Episode 14: Advocating for Family Court Reform: A Deep Dive with Danielle Pollack of Kayden's Law

[: 00:00:00

Welcome and thank you so much for chatting with us today. If you wanna just introduce yourself, we'd love to hear more about you.

[: 00:00:35

Yeah. So that was a great introduction. That's mostly what I spend my days doing. Policy work related to the family court systems. We're trying to create systemic reforms all around the country and internationally in some cases to improve the way family courts handle abuse allegations and evidence.

Violence Against Women Act in: 2022

But of course, we, it's made for all children who are at risk. It was just inspired by Kayden and led by our congressman in Pennsylvania where we sit. And Kayden's mom was of course integral in that, in, in many advocates and legal and policy folks. But we, at the National Family Violence Law Center at GW led that effort.

And so I spend a lot of my time working with states, giving them technical assistance and guidance and strategic guidance to get those provisions of the federal law adopted at the state level because custody is a state matter. So that just means states get to decide what their custody law looks like. And I know you worked very hard in Florida to get them to update and revise their custody laws after the tragedy with Greyson, so you know, intimately what that process looks like.

So we're doing that in states all around the country. So far we have eight states, eight or nine states that have adopted portions or all of the federal law. And we're working on many more. And while we do that work, we are also trying to hold back some of the bad bills and policies that are put forward by folks who have, differing views on what child custody law should look like.

And then we do, and then I do a lot of work around just organizing advocates in states all across the country under the. National Safe Parents organization and talk about policy issues, the how and why and how to, really engage at the state level and become actors and change makers at the state level.

[: 00:03:06

What would you like to see changed now for it and why do you think it didn't pass the way it was?

[: 00:03:42

It's a lot of technical stuff for lawmakers who are new to this to understand. The how and why of what we're trying to get enacted. And so when we went in with you in Florida and did you know early dress and revisions, we tried to put in all of the elements of the federal law. I. And in many states, not just in Florida, it's always a kind of lengthy and arduous process to get a bill all the way across the finish line and enacted.

Yes, and of course we always try to get all as much strength in all the pieces as we can, but we don't always do that. Sometimes it takes a few tries. So some kind of key things. I can talk about the four key pieces of the federal law and what I would hope. Florida and other states would add in. One of them pertains to evidence-based training on abuse for judges and court professionals. And it, the federal law requires that the judges and these family court professionals who are handing these cases have 20 hours of initial training on these eight subject matters, and then 15 hours.

Subsequently, in following years, in five years. So it's still not that much, but it's much more than almost all states have, except for those states that have adopted those provisions. The other kind of key part of that is that I. The, it has, the trainings have to rely on evidence-based research. So they can't involve like pseudoscientific theories or problematic theories that we've had in the family court culture and system for a long time.

And the trainings also have to be provided by, experts in the area of abuse that's being addressed. So like the areas include child sexual abuse, course of control effects of trauma and abuse on children and their development. So for each person who's leading that section, they really need to have a deep understanding and expertise so that we make sure that courts are trained appropriately.

The training space in family court for a very long time has not been primarily led by abuse experts. It's been led by. A lot of folks who are family law attorneys and professional organizations like the A FCC for example, they offer a lot of trainings and, their primary focus is not necessarily, or their expertise is not necessarily abuse, child abuse and family abuse, and what happens there.

So we, there's been a hole a gap in the trainings for courts and judges. And this is part of the reason, it's not the only reason, but it's part of the reason that the courts are. Are really getting it wrong when they have abuse cases before them and they're handling the evidence. So we're hoping to make that improvement under the federal law and to have states adopt it.

The next part, there's four parts. The second part pertains to requiring that courts when they're making decisions in child custody, that they are looking at all evidence of family violence, including past evidence. And that may includes violence against the other partner, the other parent and children.

And many states already have some kind of version or part of that in their law. But they, we see that courts are not either, they're not taking it seriously. And importantly, they're not considering. Evidence that they consider too old, so a lot of times we'll hear courts saying things like yes, there is that, but it's not relevant because it happened a year ago.

Or they're saying things like, yes, we recognize like this thing may have happened, hospitalized, you are stalked you or whatever or threatened to kill your family members, but that's not relevant to his. Parenting capacity, and we of course in our, in the abuse field and all the research shows, of course, the likelihood of someone who's, in the past harmed a family member or threatened to.

To harm them is more, much more likely to, cause harm to the children. So we think it is very relevant and we want courts to understand the importance of what they're looking at when there's intimate partner violence and how that intersects with the child abuse. Which I know is obviously very relevant in your case too.

And the courts really just, didn't, did not get that, and it ended tragically. So that's the second part that they have to look at, abuse evidence, all of it. And even if it's old, right? And they have to integrate it into their decision about child custody. Then the third part of the federal Kayden's law is a limitation on who can testify on abuse in these cases.

And this, again, is to try to address the problem of folks who are sometimes offering expert evidence, and they're really just not appropriately qualified in abuse. They're, they primarily sometimes have only worked in a forensic capacity, meaning that they're doing mental health assessments or opining on things.

For the purpose of the courts and not so much using clinical experience. And by that we mean that clinical. By clinical we don't mean necessarily just pediatrician or something. By clinical we mean working directly with impacted populations and on their behalf, folks who their principal role and job in their.

Even come, comes from working for and on behalf of victims of the type of violence that's pertinent in the case and not primarily just working for the courts and giving their opinions about, what their assessment or mental health assessment is, because it's really important because many times people who've really only worked in a forensic capacity or primarily in a forensic capacity, they just miss the signs of what is happening in abuse cases.

Sometimes they won't understand why a child might have disclosed abuse and then recant abuse because sometimes the child is threatened by the abuser in the family, or they're feeling pressure, that if the abuser goes to jail, then we won't have anybody to pay the rent, for example.

So folks who have just worked primarily in a forensic capacity, they just don't have the depth and understanding usually that a person who's a clinical I. Expert meeting working with these people every day, reading the signs, understanding why victims and perpetrators, may act in the ways that they do, or, talk about things in the way they do, et cetera.

So that's the third part of the federal law. We limit who can testify. As an abuse expert in the cases that involve abuse allegations and evidence. And the last part of the federal law is to restrict these reunification treatments that are not shown to be safe and effective and beneficial for kids, and in many cases have shown, shown to be harmful.

We were hearing, at least anecdotally, from kids who are court ordered into reification. Camps or treatments that they're really harmful, really traumatizing, and and they're also just not grounded in, basic things for treatments that should be ordered and basic sort of protocols that are normally followed in like therapeutic interventions, right?

And so we're worried about courts ordering these and mandating these because in many instances. It's a court ordering a child who is at risk, who either has been abused or is at risk of abuse and is afraid of the parent for good reason, and yet they're court ordered to these treatments that are.

Not following best practices in many cases. And it's just quite harmful. So the federal laws, requires that if someone is moving to have a reunification treatment, they need to first show that the treatment is actually safe and effective and has therapeutic value. And they also need to make sure.

That it does not cut the child off from this, the safe parent who to whom the child is attached and bonded and looks, to them as their safe primary caregiver. Because some of these reunification treatments or programs do that they cut the child off entirely from their safe parent.

Initially it's oftentimes for a 90 day period and then many times. They'll go back to the court and ask for extension of that. The reunification therapist will offer their views. Of course, they're getting paid to, to conti so they have an interest in many cases to continue the treatment.

[: 00:12:34

[00:12:41] Danielle Pollack: We haven't heard a lot of positive either. And we have asked, if you have positive stories, where kids come back and feel like it's really, helped so much let us know.

And I know that a lot of the investigative journalists who have covered these issues, we've had some really good big national outlets cover these issues. We had some stories in ProPublica. We had a front page story in the Wall Street Journal. I was just on NPR on the On Point program.

We have serious journalism looking at this issue, and they're supposed to look at all sides, right? When they were reporting on a story. And they found many stories from kids and protective parents who've been court ordered into these reunification treatments and really had horrible experiences.

And they were not able to find kids who had really positive experiences where it was great. Now, some of these programs will require the kids who've been in their program to fill out like a survey or answer some questions. What was your experience like? But some of the kids have talked about feeling very threatened or coerced that they had to answer, like it was fun or it was glowing.

And then as soon as they're in order to get out of the program, 'cause they wanna get out and get back to their. Primary caregiver. And so they've said we felt like we had to answer. This wasn't terrible, but really it was terrible, right?

[: 00:14:04

[00:14:14] Danielle Pollack: A lot of kids Yeah. Have tried to run away. There's a boy in Montana who testified on a Kayden's law bill that we tried to advance there and he also ran away. And many kids run try to, hide. Obviously there was a case that got a, a lot of attention in Utah where the kids barricaded themselves in their rooms so that they wouldn't have to go.

So kids are. Very resistant, and in most cases, for very good reason. They have credible fear. Sure. Which the court is not, giving weight to or taking seriously, or they're saying, the safe parent has coached, or, alienated the children, and that's the reason they're afraid or very resistant.

Of course we're not saying in every case that the child has been abused or is at great risk, but if the child has really, strong resistance and refusal to have contact with a parent, there's. There's, there must be a reason for that, and the courts really need to do a better job of exploring why that is and hearing what kids' concerns are.

And the other parents' concerns are so that you're not forcing and coercing kids into these programs because any kind of mental health treatment, it shouldn't be based on coercion and certainly not on, these transport agents physically taking and forcibly, dragging children into cars and across, across state lines. Many of these programs, they force children to go away from their primary caregiver and go across state lines. And they're also run in places that are not like, medical facilities in a hospital or like a standard treatment center.

Many times they're just these ad hoc places, like in hotel rooms or in someone's private home. So there's just not a lot of oversight or regulation on who is doing the programming, how it's run, et cetera. And it can be very scary for kids.

[: 00:16:05

[00:16:25] Danielle Pollack: Yeah. Guess many of these reforms rely on a lot of advocacy and advocates getting together and really coordinating their efforts in engaging lawmakers and talking to lawmakers.

For the most part in all the states that we're working and have worked. Lawmakers are sensitive to the issue. They obviously don't want children abused or killed in their state, but they many times struggle to really understand what is going wrong in family court. So it's very much up to people like yourself.

And me at the state level talking to lawmakers to get them to understand like, why do we need to have a limitation on who can testify as an expert in abuse cases? Why do we need courts to better, be better trained? Because they just don't know, because they're not issue experts for the most part, state lawmakers in the Senate in the house are generalists for the most part. They may have some. Special knowledge based on their independent career. But they're looking at hundreds of bills, each session, and there's just no way that they can know all the things. So the more you know.

You can get coordinated in it and really educate your lawmakers. And of course, state legislatures are very hierarchical. So it's important when you're growing in to think about who you wanna work with to lead the bill. They need to be able to, once the advocates educate them on what the issues are and what the arguments and counter arguments are, then the lawmaker themselves needs.

A, to be able to articulate that messaging to their colleagues, they need to be able to also be in a position to be able to advance bills. And so that means it's helpful if they're in. The majority party, whatever that is in your state, so if you have majority that's Republican or Democrat, it's helpful to, to work with someone who's the majority party because in state legislatures, the majority party.

Really has the ultimate power to either move bills through a committee or not. And if you have someone who is in a weaker position, it's just much harder for them to get their bill introduced, voted on in advance through the many steps that it has to go through to get. Adopted. So it's important to pick lawmakers that can grasp the issues and are educatable that hold a position among colleagues that they can advance a bill.

And that ideally they're in the majority party and maybe sit on the judiciary committee. 'cause these bills need to begin in the Judiciary Committee, whether it's in the House or the Senate. And it's also really helpful if someone, is a constituent, of like a judiciary chair. So if you happen to be in a district and your representative or your senator is has a leadership role in a judiciary committee in either chamber, they're really responsive to their constituents for the most part.

They wanna hear your concerns, they wanna do a good job, they wanna get reelected. And the other thing is, for the most part, it's not so much about party, people are interested in this issue regardless. Like everyone is against child abuse, right? It doesn't matter where you're from or the background or whatever, but as you move forward with these bills, of course you're gonna get countervailing voices.

We, there is a whole industry and and people who are off, just have a different approach to what should happen in family court. And those interested parties will many times, talk, be talking to the lawmakers and say, why don't we change this part of the bill? Or why don't we, propose a different kind of bill?

And so as that process goes along, it's really important that the lawmaker is talking frequently to, to whoever the lead advocate is and to, folks like us who can provide kind of high level technical assistance about what exactly the bill should say. So, as a bill takes off there's sometimes folks who want to be the drafters and they're not always really thinking about the child's best interest in child safety as a primary thing. They have other objectives, and so if they get at the drafting table and your lawmaker starts deferring to that, those. Folks, you can lose a lot of the strong language.

So we saw that happen in Florida a little bit, the Bar Association, some individuals got involved and they had some different interests than you and I had. And and the thing is, the Bar Association is an authority, right? So lawmakers sometimes will say, oh, okay, maybe the bar knows better.

And and sometimes individuals within a bar are very good, where they're very aligned, but many times they're not. So then if they become the primary drafter, as Bills move forward and as versions of the bill get amended you can lose some of the strength. And it's not just the Bar Association, that's just one example.

There can be many voices from different organizations and individuals who if they're given a seat at the table. And even sometimes advocates who like mean but don't really understand like the finer detail of what it can mean if you change this phrase or this word. And so that's really a lot of my job is to really keep a whole of the language and I'm working with a whole.

Big group of international experts, policy and legal experts that help inform what I'm doing all the time. And I'm doing a lot of, looking at what is happening in the field more broadly. Like what is happening in academic research, what is happening in policy and who, how these various actors.

Who are involved and interested in what happens in family courts are playing a role. So like I'm tracking, all the time. What folks on, who are opposed to what we're doing, what they're doing, what they're doing in academic research, what they're doing in professional organizations, et cetera.

Because as we advance this and really. Create, see, change in how child custody policy and law works. We see them pivoting and they're seeing us pivoting. So I'm, when I'm, sitting down with lawmakers and talking to them, about giving strategic guidance or, working on the language of the bill.

I'm bringing to bear all that knowledge and expertise. So it's important that, the language of the bill doesn't get lost as it evolves because it does evolve. Like you'll, usually what happens is you introduce the bill and, once you get a good draft and then you start hearing from other folks who wanna change it inevitably.

So it's just important that your lawmaker keeps, keeps talking, real clear lines of communication because they feel pressure too, right? They're trying to, they're always thinking about, like they're trying to do the best thing, but they also, they need to answer to many constituencies.

So a lot of times lawmakers will say it doesn't really matter if we change this. It sounds the same, and if it doesn't mean technically the same thing, it's really up to us to be like, you know what? This we can give away and make somebody happy, but that we absolutely cannot because it will have unintended consequences or it will create something harmful, or it just will not, be aligned with the intention.

So it's a long process, it has to go through, committees, three considerations in each chamber. And then if there's any amendments in either side in the second side that it goes through, then they need to be reconciled between the two chambers, and then it goes up to the governor if it passes.

And,

[: 00:23:56

[00:24:19] Danielle Pollack: It would be great if you can get the, the third and fourth parts that I talked about. I don't know right now where Florida is with mandated training that's evidence-based. That's really key.

[: 00:24:31

[00:24:33] Danielle Pollack: Yeah. Yeah. I think, most states have. Very little required training to no training, mandated training, right?

Many states have some very kind of limited optional training, and what happens there is they will offer, the court, the administration for the courts will offer, two or five hours of training on domestic violence or child abuse, and in most states. That is optional. It's not mandated.

In a couple of states, it's mandated, and then as we bring in Kayden's law it's more ample. But there's not really limitations on who can be the trainer or what kind of research they need to rely on. It's not, there's not like a required, more expanded hours. And because it's optional what you have as many times.

The judges and family law professionals who are already pretty good on abuse issues, those are the people who tend to take that because they care about that, they wanna learn a little more. And the judges who really lack the knowledge and really need it don't get it because they offer something else in, in their continuing ed because it's not mandated, it's optional.

[: 00:25:39

[00:25:49] Danielle Pollack: Yeah. It's interesting, some states are more opposed to the judicial training part than others.

So some states we've gone into and the higher ups in the judicial branch are pretty okay with it. They're yeah, we, we. Okay. We recognize there's a need. We recognize that like our judges, it doesn't, it doesn't hurt to have more information. And yes, our judges are busy.

But it's important that they get this training so that they can do a better job. We all want them to do a better job. And in other states we have the judicial branch. Really resistant and really fight it. They feel I think affronted they make a strong argument.

This is a separation of powers issue, meaning, they think I. The legislative branch has no business telling them the judicial branch what to do or how to train. That's our sandbox. You stay out of it. And in some states there is a bright red line that creates a separation of powers limit so that you cannot legislate trainings for judges.

So it's a little bit of a question of who, who really should control, like how judges are trained. And some states have a strong line where you really cannot legislate trainings for them. And, but many states do not. We help do that analysis for states at the center. It's a tricky technical analysis that like legal scholars do, like Professor Meyer, who's the founding director of the center, she and her colleagues do because it's, they need to look at your state constitution and case law and really study, what's happening in your state, right?

So for example, like in California. When we did P'S Law, which is in, draws from the federal Kayden's law, right? They, the judges there were very resistant to having judicial training under the law. And they had the attitude that like, we're trained enough, we don't need any help.

We don't want, the legislature telling us what to do and they made, they said there's a separation of powers issue. And so we did an analysis and said, actually there is no prohibition. There's not, it's not a separation of powers thing. The legislature has required judges to do other kinds of training and so there is not a limit, but they kept saying there is a separation of virus issue.

And they even said in one of the meetings, a representative from the judicial branch in a meeting that we had with Piqui's mom they said right in the meeting to her, our faces with her there, that they were just doing a fine job and I was gobsmacked. I said to them in answer, how can you say that when you have a mother here whose child has been, murdered by the father and she's certainly not the only one who, California has min, has had many cases. How can you say that your courts are sufficiently trained in doing a fine job? In that year there was three girls.

Little girls who were murdered by the abusive dad, who had a long history of abuse during a visitation that was, informally supervised. By someone at a church and he killed all the kids and the supervisor, and I just said to the representative from the judicial branch, like, how can you say this?

But then in other states, like for example, in Utah, they were quite receptive that, they said. We recognize the need. It can't hurt. We think it can help our deci, judges make better decisions and we're okay with it and we'll, work with you on this.

So it really just depends on who is in leadership in the administration for the courts, and also relationships. The, sometimes the lawmaker who's leading one of the bills. Sometimes they have good relationships already with the judicial branch, so it's easier to have those conversations and make the relationship smooth, and in some states we do things like, where there is, a valid separation of powers issue. Sometimes we'll do the other core pieces of the federal Kayden's law for that state, and then we'll do something a little bit separate, like a separate bill, like a partner bill, which creates a work group or a study group to look at, what is the status of trainings on abuse and family violence right now, and how can we improve it and how can we make it, align with what's in the federal law? For example, in Colorado we did that. We did, two separate bills. One which created this. Work group. And then from there the work group made recommendations and now the trainings are getting underway in Colorado.

So it just depends on each individual state. Yeah. Now what

[: 00:30:16

[00:30:25] Danielle Pollack: Yeah, you can look at the federal law. It's on the National Safe Parents Organization website if you wanna look at it closely.

And also on the National Family Violence Law Center website. But it's in eight subject areas. Child physical Abuse. Child sexual abuse, child emotional abuse course of control the impact of trauma and abuse on children and child development and victim and perpetrator behaviors. So we want them to be able to.

Know more about this, like, how does this impact children? How does it manifest? What is the risk factors? And so we at the center are developing trainings for this so that state courts can, have this knowledge. And in, in developing these trainings, we're bringing in, the top experts, in addition to our expertise about these issues.

For example, we just finished doing the one on course of control. It's a, it'll be delivered. Virtually so states, if they pass the law and they wanna, they, they're, there are many times they're like, okay we know we need this. Who does these good trainings with these top abuse experts?

So we're developing that center so that they have it. Okay. Because it's been a whole or a gap, there's it's been piecemeal what states. Can find. That's really good quality training on abuse. So we just finished the one for a course of control. It should be available pretty soon, like within the next few weeks for states that are interested. So if you guys are interested, seeing it as you have coercive of control

[: 00:31:46

[00:31:48] Danielle Pollack: Once it's done, it will be on the National Family Violence Law Center website, and we'll send out a notice about it and we'll probably put it in our newsletter.

[: 00:31:55

[00:31:58] Danielle Pollack: Sure, yeah. Some of the experts, for example, we have Emma Katz, who, is a, one of the leading experts on course of control. She's based in the UK and she's, written about it at great length. We have Peter Jaffe, who's one of the leading, child abuse experts. He is based in Canada.

And then we have Professor Meyer, of course, who's, been a long time leading thinker and lawyer on these issues for many years and and many others. So we're really trying to get the top experts in the world and in the country and also, we want local expertise too.

A state can run the training however they think best. But if they want this, the top experts that, around the country and around the world, we're trying to put that together for them. And then if they have local experts who are really good too, because each state, is a little bit different on how things work.

It's important to have local experts. So for example, when we did the. A custody evaluator training in Colorado. So we brought in our top experts and then we partnered with a judge there. And somebody from DHHS there who, you know, people who really were knowledgeable about abuse, but also about local kind of protocols and things.

Ideally it's, it's a partnership.

[: 00:33:13

[00:33:27] Danielle Pollack: yeah. Sadly it's happening so much and I just inundated with people reaching out, asking for help in their individual cases. And it's heartbreaking, and so I learn about it many, most of the cases through just this vast network of protective parents.

And it's part of why we built national safe parents organizations. So we'd have one place that people could come and, not only learn about what, how we can change the laws and improve the laws and what we're doing on policy, but also, connect with other people like in the region, in their state and talk about, whatever, this custody evaluator you have to avoid because they're horrible.

They always, take the side of the. Abusive parent, or, what should I do in my case, a hydro protection order, I lost it. To share information. So I think as people learn that resources out there it, it just helps people get coordinated both nationally and within their state.

There's just no human way that like. Individually, I can help every single person who needs it. I wish really, my answer is to try to improve the system, the laws, and the policy so that it can help as many people as possible at a time. So if we get a law enacted, it's a really strong law, really protective, really child-centric.

Our hope is that it can help many thousands of people at once, but of course, getting those laws enacted is quite arduous task. It takes many of us working together very strategically and good lawmakers and everything, and the press helps too. The, if the we've really worked, I put, a fair amount of attention.

Talking to press, educating press so that we can get the word out more broadly. Because I always say, the more the public is aware of this issue, the more pressure that will be on the courts to really like, do a better job, so I don't, sometimes we read about cases in the news, but oftentimes I've already heard from, the proactive parent just doing outreach and saying, please.

Help. Please, I'm in jeopardy or so, and many times, like productive parents will let me know about another productive parent. They'll say, I'm already engaged with them. And then they'll say, but there's this other mom who reached out to me because she heard about my case.

Can you help her? And a lot of. Times I can, refer them to a good attorney in their state or a good organization in their state. But there's a real deficit in resources. There's way more demand than there are resources to help all these productive parents. And part of that is there hasn't really been a federal funding stream.

Dedicated to this issue. And so Kayden's Law opened that up. It, it created a stream of federal funding that was authorized to go to states. And in doing that, then the, or the state level organizations that work on all kinds of, family violence related issues, they are okay, there's an opportunity potentially for federal dollars.

So then I can create programs or prioritize. Family court issues in my programming at the state level. So it's prompted some survivor serving organizations that are funded federally for many of their programs to elevate to. Family court and family violence issues.

Because, realistically for those organizations, they need to, they have a budget and they need to, they prioritize based on what they can pay for sure. So if there's no federal funding coming in for that issue. They tend not to prioritize it because they just can't pay a person to work on it.

And so Kayden's law opened that path and there was some sort of surprise by national folks like, oh my God, like what's happening? Like you're changing the status quo. And we're like, we're trying to create like enough system change both. In practical terms of what is in statutes and give, a blueprint or a map for states, but also create, some federal dollars to go to states so that they can create more programming and authorize.

[: 00:37:21

[00:37:45] Danielle Pollack: Yeah, you can send this podcast to the Masters

[: 00:37:47

[00:38:03] Danielle Pollack: Yeah, and it's so important. Just raising awareness and information sharing is so crucial because a lot of what's happening in these cases, of course, is that you're isolated. Courts and your attorneys are saying, don't talk to anybody, don't you know, post anything online.

We've had moms go to jail, right? For posting something online, like asking for, I need an attorney. How do I get one help? We had a mom in Colorado who was jailed for almost a year and lost her kids because she, her kids had disclosed sexual abuse. She posted something online that's, said, I lost my attorney.

I need help. And they jailed her. They said, that's in, you're being in contempt. You're not allowed to talk about this. It's so important to talk about this so that people know there are resources, there are laws, there are organizations, working on this. Of course we're all under-resourced, right?

And like you said, it's just you one person can't answer all those, things. But the more we coordinate and organize and create sort of a sea change, both in policy and public awareness, the more people are not so isolated and they empowered, like so many times. Productive parents and advocates just learn from one another.

We're getting, we're information sharing from things like this and we host a monthly session at National Safe Parents Organization for all members. It's free. And we bring on an expert and or survivors or whatever, and we're talking about a particular policy issue usually. I don't even think I knew that.

How can, how can our listeners become involved with the National Safe Parent Organization?

They can just go to our website national safe parents.org and request to join the advocacy community. It's right on the landing page. I can click on it. We do have a couple screening questions.

It's not too many, but just to make sure that you're really there in good faith, right? I think I'm a member. Yeah. And then once you're a member you can go into this platform that's basically like an internal. Social media platform, for members. And in there we post events, there's an events tab, and then as an event is coming up, we usually send an email out to all members.

So you can look in your inbox for it, or you can go into this Mighty Network sort of platform and look under events and it's virtual

[: 00:40:15

[00:40:16] Danielle Pollack: It's virtual. Yep. Okay. And we do them monthly. Sometimes we miss a month if it's just crazy or Sure. We're, we all have Covid or whatever. Oh yeah.

But we do them monthly. So yeah, join us and the more members are in there the more the information sharing can happen. And then within that community you can also join like your state specific group. So there's a general sort of national overview. And then if you wanna really connect with people in your state, you can join the.

You can request to join the state group once you're in as a main member. So yeah, it's a good community. Got it. Lots of like really smart, wonderful people in the community and information sharing. Yeah.

[: 00:40:53

[00:41:00] Danielle Pollack: Oh wow. I guess getting the federal law enacted, in federal Kayden's law, it was a huge lift and a huge win to really create, help create a paradigm shift in how custody law. Takes place in this country and how courts handle cases. And of course there's still tons of work to do.

Like I said, if we really want it to be effective, every state needs to adopt the provisions as in, as intended. But it was a big, it was a big step forward. So I would say that's probably my proudest moment and also every time we get it enacted in a state. That, with all the pieces, we have Colorado and Utah have all the elements of the federal law, so that really feels so satisfied.

[: 00:41:42

[00:41:46] Danielle Pollack: They reach out to me, technically from just a, what we can and can't do, right?

They need to initiate the conversation. Once they initiate, then I can offer technical assistance. Okay? But a lot of times it comes through like an advocate productive parent saying oh, I, I'm a member of NSPO, or I heard about this. I wanna bring this to my state. How do I do it? And they're ready.

Kind of either having conversations with a lawmaker. And then we all connect and then I can offer more technical assistance and move the process forward. So we have, I'm doing that now with many states because this is high time for legislative activity and bills being introduced.

Doing a lot of like drafting and revising and working with lawmakers in many states to get it adopted after like advocates have reached out and said, Hey, I really wanna get this going in my state. I'm, I've talked to some of my lawmakers. This, lawmaker seems really interested in ready to go.

So yeah.

[: 00:42:38

[00:42:55] Danielle Pollack: It should be. Where there's a will, there's a way.

We're very determined, we're very persistent. There's certainly, a lot of work to be done, but and it takes many hands, it can, it can't just be one of us. We really, the more we coordinate. So

[: 00:43:06

[00:43:08] Danielle Pollack: What's next is, hopefully we get several more states to adopt the provisions.

We get the states that have already adopted some of the provisions to get the rest of them enacted. Okay. We're also working at the Center on a Child Voice project to try to get states to get the child's voice into these cases more and give children who do wanna speak to courts an opportunity to.

So that's underway getting the, all the trainings that can be delivered virtually finished. So that states really do have that resource. So once they enact the law, then they can get the training. It's a big job to get the laws on the books, and then there's a whole implementation phase, which is, how do we, that's the hardest part.

How do we do it? Yeah. So it's two things. So that's all on the horizon and yeah. Somewhere trying to find the time to sleep and I, yeah. Spend time with my own kid occasionally. Yeah.

[: 00:44:01

And thank you for joining us and sharing all of this knowledge with our listeners.

[: 00:44:14

[00:44:22] Ali Kessler: Yeah, there's definitely things that I wanna see change, but everyone is just, they have their own agenda.

[: 00:44:28

[00:44:29] Ali Kessler: Yeah, I'll keep going. We'll see what happens.

[: 00:44:32

[00:44:32] Ali Kessler: I'll keep you posted. How about that?

[: 00:44:34

[00:44:36] Ali Kessler: good.

[: 00:44:37

Okay. Thank you too.