AFCC: The Man behind the Curtain
AFCC was at one stage a judges slush fund of where bribes perverted the course of justice in California's family Court. Not only did it serve as a platform for corruption, but was also became the loudspeaker of Dr Richard Gardeners work in the 70s and 80s. The trail of devastation for victims was left behind with few who held accountable and more who profited upon these ills. Dr joan Kelly, co-founder of AFCC and CRC Authored "Reformulation of Parental Alienation Syndrome" as an attempt to revive Gardeners theories, so that it were more acceptable to its readers with the same custody outcomes, but omitting the obvious quotes that revealed the motives behind his work. She was also on the advisory panel of Children's Rights Council along with Warren Farrell who was featured in penthouses, "Incest The Last Taboo". He states,
"the incest is part of the family's open, sensual style of life, wherein sex is an outgrowth of warmth and affection. It is more likely that the father has good sex with his wife, and his wife is likely to know and approve -- and in one or two cases to join in."
Parental Alienation Syndrome created lavish lifestyles for those who promote and advocate for its existence for many years and so it is no wonder attempts to revive it were made. The reason why it was beyond controversial, was the fact that this syndrome led to many deaths. Nathan Grieco a 14 year old boy who did not want to see his father and alleged abuse by him. Gardner was an expert in his case and ordered what he referred to as, "Threat therapy" where he threatened the child with jailing the mother if he failed to go. Shortly after, Nathan committed suicide.
Thanks to one of the many decent fathers who spent $100,000 investigating California courts for his daughter to unravel why his grandchild was rendered motherless without reasonable cause, we know that this organization was used in this manner.
Much is left unanswered on why the environment of most family courts contain an automatic contempt for mothers, but hopefully this article will shed some light. CANOW, provided an extensive report on the activities of the AFCC and how it was creating a system of abuse and corruption.
The AFCC have denied promoting pro-child abuse and violence against women material, yet the content of their conferences tell a different story. Below is a training session where it trivializes empirical studies that verify the damaging effects of not only exposing the victim to the perpetrator, but also children. It distracts away from the safety of women and children to mislead practitioners into believing that there is a guaranteed method to separate those who are "just being abused" to those at imminent risk of death. There is no credible method in the world and to boast such a tool is clearly negligent.
Just in case the inevitable becomes obvious with the increase of deaths due to negligence, they provide an answer to that too. Below is a course on how to avoid accountability and continue backyard methods on treating victims of family violence and child abuse.
Here is a prime example of how Gardeners perspectives are very much alive and unchallenged in this organization. The whole topic is dangerously superficial, misogynist and trains professionals to look at the mother as the issue, instead of looking into why she might be
concerned about the child being alone with the father.
Instead of providing a genuine focus on prevention of risk and subjecting victims to further trauma, professionals are trained on how to avoid accountability and attribute further injustice to their clients.
Below is a conference from AFCC last year with more about maternal gatekeeping. Whilst "Violence Against women" topics are omitted from these conferences, "Maternal Gatekeeping" appears to be a popular event.
More disturbing was this article found on an AFCC website instructions on how to use the legal avenues on forcibly adopting out children if the mother does not comply.
Below is a questionnaire targeting alienation. Note how child abuse factors are not assessed.
This is one of AFCCs conferences on "Differentiating" domestic violence cases. In other words, a how to expose the children and women to violence unless it is extremely obvious that they are at imminent risk of death. When they refer to "Situational Violence" this means that if there is only one recorded incident, then they can justify ignoring the victim of further concerns and continue exposing them to risk. At present, evidence of one episode of violence is not enough in family court law. They require several incidents of brutality before they decide to order supervised contact and in some cases, nothing is done at all.
For anyone who has had contact with fathers rights groups, they are anything but silent. Again it is another example of the organizations lacking neutrality leaning towards the context of the mens movement. The presenters here are mimicking intimate partner terrorism victims to skew the experience and thus generate encouragement to foster undue control over women parallel to the nineteenth century child custody experience - where children were the property of men.
Again like every other fathers right organization, they are promoting shared parenting without considering much on the consequences.
AFCCs Influence on the Psy-Law Community in United States
In "News Today", the article claimed that there was "new research on maternal gatekeeping" that, "Mom needs to know when to let go". Again, its deemed the mothers fault for fathers taking less of an active role pre and post separation. When the mother does in fact resist visits, its usually for a good reason. Surveys on mothers have often reflected contrary to these beliefs that mothers do want their children to spend time and know the father, but not when it he poses a threat to them.
The influence of AFCC in united states is ingrained in the Family Court system. Lundy Bancroft explains this well in his publication:
JANET JOHNSTON'S TYPOLOGY OF BATTERERS AND THE AFCC RISK ASSESSMENT:
THE QUEST FOR SIMPLE SOLUTIONS
Efforts are underway nationally to ease the complexity of assessing risk to children from
visitation with batterers by placing batterers into distinct types, based largely on the work of
Janet Johnston. For example, a risk assessment distributed nationally by the Association of
Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) draws heavily from Johnston's work. The types Johnston
posits are as follows:
Type A: "Ongoing or Episodic Male Battering"
Type B: "Female-Initiated Violence"
Type C: "Male Controlled Interactive Violence"
Type D: "Separation and Postdivorce Violence"
Type E: "Psychotic and Paranoid Reactions"
(These types are called by slightly different names in the AFCC risk assessment, but are exactly
the same in other respects.)
Type A is considered the real batterer; he is very frequently and severely violent, and he
uses violence to control his partner.
Type B is violence that is initiated by the victim; she gets hurt because she is smaller, but her behavior is the problem.
Type C is violence caused by
"mutual verbal provocations," and again the woman is the victim only because she is physically
smaller; she is considered equally abusive.
Type D is violence that results from the stress of
separation and is completely uncharacteristic for the abuser.
Type E is violence resulting from a mental health problem.
This typology contains more problems that can be covered here. The types were preconceived,
with researchers instructed to assign each case to one of the categories. The research
has little external validity; her types have no relationship to any patterns observed by domestic
violence professionals in the clinical setting. Relying on these categories leads to serious errors in crafting visitation plans. Risk to children can be assessed, as we will see, but not by this
approach.
The great majority of batterers do not fit any of Johnston's types, because they exert
"chronic pervasive control," but it is not accompanied by the most severe or frequent violence.
The most common batterer is one who uses violence two or three times a year, whose partner has never been hospitalized with injuries, and who shows no evidence of sadism. Nevertheless, his partner and children exhibit trauma symptoms due to their fear of the abuser, the repeated denial of their basic rights, and the pattern of psychological attack. Assessing the risk to these children from unsupervised visitation is a complex process, and the danger varies greatly from case to case.
These categories encourage us to assess the victim rather than the abuser. The "A" type of
batterer is considered the only real batterer; he is described as having a victim who is severely
traumatized, who is passive and withdrawn, and who rarely starts arguments or challenges the
batterer. A woman who is stronger, angrier, or generally more unpleasant to interact with, would
be likely under Johnston's approach to be seen as mutually abusive and provocative, the "C" type of relationship; she would thus be considered largely responsible for the man's violence. In
reality, most abused women, even those who are terrified, do not give up all forms of fighting
back, and continue attempting to protect their rights and the rights of their children. The more
that the victim refuses to submit to the abuser's control, the more likely he is to escalate his
violence. Under Johnston's typology, the more courageously a woman attempts to defend herself and her children, the less responsibility the abuser has for his actions. Using this approach serves the batterer's interests well, but endangers the children. The result of this approach is that some of the most dangerous abusers, those who are the most determined to dominate at all costs, are ironically declared to be the lowest risk to their children.
AFCCs Influence on the Psy-Law Community in Australia
If you think that this organization would not have much influence on the culture of the Family Courts, think again. The Australian Institute of Families, a research body for the family court quotes references from their conferences throughout their publications and many of its members have presented and joined the organization. The Family Court of Australia advertises upcoming conferences to the family law community and many judges and court personnel have been members and presenters to the conferences.
An appalling example of how the australian government dealt with our indigenous community. Rather than provide more services to ensure the safety of women where statistics of family violence are much higher, this program was funded based upon "Maternal Gatekeeping". A term used to divert the focus away from the reason why she is concerned about the child being left alone with the father.
Sadly Child Protection in Western Australia jumped on the band wagon to preach on how they not only believe that fathers are safer with children than mothers, but that they are "Maternal Gatekeepers".
In the Australian governments family relationship clearinghouse were a series of articles for and against the use of parental alienation syndrome in family court context. The fact that it was even listed in the library endorsed junk science and may have mislead readers into believing that such a syndrome was prevalent above child abuse and family violence. On the last pages of the CANOW report, the American Psychiatry Association verifies that PAS is not a syndrome, that it is not being considered for the diagnostic and statistic manual in the near future as there is no real scientific validity.
On Lawlink.gov in NSW, a link to Parental Alienation Syndrome is listed which refers to Gardeners books. By even linking to it is another endorsement from the Australian government that using junk science to conceal family violence is acceptable. Considering that not only does the syndrome target victims of domestic violence as "alienators", it also promotes sending the child to the abuser.
Internationally, AFCC has grown and so have fathers rights movements coinciding this culture. one of the major problems is that a majority of its material erodes protections made available for victims and cultivates a closed patriarchal environment that mothers are at the mercy of. Whilst outside these courts, women's freedoms are welcomed and accepted, but behind closed doors, she is perceived as a shameful act. The Family Courts are the last institution that practices values belonging to the nineteenth century. They do not respect nor value the lives of women and children in their research that could be easily compared to the propaganda authored by nazi researchers that were used to endorse genocidal goals. The courts need to rely upon more balanced institutions research such as the world health organization that acknowledges violence against women as a major problem, but also provides research on both genders without hidden agendas.
Organizations that research violence against women and children need to be wary that due to the fact that abusers are cross class and cultures, they will work towards undermining their protection by any means and monopolizing laws and psych culture, they are able to continue unchallenged. That is why it is crucial that every organization considers the opportunities that intimate terrorists may have in engaging in terrorism on a larger level whether it be in groups of like minded or by abusing the powers within professions. This needs not only to be researched, but desperately addressed, before we have more laws that hurt women and children.
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