No-contest system a good result

At last they're starting to understand the cause of the conflict that causes so much damage - the adversarial legal system.

The stats are as usual wildly inaccurate - oh well.

Looks like kids are going to get a better deal - shame about all those who've had their lives destroyed, and those dads under orders not to see there children etc.

Regards,
Simon
Phone: +61 (0)3 5973 6933
Mobile: 0414 415 693
vascopajama@dodo.com.au
http://mumsdadsandkidsagainstsolecust.blogspot.com/
http://thefamilycourtphenomenon.blogspot.com/

"The Age" - Melbourne

No-contest system a good result

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/nocontest-system-a-good-result/2007/04/25/1177459786218.html

Karen Kissane
April 26, 2007

A REVOLUTIONARY new Family Court system to deal with disputes has resulted in happier children and parents, according to a Melbourne researcher.

The new process, in which parents talk directly to the judge and are encouraged to focus on their children's future, has been adopted for all child cases filed after July 1 last year. It can also be used by partners in property cases if they wish.

Jennifer McIntosh, associate professor of child psychology at La Trobe University and director of a divorce mediation clinic, found that parents who had gone through the new system argued less over sharing the children, and the children emerged happier than those whose cases were processed in the traditional, adversarial way.

"There was far more acceptance of the importance of both parents in the child's life and far more respectful communication going on between the parents, and fewer out-of-control moments," she said.

Professor McIntosh studied 38 families where disputes over children were settled under the adversarial system the court has used for most of its existence, in which parties oppose each other and speak through lawyers.

She compared them with 50 families who went through a pilot program in Sydney for a "less adversarial trial" in which the parents talked directly to the judge without having to worry about the rules of evidence.

In Sydney tomorrow, Family Court Chief Justice Diana Bryant will launch a report called Finding a Better Way, documenting this "bold departure from the traditional common-law approach".

Professor McIntosh found that fathers who had gone through the pilot program reported significantly more contact with their children: only 18 per cent rarely or never had overnight care, compared with 30 per cent of fathers in the old system. Twenty-one per cent of mothers in the old system had little or no overnight care compared with only 2 per cent in the new system.

Neither group was lavish in its praise of the court system, but more parents in the old system (70 per cent compared to 28 per cent) felt the process had a negative effect on them as parents.

Reported one father who had gone through the new system: "In regards to mother, instead of impulsively reacting to me, she listens now. I think she was listened to in there, so she could listen to me too."

Professor McIntosh said she was surprised to discover the most important "mechanism for change" was the way in which the judge gave parents a role model for thinking about the children first.

"Their capacity for thinking like parents was restored, and for some there was even an increased positive regard for the other partner. That's got to be a good outcome for children."

Three months after divorcing, the parents said their children were significantly happier than the parents in the old system.

They also had less conflict with their ex-partner and more positive views about how often the partner saw the children.

The view of the judge was positive for 69 per cent of parents, who used words such as "fair, supportive, wise, eased the confusion, listened, amazing". Ninety-two per cent of the group who had gone through the old system reported negatively on the judge: "Biased, unduly critical/harsh, unfair, naive, ignoring, omnipotent, inconsistent".

The study concluded: "A loss in judicial impartiality amounted to a clear gain for many parents, who were more often reached, moved and inspired by a judge who entered their struggle."

http://www.familycourt.gov.au

Most child abusers are women: report

...if the so called child protection "experts" and the Courts were honest about this thouasand of kids would still have fathers.

Most child abusers are women: report
9 MSN Wendnesday 11th April 11, 2007.

14:34 AEST

Women are responsible for more than half of all child abuse cases in Queensland and are much more likely to neglect their children than men, a new report has found.

The Child Protection Queensland 2005-06 Performance Report, released on Wednesday, also shows a spike in the number of deaths of children known to child welfare authorities, including death by suicide.

The report shows there were 13,184 substantiated child abuse cases across Queensland in 2005-06.

Women were responsible for 7,319 - or 55.5 per cent - of cases, and males for 5,846, or 44.3 per cent.

advertisement


However, the patterns of abuse were found to differ substantially between the sexes.

In 2005-06, females were responsible for 80.2 per cent of all cases of neglect - 3,283 cases compared 799 cases for men.

Women accounted for 46.8 per cent of all cases of emotional abuse, a total of 2,615 cases compared to 2,972 involving men.

Women were also responsible for 48.9 per cent of all cases of physical abuse - 1,358 to compared to 1,412 for men.

However, men were by far the greatest perpetrators of sexual abuse, responsible for 663 cases compared to only 63 by women, or 8.7 per cent.

In only 19 of the 13,184 abuse cases it was not known whether the offender was male or female.

Child Safety Minister Desley Boyle said the findings shattered society's image of the caring and devoted mother and the belief that men were more likely to abuse children.

"We have an idealised image of mothers - that they feed their kids before themselves - but I'm sorry to say, it's not always true," Ms Boyle said.

"Some mothers choose to spend their, albeit meagre, money on cigarettes and alcohol and give healthy food for their children a lower priority."

Emotional harm was the most frequent type of substantiated harm in 2005-06, increasing from 39 per cent of all substantiated cases in 2004-05 to 42.4 per cent in 2005-06.

Children living in single-parent families represented the largest proportion of children subject to substantiated cases, accounting for 38.1 per cent.

Of the children subject to notifications in 2005-06, children aged under five comprised the largest proportion - more than one third.

The report also found deaths of children known to the Department of Child Safety had risen.

In 2005-06, 51 children or young people died - up from 37 the previous year.

Six of those children were subject to child protection orders.

Fourteen deaths were accidental, 18 were from natural causes and in three cases, the cause of death was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

The cause of death for five children was non-accidental and in four cases the cause of death was suicide.

It is still not known how seven other children died.

Ms Boyle also said the caseload figures per child safety officer had dropped from 32 cases to 21 cases at the end of 2006.

Unwanted pregnancies and abortions caused by domestic violence - The Melbourne Age today.

To all,

In case you were thinking its safe to go out.

A classic example of how induction (as opposed to deduction) is used to persecute.

No wonder so many think domestic violence is a problem only for women perpetrated by men !!

Could recognising that this is not true - that DV affects both genders equally (lets not worry about the slightly increased occurrence of female perpetrators) be a better way of tacking the problem?

Now I see why my letters get knocked back

Regards,
Simon
Phone: +61 (0)3 5973 6933
Mobile: 0414 415 693
vascopajama@dodo.com.au
http://mumsdadsandkidsagainstsolecust.blogspot.com/
http://thefamilycourtphenomenon.blogspot.com/

Abortion linked to domestic violence, study finds

Dewi Cooke
April 7, 2007

The Age

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/abortion-linked-to-domestic-violence-study-finds/2007/04/06/1175366479425.html

THE long-lasting impact of violent relationships on women has been illustrated in research showing that young women abused by their partners are more than twice as likely to have an abortion as those who have not.

The data analysis, by La Trobe University researchers Angela Taft and Lyndsey Watson, found that partner violence is the most powerful factor in whether a young woman decides to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Published in this week's Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, the study also found women from poorer backgrounds were more likely to terminate their pregnancies.

"We didn't know what would come out but certainly it doesn't surprise us and people who are interested in the termination issue aren't aware of what a strong role (violence) plays," Dr Taft said.

The researchers found that women who reported recent violence of any kind were likely to have reported a termination, while women who had had a violent partner at some stage of their lives had significantly higher odds of having had an abortion.

Dr Taft said reducing violence against women was the key to reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies. "People providing pregnancy counselling and abortion providers should be asking about abuse, but I think that we see this as an issue of unwanted pregnancies and as I'm a public health researcher my argument would be there should be a sexual and reproductive health strategy at a national level with a focus on reducing unwanted pregnancies," she said.

"There's a whole raft of things that you'd want to consider there but certainly reducing violence against women should be a part of it."

Court's denial of shared parenting causes sparks

(click on image to enlarge)

The guy's fighting for equaly parenting.
Would he be in the court if it hadn't been denied?
The solution. Remove the problem.
Protect children from having one parent excluded by the other.
Q.E.D.
(and imagine if he'd kicked in the panels of his wife's car!!!)

Regards,
Simon
Phone: +61 (0)3 5973 6933
Mobile: 0414 415 693
vascopajama@dodo.com.au
http://mumsdadsandkidsagainstsolecust.blogspot.com/
http://thefamilycourtphenomenon.blogspot.com/