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COOPERATIVE PARENTING FOR DIVIDED
FAMILIES/GROUP INITIATIVE
1330 Mill Street
Pittsburgh, PA
24 - HOUR HOTLINE
(412) 731-6270
E-mail: coparenting@yahoo.com
12/21/99
The Honorable Judge Judy Sheindlin
I would like to say congratulation on your show; I find it enlightening
I think the decisions made are fair. I try never to miss a show.
When the families break down or when children are born into single family
homes the court steps in. When the family has to go through the family
division court system, their lawyers and the court have the power NOT to
make them adversaries. However, this is not the case, the battle
begins and ends up hurting the children. Very seldom do they think
what is really best for the child. They center on their own pain
and revenge. The officers of the court have a duty to try to bring
about a peaceful resolution so that all can live with in harmony.
I have heard attorneys claim that court appointed mediators are part of
this adversarial process and keep the snow ball rolling. Family division
is a billion-dollar industry and as long as there is a man, woman, and
child, family division and all involved and employed will be and
making money off of someone's else misery.
The reason I am writing to you is because you work with men and women
issues extensively and understand many of my concerns when it comes to
families, especially single parent families. I am a Family Court Consultant
and President /Group
Coordinator for a Non Profit Organization called Co-Operative Parenting
for Divided Families. CPDF is the collaboration of several other non profit
organization that works independently and yet unite to make up CPFD.
We get together every Thursday night at the United Way Agency and offer
free educational and pro-se workshops to the public
at large. We also have young men and woman from the CIS program who
are under house arrest, most from single parent household (mother),
grandparents, aunts, and foster parents. Many of our children have
little or no involvement
with their father's, they have no positive role model in their lives.
Most of the youths are single parents themselves. We educate them on how
to be a positive role model statistic say that children of parents in jail
end up in jail and that it’s a perpetuating cycle, we help to show that
they can break the cycle. Our programs also run in the county jail and
at the
juvenile detention center (Shuman center). The woman and men
organization heads are the supporters of the other organization, which
keeps us operating. We all also hold down full time jobs and offer most
programs out of our homes, libraries and our corporate offices. Our organizations
are diverse in multicultural, multiethnic, variety of age and
profession.
We are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our Family Division
is The Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. When I first started
as a Family Court Consultant back in 1982, Pittsburgh was number one and
leading the way in child support collection now it is difficult
to find out where we are now on the list. I find it hard to believe we
are in the top twenty states. Our family division is not working and the
sad thing is that the court does not know it is not working because they
don’t think there is problem. One of the other members on my team called
me to tell me about the PA Governor's web site and how upset she was about
the information on the web. During our conversation we decided that
the Governor missed so many important points, I e-mailed him
about a program called the" Fatherhood Initiative". One of our groups
is a program called "the Male Initiative". In a special project, they take
children into jail to visit their fathers,
which is effective and will hopefully build a bond between the
father and child. This encourages the father to take responsibility of
being a parent upon release. However, the program does not serve the larger
segment of people it was designed to help custodial parents who are
forced from welfare with no child support. One of the singular reasons
for single parents on welfare is the lack of child support.
When welfare reform was initiated, the government never really studied
all the families on welfare. Most single mother households headed
had almost no contact with the father neither finical or emotionally.
There are grandparents raising second an third generation of their
grand children. The crack epidemic is taking more mothers out of
the home and into
the street. Many single fathers are raising their children with almost
no outside help. I remind the Governor that welfare reform was to move
families off welfare but not into greater private. I ask him why
he could not set up to go after deadbeats and enforce the federal laws
of child support. At least then, the difference between welfare and a job
would be income from support until the transition became more finical stable.
Our family division truly causes a division since it was not working before
welfare reform nor after reform. Allegheny County was ten years late
implementing a national computer system to aid in child support enforcement
and they do not have it right. They tell us they are only here to
"assist" To assist means help or aid someone. If you could see the inefficiency
of how our family courts operated, or talk with the hundreds of disgruntled
parents jamming the hallways, you would wonder if anyone there knows what
is going on. Even with an appointment someone can show up at 8:30
a.m. and still be waiting at 3:00p.m. It is so discouraging to see so many
men, woman, and children treated and talk to so rudely. Many
are told to return another day or that there is no legal help available
if they cannot afford an attorney. Unfortunately I found out from
my own experience that ours is a
client ----driven system, and most parents just do not know how to
get that system to work for them. I speak from personal experience. My
father stop paying his child support in 1970 even though he was a
city employee and his wages were suppose to be attached. Only after countless
phone calls, letters, faxes, research and court trips was I able to get
justice after twenty something years of struggling. My frustration only
sparked my determination because the employees of family division did nothing
to assist me. They blocked me every step of the way. What happens
to all those parents who know so little? Or nothing at all about the court
system?
With welfare gone will we leave these families in despairing poverty
to live in a perpetuating cycle that can be broken with our courts giving
education and guidance, and help? Our organization helps parents who seek
help. We are an active working coalition comprised of ACES, Coalition
for Fathering Families, Citizens for Family Unity, Male Initiative, System
Services for the Handicapped, National Congress for Fathers and Children,
all under the umbrella of Cooperative Parenting for Divided Families. Together,
all seven non- profit organizations try to educate and help as many people
in our Communities as we can.
We are always looking for innovated ways to raise funds to support our
efforts and that is the purpose of our writing to you. We would like to
invite you to Pittsburgh to speak to the people we service and to give
them hope inspiration and renewed faith in the court system. Your
beliefs are share by us all and we want all of our men and women to act
responsibly by taking control of their own lives and taking care
of their children. Judge, you have the power to let them know that
it can be done!
Sincerely,
Denise Simpson
Director/Group coordinator
Co-Operative Parenting for Divided Families
412-731-6270
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