An Open Letter to California Governor Gavin Newsom, First Partner Jennifer Siebel-Newsom, and the California State Legislature Regarding the Family Court Crisis
“A very difficult but necessary read on the horrors inflicted on women and children through invoking #parentalalienation. Renee’s story is not an exception it is the norm, and I urge California to consider the recommendations she makes.” — Reem Alsalem, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, via Twitter, June 8, 2023
My name is Renée Leigh Izambard, I am a disabled mother of three children, a Home & Garden Designer, and the founding member of grassroots organisation Movement of Mothers. I’m an Australian citizen, and until recently, was a resident of California.
On November 9, 2018, along with my three young children, we were forced to evacuate our home in emergency, responding to Malibu City orders; we fled the California Woolsey Wildfire, with not much more than the clothes we had on, our passports, and our animals.
It was a terrifying experience. We watched as huge clouds of dark grey smoke grew, and multiplied over the canyon behind us, engulfing itself, swirling into a giant mass of spitting, burning embers; an abyss of fire. It overwhelmed us, we were fearful, scared for our lives, and totally unprepared for what lay ahead.
Just days before, I had filed for a divorce in Los Angeles; escaping a 13-year-long coercively controlling, abusive relationship.
Like most women, it had taken me many years, and multiple attempts to extract myself from my perpetrator’s harm. (My story and case was featured in both the and in 2021).
Our family experienced two life altering events in the space of days. It was too much to bare. And then, our little dog was run over, and killed by a car outside our emergency accommodation. My children’s lives were absolutely blown apart. Shattered.
The Woolsey Wildfire burned out of control, and over the next days destroyed over 16,000 structures, killing three people. Our community, like my children and I, were highly traumatised, and in a state of shock. We had no belongings, everything we had known as home was gone. Destroyed completely. All l could think of was getting on a plane home to Australia, where l knew we would have the love and support of family, friends, and services to rebuild our lives.
My children’s father did not agree, and he would not permit me to leave Los Angeles with our children. So instead, we remained in California, and tried to focus on rebuilding our lives where we were, and l did my very best to find us a new normal; getting back to school and routine, and finding therapeutic supports for my children, all the while, the divorce process began to rage.
It was just two months after the events of fire, when l received a text message accusing me of ‘ parental alienation.’ I had to Google the term because l’d never heard of it before.
The same term was used again during the Family Court hearing we attended in Los Angeles. Very quickly, and without hesitation, evidence or any investigation, the Family Court Judge ordered a custody evaluation, and appointed a GAL (Guardian Ad Litem) — an attorney to act on behalf of our minor children. I was given no opportunity to speak, and I was ordered to pay for half of all the expenses.
Throughout this time, chaos began, and ensured both in, and out of the courtroom. Our assets were frozen, and l was given extremely limited access to finances to rebuild our lives. I had to return the car l was driving, the children were removed from their school, and anything that could be, was cut-off, or taken from us. There were several times where I had to borrow money from family and friends to pay for food. I accessed trauma-therapy for my children through a community grant.
While all of this was happening, the one thing that the judges did approve of during these times was the release of community assets to pay for all of the court related attorney fees and and reunification costs and expenses.
At the next Family Court hearing, by request of my ex-husband, and his attorney, the appointed Los Angeles Family Court Judge, ordered my children into ‘ reunification’ therapy’ and for our family to partake in a custody evaluation, based on my ex-husbands claims of ‘parental alienation.’
By August, 2019, the custody evaluation and ‘ reunification’ therapy processes were underway.
During this time, my foot was injured by a horse, and over the next weeks would develop into a life-altering medical condition . I quickly lost the ability to walk completely, and l required a wheelchair for mobility.
I was in severe pain. Even so, the custody evaluation, and the reunification processes continued in Los Angeles, without any accommodations for me, or concern for the grave physical condition l was in, or concern for the children.
Neither, the custody evaluator, nor ‘reunification’ therapist were trauma-informed, or understood the bio-psycho-social effects of trauma, coercive control or domestic abuse. My children were highly distressed and traumatised throughout this entire process; a process that at its core is supposed to be to ensure the “best interests of the children.”
Due to their apparent lack of training in domestic violence or coercive control, none of the ‘professionals’ in my case had an understanding of the impact the ongoing abuse, which escalated post separation, was having on me and particularly the children. As Emma Katz describes in her groundbreaking book Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives (Oxford University Press, 2022)is that “most anything the perpetrator does to the adult victim-survivor will be directly harming the child victims-survivors too, and the perpetrator is the one responsible for those harms to the children.”
In September of 2019, l was admitted to the emergency department of UCLA via ambulance. My diagnosis: Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, (a debilitating neurological condition with no known cure) was confirmed. UCLA gave me the prognosis of a ‘long-term disability’, and transferred me to the Brain Injury Unit of a major rehabilitative institute in Los Angeles. By now, my leg was atrophied, and l was facing something so much bigger than me. I was disfigured, and no matter how much l tried, my diagnosis had altered my life in ways I couldn’t have ever imagined. It remains one of the most challenging experiences of my life.
Incredibly, fortunately, l was paired with a progressive and knowledgeable team of doctors, nurses & therapists. With everything l had, and my children cheering me on, over the coming weeks l learned (quite literally) to walk again, first with the aid of a walking frame, then with the use of both my legs.
Just days after my hospital discharge, and arrival home, my three young children and I were abruptly forced to pack up the belongings we had collected after the fire, and move from our rental home due to the direct actions of the children’s father, and into a trailer home. If it wasn’t for the support I had from close friends at this time, this move would’ve been impossible, physically, emotionally and financially.
Throughout my injury and rehabilitative hospitalisations, and throughout my hospital discharge and home-care, it was communicated directly, and through our attorneys, that my children’s father would not take our children into his custody, but maintained his ‘ parental alienation ‘ claims. He said on several occasions that he did not want to disrupt the ‘reunification processes.’
I interviewed caregivers over the telephone from my hospital bed, and l had no other option than to hire complete strangers to care for our children around the clock. I was in regular contact with the Australian Embassy seeking their assistance. And accusations of alienation were continued and enabled by the Los Angeles Court. The expensive custody evaluation proceeded, which cost $50,000, took over eight months to complete, and did not offer conclusive findings; so next, we were catapulted head-on into more unnecessary trauma.
In mid-2020, still managing new complex health issues, at the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I was legally threatened and coerced to participate with our children in a second round of reunification therapy — this time, we were to drive to Sonoma, California, where we’d participate in a 4-day workshop with Dr’s Rebecca Bailey & Frank Davis a ‘reunification’ camp, under the guise of ‘equine’ therapy at a camp called ‘ Transitioning Families. ‘
I was instructed to drive 6+ hours with my children, directly into the path of California’s (then biggest) wildfire — The August Complex Wildfire, burning out of control in Sonoma (and the surrounding areas).
What followed at ‘Transitioning Families’ was an extremely traumatic, unsound, unregulated, dangerous four-day torture chamber, which cost $8000 per day, plus accommodations, food, and travel, which cost an excess of $50,000.
Dr. Rebecca Bailey’s [Transitioning Families] goal was control — to try and remove my children from their primary attachment figure. Regardless of our family’s history, or our circumstances, regardless of the psychological harm, and at any cost; including my children’s mental health.
This was a horrific experience that no other human being should ever endure, which included Dr. Rebecca Bailey attempting to coerce me to sign over my parental rights to a co-parenting therapist by the name of Dr. Matthew Sullivan. This is also included sessions in her home where she offered for her adult son, who had no credentials whatsoever, to watch over our three children. We were also required to pay for meals cooked by her husband in their home as part of the expenses of the ‘reunification process.’ Dr. Rebecca Bailey also hired local teenagers to watch over our traumatized children during this unregulated process. The hired teenager were apparently used as surveillance as they reported everything that our children said or did back to her, which was used against them during their ‘therapy’ sessions.
Dr. Rebecca Bailey, and similar ‘reunification’ experts around America must have their licenses revoked, and not be permitted to work with children, victims of domestic violence, coercive control, and post-separation coercive control. Transitioning Families, and similar reunification camps must be thoroughly investigated by the Federal Government, and prohibited.
My children and I are survivors of the American Family Court Crisis, the Hague Convention crisis, and the State sanctioned abuses of domestic abuse, and coercive control victim — survivors.
There is a crisis of epidemic proportions in the American Family Court System, a crisis that is heavily silenced, and siloed, but one that echoes and ruminates around the world, including Brazil, Australia, and throughout Europe. I was one of the 115+ mothers to share my story in a Complaint written on behalf of American Mothers, submitted to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women on August 1, 2021. (See: Press Release). We followed Complaints written by mothers in Brazil, and mothers in Spain.
In their recently released “How the discredited and unscientific pseudo-concept of parental alienation is used in family law proceedings by abusers, as a tool to continue their abuse and coercion, and to undermine and discredit allegations of domestic violence made by mothers who are trying to keep their children safe.” report, (April 19, 2023) the UN explains:
The UN Special Rapporteur, Reem Alsalem recommended, “States legislate to prohibit the use of parental alienation or related pseudo-concepts in family law cases and the use of so-called experts in parental alienation and related pseudo-concepts.”
I implore the California State Government to launch an immediate investigation/ inquiry into the unsound and unregulated practices of the ‘reunification industry,’ and to adopt the provisions of the federally enacted bipartisan law, The Keeping Children Safe from Family Violence Act, also known as Kayden’s Law, which in California is SB 331, Piqui’s Law. In California, SB 331 passed the Senate Floor on May 24, 2023. If enacted, it would restrict California courts from ordering children into unregulated, unsafe “reunification treatments” like my children have endured, and would recommend evidence-based training for Judges and court professionals on the current understanding of coercive control, and post-separation coercive control/abuse. It would prohibit unqualified “experts” from testifying on abuse allegations in contested custody cases, and ban the use of ‘reunification therapists’ and ‘reunification camps’ which use unproven methods and are unsafe for children, ending the decades-long, court-ordered reign of terror to domestic abuse/ coercive control victim/ survivors in family court proceedings.
My children and l have experienced irreparable, lifelong harm by the California Family Court System. We join a long line of courageous, strong, warrior women and children before us, particularly those in marginalised communities. These injustices have been well-documented, researched, starting with the Judicial Council of California, Advisory Committee on Gender Bias in the Court, July 1996, which can be found today at https://www.courts.ca.gov/documents/f-report.pdf.
We will not stop until these injustices do, and until our systems are rebuilt, as pathways to safety, health, and peace for all Mothers and Children fleeing abuse; and so that Family Court is no longer a death sentence for countless Californian women and children.
Sincerely,
Renée Leigh Izambard
Definition and use of the pseudo-concept of “parental alienation” via Custody, violence against women and violence against children Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, Reem Alsalem as submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council on April 19, 2023:
“There is no commonly accepted clinical or scientific definition of “parental alienation”. Broadly speaking, parental alienation is understood to refer to deliberate or unintentional acts that cause unwarranted rejection by the child towards one of the parents, usually the father.”
“The pseudo-concept of parental alienation was coined by Richard Gardner, a psychologist, who claimed that children alleging sexual abuse during high conflict divorces suffer from “parental alienation syndrome” caused by mothers who have led their children to believe that they have been abused by their fathers and to raise allegations of abuse against them. He recommended draconian remedies to address the syndrome, including a complete cut-off from the mother in order to “deprogramme” the child. It was argued that the more that children rejected the relationship with their fathers, the more evidence of the alienating syndrome was observed.”
Gardner’s theory has been criticized for its lack of empirical basis, for its problematic assertions about sexual abuse and for recasting abuse claims as false tools for alienation, which, in some cases, have dissuaded evaluators and courts from assessing whether abuse has actually occurred.10 It has been dismissed by medical, psychiatric and psychological associations, and in 2020 it was removed from the International Classification of Diseases by the World Health Organization. Nevertheless, it has gained considerable traction and has been widely used to negate allegations of domestic and sexual abuse within family court systems on a global scale.”
Read the Full ReportSubmitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council on April 19, 2023 the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, Reem Alsalem
Originally published at https://medium.com on June 8, 2023.
