Take Action
RESOURCES
Resources for survivors,
parents, and anyone in need of
immediate assistance
TRAINING
Learn how you can use your story to catalyze change
Legislative
Take action on policy and legislative initiatives to improve outcomes for survivors + children
Resources
FOR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE
National Sexual Assault Hotline
1-800-656-4673 (HOPE)
www.rainn.org
National Child Abuse Hotline/Childhelp
1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453)
www.childhelp.org
The National Domestic Violence Hotline
1-800-799-7233 (SAFE)
www.ndvh.org
National Center for Victims of Crime
1-202-467-8700
www.victimsofcrime.org
OTHER RESOURCES
Center for Judicial Excellence Support Line for Parents
- The Center for Judicial Excellence Support Line is staffed to provide emotional support to protective parents in family law cases who are trying to keep their kids safe. They also provide connections whenever possible to other parents who are navigating family courts in a caller’s local area for mutual moral support. Finally, they retrieve volunteer offers and advocacy requests at this same number. Leave a voicemail at (415) 444-6556 and Anya will call you back. They cannot give legal advice or make attorney referrals.
Educational Resources
Learn more about what is going on in family courts
TRIGGER WARNING: These accounts contain explicit accounts of abuse that may be disturbing.
- Prosecuted But Not Silenced: Courtroom Reform for Sexually Abused Children book by Maralee McLean chronicles a mother and daughter’s tragic involvement with the judicial system when there were allegations of child sexual abuse. Utilizing Maralee’s personal story, the book illuminates the shocking flaws in the family court system that are harming children, and the need for urgent reform.
- REVEAL Podcast: Bitter Custody episode examines how parental alienation became such a powerful factor in child custody battles, causing judges to award custody to parents accused of harming kids. REVEAL also investigates a little-known industry making big profits from broken families.
- Voices for Reform is a short documentary film on family court by the National Family Violence Law Center Policy Manager, Danielle Pollack, and Peter Sasowsky.
- Child Custody Outcomes in Cases Involving Parental Alienation and Abuse Allegations is an empirical study of ten years of U.S. cases involving abuse and alienation claims in family courts from the National Family Violence Law Center Founder and Director, Joan Meier, and her team.
- Family Court Crisis: Our Children At Risk is a groundbreaking documentary produced by the Center for Judicial Excellence about how the family courts and parental alienation claims harm abused children. The film inspired protective parents globally to reach out in search of support for their court-induced trauma. View Part 1 & Part 2 on YouTube.
- Center for Judicial Excellence Family Court Crisis Photo Exhibit profiles 40 Americans whose lives have been devastated by their traumatic ordeals in America’s family law system.
- Allen v Farrow: Child Sexual Abuse is the Final Frontier is an oped written by Joan Meier and Danielle Pollack of the National Family Violence Law Center at George Washington University Law School.
Training
Protective Parents & Survivors – Advocacy Training Sign-Up
Survivor advocate voices are powerful and necessary in reforming our broken family court system. From attending hearings to sending letters/emails, to making phone calls and giving testimony– this free-of-charge advocacy training will provide interested family court survivors with strategic best practices for telling their story and participating in various advocacy settings. For more information visit the Center for Judicial Excellence website.
Youth Advocacy Training for Child Survivors of Family Court (Ages 18-30)
If you are a child survivor of the family court system who is now an adult, and you would like to share your story with legislators, other child survivors, and the public to bring attention to and to help reform the family courts, please sign up here for CJE’s Youth Advocacy Training email updates.
Legislative
Want to help make child safety the number #1 priority in custody decision-making?
Sign up here to take direct action in your state and on national legislation, such as the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, as mentioned by our first panel.
Find and Contact Your Legislator.
National Family Violence Law Center: Legislative Clearinghouse
NFVLC manages the Legislative Clearinghouse informed by research and designed to provide a national resource to assist state and federal policy reform efforts aimed at better protecting children in family courts. The Clearinghouse serves advocates and policymakers federally and in the growing number of states reeling from child abuse and homicides by an abusive parent and seeking to improve family courts’ adjudications to reduce harm to children.
Interest in the Clearinghouse is robust. The NFVLC is actively assisting advocates, Congressional lawmakers, and state lawmakers in Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and West Virginia, with frequent new requests from other states.
For more information on legislation pertaining to your state and federally – contact the center.
CA Residents: Apply for a Public Member Seat on the Committee to Review the Commission on Judicial Performance (CJP)
California has a historic opportunity to transform the state’s judicial branch! Applications are currently being accepted for seven “public member” appointments to the Committee to Review the Operations & Structure of the Commission on Judicial Performance (CJP), as detailed in AB 1577.
This is our best chance in 15 years to bring together our state’s smartest, most dedicated advocates for family law reform, criminal justice reform, probate/conservatorship reform and juvenile justice reform in what we believe is our shared mission to protect the public from judicial misconduct.
More information on the new committee and application process here.
Other Legislative Action Resources
Support Policy Focused Organizations
- The National Family Violence Law Center (NFVLC)
- RAINN
- Center for Judicial Excellence
- California Protective Parents Association
- Child Justice, Inc.
- DV LEAP
- Georgia Coalition of Domestic Violence
- Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence
- Kayden’s Korner
Partners
The National Family Violence Law Center
(NFVLC) at George Washington Law seeks to reform family court practices failing children through research, the centralized legislative clearinghouse, public education, and litigation. The NFVLC is the only organization in the nation with legal expertise on adult and child abuse, and scholarly research that builds an empirical foundation for these much needed system reforms. Using empirical research, policy development and collaborative advocacy, the NFVLC educates professionals, the media, and the public, and advances critical legal reforms and systemic change in courts’ responses to families with a history of adult or child abuse.
Donate / Support
the NFVLC
LEARN MORE ABOUT
THEIR WORK
including Research, Awareness and Public Education, their Legislative Clearinghouse, Litigation, and more
Join the nfvlc
Mailing list
Center for Judicial Excellence
is committed to protecting child abuse and domestic violence survivors in our nation’s family courts and to fostering accountability across the judicial branch. For 15 years, CJE has been a national voice for vulnerable children and a catalyst for child safety. CJE’s strength is rooted in its research, media and legislative advocacy. CJE has secured hundreds of news stories exposing the family court crisis, while also passing policy protections for survivors on the national and state levels. CJE is currently partnered with the NFVLC to pass groundbreaking Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) protections for children. CJE’s Support Line and Advocacy Trainings are creating survivor leaders who are trained to speak their truth and advocate for change at every level.
Donate / become
A member
Follow on
Social media
Sign up for Our newsletter
RAINN
(Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. RAINN created and operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800.656.HOPE, online.rainn.org y rainn.org/es) in partnership with more than 1,000 local sexual assault service providers across the country and operates the DoD Safe Helpline for the Department of Defense. RAINN also carries out programs to prevent sexual violence, help survivors, and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice.
SUPPORT RAINN
LEARN MORE ABOUT
THEIR PROGRAMS + SERVICES
Host Committee Organizations
- Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence
- Kayden’s Korner
- The Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence
- Moms Fight Back (Colorado)
- Movement of Mothers (M.O.M.)
- One Mom’s Battle (National)
- Parents Against Child Sex Abuse (P.A.X.A.)
- Sacred Spaces
- Stop Abuse Campaign
- Stomp Out the Silence
- #TheCourtSaid USA (National/International)