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| COOPERATIVE
PARENTING FOR
DIVIDEDFAMILIES/GROUP INITIATIVE 1330 Mill Street
Co-Operative Parenting for Divided Families
The Honorable Greg Mathis 1-888-verdict
I would like to congratulation you for your program. I find it enlightening and think that the decisions made are fair. I try never to miss a show.
The reason I am writing to you is that I was watching a December show where the case was a child support issue. The woman wanted the husband to pay legal fees for the attorney she hired to collect child support. You told her that she does not need an attorney to file for child support all she had to do was go down to her local social service agency and they would help her. I was in Chicago this summer and I called the National Chapters of ACES, the Association for Children for the Enforcement of support. I thought since Chicago is a bigger city than Pittsburgh, maybe I could get some help on how to better the people whom I try to educate on family division issues and ways to improve our court system. Out of 50 states I found out that Illinois ranks 49 Pennsylvania may not be in the top twenty but we still have a little better system.
I am a Family Court Consultant and President /Group Coordinator for a Non Profit Organization called Co-Operative Parenting for Divided Families. CPDF is the collaboration of several other non profit organization that works independently and yet unite to make up CPFD. We get together every Thursday night at the United Way Agency and offer free educational and pro-se workshops to the public at large. We also have young men and woman from the CIS program who are under house arrest, most from single parent household (mother), grandparents, aunts, and foster parents. Many of our children have little or no involvement with their father's, they have no positive role model in their lives. Most of the youths are single parents themselves. We educate them on how to be a positive role model statistic say that children of parents in jail end up in jail and that it’s a perpetuating cycle, we help to show that they can break the cycle. Our programs also run in the county jail and at the juvenile detention center (Shuman center). The woman and men organization heads are the supporters of the other organization which keeps us operating. We all also hold down full time jobs and offer most programs out of our homes, libraries and our corporate offices. Our organizations are diverse in multicultural, multiethnic, variety of age and profession.
We are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. our Family Division is The Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. When I first started as a Family Court Consultant back in 1982, Pittsburgh was number one and leading the way in child support collection now it is difficult to find out where we are now on the list. I find it hard to believe we are in the top twenty states. Our family division is not working and the sad thing is that the court does not know it is not working because they don’t think there is problem. One of the other members on my team called me to tell me about the PA Governor's web site and how upset she was about the information on the web. During our conversation we decided that the Governor missed so many important points, I e-mailed him about a program called the" Fatherhood Initiative". One of our groups is a program called "the Male Initiative". In a special project, they take children into jail to visit their fathers, which is effective and will hopefully build a bond between the father and child. This encourages the father to take responsibility of being a parent upon release. However, the program does not serve the larger segment of people it was designed to help custodial parents who are forced from welfare with no child support. One of the singular reasons for single parents on welfare is the lack of child support.
When welfare reform was initiated, the government never really studied all the families on welfare. Most single mother households headed had almost no contact with the father neither finical or emotionally. There are grandparents raising second an third generation of their grand children. The crack epidemic is taking more mothers out of the home and into the street. Many single fathers are raising their children with almost no outside help. I remind the Governor that welfare reform was to move families off welfare but not into greater private. I ask him why he could not set up to go after deadbeats and enforce the federal laws of child support. At least then the difference between welfare and a job would be income from support until the transition became more finical stable. Our family division truly causes a division since it was not working before welfare reform nor after reform. Allegheny County was ten years late implementing a national computer system to aid in child support enforcement and they do not have it right. They tell us they are only here to "assist" To assist means help or aid someone. If you could see the inefficiency of how our family courts operated, or talk with the hundreds of disgruntled parents jamming the hallways, you would wonder if anyone there knows what is going on. Even with an appointment someone can show up at 8:30 a.m. and still be waiting at 3:00p.m. it is so discouraging to see so many men, woman, and children treated and talk to so rudely. Many are told to return another day or that there is no legal help available if they cannot afford an attorney. Unfortunately I found out from my own experience that ours is a client ----driven system, and most parents just do not know how to get that system to work for them. I speak from personal experience. My father stop paying his child support in 1970 even though he was a city employee and his wages were suppose to be attached. Only after countless phone calls, letters, faxes, research and court trips was I able to get justice after twenty something years of struggling. My frustration only sparked my determination because the employees of family division did nothing to assist me. They blocked me every step of the way. What happens to all those parents who know so little? Or nothing at all about the court system ?
With welfare gone will we leave these families in despairing poverty to live in a perpetuating cycle that can be broken with our courts giving education and guidance, and help? Our organization helps parents who seek help. We are an active working coalition comprised of ACES, Coalition for Fathering Families, Citizens for Family Unity, Male Initiative, System Services for the Handicapped, National Congress for Fathers and Children, all under the umbrella of Cooperative Parenting for Divided Families. Together, all seven non- profit organizations try to educate and help as many people in our Communities as we can.
We are always looking for innovated ways to raise funds to support our efforts and that is the purpose of our writing to you. We would like to invite you to Pittsburgh to speak to the people we service and to give them hope inspiration and renewed faith in the court system. Your beliefs are share by us all and we want all of our men and women to act responsibly by taking control of their own lives and taking care of their children. Judge, you have the power to let them know that it can be done!
Sincerely, Denise Simpson Director/Group coordinator
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