Demand Lawmakers #EndParentalAlienation

After 1044 days of alienation and my fight for justice within a system of divorce either unable or unwilling to recognize a textbook case of parental alienation, I now find the damage to my financial stability, son’s emotional wellbeing and his relationship with his father to be extensive. Any donations will cover legal fees and effect legislative changes to prevent my story from becoming the story of others.

Fundraiser to Restore my Son’s Right to his Father: https://www.gofundme.com/justice-in-family-law-system

Sign the Petition Demanding Lawmakers #EndParentalAlienation: https://change.org/EndParentalAlienation

A Story of Parental Alienation

I am a dedicated father, service-connected disabled combat veteran (tours in Bosnia 1998 and Iraq 2003-2005), technology consultant and technology business owner starting in 2005 who has been fighting a losing battle for time with his son since divorce in 2017! My ex-wife and I agreed to joint custody and joint domicile in my home for the benefit of our child until he graduated from high school. Since, she has leveled one baseless allegation after another to various professionals within this system of divorce and has completely alienated me from our son. Despite the absence of abuse in any form prior to divorce, an order of shared parental rights and responsibilities and well-documented case of parental alienation by a terminally ill mother, the system has supported my son being completely alienated from his father for 1041 plus days, 156 days prior to an order in Maine District court appointing the abuser of my child primary custodian effectively terminating my parental rights. The system accepted her disparaging and uncorroborated statements like a crack head chases their next fix.   Currently, I have not seen or interacted with my son since Dec 25, 2017 despite continuing to have shared parental rights and responsibilities. The fight to clear false accusations and an agency falsifying records in support of my ex-wife’s case has financially drained me; my home is on the verge of foreclosure; I am filing bankruptcy within the next month and have shut down a once profitable company under an onslaught of Maine Department of Health and Human Services sanctions. My search for justice within a system where none seems to exist continues.

When I think the lengths “Professionals” within Maine Department of Health and Human Services and Maine Behavioral Healthcare have gone to act contrary to facts they themselves have collected and fabricate records to support my ex-wife’s mission to undermine my relationship with our son, I am devastated.  My primary job a father is to protect my children; Instead I sat powerless with my hands tied as professionals having the responsibility to act in protection of my son used current family law, social policies, and fabrications enable the abuse of my child in a case where the facts correlate with textbook case of Parental Alienation. My son has now been denied a father who prior to his parents’ divorce, was a daily fixture, for the past 1041 days and counting. How can one not see this system as corrupt and in need of an overhaul? Lawmakers who are responsible for agency oversight have dismissed my requests for investigation without response or by simply stating it is not within their scope with a redirection back into the family law system that has failed our son. The last lawmaker equated my tone to domestic violence, harassment, and stated that will only help if I am nice. That did seem a bit ironic considering the topic for which I was reaching out. I cannot fathom the appropriateness of responding to an abuse victim in such a manner.   I have been requesting help from lawmakers since it was proven that Maine Behavioral Healthcare fabricated medical records and it was subsequently found by the appeals court that my constitutional rights were violated by the trial judge but the violation was a harmless error. One part of the system is just as corrupt as the other; I will not receive justice until local laws are changed to address the corruption. 

Sincerely,

Patrick Leary, Committed Father & Parental Rights Advocate

DAD equality, Inc, 225 Main St 146, Saco ME 04072-7005

207-228-1871 | [email protected] | https://DADequality.org

Mission to End Parental Alienation

We hope to focus people’s attention on deficiencies in current law allowing, according to psychologists’, roughly 1% or 25,000 of our children here in Maine to be impacted by parental alienation. I have witnessed this travesty firsthand as my son’s 11-year daily relationship with his father was destroyed by mother weaponizing allegations of abuse to manipulate the system of divorce tied. The current system has tied this father’s hands and made it impossible for me to stop the abuse of my children. I am appalled by the professional negligence, and apathy within a system obligated to protect our children from abuse. Without question, the experience of undermining a parent child relationship is a form of emotional child abuse and family violence. Politicians are required to act if deficiencies in current law allow instances of abuse to occur. Laws, administrative guidelines, and social policy must be reviewed to identify changes or loopholes allowing emotion or professional bias to circumvent our legal processes to address this devastating impact on our children’s long-term emotional wellbeing.

Parental alienation is currently handled through civil proceedings and is not an arrestable offense. Changing state laws to make parental alienation a criminal offence, equal to other forms of domestic violence, reflecting the long-term emotional damage it inflicts is a great first step. We have a goal in making parental alienation a central issue for all elected / re-elected politicians regardless of party.

I welcome your ideas and involvement to create a broad working group of concerned parties to identify loopholes, propose revisions, identify any negative impacts to proposals in current laws, administrative guidelines, and social policy.  The main goal of the working group would be to integrate that work into strong legislation with bipartisan support. 

A fundamental change to the system of divorce is needed. I am proposing the following points as a starting point:

1.   Recognize parental alienation as a form of emotional child abuse:

a.   Cases meeting the standard for parental alienation shall be investigated and prosecuted as child abuse.

2.   Establish a child’s best interest as being best served by the active involvement, love, and support of both parents;

3.   Update policies to include fathering support programs to support fathers undergoing a family break-up with resources and tools to maintain a healthy relationship with their child or children.

4.   Establish shared parenting as the foundation of family law:

a.   Children have the fundamental right to the active involvement of both parents;

b.   Shifting the focus child custody to a child centered approach by where there is an assumption of equal shared parenting as parents draft a co-parenting agreement required of custody proceedings;

c.   Due process or mutual agreement between parties is the only way to limit a parent’s involvement in their child’s life;

d.   Any limitation of parental rights should be narrow in scope, duration and tailored to protect the child;

5.   Define clear enforcement guidance to enforce shared parenting orders effectively.

6.   A determination of parental alienation must meet the minimum standard according to the four‐factor model of parental alienation, for alienation to be present there must be:

a.   a prior positive relationship between the child and the now rejected parent;

b.   absence of maltreatment by the rejected parent;

c.   use of alienating behaviors by the favored parent; and

d.   presence of behavioral manifestations of alienation in the child.

7.   Establish guidance to therapists in working with children of parental alienation:

a.   Therapists can learn the characteristics of an alienated child, such as constantly denigrating the target parent and imitating the alienating parent’s stories, and the degree to which alienation has occurred;

b.   Treatment can involve transferring the child to the target parent’s home, prohibiting contact with the alienator, and taking legal action.

8.   Establish reunification programs to aid children in rebuilding a relationship with an alienated parent;

9.   Training for professionals within the divorce system covering:

a.   Understand how parental alienation affects children:

                                 i.   Children may struggle with self-esteem, guilt, and self-hatred, as they can internalize hatred toward the targeted parent and are led to believe, incorrectly, that the parent did not love or want them;

                               ii.   Depression and substance use are also pathways by which parental alienation can impact children.

b.   Helping children heal from parental alienation:

                                 i.   Spending more time with the alienated parent can help repair the relationship.

                               ii.   One valuable exercise is to open a dialogue about similarities and differences between family members.

                              iii.   Discussing neutral topics such as favorite food or color, and later moving on to feelings, can help the child individuate his or her parent’s experiences from their own.

c.   Recommended ways to help a child repair the relationship with parent targeted by parental alienation:

                                 i.   The best course of action is to limit the child’s time with the alienating parent and increase time with the targeted parent;

                               ii.   The child’s biased view of the parent will gradually clear and even severely damaged relationships can be repaired, research shows; and

                              iii.   The targeted parent can help by not denigrating the alienating parent or dismissing the child’s feelings during this time.

#EndParentalAlienation #KidsDeserveBetterLaws #KidsDeserveEqualParents #SupportSharedParenting #FamilyLawReform