herring that distracts and diverts from the truth: that the Crisis is caused by judges, with the help of their appointees, systematically and methodically entitling men, resulting in oppression of women, i.e. systemic sexism.

The “Training & Qualification Rabbit Hole” is the latest in The Women’s Coalition’s Custody Crisis Rabbit Holes series. This collection includes the Domestic Abuse, Parental Alienation, Cottage Industry, Court-Appointee, Gender Neutral, and Rights & Laws Rabbit Holes—so far. Upcoming are the Transparency & Accountability and Social Services Rabbit Holes.

The purpose of this series is to help mothers and the public understand the true nature of the Crisis. To do that, the false narratives addressed in the series must be dispelled and replaced. Armed with this knowledge, women are uniting under a shared set of facts about what the Crisis really is and why it is happening, and advocating for a solution that will actually end it once and for all [see Takeaways].

The two branches in this Rabbit Hole—Training and Qualification—are interrelated. Both refer to the need for judges and appointees to be educated about custody cases, in particular, domestic abuse. This is because the large majority of contested custody cases involve some form of violence or abuse by an ex-husband against the mother and/or children. That is often the reason for divorce in the first place.

THE TRAINING BRANCH

The training branch refers to the educating of Family Court judges about parenting issues, but mostly addresses domestic abuse. Since judges have only legal education, not psychological, it sounds logical that training would result in judges making better rulings. This why so many women are drawn down this rabbit hole.

This perspective was not always the case, though. After Women’s Lib in the 1960’s, when the current iteration of the Crisis began, up until the early 1990’s, mothers and their advocates knew judges were not switching custody out of ignorance about abuse, but were deliberately entitling men to take “their” children. They knew judges did not disbelieve mothers due to lack of training, but were deliberately discrediting them to accomplish the custody switch.

Then the backlash by the Old Boy Network [OBN] kicked in.

Mothers’ attorneys and activists who correctly identified the problem as systemic sexism were being ostracized, disbarred, and jailed. It became uncool to make it a gender issue. Legislators, media, and elected officials did not want to talk about gender.

Psychologists, lawyers, professors, nonprofits, and activists who supported mothers in their quest to keep and protect their children went along. It was much safer to focus on gender-neutral “abuse” than systemic entitlement of men and oppression of women. They could continue to practice and profit from their advocacy for women by avoiding the now taboo “gender” stance.

That was when the “Judges need training!” outcry began and became the prevailing mantra for reform. And to this day, mother-advocates are mistakenly characterizing the universal minimizing, ignoring, and denying of strong evidence of paternal unfitness and abuse by judges as due to ignorance. Of course, this does not explain the fact that judges are concealing evidence and flat-out lying about mothers being abusive and falsely accusing innocent fathers, but that is conveniently ignored in service of pushing the training narrative.

As a result of this foundational misattribution, mother-advocates began promoting legislation requiring judges to undergo training in domestic abuse as the solution to the Crisis. This, they claimed, would be the cure-all.

Eventually, such laws were passed in various states and countries, often within broader “child safety” legislation. In the U.S., the template for these laws was the “Child Safety Act” and versions were passed in numerous states and a few countries. There are many offshoots of this law named after murdered children whose mothers were wrongly led to believe it will make a difference.

The required “training” for judges ranges from an afternoon course to a weekend seminar, rarely longer. It touches on other aspects of custody cases, but predominantly focuses on how to deal with domestic abuse allegations. Biased information about parental alienation is often included.

The trainings, of course, are designed and controlled by the power elite, and, hence, often convey misinformation that promotes custody switches to fathers. Regardless of the accuracy of the information, coursework is not the problem.

Nearly four decades on, since this faulty revision of causality emerged, there is no perceptible change in the Crisis in any jurisdictions that require judicial training. Which makes perfect sense when seen through a true lens: that judges are not switching custody to fathers due to ignorance. It is deliberate.

Judges know they had better go along to get along with the agenda to entitle fathers, or else. The irony is that training in domestic abuse can actually give judges more tools and make it easier to falsely find mothers abusive and steer cases to the father.

On a peripheral note, this notion of ignorant judges needing training is exploited by some mother-advocates who encourage mothers to educate judges themselves. This often consists of sending judges packets of information about narcissism, parental alienation, or some other aspect of their case. But this gives mothers the wrong idea about what is causing the crisis and gives them false hope.

THE QUALIFICATION BRANCH

The qualification branch refers to court-appointed professionals needing to be qualified to work on custody cases. The idea is that if they are properly credentialed, they will act and make recommendations in the best interests of children. This is a subset of the Court-Appointee Rabbit Hole.

Court-appointees come in two varieties: children’s legal representatives and mental health professionals. Children’s attorneys and their counterparts—guardians ad litem and minor’s counsels—are rarely the focus of cries for qualification or training. They are simply expected to represent children legally as they would any other client. However, in practice, they most often collude in steering the case to the father.

The focus of the cry for court-appointees to be qualified is mental health professionals. That usually just means they are licensed as a clinical psychologist or therapist, occasionally social worker. This is considered enough to qualify as evaluators, parents’ and children’s therapists, forensic interviewers, reunification therapists, etc.

This issue often comes under the rubric of judicial appointments needing to be “regulated” by law. In the UK, cries for “Regulation!” are common amongst Family Court reform activists; whereas, in the U.S. the push for court-appointees to be qualified is usually wrapped up in “child safety” laws that call for judicial training.

Some of the new child safety laws are being hailed for including reunification therapists be qualified and this kind of therapy restricted. But these provisions have huge loopholes, so reuniting children with abusive fathers can still be easily accomplished.

The thing is, most court-appointees are qualified. Our last column is about an evaluator who was not qualified to assess adults, and it made big news. There is an article this week out about how a Colorado psychologist did not have the proper qualifications, and she was sentenced to four years in prison! Not surprisingly, this was the result of a father complaining, since he had not gotten what he wanted—likely equal parenting time.

Finding unqualified appointees who will lie is easier than qualified ones, but there is usually a cabal of appointees in every jurisdiction that spans judicial terms. In the end, it makes no difference whether they are qualified or not. Judges will use recommendations by their appointees that suit their purpose and ignore ones they don’t.

TAKEAWAYS

The Training & Qualification Rabbit Hole is inextricably entwined with the Domestic Abuse Rabbit Hole, because training judges in abuse is the solution proffered to end the Crisis. However, abuse is not the core issue and judges not understanding abuse not the problem. It is also interconnected with the Rights and Laws Rabbit Hole, since the solution is to enact useless laws requiring judicial training and qualified appointees in custody cases.

Poof that training is not going to end, or even make a difference, in the Crisis is that judges in every jurisdiction routinely ignore and conceal evidence of abuse or unfitness by fathers and fabricate abuse or unfitness by mothers. They lie about fathers being safe and fit and the best interests of children being in their custody. This profligation and deliberate cover up demonstrate judges are not interested in the truth.

The fact that judges usually appoint qualified professionals who will do their bidding, i.e. provide justifications for switching custody to the father, is further proof that regulating appointees is not the solution. Even more proof is that educating judges has been implemented in many jurisdictions over the decades and has not helped.

Unfortunately, lots of mothers have been led down the Training & Qualification Rabbit Hole by mother-advocate professionals for nearly 40 years. The public continues to be misled via MSM journalists regurgitating the false narratives via interviewing these so-called advocates. It has been a huge waste of mothers’ time and hope advocating for laws that require training of judges and qualification of appointees.

Judges will continue to use appointees who will aid and abet them in switching custody to fathers—regardless of whether they are trained or qualified. Once women and the public come to understand and accept that judges are deliberately giving custody to physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive and alienating fathers, forward movement can be made in ending the Crisis.

The replacement mantra for “Judges need training” needs to be: “Judges know exactly what they are doing.”

Because judges can and do lie, the only thing that will end the Crisis is to take away their power to decide custody. That means custody cases must be heard in real courts with a jury doing the fact-finding not a judge.

Join The Women’s Coalition’s where we are fighting for a new system.

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IN OTHER NEWS

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NEXT SECTION OF THE SAGA IS OUT!

Herry is enraged and humiliated by Legion getting one over on him by having visited with the boys—twice—without his knowledge! So he strikes back by sending her a scathing letter, blaming her for Jesse’s mental health difficulties. But this sociopathic and cruel father is obviously cognizant that he is the one causing Jesse’s distress by keeping him away from his mother.

The day arrives and Legion presents her argument to the Appellate Court, hoping against hope they will do the right thing and return her boys to her. But it soon becomes apparent that it is all just a charade to make it appear as if justice is being done; when, in fact, the outcome is already a “foregone conclusion”, a “done deal”. Herry, of course, knows this and doesn’t even bother to show up.

In the last section, Mirzah tells Legion something’s happened to Jesse, but he would tell her if he thought Jesse were dying. Legion frantically calls around to every hospital and finally finds him at a psychiatric inpatient unit. Jesse had gone for a long time without being able to get a good night’s sleep and had a mental health episode. Of course, this would never have happened if Herry had not taken him away from his beloved mother. One good thing to come out of it, though, is that Jesse finds a way to contact her on Mother’s Day—the first time in the six years Herry has kept the boys away from her.

CHAPTER 28 of Mother-Fucking: The Saga of One Fucked Mother begins with Act III, Part 4 of “The Opera” from Book 3. The Opera has three Acts with five Parts—one for each of the three Family Court and two Appellate Court trials. Chapter 28 covers all of Act III: Part 4: the third Family Court trial, and Part 5: the second Appellate trial. This is a long chapter and will be published in newsletter-sized bites.

Dr. Blue’s novel is based on her own experience of the Custody Crisis. It uniquely conveys how Family Court judges are “mother-fucking” women—a form of systemic oppression—as protagonist Legion is systematically and methodically deprived of her children and money and reduced to “one fucked mother”.

Chapters are stand-alone interesting so you can begin reading anywhere. A Cast of Characters follows to help readers at any point. All published chapters are included in the Section: “Saga of One F**ked Mother” accessible on the top bar of the home page of Women’s Coalition News & Views. Sequential chapters are emailed out every Wednesday so make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet!

Subscribed

TEASERS

Did Herry not just state there, lastly in this letterbox bomb of his blasted forth against me, that it was his “duty to try to shield Jesse from …” me, Legion True, Jesse’s mama?

Was this not what the letter stated? Well, indeed, it most certainly was so stated…

Furthermore, no one else at all bothered to come for Herry’s or his ‘representative’s’ support because, aforehand, all of them already knew it wasn’t one bit necessary to waste anyone else’s time doing so!

They all already knew, aforehand, the Argument’s outcome. As it was a foregone, already decided conclusion––only, of course, I was still hoping, still trusting … somewhat … which is why I pained myself to suffer through this tribulation in the first place.

…it all … truly … was a done deal––before any of it even started.

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