The Foundation - Origins

Before 12-year-old Islam Elkaryoney committed suicide by strangling himself with a belt tied to his bedpost, placed around his neck, by his own hand... Before I heard the screaming and crying from the emergency room where this child lay dying...

Before I heard the account of the death of a child at her mother's hands ? a mother who would have been afforded the privilege of contact with a still live sibling...

The Coroner states, "She used her ears as a handle... fortunately she lost consciousness quickly" ? the words of the coroner who chronicled the series of injuries inflicted on 22 month old Madi of Kentucky...

The family court judge stated to a family member of the murdered child, about the murderess ? "She's so pretty, she looks innocent... we try to think the best of people...".

Before I heard the words of a mother recount the events leading to the transfer of custody from her loving hands... "The judge brought me into chambers after my child was injured again...

The Judge said "I will give you full custody but you must give him unsupervised visitation every other weekend."... "I said no!

She gave my ex full physical and legal custody and I got supervised visitation!... I never thought by not doing what the judge requested that it would result in her turning the wrath of her power on me."

Before I came to know first hand I never knew...

Those who hold the power of life and death are Family Court Judges who rule on the basis of their own discretion... not on the basis of law, not according to the rules of evidence. Judicial discretion is so broad that the lower court rulings are rarely overturned in appeals courts. Family Court Judges may act with or without and sometimes in spite of the recommendations of mental health professionals. But even these recommendations are often critically flawed and, within the profession itself, the custody evaluations process is subject to controversy

A major flaw in the custody evaluation process is a lack of an evaluator's strict adherence to the role of evaluator and the evaluator's adoption of multiple roles that confuse clients therapist/mediator/ confidential court evaluator/not confidential/not therapeutic. Not ethical but legally sanctioned the same clients can be seen alternately in a court ordered evaluation, in which the evaluator can switch to family therapist, mediator, arbitrator, therapist, parent coordinator, all for the same family.

Once the evaluation is completed, the same evaluator can be permitted by the court to "treat" one member of the family for whom that evaluator determined that that parent cannot have custody of that child.

Additional flaws include a lack of sufficient scrutiny, blatant investigative oversights, and the pact of silence sealed by the veil of secrecy sanctioned by the evaluators, judges, and attorneys.

Why does this happen? Because they can!

The litigation process itself forever fractures the relationship between already hostile parents and compounds insult with injury with words hurled in a public forum that will never be forgotten. These words often doom the litigation to a never-ending pursuit of the last word.

Islam Elkaryoney's fate was sealed when testimony and evidence was suppressed, witness tampering was allowed, bias and misconduct from both judge and evaluator was tolerated, and, as a result, the family's history was rewritten by those who sought to impose their version of reality on the facts of the case.

The Foundation wishes to honor the child victims of such circumstances by writing about their lives.

Instead of preaching to the choir in the form of peer reviewed articles we seek to raise public consciousness and to appeal to the morality and integrity envisioned in the spirit of the constitution spelled out in the departure from British property law.

Books and films in progress include:

"The Child Victims of the Family Courts," The stories of children whose lives were destroyed by Judicial bad judgments

"When Madness is the Psyche's Only Nurse," The stories of parents who have lost their children through the bad judgment of the Court's personnel.

Writing on the impact of litigation on the participants in the process, and the experience of victimization.

Rather than looking exclusively at the closed door of opportunity lost, we have chosen to create a new door to the exploration of options and solutions through the Foundation for the Child Victims of the Family Courts.