Divorce in Connecticut: HHS MONEY

Showing posts with label HHS MONEY. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

DOES THE RECENTLY EXPANDED HHS HOME VISITING PROGRAM PUT OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO PARENT AT RISK?

In September 2013, Grassfire's "Liberty News" was the first to sound the alarm on what they called "a little-known aspect of ObamaCare - FORCED HOME INSPECTIONS." " Liberty News" strongly criticized this program, which has been designated by the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) in Washington, D.C. as the "Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program" (MIECHVP).

In essence, "Liberty News" questioned DHHS's motivation for establishing this program stating that it would be used as a means to undercut the rights of American citizens to parent their children as they see fit. "Snopes.com", another website pooh poohed these concerns stating, "No provision of [ObamaCare] authorizes federal agents to undertake forced home inspections."

In other words, what "Snopes.com" responded to is the fact that DHHS has billed these home visiting programs as "voluntary."

But do we believe these protestations that the program is voluntary, particularly after so many of us have dealt with CPS abuse or have been victims of the custody switching scams run by DHHS Fatherhood Initiative and the Access and Visitation Programs?

At this point, I will stop here and state that I received services from state run home visiting programs for eight years because I have two children who have disabilities. I had various educators who came to my home and worked on developing skills with the children and advised me on enhancing the children's growth and development.

Even though it did make me feel nervous to have state workers coming to my house and I certainly worried about my housecleaning in advance of the visits, I have no doubt whatsoever that I and my children benefited greatly from those visits and I am deeply grateful to the government for that valuable assistance. So I really am a person who can say that my family 100% got so much out of these programs.

However, does that blind me to how such programs can be abused? Not in the least!

Are home visiting programs a new invention of the Obama administration? No. The reality is that home visiting programs are not new to the United States. We had programs like this, privately funded by philanthropic organizations, as far back as the early 1800s. The early kindergarten movement in the United States, begun in the mid-1800’s, included a home visiting component. The children would go to school in the morning, and then the teachers would visit their homes in the afternoons. Again, this was a largely private enterprise. The home visiting component of the Kindergarten programs ended around the 1930s.

In the United States, community nursing which involved home visits began in the 1870′s with a handful of nurses relying on funding from private philanthropies. This kind of public health nursing approach included preventative health care, obstetrics, prenatal care and family education and a form of this program has continued up until the present, eventually receiving government funding.

The community nursing approach was paralleled in the 1880s by the Settlement Houses where wealthy women went into impoverished communities and raised funds for day nurseries, advocated for the development of branch libraries, kindergartens, and night classes, taught homemaking and child care skills, established homeless shelters, and taught English to new immigrants in urban communities.

Subsequently, the Great Depression, World War II, and the prosperity of the 1950s interrupted such efforts. However, in the 1960’s along with the federal “War on Poverty” and initiatives such as Head Start and Home Start, home visiting programs were funded with a focus on social issues such as poverty and teen parenting, and health issues. These programs were considered very successful, particularly in regard to reducing child abuse, to the extent that by 1991, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse & Neglect recommended that the U.S. implement a universal home visiting program--meaning every family in the U.S. should have home visits. However, there was no follow up to that recommendation.

But we all should be nervous when the government starts thinking in this way. Can you imagine a situation where every home in America receives visits from "nurses, social workers or other health care professionals" in order to check up on what you are doing with your children, to see that you are conforming to the currently accepted philosophies in regard to proper mental health, medical, educational, or religious practices?

What if you don't choose to adhere to mainstream practices? Will you be reported to a higher authority, scrutinized and targeted as your children mature and enter the public school system or begin to be home schooled? Where does it end? If the government institutes a universal home visiting program, which I suppose will be billed as voluntary, what happens if you exercise your choice not to participate? Will you be subjected to pressure to agree, or will your name be quietly referred to DCF for a visit, after which you become smart enough to participate "voluntarily" in the home visiting program? Just looking in depth at the idea of universal home visiting, the opportunity for abuse appears extensive.

Home visiting to see whether your parenting techniques are proper is behavior that I more commonly associate with cults. Now I hear that the federal government even considered such an idea and that a federal advisory board actually recommended it--I am more than amazed. I am alarmed!

While the idea of universal home visits didn't gain much traction in the 1990s, in 2008 the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590 and H.R. 4872), designated $1.5 billion to the Department of Health and Human Services for the years 2010 to 2014 to establish a coordinated system of early childhood home visiting that will eventually be established in every state. Thus DHHS reported that since they obtained this funding, "it has been implemented in 544 communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and five territories to serve about 15,000 families.

While this is by no means a universal program, it is certainly quite extensive, and all indications are that the people who are implementing this program intend it to continue to be so. As Mary Wakefield, Ph.D., one of the administrators of the program, stated, "This program plays a crucial role in the national effort to build comprehensive statewide early childhood systems for pregnant women, parents and caregivers, and children from birth to 8 years of age -- and, ultimately, to improve health and development outcomes."

Apparently, "Liberty News" has spoken in what "Snopes.com" considers an alarmist tone with commentary such as the following:

"the provision of ObamaCare (re: home visits) will provide [home care agents with] broad authority [to] ... clamp down on privacy and violate American rights. Homeschool your kids? Smoke a cigar from time to time? Have a member who was at one time on active duty military? ObamaCare enables agents to force a home inspection upon you. And no state will be off limits..."

In response, "Snopes.com" insists that there is nothing in the legislation establishing these home visiting programs which "authorizes federal or state agents to target and conduct forced inspections." In fact, nothing could be further than the case, insists "Snopes.com"--these programs are required to go out of their way to ensure that the programs are voluntary.

So what kinds of households are considered to be at risk and eligible for participation in these home visiting programs?

The comprehensive list is as follows:

- Families with Low-income

- Family with pregnant women who have not attained age 21

- Families that have a history of child abuse or neglect or have had interactions with child welfare services

- Families that have a history of substance abuse or need substance abuse treatment

- Families that have users of tobacco products in the home

- Families that are or have children with low student achievement

- Families with children with developmental delays or disabilities

- Families who, or that include individuals who, are serving or formerly served in the Armed Forces, including such families that have members of the Armed Force who have had multiple deployments outside of the United States.

This list includes an extraordinarily broad net that could sweep in quite an extensive number of families. For instance, how many cigarettes do you have to smoke in order to be considered a tobacco user? How do you define "low" student achievement? What is considered an "interaction" with child welfare services?

I don't believe Connecticut itself has gone overboard with home visiting services. The birth to three program which I participated in is really geared towards children who have specific disabilities and is not for everyone. In terms of legislation resulting from the ObamaCare home visiting initiative, the most that the Connecticut Legislature has done is pass Public Act 178 in 2013 which requires that the Office of Early Childhood provide recommendations to improve home visiting services.

Still, seen in the light of the millions and millions of dollars for the Fatherhood Initiative, and also in the light of the millions and millions of dollars provided for Access and Visitation programs, further millions and millions of dollars for home visits to check and see how mothers are taking care of their children--well, I could be forgiven for finding this massive funding of home visits considerably alarming.

In fact, I will say that this massive amount of funding--the numbers are quite extraordinary when you start to add them up--simply for the purpose of shaping how family members interact with each other and choose to establish the contexts--medical, religious, educational, relational--in which they live represents one of the most far reaching experiments our society has ever faced in the entire history of the United States.

The results have already been rolling in as thousands of citizens across the country have accused our government of child trafficking through DCF and of massive judicial court corruption where parents have been denied their constitutional right to parent without cause. More recently, there was the case of West Hartford's Justina Pelletier in which Massachusetts DCF spent an estimated $2 million trying to steal Justina from her parents using false accusations of medical abuse.

Where is this all heading?

While "Liberty News" may not have bought into the federal government's propaganda that these home visiting programs will be "purely voluntary", this does not mean that it was entirely inaccurate. We all need to be very concerned about what is going on here.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

HEALTHY MARRIAGE INITIATIVE RENEWED DESPITE EXTREMELY MODEST RESULTS!

On August 22, 1996, Congress signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) which transformed our welfare system by replacing AFDC (Aid to Families With Dependent Children) with TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). The thrust behind this legislation was to get people off welfare and back into the workforce, particularly single mothers.

In the heels of that reform, in 2001 Congress began to provide limited financial support for the Healthy Marriage Initiative which was established with the intention of helping "couples who choose to get married gain greater access to marriage education services that will enable them to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to form and sustain a healthy marriage."

A few years later, this initiative had grown considerably and garnered substantially more support. Thus, in 2005, Wade Horn, then Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, spoke before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce about the need to expand the programs Healthy Marriage Initiative on a massive scale alongside Responsible Fatherhood programs stating, "our proposal seeks to improve child well-being through programs aimed at encouraging responsible fatherhood and healthy marriages."

Already by 2005, Wade Horn was able to state that his agency, the Administration For Children and Families, was providing $200 million for programs aimed at promoting family formation and healthy marriage as well as $40 million for the support of responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage programs which he felt was necessary to stem the tide of fatherlessness and its destructive impact on children.

This decision to spend millions and millions of dollars to promote a particular lifestyle--marriage--represents one of the most extraordinary levels of social manipulation that the federal government has ever undertaken.

Two conservative think tanks--the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institute fully supported this ambitious effort. As representatives of the Heritage Foundation explained, "The erosion of marriage during the past four decades...lies at the heart of many of the social problems with which the government currently grapples." Further, the Heritage Foundation stated, "By fostering better life decisions and stronger relationship skills, marriage programs can increase child well-being and adult happiness and reduce child poverty and welfare dependence." (See "Backgrounder", March 26, 2004, by Robert E. Rector and Melissa G. Pardue). The initial budget supporters proposed for this program was $300 million per year.

At the same time that these Healthy Marriage programs were instituted throughout the country, the Federal government took steps to measure whether they led to the kinds of positive results which were greatly anticipated. Thus, in 2003, the government began the "Supporting Healthy Marriage Project" to conduct research on the success of these programs. These research efforts were headed by the New York City based Manpower Development Research Corporation (MDRC) and Abt Associates.

As a point of interest, according to USASpending.gov, from 2009 to 2012 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services paid $30 million to MDRC for their research on the Healthy Marriage Initiative, and that is only for one segment of the time they spent on this project. The actual report on their results came out in January 2014.

So, what were the results of the study?

Basically, the results indicated that the Healthy Marriage Initiative had no significant effects on the families throughout America despite the massive expenditure of resources that it represented. The complete text of the Study's key results appears below:

Key Findings

• SHM did not lead more couples to stay together.

• SHM produced a consistent pattern of sustained small positive effects on couples’ relation-ships. Compared with the control group at 30 months, the program group reported higher levels of marital happiness; lower levels of marital distress and infidelity; greater warmth, support, and positive communication; and less antagonistic and hostile behaviors in their interactions with their spouses. The program group also reported experiencing less psychological abuse than the control group. These impacts are similar to the impacts reported at 12 months. Reports of physical assault at 30 months were not prevalent and were not significantly affected by SHM.

• SHM reduced women’s feelings of sadness and anxiety, but it did not significantly affect the outcome for men at 30 months. While the impact for women is small, the improvement is of interest because parental distress is linked with less positive parenting and with increased be-havior problems for children.

• SHM had little effect on indicators of coparenting, parenting, or child well-being. Of the outcomes examined, only a few of the impact estimates are significant. Moreover, the magnitudes of these impacts are very small, and the results did not remain statistically significant after additional statistical tests were conducted to adjust for the number of outcomes examined.

Overall, SHM was well implemented, but it was fairly expensive to operate, and it did not achieve some of its central objectives –– increasing the likelihood that parents stayed together or measurably benefiting children living in such households. As policymakers consider possible future directions for programs that support marriage and relationships, it will be important to focus on how best to target services to those most likely to benefit, which aspects of SHM should be included in future tests, and which should be altered in an effort to bolster program impacts and reduce costs.

Despite these miserable results, the Department of Health and Human Services intends to continue these grants throughout the year 2014 and possibly through 2015 as well.

Why?

According to the information sheet on this subject, "ACF decided to continue the current grantees for an additional year in order to increase the consistency and stability in programs. The current grantees are making good progress toward achieving program goals and an additional year will enable them to increase service provision, including employment and career advancement. In addition, an additional one-year continuation grant would enhance The Parents and Children together (PACT) and Fatherhood Re-entry ("re-entry" is doublespeak for criminals who are being released from jail) research evaluations of Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) programs currently underway by enabling more refined analysis and findings."

In other words, they intend to scramble through the pile of the unmitigated mess these programs represent and see if there is anything--anything that they can possibly find to rescue them from the judgment of their very own investigative team that the programs they created have failed miserably.

I was just checking to see how this may affect the State of Connecticut. From what I see there are no Healthy Marriage Grantees in the State of Connecticut for the year 2013. However, we do have one Responsible Fatherhood Grantee--Catholic Charities, Inc., of the Archdiocese of Hartford which received $800,000, and, from what I gather, has received a similar amount from the federal government on an annual basis for several years.

If anyone else has a comment on some of these numbers, I'd be interested in hearing it. This is not to say that other money isn't pouring into the State from other avenues.

Again, as I have commented in other blogs, what appears to be happening with the investment of millions of dollars in fatherhood programs from the federal government is the implementation of highly profitable custody switching schemes which has led to a striking rise in families headed by single fathers with sole custody of their children--hardly the result that these healthy marriage advocates were looking for!

Friday, May 30, 2014

FEDERAL MONEY USED TO PERSECUTE VICTIMS AND AID PERPETRATORS!

Anne Stevenson reporting from Boston, MA — "Two days before Jennifer Martel was murdered, Jared Remy was arrested for assaulting her with a deadly weapon, causing Martel to take out a restraining order against Remy. Once again, the Middlesex DA’s office and the Probation Department ignored Remy’s violent criminal history and immediately released him on $40 bail. Less than 24-hours later, Martel was dead.

According to the arrest report, on August 15, 2013, Remy stabbed Martel to death in front of their 4-year-old daughter while fighting off onlookers, bringing an abrupt end to the 20-years long State sponsored violent crime spree which had gone practically undetected.

As the son of a prominent Red Sox commentator, questions arose as to how much influence Remy’s family had over the courts. But according to Remy’s long time privately bankrolled defense attorney Peter Bella, his client never received any special treatment from the courts. It was just business as usual for the Massachusetts justice system."

For more on this story, please click on the link below:

http://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/former-prosecutor-questions-integrity-of-courts-federal-funding-used-to-punish-crime-victims-reward-violent-offenders-18529/

Highlighting another article on this same case, how is HHS money being used? Is it being used to support victims, or is it being used in custody switching schemes to aware custody to violent and criminal men. See more below:

“Remy’s case is a poignant example of why so many abused women and children end up dead even AFTER the so-called “protective” arm of the state steps in,” says Attorney Wendy Murphy. “Not only is there a revolving door at the courthouse – preceded by a red carpet walkway for people of influence – but also, available funding streams mostly from the federal government literally reward family court judges who favor abusive men over victimized women and children.”

According to Murphy, the system is not broken, it’s running exactly the way it’s creators intended. But if the DOJ’s crime prevention grants are not being used to prosecute dangerous predators and crime victims, who are the real beneficiaries of this funding?

“The well-funded ‘training and education’ programs for violent male offenders have created a perverse incentive for judges to refuse to ‘punish’ violent criminals with either loss of custody or incarceration, and to send them, instead, to training programs that do not work.” Murphy also says that the net result of this funding frenzy is that abusive men feel financially supported and NOT punished – while victims of violent crimes are forced to live with escalating violence because of a legal system that refuses to protect them from harm."

For more on this topic, please click on the links below:

http://www.commdiginews.com/politics-2/corruption-trials-shed-light-on-blood-money-flowing-through-massachusetts-dcf-courts-18384/

http://www.commdiginews.com/life/family/convicted-murderers-family-used-cash-influence-to-buy-leniency-custody-of-victims-18445/

Saturday, May 24, 2014

THIS LOST GENERATION OF MOTHERS AND THE RISE OF FATHERHOOD!

A recent article in Connecticut Magazine "The Changing Face of Fatherhood" by Ray Bendici talks about the fact that more fathers than ever before are playing a role in their children's lives.

In Connecticut, they are doing this with the support of the John S. Martinez Initiative which is, according to Bendici, "a statewide effort to support and promote the positive interaction of fathers with their children." What the Initiative does is provide fathers with support in their roles as fathers while at the same time assisting them with custody matters, job searches, and other skills.

While this article describes what is happening at the Madonna Place, there are similar organizations like this dotted all over the State which assist father's in obtaining access to their children.

In addition, there is an official interagency agreement in the State of Connecticut where a group of State agencies have signed onto a common understanding that they will promote the interests of fathers. These agencies, as listed on the John S. Martinez Fatherhood Initiative are as follows: the Departments of Children & Families, Correction, Education, Labor, Mental Health & Addiction Services, and Public Health; Judicial Branch Support Enforcement Services and Court Support Services Divisions; CT Commission on Children; CT Coalition Against Domestic Violence; and Legal Aid Services.

It is not surprising then, that articles touting fatherhood, and describing state support for fatherhood have sprung up such as this one in the Connecticut Magazine. The end result of this kind of social engineering promoting the interests of fathers is that, as Ray Bendici states "Connecticut fathers are more involved in their children's lives than ever before."

They are so much more involved that, in fact, they are beginning to replace mothers as the primary caretakers of their children in record numbers.

Thus, a July 3, 2013 article in Business Week entitled "Daddies Are the New Mommies" by Sheelah Kolhatkar reports on a Pew study indicating that "In 1960, about 14% of single parent households were headed by fathers, today almost one-quarter (24%) are."

In other words, according to Gretchen Livingston, of the Pew Research Center, "Almost one fourth of single parents are single dads." The Pew Study further indicates that there has been a nine-fold increase in households with single dads, "from fewer than 300,000 in 1960 to 2.6 million in 2011.

According to Caroline Kitchener, author of "The Rise of the Single Dad" which appeared in the February 2014 Atlantic Monthly, what these numbers represent is "a rising divorce rate over the past half-century, along with the increasing frequency of parents never marrying at all; and the growing societal acceptance of father's as primary caregivers."

For activists in the CT Judicial Branch, this also speaks to a growing trend in Family Court where good mothers who have long been the primary caretakers of their children have found themselves edged out of the lives of their children by their more powerful, socially and economically connected ex-husbands. This is because such men have considerably greater financial resources and a tougher mental edge acquired through their familiarity with corporate political environments and with systems which make them extremely effective during contentious custody battles.

Not only do these men end up as the primary caretakers of their children, or the custodial parent, they are often able, with the support of highly paid mental health professionals and complicit family relations personnel, to literally eliminate these mothers from the lives of their children, even though such mothers were, at one time, hands on, at home parents for years.

Make no mistake--at the present time, the extremely father friendly environment of Family Court is a very dangerous place to be for women and their children.

In fact, the Pew study points specifically to the U.S. Judicial System as the reason why, increasingly, fit mothers are losing custody to fathers, who, prior to the court action, played only a cursory role in the day to day parenting of their children.

As Kitchener states, earlier in the 20th century, Family Courts would act according to what was then considered to be the best interest of the children, i.e. placing the children in the care of the mother who had long been raising them. However, since the early 2000s at least 35 states have shifted to the presumption of joint custody. The intention behind this legislation was to encourage both parents to become involved in the lives of their children on a 50/50 basis.

However, instead of encouraging both parents to share their time with their children equally, what has happened as a result of joint custody laws is that there has been "a dramatic increase in the number of single fathers." In other words, legislation that was intended to introduce parity between mothers and fathers in the care of children has simply led to circumstances where Family Court judges have handed over sole custody to fathers.

Of course, this could only be expected where each of the States are receiving millions and millions of dollars from the Department of Health and Human Services to support men in their custody court cases, and where community services to further the interests of fathers such as the paradoxically named Madonna Place are located in practically every county throughout the country.

Further, It is interesting to note that we do not have an equivalent Motherhood Rights' Initiative, and we do not have an interagency agreement to promote mother's interests, etc. in the State of Connecticut. Instead, we are like American College campuses before title IX forced Phys Ed Departments to provide equal opportunity for female athletes.

What is interesting about this situation is that single fathers do much better economically than single mothers do--only 24% live at or below the poverty line versus 43% of single mothers. Further, according to Noah Berlatsky who also wrote an article on the subject in the July 2013 Atlantic Monthly, "Single father-headed households have a median income of $40,000--well above the $26,000 for single mother-headed households."

Thus, even in their roles as single father's, men are able to wield considerable privilege economically.

It is unclear what the outcome of this shift in parenting roles will have on the lives of children. Intuitively, it makes sense that there are inherent difficulties involved when young children are yanked from the homes they have shared with their mothers for the majority of their lives. These difficulties can only get worse when they are then placed in the care of fathers who are newly adjusting to their roles as primary caretakers, and often simply transfer them to the care of grandparents or nannies. Then when you add to this the increasingly common situation where the mothers are barred from seeing those children ever again, it makes sense that these children would experience considerable psychological damage.

We are all aware of the frequently cited studies which indicate that children suffer when fathers are excluded from the lives of their children. However, no such similar studies have ever been done to determine whether excluding mothers from the lives of their children would lead to similar results.

I assume nobody thought it was important to conduct such studies before going ahead and eliminating mothers because replacing them with fathers seemed like such an overwhelmingly good idea to the folks that implemented the policy, they didn't figure exploring the situation in advance made sense!

Clearly, the best situation is when both parents share equally in the lives of their children when both parents are psychologically fit and time with each parent benefits the health and safety of the child. But the adversarial, free for all environment of the present Family Court system does not seem to encourage these kinds of positive outcomes. Clearly, there are no safeguards to prevent angry, controlling, and abusive ex husbands from using the children as pawns to destroy mothers through the divorce process.

In bulletins about Family Court, I have frequently seen Connecticut referred to as a "father-friendly State". I have no way of determining whether that is true for sure, although I can state anecdotally that I receive inquiries on a regular basis from mothers who are struggling to maintain their parental rights in the face of false accusations of PAS and mental illnesses they never had before they set foot in Family Court.

Many activists approaching the legislature this year talked about the vital importance of maintaining records of the kinds of cases that are appearing in family court and tracking the outcomes of these cases. This is the only accurate way to know what is going on. Until then, the numbers I have reported here tell me a very alarming story of the ongoing disenfranchisement of mothers throughout the United States and Connecticut which we cannot afford to ignore any further.

Thursday, October 31, 2013

OLD LIZ RICHARDS ARTICLE ON THE ABUSE OF WOMEN IN FAMILY COURT: STILL AS RELEVANT AS EVER!

In a 2008 article Liz Richards of the NAFCJ talks about fatherhood rights custody switching schemes and their damaging effects on loving, protective mothers. It is still as relevant today as it ever was. Please inform yourself of these schemes. See the link below:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/25/forum-parental-rights-and-wrongs/

Thursday, October 17, 2013

BARRY GOLDSTEIN OF THE SAFE CHILD COALITION DECRIES THE CUSTODY SWITCHING SCHEMES RESULTING FROM HHS/ACF MARRIAGE PROMOTION AND RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD GRANTS!

Preface: The California Protective Parent Group recently met with our representatives in Washington, D.C. to submit documentation regarding the damage protective mothers experience as a result of HHS funded access and visitation programs. The following is the cover letter to that material as well as the documentation. See below:

October, 2013

RE: Wasteful programs through Department of Health and Human Services/Administration of Children and Families

Dear Congress Member:

During this time of sequestration and fragile economic recovery, it is important to eliminate wasteful Federal funding for useless or harmful programs. We are concerned that certain Department of Health and Human Services, Administration of Children and Families programs under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program not only waste taxpayer dollars, but lead to fraud and may harm the very citizens whom the programs are designed to assist.

SOME SOCIAL PROGRAMS HAVE NO IMPACT OR EVEN CAUSE HARM

On July 17, 2013, a hearing titled “What Really Works: Evaluating Current Efforts to Help Families Support their Children and Escape Poverty” was held by the Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Congressman Dave Reichert (R-WA) said, “[I]n some cases, high-quality evaluations have revealed that some programs previously believed to be effective actually had no impact. In other cases, social programs expected to improve the lives of low-income adults or children actually caused harm – meaning those who did not receive the service or benefit avoided the detrimental effects caused by the program because they did not participate.” http://www.waysandmeans.house.gov

Both failings identified by Chairman Reichart are amply demonstrated by the Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood programs under Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (part A of Title IV; 45 CFR Section 603), and Office of Child Support Enforcement (part D of Title IV; 45 CFR Chapter III).

HEALTHY MARRIAGE PROMOTION

Marriages and divorces have been steadily declining in the same ratio to each other since 1975, (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005044.html) according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov/nchs). There is no evidence that Healthy Marriage Promotion funding has made any difference whatsoever in improving marriages, despite massive federal spending since 1997. None of the well-intended funded programs seem to have shown any real or lasting effect, including public advertising campaigns and education on the value of marriage; marriage skills training, divorce reduction programs, marriage mentoring programs, and reduced disincentives to marriage.

This $75 million grant program is a waste of taxpayer dollars and should be eliminated.

RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD

On the other hand, active harm has resulted from the Responsible Fatherhood Initiative. Social engineering programs designed to turn irresponsible fathers into good fathers have failed to benefit, and unintentionally endangered, children. Despite the goals of promoting responsible fatherhood, enhancing relationship skills, controlling aggressive behavior, disseminating information on the causes of domestic violence and child abuse, education, counseling, encouraging child support payments, providing work services, a massive media campaign for fatherhood and a special and questionable focus on ex-prisoners, there is no evidence that children are better off. In fact, there is evidence that children are being increasingly harmed by the interventions.

Although some programs may help fathers get jobs and pay child support, other programs appear to encourage fathers to get custody and receive child support. These are not ordinary good fathers being encouraged to become involved with, and get custody of, nursing infants and small children. These are drug abusers, batterers, child abusers, rapists, convicted pedophiles, convicted child pornographers, and other dangerous felons. One of the irresponsible fathers who received support from fatherhood initiative funded programs was John Mohammad, the Beltway Sniper. These fathers cannot be turned into upstanding citizens by uniting them with their children. Nor can children be expected to turn them into good fathers.

Such irresponsible and violent fathers appear to be referred to aggressive attorneys by some programs, and successfully receive custody and child support 70% of the time, according to research. The mothers are frequently not represented. The purpose of the fatherhood funding is to improve the lives of children, but being removed from a safe primary parent and forced into the care of an abuser or criminal is not an improvement. Custody litigation has become a multi-million dollar industry that encourages fraud due in part to large fees charged by unregulated private professionals appointed by courts. Children’s human rights are being violated and many are maimed and killed by irresponsible fathers. The long-term negative consequences to these children create exponential costs to society, in suffering of children, in dollars and cents and in the health of our society.

This $75 million grant program is a waste of taxpayer dollars and does harm, and should be eliminated.

NEED FOR GAO AUDIT OF PAST HEALTHY MARRIAGE PROMOTION AND RESPONSIBLE FATHERHOOD GRANTS

There have been multiple audits of the $16 billion TANF program. In June 2012, GAO director Kay Brown wrote:

“In fact, in fiscal year 2011, federal TANF and state expenditures for purposes other than cash assistance totaled 71 percent of all expenditures. This stands in sharp contrast with 27 percent spent for purposes other than cash assistance in fiscal year 1997, when states first implemented TANF. Beyond the cash assistance rolls, the total number of families assisted is not known, as we have noted in our previous work…While states have devoted significant amounts of the block grant as well as state funds to these and other activities, little is known about the use of these funds. Existing TANF oversight mechanisms focus more on the cash assistance and welfare-to-work components of the block grant. For example, when states use TANF funds for some purposes, they are not required to report on funding levels for specific services and how those services fit into a strategy or approach for meeting TANF goals. In effect, there is little information on the numbers of people served by TANF-funded programs other than cash assistance, and there is no real measure of workload or of how services supported by TANF and state TANF-related funds meet the goals of welfare reform.” http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-12-812T.

We need a full GAO fiscal and performance audit of past Healthy Marriage Promotion and Responsible Fatherhood $150 million grants to determine if tax dollars were wasted, if fraud has been committed, and if children were placed at risk with abusive fathers as a result of these expenditures. Are TANF goals met by such items as a media campaigns or home maintenance counseling, for example? It seems unlikely. Is marriage promotion appropriate and, if so, is there measurable success? It appears not. Are job programs, domestic violence and parenting programs provided by other programs? It appears these are duplicative programs. This is not good governance.

CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT

In most, if not all states, the amount of a child support award is directly influenced by custodial time share, thus making children into financial commodities. Child Support Enforcement, in turn, creates a perverse financial incentive to use children for financial gain, since an increase in parenting time for a non-custodial parent equals a decrease in his/her support obligation. Likewise, a decrease in parenting time for the non-custodial parent equals an increase in child support to the custodial parent. This linkage of child support and custodial time share instigates custody litigation for financial gain, often leaving children in custodial situations that are not in their best interests. This outcome not only wastes resources, but greatly harms children and families.

There is a simple solution to this problem. Federal funding should be withheld from any state that does not pass laws to terminate the linkage between child support and parenting time. Such laws would reduce costs for Child Support Enforcement, save taxpayers money, and benefit children and families by reducing custody litigation.

CITIZEN EXPECTATION

Citizens presume the Federal government will use taxpayer dollars wisely, to do measurable good and not do harm. We expect an efficient, effective government. We expect our taxes to be well-spent. We are shocked by the lack of oversight and accountability in these programs and strongly urge you to disallow funding.

We call for a thorough investigation into the waste, fraud and abuse of these Department of Health and Human Services programs through the Office of the Inspector General, along with Congressional oversight hearings on the systemic failure to ensure custodial safety of abused children.

Sincerely,