CPPA February 2016 Newsletter

California Protective Parents Association Newsletter Dear Friends, CA Protective Parents Association would love you to Like our Facebook page!  LEGISLATION Center for Judicial Excellence and CPPA are working together toward the goal of giving younger children a voice in family courts regarding their wishes for custody and visitation, if they wish to speak to the judge. California Family Code section 3042 allows children age 14 and older to speak directly to the judge. The process has worked well for teenagers for the past 6 years. Now we believe children age 7 and above should have that same right.  Stay tuned for more details!  STUDY ON CALIFORNIA FAMILY COURT Michelle Mercurio is a doctoral student at Saybrook University in California.  She is doing a study on the California family court system about the experiences of protective mothers of abused children, as part of her Psychology Dissertation course.   Her survey should take at least an hour. It includes an optional follow-up phone call.  She will need at least 15 participants for the study.  If you are interested in taking the survey, you have to be female, 18-years-old or older, and previously had or have a California family law case with an abused child.  You do not need to finish the survey, and you may skip questions.  You also do not need to participate in the optional follow-up phone call.  Thank you for your participation.  The study will remain open for a couple of weeks.  Please click HERE to take the survey! PETITION FOR CHILD PHYSICAL AND SEXUAL SAFETY This petition is about child physical and sexual safety. The California Constitution states in part that all citizens have a right to seek and obtain safety. Yet children are treated as property, not as human beings and citizens, and their safety is compromised. This is the most important social justice and human rights issue of our times. That's why I created a petition to The California State House, The California State Senate, Governor Jerry Brown, and The United States House of Representatives, which says: "We call upon the state of California to ensure that child physical and sexual safety is the first and highest priority in all custody and visitation decisions. Currently, children who report abuse are frequently taken from safe mothers and given to their violent and/or incestuous fathers by family/divorce court judges. This must stop." Click HERE to add your name! ARTICLE Thank you for contacting the Boston Globe after the release of Spotlight, the movie about the Globe team that broke the story of the systematic coverup of pedophile priests by the Catholic church. The first of a series of articles was published on January 30. The authors understand system "failure" (which is often system "success" for perpetrators.) It is not a perfect article (for example, we all know guardians ad litem are the kiss of death), but it is a good start. If you have a Massachusetts case, you could contact the authors to discuss the local issues. Please applaud their efforts and let them know that GALs are not the answer! Source: Boston Globe State Fumbled for Answers While Girl Was in Limbo By Nestor Ramos and Evan Allen  GLOBE STAFF  JANUARY 30, 2016 The bad stuff hurt too much, the girl said, so she took trips in her head. She imagined she was playing in the park, not lying on the basement floor or standing naked in the bathroom where, she said, her father touched her. He told her not to tell anyone, she said, but she told anyway. She told her mother, who went to the police. She told her therapist, who wrote a letter. She told the people who supervised her visits with her mother, who filed reports. "I tried to tell anyone who would listen, but no one believed me," said the girl, then 7, during a trauma evaluation conducted last spring. The Globe is withholding her name to protect her identity. To read the rest of the story, click here.  CA Protective Parents Association | | cppa001@aol.com | http://www.protectiveparents.com P. O. Box 15284 Sacramento, CA 95851 www.protectiveparents.com

CA Protective Parents Association, P. O. Box 15284, Sacramento, CA 95851