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nansheonearth · 3 months

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(if you prefer, you can listen to the article by clicking the link. it is 4:13 long)

Inside the ‘high-conflict’ parenting class some Mass. judges require for separated couples

Jenifer B. McKim

January 17, 2024

Updated January 17, 2024

Melissa was filled with dread in early 2022 when ordered by a Massachusetts family court judge to take a parenting class with the estranged father of her child.

She had no desire to participate in sessions with the man she says abused her and her elementary school–aged child.

But fearing losing custody, Melissa — who asked us not to use her last name — agreed to pay $900 to take a remote course titled “High-conflict Parent Education” from William James College in Newton.

“I left my abuser, and I expected protection,’’ Melissa told GBH News recently. Instead, she said, “I have been court-ordered to be back in a relationship with him.”

What followed were nine weeks of 3-hour classes. The “high-conflict” parenting course involved homework assignments where parents were asked to find "positive traits" about each other, consider ways not to irritate one another, and phone calls to discuss common goals.

Supporters of the class — estimated to have been taken by some 600 parents over the last decade — say it is meant to protect children from the debilitating “toxic stress” caused by living between battling parents. But critics say the course is causing unneeded trauma, especially for victims of domestic violence.

The debate comes amid a broader discussion about how to improve court-order classes for separated parents — and, in some circles, whether there is any benefit at all. For years, divorcing parents in Massachusetts were required to take a shorter, less expensive parenting course — one of 17 states to do so. But the requirement has been suspended since 2021 over questions about the classes’ consistency and effectiveness.

Melissa is one of a handful of women who talked to GBH News about their concerns with the more intensive class for “high-conflict” parents. It's the only known such program in the state, distinctive because of its cost, length and requirement that "high-conflict" parents take the class together. All of the women say they were too frightened of repercussions to their fragile families to speak on the record. They describe the class as, “shaming,” “cult-like” and “creepy.”

Several women told GBH News they felt unsafe in the class, even when held remotely during the pandemic, sometimes forced to be in unmonitored breakout sessions with their estranged partners.

One woman from Middlesex County told GBH News said she was horrified her case’s judge ordered her to take the class. “I was very sickened that I would have to attend such an intimate class with my ex-husband, who is a very abusive man,’’ she said.

She took the class, but said it felt like a cult. “They would literally call you out, right in front of everybody and say, ‘You’re doing it wrong, you’re damaging your child. You do it our way,’” she said.

Another woman sent GBH News an essay she wrote about the experience — written to express her frustration. In it, she said, “I was instructed to write down the ways that I trigger my abuser's anger and what I can do different in the future, so my children would enjoy better academic and emotional outcomes. I was tempted to write down, ‘breathing.’”

Now a Boston College law lab is circulating a “white paper” that substantiates some of the women’s concerns. The authors say the “high-conflict” course is not regulated by the state, can take months to complete, and, “most worryingly,” forces some parents who’ve suffered domestic abuse to take classes at the same time.

“Parents ordered to take the class have legitimate worry,’’ the paper concludes. If the state suspended a parenting class out of concerns about “compliance with certification criteria,” the report questions, how can a class not regulated by the state be allowed to continue, and parents ordered by judges to participate?

Claire Donohue, an assistant clinical professor at Boston College Law School and lead author of the report, says she launched the inquiry at the behest of two former participants, one of whom was Melissa. Researchers asked for information from William James about the program, she said, but never received any documentation or response.

Donohue hopes that the report will fuel a conversation about the program and a wider debate about court-ordered parenting classes in Massachusetts.

“It feels a little weird. It’s like being sent to the school of good parenting,’’ Donohue said. “Who’s to say just because my marriage falls apart ... now all of sudden I have to open myself to the advice and the opinions of absolute strangers?”

Court officials declined to comment specifically about the Boston College report. In an email response to questions last year, court officials said the court does “not regulate or oversee” the William James course and directed a GBH News reporter to reach out to the college with further questions.

“The Probate and Family Court is aware of concerns from some [participants] and lawyers related to high conflict parenting courses,” the statement said. “The general focus of most parenting courses is to educate parents on the harm that can occur to children when exposed to parental conflict and how to co-parent.”

In July 2021, John Casey, chief justice of the Probate and Family Court, suspended the mandatory class for all divorcing parents after determining that the class could not prove its effectiveness and individual providers "failed to adhere" to reporting guidelines. The chief justice's decision followed an article published in Boston Magazine titled, “Is Massachusetts shaming divorced parents?” — a story Casey pointed to while explaining his decision.

Court officials told GBH News that they are working to re-launch the state-required program with an “updated, evidence-based” curriculum. State guidelines from 2010 mandate the program runs for at least two sessions totaling at least five hours at a cost of no more than $80 per parent, with the possibility of a fee waiver. Spouses were required to attend different sessions.

Court officials originally planned to start a new course in the fall, but delayed the launch after concerns from some legal service attorneys. The new course will apply to “married and unmarried parents where there are contested issues of custody and parenting time,” court officials told GBH News earlier in January.

Jamie Sabino, attorney with the Boston-based Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, told GBH News that a group of lawyers had raised issues with the new program, partly concerned that victims of domestic violence would feel they needed to attend courses, even separately. However, she said court officials are working to address those concerns, providing clearer notice to victims they can ask for a waiver.

Sabino says she's much more concerned about problems with the William James course.

“I’ve heard many reports of people, where there’s domestic violence, where there have been restraining orders — and they’re cooking dinner for the other side and being told they have to say nice things about their partner,” she said. “Our clients are trying to figure out how they can parent on their own after the trauma of the relationship and the divorce. And this is extremely traumatic.”

Jenifer McKim GBH News

William James officials defended the program in several emails to GBH News over the last year.

Kelly Casey, managing director of the college's Department of Forensic & Clinical Services, wrote in an email earlier this month that the course is based on a “successful” Kids First Center in Maine and was designed by experienced behavioral health practitioners.

“Research finds that children in high conflict home environments show the significant effects of psychological stress,” she wrote. “Over many years, the Courts and participants have seen great value in the program and continue to recommend it to parents and their coordinators.”

In another email last year, Jessica Greenwald O'Brien, then-director of the school’s Center of Excellence for Children, Families and the Law, wrote that people who have active restraining orders can ask a judge to pull them out of the class — but the judge has final say. In general, college officials don’t accept parents who have experienced “violence within the six months prior to intake,” she wrote.

“We are attempting to move coparents to a point where they can have basic, civil, information-based communications on their own regarding their children,” said O’Brien, who has since left the college for another job.

Melissa says she was required to take the class amid continuing conflicts with the father of her child, someone she never married and had been with for less than two years before their separation.

She felt obligated to comply or risk losing custody of her child. “You don’t really have a choice, especially when [the judge] says you can’t come back to court until you’ve passed the class,” she said.

In late December 2022, Melissa completed the course. It wasn’t until the following November she received notice that she had passed. She said even receiving the certification brought back unwanted emotions of dread and shame. Over the last year, she joined a group of women who connect online to discuss the trauma they experienced while in the class and seek ways to shine light on the problem.

“Everyone is complaining about it. Everyone is experiencing trauma. Everyone thinks it’s inappropriate,’’ she said. “This will keep going until we call them out.”

#jennifer mckim #gbh #boston #judicial #domestic violence #patriarchy #male violence #institutional misogyny #misogyny #o #radfem #women's rights #spousal abuse #feminism #npr

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enbycrip · 1 year

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Fucking Steinbeck 🤬 Fucking institutional misogyny. And I cannot *believe* racism wasn’t involved in that decision too.

#institutional racism #institutional misogyny #john steinbeck #intersectional social justice #whose names are unknown #the grapes of wrath

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radicalfacts · 7 months

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radical facts - short feminist facts

#systemic misogyny

• On systemic misogyny & inequality

Only 1% of aid supporting gender equality went to women’s rights organisations in 2016-2017, despite governments around the world committing an extra $1bn to gender equality initiatives globally....

This means that all these funds went to anything but women & their own (independent) organizations/NGOs, which are chronically underfunded anyways. This sets them under huge pressure to either comply to governnent sanctioned agendas (which are usually anti-women/anti-feminist) in order to even just keep the lights on, or to get cut off completely from any funding and support in general.

(sources: Guardian, 2019, OECD, 2019)

#radicalfacts #feminist facts #systemic misogyny #institutional misogyny #systemic inequality #systemic oppression #patriarchy #androcracy #patriarchal society #patriarchal government #women's rights #women's liberation #feminism

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feckcops · 11 months

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It’s official: the British public hates the police

“It seems incredible to think that as recently as December 2019, 77% of people in the UK felt that the police were doing a good job; 57% trusted them to tackle crime and 41% viewed the Met as non-racist. Today, the force’s net approval rating is just five points, down from 60 four years ago. Much has happened in the interim – not least the explosion of the Black Lives Matter and Kill The Bill movements – but still, it is hard to overstate how vertiginously Britons’ faith in the police has plummeted in less than half a decade.

“The decline has been steady but consistent, beginning during the first Covid-19 lockdown. Yet it was the horrific kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving police officer Wayne Couzens in March 2021 that really accelerated the police’s fall from favour. Over the year following Everard’s murder, approval for the police dropped from +44 to +14. As more police scandals surfaced – such as the strip searching of Child Q and the sexual assaults committed by Met Police Officer David Carrick – the force’s approval declined further, and then dropped again following the Casey Review.

“Unsurprisingly, public confidence in the police’s attitude towards BAME people and women has dropped particularly sharply, as has these groups’ own faith in the police. Voters now view the Met Police as institutionally racist, and have little confidence in the police to tackle sexual assault. A year before the murder of Sarah Everard, 55% of women felt the police were not treating reports of sexual assault seriously enough; by the end of March 2021, 7 in 10 women felt this way; that figure has remained largely the same ever since.”

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mizelaneus · 7 months

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#taliban misogyny #institutional misogyny #women’s rights are human rights

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demi-shoggoth · 2 years

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#eeeugh #institutional misogyny #institutional sexism #misogyny #american politics #abortion rights #supreme court #rape tw #republicans

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easterneyenews · 2 months

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trmpt · 5 months

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#taliban hates education #institutional misogyny #theocracy

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togetwhatyoudeserve · 2 years

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youtube

#youtube #BobbyBroccoli #image processing #institutional misogyny

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balkanradfem · 2 months

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I've managed to curate my small misogyny-free space both online and in real life, and now I'm no longer used to misogyny, it's no longer normal to me. So when I accidentally glimpse it, I'm not desensitized to it, I'm always shocked and unbelieving.

If I notice a m*n talking about a woman like she's 'just some ***' I'm immediately aware that this is in fact a demonic creature who needs to be burned. If I see anyone using a slur against women or pretending women are at fault for any of the world's issues, the hair on my neck stands up at the unbelievable amount of hatred.

Anyone implying that women should be in any way controlled, punished, forced to do anything against their will or dedicate their lives to anyone but themselves, is preposterous and villainous to me, I'm at loss that someone could even think that way about a half of the human population who are creators and administrators of life.

I know I am in a bubble, but it feels different knowing deeply in your heart that all of this is not normal, that casual or normalized hatred against women is absolutely insane, that it's sharp and painful and dehumanizing at every turn. It's insane to realize that women just have to live like this, believing all of that is normal, that I once lived like this, wondering what was wrong with me and why I couldn't just be what everyone was expecting me to.

I think still, if I can make a small space without this hate present in it, without anyone or anything implying we should be anything but free, anything but full complete human beings with absolute control over our lives, then we can strengthen and grow these spaces, and get more women in, have more women experience what life is like when hatred is removed. There is hope for women.

#radical feminism #sensitized to misogyny #i know its everywhere but i have no contact with males #and only communicate with women who see the world trough the female perspective #so yeah misogyny free experience rn!!!#except for you know #healthcare jobs government institutions #but i just pretend these things are not there #so they can't bother me in my safe space #i was not meant to change the system from the inside #i was made to create functional spaces outside of it all #so there would be a refuge #and from a refuge we can build community #>:)

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odinsblog · 10 days

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🗣️This is an illegitimate and deeply corrupt Supreme Court. Vote every Republican & conservative politician out of office in 2024

WASHINGTON (AP) — One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to check her in. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn't offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.

Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.

The cases raise alarms about the state of emergency pregnancy care in the U.S., especially in states that enacted strict abortion laws and sparked confusion around the treatment doctors can provide.

“It is shocking, it’s absolutely shocking,” said Amelia Huntsberger, an OB/GYN in Oregon. “It is appalling that someone would show up to an emergency room and not receive care — this is inconceivable.”

It's happened despite federal mandates that the women be treated.

Federal law requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients who are in active labor and provide a medical transfer to another hospital if they don’t have the staff or resources to treat them. Medical facilities must comply with the law if they accept Medicare funding.

The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday that could weaken those protections. The Biden administration has sued Idaho over its abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, arguing it conflicts with the federal law.

“No woman should be denied the care she needs,” Jennifer Klein, director of the White House Gender Policy Council, said in a statement. “All patients, including women who are experiencing pregnancy-related emergencies, should have access to emergency medical care required under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).”

PREGNANCY CARE AFTER ROE

Pregnant patients have “become radioactive to emergency departments” in states with extreme abortion restrictions, said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor

“They are so scared of a pregnant patient, that the emergency medicine staff won’t even look. They just want these people gone," Rosenbaum said.

Consider what happened to a woman who was nine months pregnant and having contractions when she arrived at the Falls Community Hospital in Marlin, Texas, in July 2022, a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion. The doctor on duty refused to see her.

(continue reading)

#politics #republicans #abortion #reproductive rights #healthcare #roe v wade #reproductive justice #femicide #misogyny #war on women #republicans are evil #the cruelty is the point #election 2024 #scotus #the supreme court is an illegitimate and deeply corrupt institution #religious reich #christian nationalism

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ladyluscinia · 11 months

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So much posting about why Shiv made the choice she did, but the way I see it...

Shiv couldn't crown Kendall for the same reason she could never crown Kendall. That fighting dog instinct. Roman stopped caring enough to hold his objection in his grief spiral, but Shiv never did. Being mad about Mencken, saying Kendall couldn't do it, even bringing up the dead kid? All just her trying to justify that instinctual refusal. Shiv was just as trapped in the cycle as the other two.

But maybe - maybe! - she thought for a moment she could bite the bullet to kill Matsson after his sudden but inevitable betrayal... Until she found out it was Tom. Because the thing is, Shiv can barely admit to herself much less anyone else that she loves her husband and doesn't want to lose him, but damn was she trying. And yeah, she can tell herself it was a move, pretend that there's power she can scrape together in the "CEO's wife and baby momma" role despite being her mother's daughter, but in reality?

Shiv wasn't gonna have it, and she couldn't trust Kendall or Tom to include her. But if she knifed Kendall, she could have Tom.

#it's her hail mary move to save her marriage 🤷‍♀️#tom is a corporate sleeze and he's sexist and he still hates her as much as he loves her #in business terms she's just as fucked with him and matsson running the place as she would be with kendall. maybe even moreso #but the ceo chair is a *hell* of a reconciliation gift #and if she's gonna be devastated by finally officially losing logan's eternally unwinnable prize??? she wants to be devastated *with tom*#succession #succession spoilers #shiv roy #girlboss sided with the misogyny and the misogyny won. 😔 so now she's siding with the institution of marriage #tom wambsgans #tomshiv #ladyluscinia

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please-picturemeintheweeds · 13 days

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“The story starts when it was hot and it was summer and knew he was a killer first time that I saw him wondered how many girls he had left and left haunted” I never had the courage of my convictions as long as danger is near, talk your talk and go viral I just need this love spiral! get it off your chest! get it off my desk! I screamed so loud and no one heard a thing, It must be counterfeit, I would be complex, I would be cool… I’m the problem it’s me, they wouldn’t shake their heads and question how much of this I deserve… if I was rude could all be separated from my good ideas and power moves: “Mr. Insincere apology so he doesn’t look like the bad guy,” try and stay out of everybody’s way, I know that I went psycho on the phone, you’re lookin so innocent, i end up in crisis, muddy these webs we weave, there are places I would never ever go, I forget their names now I’m so very tame now never be the same now, now: “when the night ends, oh what a shame, what a rainy ending given to a perfect day, the sky turned black in a perfect storm, yeah idk what to say since the twist of fate when it all broke down but the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now… I made you my world, have you heard (huh?), I can reclaim the land”

#Like these are not glitter gel pen songs they’re TYPEWRITER SONGS #TTPD predictions #c #Web weaving #The tortured poets department #I have never jived with her use of psycho in me. it perpetuates a stereotype with a very very loaded word. I debated about adding it here #But I did because that line feels like part of a wider theme of dismissing your own emotional reactions #due to internalized misogyny and saneism and ableism (which we all have)#Idk but it feels poignant to me personally as a theme I resonate a lot with bc of my mental illness history #And feel like TTPD will explore - large public processing of complex emotional experiences. What is Too Much to share etc #Idk I’m babbling but I want to be sensitive to the very real trigger of mental institutions and hospitalization.#And also recognize that she has recognized this theme herself a few times (CP comes to mind often for me)#Tw: psychiatric hospital #Tw: psych ward

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