1. Family Courts
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Judges: In cases of divorce or custody disputes, family court judges have the responsibility of making decisions that prioritize the well-being of children. They are guided by the principle of "the best interests of the child," which aims to protect the child’s emotional and developmental needs. When determining custody arrangements, judges must weigh a variety of factors, including each parent's relationship with the child, the child’s attachment to each parent, and the capacity of each parent to meet the child’s needs.
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Custody Evaluators: In some cases, judges may appoint a custody evaluator or guardian ad litem to investigate the family dynamics and make recommendations. These professionals assess the relationships between the parents and the child, observe how the child interacts with each parent, and report their findings to the court to help the judge make a well-informed decision. They play an essential role in advocating for the child’s best interests, including ensuring that the parent-child bond is maintained.
2. Mental Health Professionals
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Child Psychologists/Therapists: Psychologists and therapists working with children can be instrumental in protecting and preserving the parent-child relationship. They help children navigate the emotional complexities of divorce or separation, assist in trauma recovery, and provide strategies for maintaining healthy attachments to both parents. For example, they may offer counseling for children who struggle with the transition to living with one parent full-time or those who have been exposed to high-conflict situations.
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Parenting Coordinators: In high-conflict custody cases, some courts appoint parenting coordinators to help parents manage ongoing disputes and facilitate communication between them. These professionals often have a background in law or mental health and can help parents focus on their child’s well-being, ensuring that they understand their child’s needs and how to foster a positive relationship despite their own differences.
3. Child Welfare Services
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Child Protective Services (CPS): While the primary role of CPS is to intervene when a child's safety is at risk due to abuse or neglect, they can also work to preserve parent-child bonds. In cases where one parent is found to be abusive or unfit, CPS may facilitate supervised visitation or offer reunification services, helping the child maintain a connection with the parent in a safe and controlled environment.
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Foster Care System: In cases where children must be removed from their home for their safety, foster care systems attempt to place children in homes where they can maintain connections with their biological parents if possible. Reunification efforts are often a priority, with social workers and other professionals working to support the parent-child bond during the process.
4. Mediation Services
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Family Mediators: Mediation is an alternative to litigation in family law cases, and mediators help parents reach an agreement that benefits the child and preserves important family relationships. Mediators often emphasize cooperative parenting and the importance of maintaining strong parent-child bonds. In mediation, parents work out a custody or visitation arrangement that fosters the child’s connection with both parents, avoiding the adversarial nature of a court battle.
5. Parents Themselves
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Co-Parenting and Parenting Plans: Ultimately, the responsibility of maintaining and nurturing the parent-child bond often rests with the parents themselves. While the courts and professionals can help, parents must be willing to put aside personal conflict and work together for the well-being of their children. A well-structured parenting plan—detailing visitation, communication guidelines, and how decisions about the child’s welfare will be made—can help protect the bond by ensuring consistency and stability in the child’s life.
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Cooperative Co-Parenting: In cases where parents are separated or divorced, cooperative co-parenting can be a key factor in preserving strong parent-child relationships. Parents who communicate well, support each other’s roles, and maintain a unified approach to discipline and care can help their children maintain healthy relationships with both parents. However, when parents are in high conflict, this becomes much harder, and outside help may be needed to ensure that both parents remain actively involved in the child's life.
6. Support from Extended Family and Community
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Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, and Family Friends: Extended family and close friends can provide emotional support to both parents and children during difficult times. They can offer a safe space for children to process their feelings and maintain connections with family members who are important in their lives. In some cases, the court may allow extended family members to be involved in custody arrangements if it benefits the child’s well-being.
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Community Organizations and Support Groups: Various nonprofits and community organizations offer services to families experiencing divorce or separation. These groups might provide parenting classes, counseling, and even supervised visitation services to help parents maintain a relationship with their children in a structured, supportive environment.
7. The Child’s Best Interests
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Ultimately, in family law, the best interests of the child is the paramount consideration when determining custody and visitation. This includes ensuring that the child’s emotional bonds with their parents are respected and preserved. Even if one parent has more custody time or the child is primarily with one parent due to logistical reasons, the legal system is supposed to protect the child’s need for relationships with both parents, when possible.
How Can the Parent-Child Bond Be Protected in High-Conflict Situations?
In cases where parents are highly contentious or one parent attempts to undermine the relationship between the child and the other parent (through alienation or manipulation), protecting the bond can be more difficult but still possible. Some strategies and interventions include:
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Supervised Visitation: In cases where one parent poses a risk to the child (emotionally or physically), supervised visitation can ensure that the child still has access to both parents in a safe, monitored environment.
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Parental Alienation Awareness: Courts are increasingly aware of parental alienation (when one parent undermines the relationship between the child and the other parent). If a parent is found to be alienating the child from the other parent, the court may order therapy or adjust custody arrangements to help the child repair the relationship.
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Therapeutic Intervention: In cases where the child is struggling to maintain a relationship with one or both parents, family therapy or specialized child therapy can be crucial. This helps children express their feelings, address trauma, and rebuild trust.
Final Thoughts
Protecting the parent-child bond is a multi-faceted effort that involves legal professionals, mental health experts, child welfare systems, and most importantly, the parents themselves. In a family law context, the system strives to ensure that children have the opportunity to maintain healthy, loving relationships with both parents, unless there is significant evidence that one parent poses a risk to the child’s well-being. It’s a complex, sometimes challenging task, but one that is vital to ensuring that children can grow up with strong emotional foundations.
Do you think the current family law system does enough to protect parent-child bonds? What more could be done to improve this?
Public · By Sherry Palmer, Tina M Granstrom and 2 others
January 10 at 6:00pm until January 16 at 9:00pm in CST
IF YOU ARE TIRED OF BEING TREATED LIKE YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS IN DIVORCE...
FIGHT BACK with DIVORCE CORP., Ron and Sherry Palmer withwww.fixfamilycourts.com, Wendy Archer, Dr. Richard Warshak, and other guests. Divorce Corp. will be releasing a companion book to the movie and the Palmers will be officially releasing their next highly anticipated book "Protecting Parent Child Bonds: 28th Amendment" as part of a REFORM movement coordinated with the release of the movie. The amendment book gives you the tool you need to finally tell your lawmakers the exact change that you want!
And receive 25% off of the most comprehensive constitutional parental rights book to date, "NOT in the Child's Best Interest." This book gives you the tools that you need to finally be heard, no longer feel like you are in the dark, and empower you to finally know how to fight for equal rights and time to your child!
Attend the movie at any of the following locations listed on this page, stay for 15 min Q&A after the movie and receive your free link to the amendment e-book and the 25% off the parental rights book. We look forward to seeing you there!!!
Space is limited. You can pre-purchase your movie tickets from:
http://divorcecorp.com/the-film/ online...or buy at the door
Locations releasing the e-book for free and the 25% coupon for the parental rights book are:
DALLAS, TEXAS - (DIVAS Amber Rodgers hosting this location with a watch party!) You don't want to miss. Authors Ron B Palmer and Sherry Palmer, Wendy Archer of PAAO-USA north Texas, one of the star subjects in the movie, and Dr. Richard Warshak after the 7:00 p.m. showing at this location. https://www.facebook.com/events/244794552350931/
www.divastogether.com)
GARLAND, TEXAS (listed as AMC Firewheel 18 on www.divorcecorp.com website) - (DIVAS Amber Rodgers hosting this location with a watch party!) You don't want to miss. Authors Ron B Palmer and Sherry Palmer, Wendy Archer, and Producer Joe Sorge after the 8:00 p.m. showing at this location. https://www.facebook.com/events/208395752677552/
www.divastogether.com)
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA (listed as Los Angeles AMC Orange 30 on thewww.divorcecorp.com website - Catherine MacWillie, retired Los Angeles Police Officer and Founder of www.custodycalculations.com will be guest at this location on January 10, 2014 only with Joe Sorge, Producer/Director of Divorce Corp.
SEATTLE, WA (Brandon Brandon Lyons creator of www.dadmom.us app and candidate for State Senator guest at this location on January 12, 2014 after the 7:05 pm showing.
NEW YORK CITY - Kevin Avard HOST of Speak UP and former State Rep. guest for Q&A on January 12, 2014 at this location.
FLORIDA - Tina Tina M Granstrom will be handing out after the January 10th after the 8:00 pm showing.
MINNESOTA, MN - Michelle Lowney MacDonald Shimota, Attorney and President of The Family Innocence Project guest for Q&A at this location on January 12, 2014.
Find your location here and buy the tickets online in advance to ensure you get a seat on the nights that each guest will be there:
http://divorcecorp.com/the-film/
If you cannot attend you can still grab your free e-book by registering by January 10, 2014 here: http://www.fixfamilycourts.com/ subscribers/. Only those that attend a showing and the Q&A immediately following the movie at one of the listed locations above, qualify for the 25% off coupon for the parental rights book, "Not in the Child's Best Interest."
DISCLAIMER: All guests, other than the producers, would like everyone to know that they may not have seen the movie in advance and that while they all support efforts to bring awareness to problems in the system, they do not necessarily support or condone what everyone says, does, or believes. Their attendance at this event is purely to provide input to the audience as well as make them aware of services and tools to help them in their current efforts to get better results and reform the system. They hope that you will join them in viewing this film and taking part in reforming the system to make it better for yourself and future generations.
“Justice is a part of the human makeup. And if you deprive a person of Justice on a continuous basis, it’s really an attack (and not to get religious or anything) but it’s an attack on the human soul. We have, as societies, evolved ideas of Justice and we have done that because human nature needs Justice and it needs resolution. And if you deprive somebody of that long enough they’re going to have reactions…” ~ Juli T. Star-Alexander – Executive Director, Redress, Inc.
ReplyDeleteRedress, Inc. 501c3 nonprofit corporation, created to combat corruption. Our purpose is to provide real assistance and solutions for citizens suffering from injustices. We operate as a formal business, with a Board of Directors guiding us. We take the following actions to seek redress: Competently organize as citizens working for the enforcement of our legal rights. Form a coalition so large and so effective that the authorities can no longer ignore us. We support and align with other civil rights groups and get our collective voices heard. Work to pass laws that benefit us and give us the means to fight against corruption, as is our legal right, and we work to repeal laws that are in violation of our legal rights. Become proactive in the election process, by screening of political candidates. As individuals, we support those who are striving to achieve excellence, and show how to remove from office those who have failed to get the job done. Make our presence known through every legal means. We monitor our courts and judges. We petition our government representatives for the assistance they are bound to provide us. We publicize our cases and demand redress. Create a flow of income that enables us to fight back in court, and to assist our members impoverished by the abuses inflicted on us. Create the means to relieve the stresses on us, as we share information and support each other. We become legal advocates for each other; we become an emotional support network for each other; we problem solve for individuals on a group basis! Educate our judges, lawyers, court personnel, law enforcement personnel and elected leaders about our rights as citizens! Actively work to eliminate incompetence, bias/prejudice, special relationships and corruption at all levels of government! Work actively with all media sources, to shed light on our efforts. It is reasonable to expect that if the authorities know we are watching and documenting, that their behaviors will improve. IT'S A HUGE TASK! Accountability will not happen overnight. But we believe that through supporting each other, we support ourselves. This results in a voice for justice and redress that cannot be ignored. Please become familiar with our web site, and feel free to call. We need each other - help us to help you! Although we are beginning operations in Nevada, we intend to extend into each state in a competent fashion. We are NOT attorneys, unless individual attorneys join us as members. We are simply people helping people. For those interested, we do not engage in the practice of law. You might be interested in this article Unauthorized Practice of Law on the Net. Call Redress, Inc. at 702.597.2982 or e-mail us at Redress@redressinc.com. WORKING TOGETHER TO ATTAIN FAIRNESS
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