Calling All Parental Alienation Warriors: Battleground Maryland
Calling All Parental Alienation Warriors: Battleground Maryland
Maryland's Proposed Bill Adopting Kayden's Law Needs Significant Revisions, Say Experts and Advocates
By Richard Luthmann
Maryland has become a battleground for Parental Alienation, Kayden’s Law, and the future of Family Courts.
Background
Last month, I wrote about an ongoing battle in Congress that will shape the future of Family Courts around the nation:
The Center for Judicial Excellence (CJE) continues to face mounting criticism over its "Child Safety First" (CSF) report. The CJE is a California-based advocacy group for child abuse and domestic violence survivors.
The CSF report, presented to Congress, aimed at reforming U.S. Family Courts to prevent child homicides during custody disputes.
However, experts and advocates, including the Parental Alienation Study Group (PASG) and Global Action for Research Integrity in Parental Alienation (GARI-PA), raised significant concerns over the CSF report’s methodology and findings, particularly around the issue of Parental Alienation.
Parental Alienation, described as a mental condition in contentious divorces where a child is manipulated to reject one parent without any valid reason, was reportedly neglected wholesale in CJE's analysis.
PASG and GARI-PA issued an 80-page report titled “Exposing Misinformation and Public Policy Deception Contained in Child Safety First,” challenging CJE's methodologies and claims. They argue that the CSF report contains over 50 questionable references, likening its spread of misinformation to historic scientific misconceptions, such as denying the harmful effects of cigarettes.
Kayden’s Law, the Violence Against Women Act, and Financial Motivations
The controversy intensifies with the financial implications surrounding "Kayden’s Law" from the Violence Against Women’s Act (VAWA).
Some critics, like retired attorney Maureen Martowska, a member of the Connecticut Shared Parenting Council and the Connecticut chapter of the National Parents Organization, point to the incentivized funding for states that incorporate “Kayden’s Law” from the VAWA as a critical issue.
“Right now, there is a nationwide push by Attorney Danielle Pollack and Dr. Joan Meier of the National Family Violence Law Center at George Washington University,” says Martowska. Their objective is to channel federal funds to educate judiciary members, court staff, and court vendors about domestic violence with a “gender-bent” toward women, and refuting Parental Alienation as ‘junk science,’“ “she says.
Critics suggest that the Family Court system, by neglecting Parental Alienation, could be financially benefiting themselves at the expense of families.
Maryland’s Grab at VAWA Money
Earlier this week, I received an email from Rabbi Yaakov Aichenbaum, M.A. Rabbi Aichenbaum (info@parentalalienationisreal.com), a Special Education Professional and a Parental Alienation Study Group member. He is active in addressing misinformation about Parental Alienation.
The email, addressed to myself and fellow journalist Frank Parlato, is reproduced below:
Hi Frank and Richard,
Kudos again for your coverage of our analysis of the CJE Child Safety First Report. Maryland is one of the test states for Kayden's Law. Many of the big names in domestic violence advocacy are based in Maryland. Two of the "reviewers" of the CJE report are stakeholders in MD legislation. There is a major push this year to pass a custody evaluator's training bill. We pushed it off for three years already, but this year they have come up with a terrible bill that has major sponsorship.
SB 365 and HB 405 essentially exclude any expert witnesses besides those with clinical experience with domestic violence victims; it prohibits relying on belief systems and not research-based theories (i.e., parental alienation, albeit not mentioned by name), and more. We are trying to gather a large collective response among the public and professional community. We would value any help or media coverage you could provide. Attached is the bill information, our concerns with the bill, and proposed changes. Please contact me with any questions that you might have. Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.
Yours,
Yaakov Aichenbaum
Baltimore , MD
So, the issue is that Maryland has a Custody Evaluator Bill going up this Legislative session that is very bad for Parental Alienation, according to PA advocates and experts.
What Is Maryland SB 365/HB 405, the So-Called ‘Child Custody Evaluators – Qualifications and Training’ Act?
The Maryland Legislature wants to capture federal VAWA / Kayden’s Law money for their Family Court system, improve the quality of custody evaluator training, and prevent legitimate cases of domestic violence and abuse from being overlooked due to lack of proper training. These all appear to be legitimate legislative goals.
READ THE TEXT OF THE BILL HERE
Experts say the bill, in truth, is designed to preclude Parental Alienation claims from Maryland Family Courts. Rabbi Aichenbaum has produced an Information Sheet on SB 365/HB 405 for PASG.
PASG says the bill, among other things, has these adverse effects:
The bill limits expert witnesses to only those who have experience with domestic violence.
The bill limits qualified Child Custody Evaluator training to only those who have experience with domestic violence.
The bill limits the Child Custody Evaluator curriculum to a narrow range of domestic violence issues.
The bill will encourage false domestic violence allegations to qualify under the statutory framework.
The bill excludes “belief systems” (which Rabbi Aichenbaum says is code for Parental Alienation).
PASG believes SB 365/HB 405 can be a good bill with several amendments:
Negative references to Parental Alienation are removed.
Psychological abuse and parent/child contact issues are added at various places in the bill.
The expert witness list is expanded and consonant with the Daubert standard announced by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The list of qualified instructors is expanded.
PASG has redlined the Maryland Bill:
READ THE REDLINED BILL
The Maryland Senate hearing for SB 365 is scheduled for 2/8 at 1:00 PM EST.
The Maryland House hearing for HB 405 was scheduled for 2/9, but the House changed all meetings for February. The new schedule has not yet been posted.
A Call To Action For Parental Alienation Warriors
The Parental Alienation Study Group (PASG) and Global Action for Research Integrity in Parental Alienation (GARI-PA) have sent an urgent “All Hands On Deck” message to advocates, experts, and “Parental Alienation Warriors,” who view Kayden’s Law as misguided and harmful.
These groups urge the public, especially Family Court custody evaluators and other professionals, to express their concerns about the proposed Maryland Legislation. They suggest writing letters or emails to the members of the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, the House Judiciary Committee, and the bill sponsors.
They also urge individuals to testify at the hearings.
Joan Kloth-Zanard: Answering The Call
This past week, I also received an email from Joan T. Kloth-Zanard, GAL, RSS, ABI & LC. She is an expert in the fields of Parental Alienation, psychological abuse, intervention strategies, and techniques and strategies for moving forward and rebuilding a life after a traumatic event or series of traumatic events.
Based out of Connecticut, she is the Director of Parental Alienation Support & Intervention (PASI), a 501(c)(3) international non-profit organization for the Prevention, Intervention, and Support of Victims of Parental Alienation. She sees the importance of solidarity in defending attacks on Parental Alienation like the proposed Kayden’s Law implementation in Maryland because “if it gets passed [Maryland], it can get passed in your locality too!”
As Kloth-Zanard previously wrote in a 2022 article entitled “Fixing the Divide between Mothers and Fathers”:
One of the main reasons that a campaign or fight for justice fails is because it lacks cohesiveness. In other words, the various fractions or splinter groups cannot get along. The different groups have the same objective, i.e., preventing abuse. But instead of coming together under a common cause with various ways to solve for it, the opposing sides or splinter groups engage in a war of sorts by disavowing and putting down or denigrating each other. So, instead of coming to the table to work together, they destroy the great works, contributions, and accomplishments both have made without considering that maybe each other has valuable input.
Joan Kloth-Zanard, Rabbi Aichenbaum, and many others seek not only to raise awareness of Parental Alienation as a dangerous form of abuse but also to have legislators, judges, lawyers, medical professionals, parents, children, and all others with a stake in Family Court endorse rules that reflect science findings and reject misinformation.
For these Parental Alienation Warriors, D-Day is February 9, 2024, in Annapolis, Maryland.
Thank you for posting this story. We need to work together and allowing the dismissal of pure science or allow misinformation. If we allow this to happen, then all science has to be thrown out. Much like cancer treatment, it might work for the majority of the patients prescribed a particular type of treatment for their particular form of cancer. It does not mean that we throw out the diagnosis or it’s treatment because a small percentage did not respond well. It does not mean that because a small percentage could not be helped with this treatment, that we toss out the diagnosis or ban the treatment and remove it from the medical books.
It concerns me that there is/could be incentivized funding for so many states that may incorporate “Kayden’s Law” from the VAWA as a critical issue. I have spoken to more women that tell me VAWA didn’t even help them. I have spoken to men that have been abused as well. If this bill is not going to acknowledge Parental Alienation as an EXTENSION of domestic violence and all men are abusers, then it definitely needs a revamp.