Job Description – the Foundation of Accountability for GALs and PCs.

The “Judiciary” has created a class of person that has no job description and these people work as court officers with no accountability, management or direction. They make life altering decisions and often play God with your life and that of your child. If they make a mistake – the courts say they are protected by “quasi” immunity and for all purposes - untouchable. 

They are Guardians ad litem (GAL) and Parental Coordinators (PC).

With no job description it is impossible to say what a PC or GAL is supposed to do and if they are doing something they should not. Mission creep has set in so that now a GAL or PC can 'recommend' therapy and do so with no reason, end point or methodology. All of this from just 16 hours of training.  You resist and the courts will coerce you into taking this therapy under threat of jail time or loss of custody. Or a GAL or PC may not report neglect or abuse when common sense dictates that they should report to DHHS. With no job description – you – as a parent have no recourse on this persons job performance – how do you prove they are wrong? You can't. As a result any complaint against a GAL or PC will go nowhere. That is why in five years not one GAL or PC has been removed or reprimanded in the course of doing their 'job' when a consumer has lodged a complaint. This despite mounting evidence that would suggest otherwise – that job performance is lacking.

A job description is a foundation upon which a job can be built upon. No foundation or one that is not solid and the structure of that job will be weak and rotten (like what we have currently). We urge those in state government to look at creating a job description for Guardians ad litem and Parental Coordinators. This is a no cost method of providing oversight and accountability to a 'profession' that has none. Let our representatives know how you have been affected by this lack of a job description – write, call or email them with your story. Or email MeGALalert@gmail.com and we will forward your story on to those who should be concerned.

Courts Support the Abuse of Our Children – Ka Ching it is all about the Money

Not your child's best interest

In any custody case where a Guardian ad litem of Parental Coordinator is involved they are supposed to report to DHHS (In Maine) if a “child has been or is likely to be abused or neglected, must make an immediate report to the Department of Human Services.” as stated in the Guardian ad litem Standards and Rules on the Maine Judiciary web site (look for 6.1 Mandated Reporting).

The reality of the situation that we have been made aware of is that Guardians ad litem rarely report abuse or neglect. How could this happen? Guardians ad litem are supposed to have the child's best interest at hand. Or is it maybe that Guardians ad litem have their own best interest. By reporting to DHHS such things as -

a child that was burned by a cigarette.
a child that went to bars late at night.
a child that was better off with a sex offender.
a child that was better off with a parent that had drug issues.

Ka ching – the cash register stops for the Guardian ad litem. The Guardian ad litem also ends up playing a marginalized and insignificant role in the childs life and the custody battle. The Guardian ad litem gives up control. People with any shred of common sense would question how a child burned by a cigarette is not considered abuse. Or that by placing a child with a known sex offender is safe and not a recipe for trouble. Yet when we are talking about these 'professionals' in the court system we look the other way. We are in a sense giving our approval for this continued abuse perpetuated by our courts and the divorce industry. Ka ching – it is about the money and not about your child.

Maine has received the grade of ( F ) by First Star three reports in a row. Maine is criticized by the Center for Judicial Excellence for the issues within the system. Chief Justice Saufley in March of 2012 indicated that there were problems with GALs in the state. OPEGA in 2006 outlined problems with the system. The courts reiterated this finding in 2008. Yet the divorce industry has been satisfied with the status quo. “Make them pay” was the quote of one well established divorce lawyer during one of the committee meetings on GAL reform. Who really has the best interest of the child in any divorce? A stranger whose incentive is how many billable hours they can get out? Or the families that are thrown into a pit of insanity that we call Justice? You be the judge ka ching.

If your child(ren) have been abused by the system you are not alone. We are a growing grassroots organization that is fighting for reform please contact us at MeGALalert@gmail.com or like us on Facebook for up to date information.

If you want to let your Senator or Representative know what your thoughts are on the current broke system that the divorce industry and courts maintain contact us for their information.

In the Name of Therapy – Court-prescribed Witchcraft and Snake Oil to help Families

Is it any wonder then why any parent when faced with a similar situation would feel anger towards a custody situation they find themselves in? Guardians ad litem and Parental Coordinators have been “prescribing” courses in anger management for quite some time. One Senior GAL is on record for recommending this because one of the parents was “caustic and controlling”. Are these parent(s) who are given this “prescription” by court officers really in needs of anger management? Or is this the “prescribers'” attempt to control (and need to punish) the parent(s) as a result of an unfriendly or hostile interpersonal situation? The courts and court officers appear have not given much thought or “prescriptive” precision in recommending “anger management”.

Anger is an emotion and is not recognized as a diagnosable form of mental illness by the American Psychiatric Association. Anger is not a primary condition but is a secondary emotion and is a part of many situations. The courts order and or prescribe “anger management” without the knowledge, skill or professional experience to know what they are doing with this alleged “tool”. The courts and their officers (GALs and Parental Coordinators) are not clinicians trained to “prescribe” anything they are reporters to the courts. In making these “prescriptions” the courts and officers of the courts never describe the 'anger' as being mild, severe, appropriate, inappropriate, controlled or out of control. If it is secondary to psychosis, drugs or alcohol or whether the anger is threatening the safety of others. In 'prescribing' therapy the courts and officers of the courts do not set goals or an end point to 'anger management'.

So are the courts helping the parent(s) that are 'prescribed' treatment or are they delving into an area that they have no business being involved in? Causing more harm to the parent(s) in an attempt to control and manipulate them. It appears that the courts in 'prescribing' 'anger management' is doing nothing more than playing witch doctor in their pseudo-psychological, court 'prescribed' punishment for what is perceived as bad behavior. The reality is that the parent(s) are showing their frustration with a process that is so twisted and warped that it is devoid of any reality.

If you have fallen victim to court 'prescribed' therapy please contact us at NationalGALalert@gmail.com for support or like us on Facebook for up to date information.

Judges Violate the 5th Amendment Right of Citizens in Divorce Cases

“Nor shall be compelled in any criminal case be a witness against himself” These are one of the the lofty, important human rights guaranteed to all US citizens by our world famous Constitution. Yet in state after state these 5th Amendment citizen rights are being violated by family courts, the very institutions that are supposed to protect those rights. This has been going on unnoticed by many for some time and has almost become accepted as a regular way of doing business by the courts, Judges, lawyers, officers of the courts and uninformed consumers.

What Judges are condoning- whether directly or indirectly- are asking one or both people involved in a custody to sign over their rights to privacy in confidential, privileged transactions, without explaining how this confidential information will be used- for or against the party. In the example provided below, the judge has ordered the defendant to provide proof of not only the attendance of counseling, but to allow the counselor to speak with the Plaintiff on the Defendants progress.

Click on image for expanded view

Why is this a violation of the defendants 5th Amendment rights? There may be those who will say that the defendant has a choice. He/ she does not have to agree to follow the judge’s order. And this, in theory, would be true. In this case, however, the defendant was faced with the following:

1. He/ She was threatened with contempt of court and jail if he/ she did not comply

2. He/ She could agree with the release of information to his/ her ex and the courts without knowing how his therapy records might be used by the opposing attorney and the alienated spouse: in his favor, or against him, to argue that he/she was an unfit parent, should not have time with his/her child. He is being asked to risk testifying against himself, if his therapy records are released. Self-incrimination versus contempt of court and jail. Tough choices!

Although both choices are horrible and personally damaging, What would you do? In going to jail there is the potential of losing one’s job, having a jail record and the loss of income during jail time. These are all tangible concerns and fears. We know what the potential consequences are in going to jail.

On the other hand by agreeing to the release of information by the defendant there is no way of knowing in advance how that information is going to be used. It is impossible to give his/her “informed consent”, because it is impossible to know every possible or likely outcome of this action, and how it may affect your case. There is also no way to know that the information gained by the plaintiff and court will not be used as part of an attack by the plaintiff against the defendant. This is seen by many people as a sneaky, indirect way to get the defendant to testify against him/ herself. It is a violation of the defendants 5th Amendment rights, and it is all too frequently used by Judges that preside over family courts in custody disputes. It is also one of the many examples of how the Judicial process in family cases has corrupted itself. This process is in danger of becoming very ingrained in the system and it violates the constitutional 5th Amendment rights - to say nothing of common law principles about forcing consent.

The courts in the state are showing a lack of respect for the privileged, confidential information that is conveyed between the therapist and patient as an absolutely necessary part of therapy. In this case (as well as many others that we are aware of) under the threat of contempt of court, the defendant buckled and was forced into making a “release of information” decision that had ramifications that the Judge, plaintiff and most of all defendant had no way of knowing how it would play out. The Judge was in effect telling the defendant that he/ she would have to potentially testify against him/ her self – thus violating their rights under the constitution. The judge also unwittingly destroyed therapy by destroying the confidentiality necessary to make therapy work!

If you have had issues or if things about your case just don't seem right with your Guardian ad litem – please contact us for support at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or like us on Facebook to stay up to date on issues and events. We encourage your thoughts on this subject please feel free to respond.

JUDICIAL BRANCH MANAGEMENT DILEMMA

In thinking about why the Judicial Branch has such difficulty in creating a management system for its GAL program, a number of conceptual and structural impediments come to mind. The most readily acknowledged issue is no money for supervision or for a bureaucratic structure that would allow for normal bureaucratic management of Guardians ad litem (GAL). The financial excuse is probably true given the dire financial straights of the state, but we would say in addition that even were money available, there are more serious conceptual impediments preventing Judicial Branch’s internal management of Guardians ad litem. There are at least three conceptual issues that would make supervision or management of Guardians ad litem in any Judicial system fraught with legal and ethical problems unique to judicial branches of government.

The issues involve internal conflicts inherent in normal organizational role shifts, within a judicial system, from the role of supervision of vocational functioning of a supervisee to the administration of justice in cases involving complaints about supervision which seek legal solutions. Both GAL management and adjudication of formal, legal complaints about a Guardian’s management get very complex when these inherently conflicting activities have to occur within the same, small, fairly tight system. It would require a tight control over supervisory information and rigid compartmentalization of this information, so that information about supervision and management - and any conflict therein - does not seep into formal adjudication channels and pollute the fairness of any possible, future legal complaint process. Can it be done?

1.) Judicial Independence. In the spirit of Common Law, a judge is supposed to form his/her judgment about a case independently, uninfluenced (unswayed) by other branches of government or by partisan, community (or bureaucratic) politics.

This means standing apart from and being independent of politics and influence from the other branches of government. It should include not only formal political influence of the branches, but also government bureaucratic influences, including those of the judge’s own internal bureaucracy. This means using data presented in court by both parties to form an independent opinion and not to be swayed by outside influences or outside information or previous knowledge of the case. It would be difficult for a judge to resolve independently legal actions of any kind involving a Guardian ad litem; especially, a GAL with whom he/she has worked in court or even one who is known to the judicial system. Judicial independence gets damaged by foreknowledge of the GAL, by working relationships, by the rumors, by system gossip, by the system grapevines and by private awareness of the contentions.
 

A theoretical problem might start with supervisory discord between a GAL and his/her supervisor about an issue of supervision, leading to an internal management hearing and subsequently pursued in a formal court complaint. It might go the full route in court and continue as a case of higher level appeal. Administrative supervision within any such JB system - if there were conflicts - might at some point be apt to tangle with the branches’ system for administering formal justice, as those with supervisory grievances may seek legal appeal. It poses a huge bureaucratic challenge to keep information from these supervision and justice boundaries clean, separate and non-communicating in a single, small bureaucracy. This is a very special supervisory problem (unique?) for judicial systems, one that is not faced by administrative bureaucracies in other branches of government. Judicial independence, while an active member of a bureaucratic branch of government is challenging to say the least.

Having a non-judge be supervisor of a GAL would necessitate a bureaucracy to supervise the supervisor, a supervisory appellate process for conflicts arising out of supervision, and links within the same system to the judiciary for conflicts that "go legal". Judicial independence in Judicial Branches would necessitate a “Rube Goldberg” organizational structure and be strained to the degree that all judges would have to adopt an antisocial, personal ‘modus operandi’ to avoid contamination of their independence by normal internal organizational grapevines and normal organizational politics. And this would have to be at all times for perhaps an actually limited number of internal legal complaints. Can independence of one’s home bureaucracy be carried out, always, with any kind of credibility? What sort of person would avoid all informal social communications with system wide colleagues to be judicially independent? It is an example of the latent conflicting strains between supervision and legal functions within the same system that inevitably impinge on judicial independence.

2.) Judicial Impartiality. There are special challenges to maintaining judicial impartiality when one sits in formal judgment of a person who works in the same bureaucratic system, who is appointed by colleagues, who works for colleagues and friends in that system, who may be known personally or by reputation or rumor. The potential role conflicts and/or impartiality conflicts would seem enormous when colleagues, friends, coworkers must attempt to render impartial judgment. Can it happen? Can one have oversight of a working colleague (and at the same time maintain impartiality), with the unavoidable risk that the working colleague might at some point go to law with a formal complaint for some sort of problem resolution, which cannot be resolved in supervision? It is another serious conceptual impediment to the Judicial Branch system supervising or having oversight of GALs.

3.) Due Process. Implies that in a conflict, all parties and the judge will share in common, knowledge about the complaint and the case at the same time, and that everyone has equal opportunities to respond to all steps in the process. No one has the special advantage of being able to use secret information unknown to the other players or privately to exert undue influence. Well run courts are scrupulous about keeping all relevant information shared by all participants and to avoid ‘ex parte’ communications so no one has use of special knowledge not available to the others. Information has a power of its own to determine or influence outcomes. The idea of protecting due process poses special challenges to the hypothetical idea of supervision or of oversight within a judicial system, where all supervisory and oversight information would have to be kept rigidly apart from the justice side to avoid contaminating possible future due process in a hypothetical legal complaint from the same players. Can any organization - even a formal espionage organization - implement this degree of control over information that is internal to one part of the system in order to prevent seepage into another part of the same system?

These ideas are just a few conceptual and system reasons, why it is virtually an impossibility for the JB to construct a system of GAL oversight without violating very important traditional principles that are embedded in administering the law. This is not in any way to suggest that these principles are not vitally important and necessary in a court of law and need to be respected. It is simply to try to understand why these same respected principles that work so well in court render supervision of GALs virtually impossible in Judicial systems. It is the reason why many states have surrendered to the impossibility of doing supervision/oversight within their judicial branch and moved these activities to the administrative/executive branch.

Maine should do this for the same reasons.

For more information on the issues of Guardians ad litem we encourage you to read the 2006 OPEGA report. Provided is a link to a summary – OPEGA. In addition there is the report the Power of the Powerless which addresses many of the same issues. If you have had any issues with Guardians ad litem we encourage you to contact us for support at NationalGALalert@gmail.com or like us on Facebook for information.

No Management or Oversight for Guardians ad litem in the last 40 years

In 2006 OPEGA ( Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability ) produced a report highlighting some of the problems with the Guardian ad litem program in Maine. What OPEGA highlighted back in 2006 for Maine are issues that sadly can be seen in many states across the country.

One of the audit findings by OPEGA was that there is a lack of compliance, performance controls and evaluation systems. The Judicial Branch has not been competent when it comes to oversight or performance monitoring in the 30+ years prior to the report.  Six years later we find the Judicial Branch still without any quality controls in place to monitor and evaluate Guardians ad litem. There is no mechanism to identify GALs that are not complying with requirements or who are not involved in the lives of the child(ren). OPEGA also recommended the establishment of an independent oversight board that would ask for feedback on GAL performance. Being able to give feedback and having a place where this feedback, good or bad, is available for consumers would help in the matter of oversight and management. An Angie’s list of sorts would weed out under performing GALs or limit their business. Those that perform to standards would be rewarded for their ethics and behavior.

It was 30+ years before OPEGA investigated and reported on this issue. Six years later the situation has not changed except that there has been 6 more years of damage to Maine's families and children. How much longer will Maine's children have to wait for change to come? If we wait for the Judicial Branch to bring about change it may be another 40 years. Can we wait that long?

If you want to read a summarized copy of the 2006 OPEGA report click here.

A copy of the report done in 2012 – the Power of the Powerless which covers many of the same issues can be found here.

If you are or know someone who has had issues with a Guardian ad litem please contact us for support at NationalGALalert@gmail.com. We can also be found on Facebook.

Hand a blank check over to a stranger?

What do you know about your Guardian ad litem?

A Guardian a litem has been appointed to be a part of your custody case. Here is a stranger that is invading your life in the name of your child's best interest. This person is going to be making life altering decisions and recommendations to the court that will impact your life and that of your child for years to come.

What can you find out in Maine about this person's background and professional standing as a Guardian ad litem?

Nothing.

Maine is not the only state where the past of the Guardian ad litem is shrouded in secrecy.

You have to accept on faith that this person is going to perform their job  as a Guardian ad litem competently. You are going into this deal blind, because in many states there is not currently any form of oversight, accountability or consumer protection when using a Guardians ad litem service.

One simple and effective measure of Guardian ad litem quality and accountability would be for the Judicial branch to post online, any complaint or action against a Guardian ad litem. This might be for something as mundane as not fulfilling the continuing education hours, to more serious complaints on the family and superior court levels.

New Hampshire is one state that does this. New Hampshire also lists on the court's rosters whether or not a Guardian ad litem is under suspension. Although this approach is not perfect it does allow the consumer to know whether or not there have been past actions against  a Guardian ad litem and for what reason. It allows the consumer to decide whether or not being late on continuing education is a deal breaker for example. Or if there are other reasons or actions that might make you question whether or not this Guardian ad litem will be a good fit. It gives the consumer the ability to make choices and to do so from an informed perspective.

There is no consumer protection for the user of Guardian ad litem services in many states. There is plenty of legal liability protection for the Guardians ad litem themselves who operate in a very protected legal environment. The Judicial branch of many states needs to be using some standard data management tool for holding Guardians ad litem accountable by giving consumers online warning signals about a Guardians ad litem past performance. Making their past record transparent and public is one way of doing this.

Otherwise - with no public information - the Judicial branch risks marketing a defective or substandard product to the public - Again.