Florida foster care abuse attorney and life-long advocate for children's rights, will be honored with the University of Miami Law School

Howard M. Talenfeld

"No one sets out on their career in pursuit of such honors, so it's humbling to be recognized for the work my team and I have done on behalf of the voiceless victims in our community,"

He has been recognized for his efforts with The Florida Bar's "President's Award of Merit" and the Florida Bar President's Pro Bono Service Award for the 17th Judicial Circuit. In May, Talenfeld will receive the Professional Excellence Award from the Daily Business Review, and was a past recipient of its Most Effective Lawyer award in the Pro Bono category. He also received Legal Aid's Russell Carlisle Award for child advocacy law. He also is founding president of Florida's Children First, the state's preeminent non-profit that advocates for foster children and the developmentally disabled.

"Howard was a natural for this award. We're very proud of his pioneering work for children's causes," said Edward R. Shohat, a Miami attorney and president of the Law Alumni Association. "The association represents over 30,000 alumni around the world, and Howard is an excellent ambassador for the school."

"Howard exemplifies the characteristics and qualities that make for a great lawyer," added Todd S. Payne, past president of the Law Alumni Association and chair of its National Advisory Council. "When you match great lawyering skills with someone who serves others, particularly those less capable of helping themselves, that's a person deserving of recognition."

A Florida Judge's Horrible Idea on Family Law Reform.

What does alimony have to do with “The Baby Mama Syndrome”? Next to nothing. Only married people getting a divorce can get alimony. On the other hand, Florida legislators keep trying to pass alimony “reform,” a code word for changing the law to the disadvantage of people who need protection or help.

The proponents of “alimony reform” combine it with a provision that would require a judge to “presume” that parents, whether they’re married to each other or not, are entitled to 50-50 time-sharing of their children. In other words, the judge would be told by the law to assume that each parent is entitled to have the child half the time.

That’s a horrible idea.

Dear Politician...Where do you stand on Family Law Reform?

Letter Template To Your State and Federal Elected Officials Asking Where They Stand On Family Law Reform

“Have you ever wondered where your local State Representative or Senator stands on the presumption for equally shared parenting, or what they think about Judges using discretion to bypass equal parentage and access to children by Non-Custodial families? Well, let's find out. Fathers and Families is asking today that you go to Google and search your State's Legislative or General Assembly website to find your State level Representative and Senator (pick one Rep and one Senator) and email both asking where they stand on you being allowed to have equal access to your children and financially supporting them directly, as well as how to deal with Judges who prevent that.

World4Justice : Cyber Protest! - Boycottfamilylaw : Restore Children's Rights Worldwide - Family Justice & Child...
Posted by Children's Rights on Monday, May 25, 2015

 

Once both have responded, come back to this post and type the name of the State you are in, the Rep/Senators name, and copy and paste their response.”

So, I wrote my own letter this morning and sent it off.

It’s important that each and every one of us let our officials know where we stand on Family Law reform, and what the consequences will be should they continue to ignore us.  Therefore, everyone should send this letter or a letter of their own making to their elected officials!

So, with this in mind, you are free to copy the letter I wrote and send it off yourself. 

To copy it, just hi-light it with your mouse and hit “control c”.  You can then paste it (“control v”) directly into your email or word document to edit and send it as you see fit.

If you’d like me to send you the word document, please email me: michael.loveandiron@gmail.com.

Note: Please do NOT send me a Facebook message asking for this document. I will NOT respond to those. If you want the word file, you must email me at the gmail account provided above.

Dear:

I believe the gift of parenting children is the single greatest blessing and experience an individual can enjoy in life. Therefore to me, parenting rights are not a “special rights” concern; they are a “human rights” concern.

So, I want to ask where you stand on an important political issue: Family Law Reform.

As you may or may not be aware, our current system of Family Law has devolved into one in which a whole host of Family Court Industry players are profiteering from the minimization or elimination of parenting time and rights for non-custodial parents.  

Many custodial parents, lawyers, parenting plan evaluators, supervised parenting services, States, friends of the Court social workers, many Courts, and others; are making money by using children as an excuse to exploit non-custodial parents, causing irreparable harm to both children and their parents in the process.

I, and a rapidly growing base of many others, would like this to stop. More specifically, we are asking for five primary reforms to Family Law:

1. The presumption of 50/50 custody and parenting rights during and after divorce. We are NOT asking for a REQUIREMENT of 50/50, because we still want parents to be able to decide for themselves what works best for them. However, in the event that case goes to trial, instead of having the NCP being forced to rise to a high standard to show why they should have time with their children, I believe it’s far healthier (for both parents and children) for the parent contesting this time to be required to rise to a high standard to show why the NCP should NOT have equal time with their children.  And while this may dramatically hit the financial accounts of those who are using children for profit by creating or aggravating conditions of conflict, this reform will affect far healthier outcomes for families.
2. I would like reforms to child support calculations. More specifically, an elimination of financial incentives for minimizing or eliminating a non-custodial parent’s time with their little ones. As it sits now, there are basically two pieces to the child support calculation: (1) An actual physical needs worksheet, and (2) A tax-free income redistribution; with the Court establishing the higher of the two as the child support order.  I recognize that custodial parents may need some time to adjust after divorce, and I have no problems with alimony/maintenance. However, I would like the alimony portion of child support to be eliminated.  If a CP wants to better their lifestyle, they can put the work into bettering themselves just like NCP’S are often admonished to do. Children are NOT tax-free income producing assets, and NCP’s are NOT indentured servants.
3. Reforms to child support enforcement: If one wants to accomplish a goal, it helps establish good or helpful conditions to achieve that goal. Unfortunately, the Family Court has become accustomed to pathological and often draconian measures for enforcement in which the civil rights of NCP’s are systematically ignored or eliminated through administrative court procedures.  If a person loses their job, or becomes ill or disabled, it makes no sense what so ever, to take away their driver’s license, vocational license, destroy their credit, throw them in jail, or force them into homelessness. How does this help to ensure the support gets caught-up?  It doesn’t. It simply makes the problem worse and sets the non-custodial parent up for future, life-destroying failures. Truthfully, current regimes for enforcement that treat "deadbroke" parents as common criminals are completely inappropriate.
4. Social Security Act, Title IV, Part D, Section 458 "Incentive Payments To States": I have no problem, in theory, with states being rewarded for child support enforcement.  However, I have a big problem with States profiting from it, and a REALLY big problem with the lack of resources available to NCP’s for visitation enforcement.  For little or no cost, a CP can have the state pursue civil or criminal remedies for delinquent child support. However, an NCP in reality, must hire an attorney if his or her visitation orders are being ignored, and often, these orders are not enforced with anywhere near the same severity by the Court as they are with child support orders.  And I’m confident this is happening in large part, due to the financial interests of those parties noted in paragraph four.  Therefore, if there is going to be Federal incentives for the enforcement of Family Court orders, I want equal weighting and importance put the enforcement of visitation orders.  Honestly, the message that money is more important than a parent’s relationship and the emotional well-being of children is remarkably disgusting. I simply can’t tolerate that kind of worldview.
5. VAWA reform.  I agree that victims of abuse and violence need the ability to feel safe in swiftly seeking the protection of the Justice system. However, fraudulent allegations of abuse made during Family Court are getting out of control. This is a gender-neutral problem, and it seems it now boils down to which party can launch this nuclear attack first.  There are no remedies available to the victims of fraudulent allegations – none, and the damage these allegations cause to both children and parents is catastrophic.  The American Bar Association loves to fall back on VAWA as its reasoning for opposing any kind of Family Law reform. However, I can’t help but wonder how much money attorneys and investigators are making from a law that allows someone to be accused of such a serious crime and presumed guilty of it with no credible evidence what-so-ever.  Something needs to be done about this, right now.  

In short, much of the current political and judicial rationalizing for the current structure of Family Law centers on the concept of what’s “in the best interests of the children”.  However, what is becoming increasingly clear is that children are simply being used as a seemingly noble excuse to mask a greedier underlying motive that is causing significant and irreparable harm to parents and children alike.

I understand you can expect to receive significant resistance to my ideas for reform because those parties noted earlier have a great deal to lose when they take place.

However, I’m not concerned about them. I’m concerned about the health and well-being children and parents, and your position on this matter will affect my voting behavior going forward.

Therefore, I will be grateful if you will tell me, in plain and simple words, where you stand on Family Law Reform.

Thank you so much for your time.

Sincerely,

    

Post by Children's Rights.

Post by Stop Emotional Child Abuse.

Post by Children's Rights.

Post by Boycottfamilylaw : Restore Children's Rights Worldwide.

Post by Daveyone Familylawman World4Justice Campaign.

Post by American Fathers Liberation Army.

Post by Family Justice & Child Protection Worldwide Reform Committee.

Post by South America in Perspective.

Post by Parental Alienation & other Child abuse awareness/prevention.

Post by And Justice 4 All ~ Florida.

Post by Greece: Day-One 2014 Family Law Protest.

Post by Support Rights for Grandparents.

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Finding Truth and Justice 4 Florida Children

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness were promised to each of us by our founding fathers. And the resulting legal system was intended to protect us and sustain us with reason, fairness and order. But the present state of family law makes this harder and harder to achieve – particularly in regards to divorce. Arbitrary laws and a confrontational legal system have created a litigious nightmare for many of us.

Finding Truth 4 Children (FT4C) is a self-censored chronicle of courtroom dramas, lived by people who lost all or some visitation with or custody of a child or children based on perjury and/or other false courtroom evidence.

Family Law Reform, Inc. was founded upon the same sound promise: that the dream of a decent life, the freedom to pursue it, and the resulting happiness are not for the few, not for those who have the most money or who have the most aggressive attorney, but for each one of us.

Family Law Reform’s most immediate goal is the creation of reasonable guidelines in our Florida divorce law to inform and assist judges in their continuing oversight and orders for alimony. These guidelines would discourage the destructive practice of continued litigation in order to determine a ‘winner’ and a ‘loser’. The present adversarial situation is destroying families while creating wealth for the courts and litigating family lawyers.

THERE IS A BETTER WAY!

See video of an interesting recent Florida divorce case that took 4 years and $100,000 in attorneys fees. The ex-wife ended up in major debt and paying alimony. This is why we need alimony reform in Florida.

CLICK HERE to see video of the interview and to read the transcript

We Are NOT Gonna Take It Anymore

Everyone loses when parental alienation gets nasty

Dear Readers: The ugly parental alienation issue blew up at Christmastime with many hurting and angry readers writing in. The spark was a letter from a separated man, Dad at the End of His Rope, whose heart was breaking because his ex had bad-mouthed him to his children (all over the age of 18) to the point they won’t talk to him anymore. During the marriage, he made big money working out of town. He was away three weeks a month and home one week. During his time at home he and his wife would fight often. He supported his wife and three kids then, and still does. He feels the kids have been taught to hate him and yet he pays and pays. He says he’s just the "bank machine." Here are some of the responses from other readers.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: You wanted to know why Dad at the End of His Rope is still paying child support for offspring 18 and older, asking if they are going to university? And, you asked if was planning to pay spousal support forever? The way you worded it, a potential deadbeat dad might take this to mean he doesn’t have to pay while they are in university.

As far as the spousal support, this woman raised his children to adulthood, and that was a job. He may have to pay her spousal support according to an agreement until she is 65, like another person I know who was a stay-at-home mom and wife. Why shouldn’t she deserve this? Should she be expected to live in a tiny studio apartment now that he has decided he wants out?

I don’t receive spousal support, but I do get child support, and it struck a sore point with me because I have to go to a lawyer in January because my crazy ex thinks he doesn’t have to pay child support while our son is in university and only gave me cheques to last until my son turns 18 next summer.

— Sore Point, Manitoba

Dear Sore Point: It’s understandable you’re upset. You need to see your lawyer and review your original agreement to see what you actually signed for. As for the woman who has been fully supported until now, yes, that was her job as her husband was away 75 per cent of every month, but he was far from being a deadbeat dad. Now these parents have split, the kids are legal adults and expectations of this man need to change. This newly separated woman, whether she likes it or not, needs to get training and get a job or start a business for her own independence, her self-esteem and her new social life. Why should she get a free ride from her ex-husband until she’s 65? She could be in her late 40s or early 50s at this point.

Everybody in that household should have been working at least part time by the time they were 18. It’s not good for grown kids, or even moms, to have no work experience of any kind to put on a resume. Maybe this well-heeled ex-husband would like to make a big one-time settlement offer that would cover his ex-wife’s education or start-up money for a small business, and then be free.

Money talks for this bitter lady. After she is paid off, maybe then she can stop bad-mouthing him and the kids can start having relationships with their father again. Couples counselling didn’t help before; it really sounds like the wife needs personal counselling on her own to get through her anger and bitterness. See the important letter below from a woman who alienated her children from their dad.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: Hopefully these children of his will come around, and maybe parental alienation will no longer be the dark side to this situation. This wife is a catalyst and needs therapy, and he should stop making all payments where lawfully possible. It’s so sad the children can only hear when money speaks. Parental alienation is about a parent and child’s love, not a bank account.

I too have first-hand experience. Many years ago I went through a terrible divorce and convinced my children their father was a horrible person and they went years not communicating with him because of me. A couple years ago, he suddenly passed away, and now I’m left with broken children who are in counselling, full of regrets and blaming me.

I know of many other nasty divorces in which children have being manipulated and convinced into taking sides. I know a 10-year-old, a 20-year-old and even someone in their 30s who is in this situation. Too many parents like myself become selfish and want everyone, including their children, to hate their ex. That benefits no one, especially the children. Parents need to keep the kids out of all the details pertaining to a divorce and stop bad-mouthing their exes. This just screws up their children’s heads and doesn’t enable them to have healthy relationships in the future. You can’t erase regrets.

— Many Regrets, Winnipeg

Dear Many Regrets: Your kids need to hear about your regrets, and you need to correct the exaggerations you made and tell them how sorry you are. Don’t try to justify the nasty things you said, instead help to rebuild a realistic picture of their deceased father with all his good points. They may be furious with you at first, but if you can restore a better image of their father it will help them heal, and after some time, they will heal towards you.

It’s hard to face up to the fact that you loved this man you ended up divorcing. You loved him enough to choose him above all others, to marry him and have children with him. You might start by writing him a letter, which of course you can’t send, thanking him for the love you had in the beginning, the children and remembering some of the good times. Someday you might want to show that letter to your children, or you may not. Either way, it will help to melt some of the bitterness away for you, and perhaps for your children.

By: Miss Lonelyhearts

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts