10 Year Anniversary Campaign

Our 10th Anniversary Fundraiser

Our Anniversary Fundraiser was a huge success. We were honored to share our 10-year milestone with supporters, new and old, and kick off our 10 Year Anniversary Campaign. Thank you to everyone who made the event possible and joined us in commemorating the Center’s accomplishments during the past ten years.

Respected family law attorney Barbara Kauffman joined us from Mt. Shasta as our keynote speaker. Barbara has been an invaluable ally in the struggle to protect children in California’s family courts. Her remarks were powerful and inspiring. We trust that those who were fortunate enough to attend the event walked away with a much deeper understanding of our work and the tremendous challenges facing parents who are forced to navigate the broken family court system. It was a memorable evening! We will share the 3-5 minute video montage of the celebration as soon as it is available.

We were thrilled to honor a handful of our allies and activists who’ve gone the extra mile to help CJE achieve our many successes, we could not have come this far without their leadership and support! We are so appreciative of the many people in our movement who’ve helped us protect kids.

OUR 2016  CHAMPIONS OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS: 

 Senator Bob Wieckowski
Assemblymember Brian Maienschein
Barbara A. Kauffman, Esq.
Stacey Hart
Angelique Barboa
Chuck Wagner
Alan Phillips

PHOTOS FROM OUR 10 YEAR CELEBRATION

THANK YOU TO OUR EVENT SPONSORS!

Change Agents
Steve Westly
Grgich Hills Estate
Anonymous

Catalysts
Jean & Ray Taylor

Champions
Il Davide Catering
Bill & Shannon Joy
Austin Hills

Advocates
Dr. Tilahun Yilma
Bruce Katz

Allies
Robin Sax
Tamara Hull
Larry Fahn
Emily Gallup

Activists
Connie Valentine
Semrin Ettefagh
Barrie Lee Cole
Ronnie Lozano
Tami Winternitz
Stephan Strebl
Anonymous
Jim Russell
Tracey Russell
Jessica Escobar
Barney & Barbara Felling
Erin Smith, Family Violence Appellate Project
Joan S. Meier, Esq., George Washington University Law School

10 Years of Championing Children’s Rights!

We’ve spent the past ten years at the forefront of a national movement to expose a broken family court system that is harming more than a million American children and their parents. It’s not unlike other child abuse scandals that have made headlines in recent years, but most people don’t know about this one unless they know someone who’s been forced to endure it.

U.S. family courts are essentially removing safe, loving parents from their childrens’ lives and forcing them to live or visit unsupervised with their other parent who is often violent, sexually abusive, and/or dealing with an untreated mental illness, alcoholism or addiction. The best interests of these kids are routinely being ignored, and it’s setting them up for a lifetime of costly and chronic problems, as research has proven in the well-publicized Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. This collaborative ongoing project between the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and Kaiser Permanente reveals staggering proof of the health, social and economic risks that result from childhood trauma.

Why on earth would our courts essentially traffic young children to abusers, you wonder?

Family courts appoint a large number of attorneys and mental health professionals who make tons of money on these divorce and custody cases. There are no incentives to quickly settle cases- the longer the conflicts between parents are drawn out, the more money everyone makes. A well-heeled cottage industry with little to no oversight is profiting off of family violence, and these innocent kids are paying the price. It’s a child safety travesty that must be exposed and stopped, and we’re accomplishing both through our numerous media and legislative advocacy victories over the past decade.

We are giving these kids a voice and some hope for a better future. We also advocate for judicial accountability because the courts are operating without meaningful oversight.

California Governor Jerry Brown just signed our latest bill into law in August 2015 (SB 594), mandating that child custody evaluators follow the law when making recommendations to the court, since children are frequently sent to dangerous homes (and sometimes killed) because the courts too often adopt shoddy, illegal reports.

PLEASE SUPPORT OUR WORK!

We hope you will consider making any donation you can afford to support our children’s advocacy work. Donations are tax-deductible. If you have questions or need further information about this event, please email us at info@centerforjudicialexcellence.org.

Thank you so much for caring about judicial accountability and ensuring childrens’ safety in the family court system. We deeply appreciate your concern and support.