Registration: Friday, January 11th, 4:30 - 6:00 p.m. Friday, Jan. 11th, evening Opening Session with Angela Shelton and Lundy Bancroft 6:00 - 7:30 Angela Shelton 7:45 - 9:15 Lundy Bancroft Lundy's presentation will help protective mothers and their allies develop skills for organizing grassroots support and advocacy groups. We will learn strategies for breaking isolation, increasing personal strength while surviving trauma, and developing a view of oneself as a leader. From their, we will develop approaches to local and national movement-building to radically alter the family court system across the continent. Saturday, January 12th, Morning Session 8:30 - 9:30 Keynote Address I: Wendy Murphy, Esq. And Justice for Some 9:30 - 10:15 Keynote Address II: Toby Kleinman, Esq. Help, Hope, and Empowerment for Battered Mothers 10:15 - 10:30 Break 10:30 - 11:15 Elizabeth Liu, Esq. DV LEAP Presentation Throughout the country, battered mothers and children have been subjected to unjust court processes that have violated their most basic due process rights and resulted in abusive fathers gaining custody of their children. Because the problems are so widespread, and state courts are failing to respond, DV LEAP and other leaders in the field have become convinced that this problem must be brought to the Supreme Court. In December, 2007 DV LEAP and George Washington University Law School hosted a Symposium to bring together leading Supreme Court lawyers, with domestic violence and child custody experts from around the country. The goal of the Symposium was to air the issues to the media and public, and to educate domestic violence lawyers and Supreme Court Litigators on means of increasing the chances of getting one of these cases to the Supreme Court. 11:15 - 12:00 Rebecca Henry, Esq., ABA Commission on DV: Implementation of the ABA’s new Standards of Practice for Lawyers Representing Victims of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Stalking in Civil Protection Order Cases. Adopted by the American Bar Association House of Delegates in August 2007, these black letter Standards of Practice are intended to improve the quality of legal representation of victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking; to enable lawyers to effectively, ethically, and holistically represent victims in civil protection order cases; and to raise awareness about the need for high-quality representation for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking in civil protection order cases. Our hope is that the Standards (and additional commentary) will be integrated into trainings for new and/or pro bono attorneys representing victims in protection order cases and provide guidance for organizations advocating for victims of domestic violence. Saturday, January 12th, Morning Session (cont.) This session will provide an overview of the Standards and discuss ways to integrate them into representation of DV/SA/Stalking victims. To review an electronic version of the Standards, go to: http://www.abanet.org/domviol/docs/StandardsCommentary.pdf 12:00 - 12:30 Nancy Erickson, Esq., Joan Zorza, Esq., and Barry Goldstein, Esq. Discussion and commentary Saturday, January 11th Afternoon Session 12:30 - 1:30 Lunch w/Garland Waller Small Justice, Debating Richard Gardner, and Tethered to Abuse During this presentation and discussion, Garland Waller will show clips of Small Justice and Debating Richard Gardner as well as a short work-in- progress, Tethered to Abuse . 1:30 - 2:00 Free time, book sales, silent auction, etc.
2:00-3:30 Concurrent Workshop Session 1 1. Kristen Hofheimer, Esq., and Diane Hofheimer: Pro Se Moms: Handling Your Case 2. Rebecca Henry, Esq., ABA Commission on Domestic Violence: Strategies for Finding a Lawyer. Women Work! and the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence recently partnered to produce Finding a Lawyer, a tip sheet which helps survivors of domestic violence understand the basics about finding and working with a lawyer. This workshop is designed to empower victims and advocates to know when and what kind of lawyer they need, how to find one, how to maximize the relationship, and how to operate without one if necessary. The goal is to de-mystify the legal process for non-lawyers. To see a copy of the tip sheet upon which this session is based, go to: http://www.abanet.org/domviol/CDVeNewsletterFall2006_files/findingalawyer.pdf 3. Rita Henley Jensen: Journalism on child custody problems 4. Angela Shelton: From Darkness to Light 5. Casey Keene & Kathlene Russell: We Are a Team: Empowering Battered Mothers AND Their Children Through a series of snapshots, this mother/daughter team recounts and reflects on their experience as survivors of domestic violence. Casey shares diary entries and written memoir excerpts that illustrate her experience as a child exposed to domestic violence. Kathlene draws on the stories to describe the parenting challenges and important lessons learned as a former battered mother of three. Together, their poignant story captures feelings of fear and powerlessness, balanced with the strength of survival through partnership. Highlighting the importance of the mother/child bond, this team draws on their combined experience of 21 years in the movement to end domestic violence to describe helpful interventions and a framework for promoting resiliency in children exposed. 3:30 - 3:45 Break Saturday, January 11th, Afternoon Session 3:45 - 5:15 Concurrent Workshop Session 2:
1. Wellstone Institute: Digital Story Telling The Sheila Wellstone Institute and the National Institute for Battered Mothers and Custody Research will talk about growing a movement for battered mothers the Wellstone way to organize, advocate and educate. This skills learned in this message workshop will assist in framing the issue of child custody for battered mothers as well as telling your personal story in an effective way to move decision makers to understand harmful custody decisions and their impact on battered mothers and their children. Staying on message about battering and experiences will give grassroots organizing and messaging skills to raise awareness for the media or educating policy and decision makers, or when non-custodial mothers are often asked questions that are difficult to answer in an effective manner, without allowing emotions to cloud our responses. Our goal is for attendees to develop an effective message they can use right away, when asked those "hard to answer" questions.... such as, "how come you don't have custody," and the NIBMCR will use organizing and messaging as effective tools to respond and educate. 2. Geri Stahly: Research on Protective Parents: An Update 3. Barry Goldstein, Esq: Custody Visitation Scandal Cases Custody-Visitation Scandal Cases are the kinds of extreme cases which led to the start of the Battered Mothers' Custody Conference. They involve extreme cases in which abusers receive custody and safe, protective mothers are denied and meaningful relationship with their children. Unfortunately, protective mothers know all too well what these cases are like. This workshop will discuss how to use these concepts to prevent or reverse the tragedy of these cases. Saturday, January 11th, Afternoon Session 3:45 - 5:15 Concurrent Workshop Session 2:
4. Dianne Post, J.D. and Irene Weiser: Questioning custody evaluators when you are pro se The presenters will explain and illustrate a newly developed manual to help women without attorneys respond to custody evaluators from the first suggestion to have one appointed to the final closing argument. In addition to outlining the structure of the manual and how to use it, attendees will practice cross examination. A CD of the manual will be available. 5. Kathleen Russell, Producer, with Karen Anderson & Connie Valentine: "Family Court Crisis: Our Children at Risk” Marin is a small, exceedingly wealthy county in Northern California. It is also a hotspot for disastrous family court decisions. In 2000, New York investigative reporter Karen Winner reported on Marin judges who endangered children; today, despite the Winner report, the very judges she named have boldly increased their power in Marin Superior Court. A group of concerned citizens developed the Center for Judicial Excellence to focus on issues that negatively affect children in custody disputes. They engaged Kathleen Russell Consulting, a strategic communications firm that works as a social change agent, to create a documentary to examine problems and propose solutions. The film, although focused on Marin County, reveals the common plight of abused children who are not safe in any U.S. family court.
5:15 - 5:45 Break 5:45 - 7:00 p.m. Dinner & Keynote Address III: Richard Ducote, Esq. Internationally-renowned child custody attorney Richard Ducote will discuss recent developments in the law affecting abused women and children in custody cases. He also will describe how to implement effective strategies for handling physical and sexual abuse cases in family court custody proceedings. Sat. evening, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Concurrent Session 7:00 - 8:30 Ben Atherton Zeman: “Voices of Men” "Voices of Men" uses humor and celebrity male voice impressions to educate about domestic violence, sexual assault and other forms of men's violence against women. Icons of masculinity are interspersed with video public service announcements with anti-violence messages. Some of these videos contain graphic images - for this reason, use self-care in deciding whether to attend. Saturday, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Professional Practice Workshop 1 A. Seth Goldstein, Esq. What is sexual abuse? Why isn’t it believed when allegations arise in custody cases? In thousands of cases around the world allegations of child sexual abuse arise in the context of child custody litigation. However, too often, merely because they arise in this forum, the claims are disbelieved. There are attorneys, therapists, psychologists and other professionals who now specialize in “false allegations” of abuse in custody cases. One has only to look on the Internet to see how much this industry has proliferated. Whereas false allegations do sometimes occur, the research reveals that the incidence of truly groundless allegations, made for the purposes of gaining advantage in the custody matter, occur no more frequently than in the general population. The reliance upon unsupported theories of falsity often cause the family courts to render faulty decisions. In the mean time, children who are really being sexually abused in these cases are suffering because they are neither being protected by the official government agencies responsible for intervention in these matters nor the family courts who ultimately hear the custody matter. This seminar will define what sexual abuse is and outline the parameters of what constitutes a true and false allegation. Saturday, 7:00 - 9:00 p.m. Professional Practice Workshop Session I B. Joy Silberg, Ph.D. Lessons Learned in Ten Years of Helping Abused Children and their Protective Parents This workshop will summarize some of the lessons I have learned in my varying roles of trying to help abused children and their protective parents. I will discuss multiple ways I have tried to intervene as a mental health professional—child’s therapist, mother’s therapist, court appointed evaluator, forensic expert for one side—and discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the varying roles. I will highlight 3 cases with positive outcome one in which I served as therapist, one in which I was a court appointed evaluator, and one in which I served as forensic expert and discuss what I learned from each of these about ways to educate the court about protecting children. The workshop will end with recommendations about how mental health professionals can ethically perform these various roles within the constraints of our current system. Sunday, January 13th Morning Session 8:30 - 9:30 Main Session: Robin Yeamans Esq. Karin Huffer, M.S., M.F.T.: Don’t Let the System Do You In! Battered, protective spouses often find that they leave one type of abuse only to enter into another abusive relationship with the Court System. The abuser simply uses the Court as one more weapon. The Court system itself is a capsuled system that lends well to coercive control and abuse through power differential. Many times disorienting methods designed for criminals even terrorists are improperly applied to family court. The results are unbearable decisions rendered, the victim is left with no words to describe or deal with the trauma. YOU HAVE LEGAL ABUSE SYNDROME. POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER IS THE FORMAL DSMIV DIAGNOSIS. Fraud on the Court is so rampant that Legal Abuse Syndrome/PTSD is becoming epidemic. You qualify for accommodations in the courtroom under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Rarely used but critically important, this law opens the door for Federal Appeals if necessary and obligates the Court to accommodate you. There are specific protocols for overcoming LAS?PTSD. Learn the resources that are NOT often being used by battered spouses. Sunday a.m., 9:30 - 11:00 Empowerment Workshops Session 1 1. Sharon Araji, Producer, showing the documentary“Listen to Our Voices: Domestic Violence, Contested Custody, and the Courts” “Listen to Our Voices: Domestic Violence, Contested Child Custody and the Courts” is a one-hour video presentation that focuses on what happens when protective parents who have been victims/survivors of domestic violence become embroiled in contested custody cases. It features interviews with Tanya Brown (Nicole Brown Simpson’s sister), victims/survivors of domestic violence who were/are in contested child custody cases, officers of the court (judges, attorneys, DV police court assistants) and Robert Geffner, expert on the effects of witnessing domestic violence on children. Following the video presentation, the audience will be invited to comment. 2. Wendy Titelman: Building a Bridge for Healing The assault on women and motherhood is the most wicked force the world has ever known leaving women crippled and broken. Together we’re going to define the essential elements in getting past turmoil and devastation and crossing over the bridge to a fuller and more meaningful life. This interactive workshop is designed to get to the heart of our emotions, to gain inner strength, and to discover the beauty that you and every woman possess. 3. Patricia Duff and Thomas D. Shanahan, Esq.: Legislative Initiatives 4. Sheila Scoville, Ph.D.: Alternatives to the Courts: When the System Can't or Won't Deal with the Issues of Domestic Violence and Child Custody. We will look beyond the current judicial bureaucracy and legal system to focus instead on other societal structures and government agencies with the authority and initiative to provide protection outside the legal structure of criminality and blame, and look at the issue outside the framework of gender and patriarchy. Specific agencies will include the National Institute of Health, to address the issue as a threat to the health and lives of American women and children; next, within the context of the current Equal Rights Amendment initiative to guarantee women as well as men equal rights, freedoms and protections under the Constitution; and finally, to look at the various national and international agencies focusing on the rights of children to live free of violence, domestic terrorism, and slavery, and whether the Department of Defense and Homeland Security should also be providing funds and expertise on the domestic front. A list of websites and publications will be available to those attending. Sunday, 9:30 - 11:00 Professional Practice Workshop Session II 1. Tovah Kasdin, Esq. Making the Case: How to Use the Criminal Justice System to Positively Impact Child Custody Decisions This workshop will explore the critical connection between the criminal and civil systems and how working with the prosecutor from an early stage can have a positive impact on child custody cases. Now more than ever in a climate of mandatory arrest, dual arrest and no drop policies, battered women are often unprepared for the effect that a criminal outcome can have on their child custody decisions. This workshop will offer concrete steps that battered women can take at an early stage to cooperate with the prosecutor to ensure a full disclosure of the history of violence so that the prosecutor can better understand the criminal system’s impact on them as well as their children in future custody decisions. 2. Joan Zorza, Esq. PAS and the Friendly Parent Concept This workshop will deal with the two concepts that probably hurt mothers more than anything else in custody disputes, particularly when her partner is abusing her or any children in the family. Both concepts were created by Richard Gardner to disparage the credibility of women and bolster prejudice against women. As a result, this workshop will explain what Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) and the more benevolent sounding Friendly Parent concept (FPC) are, how they each hurt women and children, why many courts and mental health practitioners involved with custody disputes find them so attractive to use, and what everybody should know about Richard Gardner to be suspicious of anything he created and promoted. It will also discuss how PAS has been discredited within the mental heath system, and how PAS has been repeatedly reformulated with other names to try to resurrect it. The workshop will also explain how mothers can minimize their risks of these concepts being used against them, and how to prepare cases to maximize their chance of winning, if not at trial, then on appeal. A slide show will be available online for viewing or downloading by following the links at www.batteredmotherscustodyconference.org. There will be time for mothers to discuss what they have found helpful and other strategies that might help mothers and children, both in individual cases and with courts and legislatures. Sunday, 11:00 - 12:30 Empowerment Workshops Session 2 1. Carroll White and Annette Zender: Retaliation against Protective Mothers in Family Court This session is for protective mothers and professionals who have experienced or are concerned about retaliation in the family court system. When we are frustrated by the unfair, biased, or arbitrary decisions in court, we could well be experiencing retaliation for reporting spousal abuse, child abuse, or child sexual abuse. We’ll look at the various manifestations of retaliation and the causes. We’ll give participants time to talk about how retaliation has affected their cases. The presenters are co-founders of the Illinois Coalition for Family Court Reform and protective mothers who have experienced retaliation first hand. Annette Zender has documented hundreds of cases that involve protective parents and illogical outcomes in family court. Carroll White, protective parent, freelance journalist, and skilled facilitator, will guide us through a process of discovery and meaningful discussion. Sunday, 11:00 - 12:30 Empowerment Workshops Session 2 (cont.)
2. Patti Jo Newell, New York State Coalition against Domestic Violence, and Leslie Durham and Mikisha Hooper, National Domestic Violence Hotline As advocates, we recognized the importance of more fully understanding the issues surrounding child custody and domestic violence in order to provide better crisis intervention services to our callers. In this workshop, we will share what we have learned about safety planning, coaching and validating women in crisis facing custody battles. The objectives of this workshop are to facilitate sharing among advocates about their experiences and to provide them with tools and information that will enable them to: • Validate survivors facing custody cases, • Coach survivors on how to seek support and legal assistance and how to prepare for and appear in court, and • Safety plan around custody exchanges, visitation, and mediation. 3. Patricia Jackson Hatami: Winning Strategies: In Court and Out
of Court This workshop will assist you in maintaining your power base in the face of
overwhelming circumstances. Legal procedures such as those involved in the
family court system are designed to weaken your sense of self and destroy
self-worth. This workshop will help you to re-discover the power and
well-being that resides within you as well as share pragmatic actions that
can strengthen you and your ability to protect your children, no matter
what stage of the process you are in.
4. Renee Beeker: National Family Court Watch Project:
Providing Help, Hope & Empowerment for the Crisis in our Family Courts This presentation will provide a brief overview of the National Family Court Watch Program Pilot project. Court watchers were using a uniform observation tool to collect data. Attendees will learn about how this project was developed and some of the interesting results observed during the Family Court Watch Pilot project. Included will be the latest news on phase 2 of the project and on how you can become involved with the project in your area. 5. Doreen Ludwig: Pro Se Workshop: Representing Yourself in Court This workshop will be an informative and educational adventure into family law and self-representation. Good resources will be shared for those representing themselves, considering going pro se, or interested in educating for better communication with attorneys. We’ll start with a discussion of the trial court and continue with writing and researching an Appeal. We’ll discuss the Federal Court System and filing in the United States Supreme Court. Time permitting we’ll attempt case specific problem-solving and brainstorming. Doreen Ludwig has represented herself in Pennsylvania for two years, written four appeal briefs, filed a Federal Civil Liberties suit, and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. 12:30 - 1:30 Lunch Sunday afternoon, 1:45 - 3:15 Empowerment Workshops Session 3 1. Dara Carlin, M.A.: Walking the Gauntlet: Coping, Healing, and Dealing after Leaving Living with domestic violence is one thing, but having to live with it after you've left is another and if you didn't get pushed to the brink of insanity while you were with him, chances are you'll be pushed to the brink after you've left. Living your life after domestic violence is not as easy as it sounds; if you have children in common with your abuser, your journey into the unreal - "walking the gauntlet" is just beginning. This workshop will offer practical suggestions and survivor stories to help you cope, heal and deal until the system designed to protect us and our children actually does so. 2. Tammy Searle: Parental Abduction The proposed ALEXIS Alert System will work in conjunction with the AMBER Alert System in reporting the abduction of a child. The ALEXIS Alert System will also be a database that will have all Child Custody and DV orders so that law enforcement and judicial officers can view in real time what the current orders are. This will greatly cut down dual jurisdiction issues and conflicting orders. It will also assist our military personnel and others in dealing with unauthorized move-aways. We assist with information on Parental Abduction, recent laws, "courtroom/legal" kidnappings and the application of the UCCJEA. AlexisAlertSystem.org 3. Juva Poindexter: Gathering Evidence Tips on sharpening your skills of observation, obtaining information from children without "pumping" them. Other ideas that can be helpful, not only in court, but in everyday life. 4. Claudine Dembrowski and Tracy Hommel: The Power of Networking In this workshop, we will cover the power of non-custodial mothers networking not only locally but nationally. We will discuss how to empowering moms for movement using local networking techniques, forming local Meet-Up groups, court watching techniques, local & national support, researching local documentation, media coverage, and combining efforts to bridge the gap between local and national efforts.
3:15 - 5:00 Before You Go Home: Networking with Others across the Nation
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