Faces of Family Court Crisis

 
“The evaluator at our refugee camp was absoulutely convinced  we were Bosnian
because our injuries matched those of Bosnian war survivors.
Who had ever heard of American refugees?
Children should not have to run away from America in order to escape child abuse.”  
~ Jennifer Collins

Wear The Colors Black & Blue So Children Don't Have To ~ Jennifer Collins CA3

Getting Ready to Tell All - My Own Book "WHEN MOMMY LET GO"


SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER

I know that abusive fathers are creeps. I also have one of those too! Despite the beatings and all the other abuse that is too horrendous to talk about, my furry isn’t directed at him. Yeah… he screwed up. He was abused. Now he’s abusing. What’s new???

The real issue is that there was a deliberate attempt to conspire to conceal the abuse from numerous court officials. WHY???
If my mom retained custody, visitation denied to our abusive father and we were rightfully protected then the money trail would end there. How would the county maintain their funding?

By reversing custody to the very person who was abusing us meant years of Custody Evaluators, Psychological Evaluations, Guardian ad Litems, Visitation Supervisors, etc…. and a guaranteed income for the county for next 10 years.
I didn’t want to believe that I was sold to the highest bidder but it looks like that is the exactly what happened.

~ Jennifer

Those guilty: Judge Michael Davis, Judge Charles Porter, Susan De Vries, Jennier Livingston Rojer, Michelle Millenacker, Don Anderson, David Kleine, Jim Sias, Kathy McEnvoy,  Hennepn County Family Court Services, Minneapolis, Minnesota  

Jennifer Collins Resopnds to Joan Meiers Article "When Abuduction is Liberation"

I love the article When Abduction is Liberation written by Joan Meier. The comments were closed so here's my response:

My father was extremely abusive. “Abusive” meaning he beat me, kicked me, fractured my brothers skull by repeatedly slamming him into a wall, beat our pregnant mother so severely that he put her in the hospital several times during the first month they were married. He testified in court that he broke her nose 3 times and dislocated her shoulder while my brother and I watched in horror. There is no doubt here! These are his very own words! He admitted it under oath and he even told our family priest that he was beating my mother and my brother and asked for help for his “anger problem.”

But something went so terribly wrong in the family court room. The judge didn’t understand why my mother was still so afraid of our father since they had been separated for two years. He admitted that he just didn’t get why our mother was “shaking like a little bird.” He knew our father was abusive. He found it in his order! Yet in open court he looked directly at our young mother and said “It’s about time you get over the abuse!” Then he reversed custody and handed us over to a known abuser. How is this possible? The judge never spoke with me or my brother, yet his decision ruined our lives.
We were ripped out of the arms of our loving mother and handed over to the man who was beating us! To make it even worse we were denied all contact with our mother; no visits, no phone calls, not even letters. We loved our mom so much and suddenly she was just gone. Our inner core was shaken when our father told us that she didn’t want us anymore. We were devastated and we are still haunted and damaged from this trauma. The abuse continued. We told the guardian ad litem and other court officers that our father was still hurting us. We even showed them the bruised, but they covered it up. Eventually we were allowed to have supervised visits with our mother. We begged her to rescue us and after 18 months and 8 days she did just that.

We fled the United States without any identification. During a layover in Amsterdam we were arrested for not having passports. We were put in jail together and at a hearing we were permitted to apply for refugee status. We spent 3 long years in refugee centers and the Immigration Department fought our request. They didn’t want to be inundated with American refugees. During our asylum hearing the tribunal of judges asked to speak with the children. This was the first time a judge ever met with us. They asked us exactly what happened to us in America and they listened to our answers.

We were granted asylum and remained hidden and protected in The Netherlands for 17 years. The FBI found us and when all kidnapping charges against our mother were dismissed, we returned to the United States a little over a year ago. I am saddened to see that the family court system is even worse. I have been contacted by hundreds of children and battered mothers begging for my help. I don’t know how to help them. I realize how lucky we were that a little country like Holland had the nerve to stand up to the United States of America to protect two little kids who weren’t protected in their own country. I will be forever grateful.
~ Jennifer Collins

No Way Out But One - The Documentary About Our Story Already Selling Out on Amazon!

 
My mom kept her last promise:
 
 "I promise someday the world will know what those horrible people did to you!"
 
  The video is already selling out on Amazon!
 

Thousands Of Dallas Men Rally Against Domestic Violence: ‘It’s Our Problem’

FABULOUS!!!! I am fortunate to have some really great guys in my life; my adoptive father in The Netherlands, Ben Atherton-Zeman, Barry Goldstein, Barry Nolan, Alan Rosenfeld, Lundy Bancroft and of course my brother Zachary Collins. Now I'd like to add Dale Hansen and these guys to my list! Thank you so much for breaking the 'Gender partisan'! 
When I was a kid my father broke my mother’s nose 3 times (He testified to this under oath.) and dislocated her shoulder in front of me and my brother (Again, he admitted this in court.) but the judge found that the abuse to our mother was ...irrelevant pertaining to us kids.
 
He determined that her fear of our father was causing ‘parental alienation’ so he reversed custody to our abusive father. Needless to say our father beat us as well! Eventually our mom ‘kidnapped’ us back, and we fled the country.
 
We were granted asylum in The Netherlands and hid there for 17 years. After the FBI found us we recently returned to the USA.
 
Now hundreds of abused mothers and children are begging me to help them but I don’t’ know how. Sometimes it is discouraging, especially when I receive threats from certain father's rights groups saying that I should be "raped to death" to shut me up.
 
This story restores my faith in “Man Kind” and “Kind Men”! Thank you so much!
 
Jennifer Collins,
Executive Director
Courageous Kids Network
 

Robin Karr, Another "Holly Collins" Story - But Sadly This Mother Followed The Law!

This was also our story until our mom 'kidnap' us, ran away, fled the USA and received asylum in Europe. (There are so many eerie similarities: The mom looks a lot like my mom, the kids even look like me and my brother. There are false claims of PAS, bogus mental illness accusations to cover up abuse, etc….) Robin Karr
http://www.examiner.com/article/15-years-later-a-mother-s-battle-with-parental-alienation

Now I understand what my mom was going through when the judge reversed custody to our abusive father.

http://www.examiner.com/article/robin-karr-a-great-story-of-courage-and-survival

Holly Collins' Letter to Her Children, the Night Before she went Underground. (June 29 1994)

 
My Dearest Zachary, Jennifer & Christopher, 
I pray to God that tomorrow I shall have you in my arms again. This is our last painful night without each other. I promise to protect you with my life! I have so many regrets and apologies, but you have heard them so many times. Tomorrow is a new start. No longer a victim. I am strong. I am going to succeed. We are going  to be happy. We are going to be safe. We are going to be together. I love you! Love Mommy

Zachary Collins and Jennifer Collins are Joining Forces to Speak up for Abused Children!


After 19 years on the run (to protect her kids from abuse)  Holly Collins’ son Zachary Collins is
moving back to the USA! Lots of emotions! He's Alive. He's Safe. He's Happy.
And.... He's Coming Home! CONGRATULATIONS!

ABUSED CHILDREN BEWARE OF TAKE ROOT. ORG!

“Were YOU abducted as a child?  You may be eligible to join Take Root!”*
*DISCLAIMER -  ONLY IF YOU HATE YOUR ABDUCTING PARENT!
I have no doubt that this organization does good work for high publicity stranger abduction cases, but it is not supportive of children who went missing with a protective parent. I had personal contact with this organization in 2008 and I found them and their affiliates to be terrifying. I was threatened with kidnapping and forced deprograming even though I was an adult and made it clear that I was safe and where I wanted to be. They said it didn’t matter that my father was physically abusive to me and my brother. I was told that he deserved a second chance and they were going to force a reunion on me and my brother but it was for our “own good.” We contacted the Police, Dutch Ministries and even the FBI. That is how frightening they were. I don’t know if the same people are still affiliated with this organization, but I think everyone should be aware of what kind of people you may be dealing with. In the end we were denied all support and membership to their organization. I guess you have to hate your protective parent and to qualify for membership.
“Take Root partners with and enhances the work of many of the Association of Missing & Exploited Children’s Organization’s member organizations.
SUPPORT BRANCH – FOR FORMER MISSING CHILDREN Cultivating the Wisdom of Former Missing-Children  The first and only ongoing aftercare support program available to victims of child abduction when they are no longer missing.  This includes victims of both family and non-family abduction. Participants gain healing from joining a clinically moderated peer community of others with similar experiences, and from being empowered as issue advocates through Take Root…
KID GLOVES – RECOVERING AFTER ABDUCTION  Harvesting the Wisdom of Former Missing-Children  A new philosophy for recovering children from long-term abductions, based in the collective experiences of hundreds of former missing-children. The Kid Gloves approach strives to minimize trauma and maximize healing from the moment of first contact….
IN YOUR HANDS -  FAMILY ABDUCTION PREVENTION + EDUCATION  Sowing the Wisdom of Former Missing-Children  Tools to lower the incidence rate of the most common and most misunderstood form of child abduction in North America: family abduction. We use the most powerful voice there is to educate about its devastating impact…
THE MISSING SIDE – FIRST HAND ACCOUNTS OF BEING ABDUCTED  Sharing the Voices of Former Missing-Children   Read, hear, and view literary and artistic expressions of their abduction experiences created by Take Root’s membership of former missing children…
Take Root’s findings, training, and materials have been used by key missing child agencies including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues, The National Judicial College, the Polly Klaas Foundation, and many more.Take Root was founded in 2002 with assistance from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and a grant from the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, and is the brain-child of Executive Director and Fulbright Scholar Melissa “Liss” Haviv, who was once an abducted child and is today considered a leading expert in the victimology of child abduction.
Thank you to our special CULTIVATOR partners: The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and The Polly Klaas Foundation. The opinions expressed by Take Root' and its membership of former abducted children should not be used as a substitute for qualified mental health care. Opinions expressed by individual members express the views of the author and not necessarily those of Take Root. Take Root also appreciates the in-kind support provided by web genius Jamie Poitra; CPA firm DeFransisco, Lampitt and Brado; and Vanguard Software's incredibly awesome Vista survey program.”
Again this is my opinion based on my experience I had with them years ago. I am not even sure if I ever had contact with Melissa Haviv. The two people who threatened to kidnap me and my brother were older men.   Who knows… maybe they have straightened out since then and can be a useful resource for the victim of abusive parental abductions.
The one thing they definitely have wrong is that they are NOT the “only ongoing aftercare support program available to victims of child abduction.”  As the executive director of the Courageous Kids Network I want to make it clear that we support all children of parental abductions regardless of the parent’s gender and child’s endorsement of abducting parent. Parental kidnapping is traumatic regardless of the reason and every abused child deserves support, not just those who fit the agenda of some organization.
You don’t have to “apply” to belong to the Courageous Kids Network! 
You have already paid your dues! 
~ Jennifer Collins
Executive Director
Courageous Kids Network
 
 
 

"Sister" Julia Apologizes for Attacks Against My Family in 2009

I can't believe it! - 4 years later and I came across an apology from one of the women, Julia Moreno from Children Need Both Parents who viciously attacked my mother in a malicious article in 2009 when we were first found by the FBI after being on the run for 14 years from my abusive father. Apparently this apology was published a few years ago.

Apologies for unintentional harm
Posted by JoshuaRoseFoundation on October 10, 2011
"I want to first and foremost thank each of you for being a part of my support structure as I continue to deal with my situation with my children.

Secondly, I feel I need to make a formal and public apology to anyone that may have been directly or indirectly affected by actions that happened in 2009 when I was working with someone who I no longer have associations or ties to.  (Charity Ohse Kreasko)

Several of my new contacts and supporters of Joshua Rose Foundation both personally and professionally have come under attack recently because of the usage of the term PA/PAS. I have only recently come to learn and fully understand why that word creates such a firestorm for several people. It was the first term I encountered to describe what I went through as a child, and have been dealing with in my adulthood, all at the hands of my mother, who I have recently discovered is more than likely either NPD or Sociopath. I will no longer be using that term and will find alternative means to describe what I went through as a child and what my children and I are now experiencing under the controlling and abusive grasp of my biological mother.
I was wrong to have participated in the opinion piece written about Holly Collins and her children. I have written emails in the beginning of this year apologizing for those actions. Unfortunately, for some reason, the erroneous article written about me and the other person has resurfaced and has caused some to question several factors about me that I would like to indeed clear up.” Julia Moreno

I remember Julia Moreno contacting me a few years ago begging me to delete the article I wrote about her in rebuttal of the attack she made on my family. I said that I had no desire to fight and would simply remove it when she withdrew the terribly flawed opinion piece about our family.  For some reason she claimed she was unable to comply and things ended at that.
I’m not sure what this apology is all about. It is going to take some time to forgive and forget. These women caused us a great deal of pain and suffering when we were most vulnerable. They published lies that will forever be out there in cyberspace and now one of them is sorry. At least it is a start and my mom is right that truth prevails in the end!   ~ Jennifer

The Charley Project - Exploiting Missing and Abused Children

"Meaghan Good's fascination with missing people started when she was 12. At age 17, she founded the Charley Project web site. www.charleyproject.org is a database of over 9,000 missing people and children. Good says it's a tool that brings all of a missing persons information into one place.

Good says she spends anywhere from 4 to 12 hours a day researching and posting missing people to the web site. Her goal is to post 10 cases as day. For Good, working on the Charley Project gives her a sense of satisfaction.
The outcome of these cases may not always be what she is hoping for, but Good says it serves also as a memory for those who remain missing." by Ali Balgooyen
COMMENTS:

"I have been contacted by several survivors and family members (both children and adults) who have reported further victimization from The Charley Project. Several of the cases listed on the Charley Project website are regarding victims who do not desire the publicity.
Many abused children have requested that The Charley Project remove their stories from the site. In fact these cases have already been removed from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. However The Charley Project continues to publicize the tragedies of these victims against their will.

Parents of raped and murdered children have also begged the administrator to delete their children’s names, yet again The Charley Project refuses to comply.

The Charley Project does not deserve notoriety for exploiting the suffering of these victims."

Jennifer Collins
Executive Director
Courageous Kids Network


The Charley Project - morbid obsession of mentally ill young woman

The Charley Project is being used as a personal forum for a mentally ill young woman. It is sad but does not excuse the damage she is doing to abuse victims under the guise of a being a "helpful" missing person organization. Meaghan finally admits to her mental illness:

I turned out I have a mild form of bipolar which had been undiagnosed for years. The result was that every week or two, for a few hours or a few days, I’d plunge into suicidal despair for no apparent reason (sometimes I’d just burst out screaming and crying in public, saying I wanted to die, unable to stop myself; it was very embarrassing), then come out of it just as inexplicably, and then go around talking too fast and being way too enthusiastic about random things and generally creeping people out. http://charleyross.wordpress.com/2012/03/ (March 28,2012)

Do any of my readers have experience buying stuff and “flipping” it on eBay or whatever, selling it for more than you paid for it? Can you make money from this? Is it worth the hassle? I have never used eBay before, buying or selling, but I came across a most delectable item that’s a heck of a deal, if I can resell it (March 25, 2012)

A member of a lottery family whom I’d talked about on my website wrote to me asking what the heck a lottery family was and why was I saying such things about her family. She was disturbed and offended (March 23, 2012)

I think my therapist is taking advantage of me… (March 22, 2012)

Probable and possible suicides... I’m still thinking about the people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge and realized I’d never come up with a list of all the probable suicides listed on Charley. I thought I’d attempt it now: (March 21, 2012)

This can’t be right... I was just writing up the casefile for Luis and Mariel Encarnacion. The NCMEC poster says she’s 5’4 and 75 pounds! That’s both unusually tall for a nine-year-old girl and unusually emaciated, and she doesn’t look like a concentration camp inmate in the photograph. I’m going to write down 4’4 instead. (March 18, 2012)

Yeah, kind of a cruddy week... Several days of vomiting and general fatigue caused by, I think, funky milk, capped off by a screaming argument with my mom, (March 16, 2012)

Final leaps... I was in the library today and, as always, stopped to have a look at their display of new books. One caught my eye: The Final Leap: Suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge by John Bateson. Being a connoisseur of Incredibly Depressing Books, of course I had to check it out. I haven’t started it yet — I’m in the middle of two books right now — but it looks very interesting. (March 11, 2012)


Meeting Elizabeth Smart  http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/elizabeth-smart-speaks-about-empowerment-and-gaining-control-after-horrific-events (March 9, 2012)

What happened today... sometimes that I wanted to kill myself — this happened twice in the month of January, for example. “You shouldn’t say that,” he said. “You will get yourself in trouble. I’m a psychiatrist, you know.” I can talk about suicidal thoughts with him without being automatically thrown in the hospital. (And incidentally, I haven’t had any since I’ve gone into the program.) (February 27, 2012)

Hail the conquering Meaghan... the oldest was “Baby Kate” from June 29 last year. (I’m pretty sure her father killed her.) (February 25, 2012)

Sigh…. A woman whose sister is on Charley wrote to me and asked me to correct an error on the casefile. I did so and then wrote back saying the change had been made, and specifically told her to refresh the page if it looked like nothing had changed. She replied angrily, saying the error was still there, and then asked the law enforcement in the charge of the case to ask me to remove the casefile altogether.  Iam trying to prevent that from happening, and have written to her again explaining that I’ve already done what she asked me to do and she has only to refresh the page to see it, but I wonder if I’m going to get anywhere. (February 11, 2012)

I’m in my PJs and my hair is unbrushed but I still think I look cute in this picture (I'm 26) (January 28, 2012)

Meaghan Good, The Charley Project
The Charley Project http://www.charleyproject.org/
Server IP Address: 64.69.41.217
Server IP Decimal: 1078274521
The Charley Project 15276 Main Street (PO Box 647)
Venedocia Ohio US 45894
Phone: 1-419-667-3131
Email:
administrator@charleyproject.org
Email:
Good_128@hotmail.com


Mothers Day March on Washington D.C. 2012

Mother's Day March - 2012

Fatherhood Initiative Dangerous for Abused Children

In a recent article in the Huffington Post Anne Stevenon explains how government funding is being misued by Organizatins supporting child abusers:
 

“The top 5 HHS programs endangering women and children are:

1.      Child Support Enforcement (Access and Visitation Programs and Responsible Fatherhood Initiative. A 2011 report the Office of the Inspector General demonstrates that the States are collecting child support, but not disbursing it to the children it is intended to benefit. So where is the money going? Although previous graduates include mass murderer D.C. Sniper John Muhammad the 2012 HHS budget reflects President Obama's $1 billion endorsement of the fraud-riddled fatherhood industry.

Using the virtually unregulated child support system as a vehicle and the father's will to envade prison as collateral, the fathers are told they can risk their liberty and property attempting to pay down arrears, or alternatively, sue the mother for custody using a variety of federally funded "supports." Unlike the welfare programs for women and children which had restrictive income eligibility requirements, HHS Responsible Fatherhood program benefits are not needs based and are available to all fathers-even billionaires. Benefits from Responsible Fatherhood programs to abusers include:
  • Child support obligations are suspended
  • Free attorney representation in the family courts to fight for custody
  • Free housing
  • Direct cash incentives
  • Free groceries
  • Free car maintenance, gas, and other transportation costs
  • Free healthcare and dental care
While many upstanding fathers honestly complain about TANF programs and the courts victimizing them, the dirty little secret in the fatherhood industry it that the grant recipients who train court personnel, social services, and child support personnel are often fathers rights groups like the Fathers and Families Coalition, the Children’s Rights Council (Founder David Levy sits on the board of the Supervised Visitation Network and the National Fatherhood Institute.

Clearly, judges understand the danger abusers pose, which is why their courts are guarded with armed deputies and not unarmed social workers. HHS programs are actually a deadly investment given that (a) abusive men win custody of their victims 70% of the time when they ask for it, and (b) regardless of the gender of the victim, it is a public safety issue when DOJ studies show men perpetrate more than 95% of violent assaults against women. A 2011 CDC study also shows that men are raped by other men more than 93% of the time, and women are raped by men more than 98% of the time.”

Top 5 HHS Programs Endangering Women and Children
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-stevenson/top-5-hhs-programs-endang_b_1511613.html
Anne Stevenson,
Policy analyst, adviser and writer

Working on Courageous Kids Network website




 

Happy Gotcha Day! June 30 2012

In the Wake of Jerry Sandusky by Barry Nolan

In the Wake of Jerry Sandusky To prevent child abuse, something has to change. So why won't it?

By Barry Nolan, 6/25/2012
Boston Magazine

After the verdict came down in the Jerry Sandusky case, Linda Kelly, the Pennsylvania State Attorney General, stood before the assembled press and said something very important. She said: “One of the recurring themes of the witness’ testimony was … ‘Who would believe a kid?’”

Yes indeed, who would take the word of a mere child over that of a beloved coach like Jerry Sandusky about sexual abuse? Even though we know that such terrible crimes are far too common and the numbers are staggering, we can’t believe it. So, from 2005 to 2006 about 135,300 children were sexually abused.

Who would take the word of a child against a respected adult even though we know that in up to 93 percent of the time, the child knows his abuser and as many as 47 percent of the perpetrators are family members.

Who would take the word of a child even though in the vast majority of cases the only witness to child sex abuse is the child?

The ugly truth about child sexual abuse is that we really don’t want to hear about it. And far too much of it happens after an initial complaint about a perpetrator has been made and it’s not investigated thoroughly.

Take the tragic sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, and just imagine how things could have been different if there had been real listening and forceful action early on. There were 10,667 complaints of sexual abuse against 4,392 priests and deacons between 1950 and 2002 and yet no serious or thorough investigation took place. And so the abuse was allowed to continue. Until the Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning series compelled self-examination and change. That scandal has so far cost the Catholic Church more than $2.3 billion in costs and settlements.

The first child to make a complaint in the Sandusky case came forward 14 years ago. But who was going to believe a kid over Jerry Sandusky? So the complaint was not thoroughly investigated and, tragically, the abuse continued.

And so a jury heard a full weeks worth of gut-wrenching stories about all of the awful things that a seemingly decent man did to so many vulnerable children in all those intervening years.

Reporter Diane Dimond was in the courtroom covering the trial for The Daily Beast. She provided some of the most well-written coverage you will find. I first came to admire Diane’s work way back in 1993 when she broke the story of the sexual molestation charges against Michael Jackson.

Back in 1993, most people simply didn’t want to believe the awful things a kid had to say about what Jackson did behind closed doors. After all, Michael Jackson was a lavishly talented and beloved public figure. But Dimond, and a few others, listened carefully and pursued leads and looked at the evidence. And the awful truth began to come out. The boy in that case would eventually accept a settlement from Jackson that was widely reported to be in the range of $20 million.

I asked her for her thoughts on the bigger picture, the Sandusky case, the scandal in the church, and the Jackson matter. Here is part of what she sent me in an e-mail:

“Pedophiles are really the very person you think they could never be. They are the most charming, personable, charitable, and kid-friendly people you would ever want to meet. They pay their taxes, they go to church, they cloak themselves in acts of charity and they say they just want to help you raise your child by being a positive influence in their lives … Too often detectives believe the perpetrator’s version of events and they are freed to violate again.”

We know that this is true about pedophiles. And yet, nearly every day, in family courts across the country, people who should know better choose not to thoroughly investigate charges of child sexual abuse — because the allegations come from a kid and they are lodged against someone who is “respectable.” The charges aren’t investigated, and the child continues to have contact with someone who is hurting them. Touching them. Raping them. It’s what some experts call the process of “growing your own victims.”

Watch this video and read the account of Damon, a young man who pleaded with a family court judge when he was a child not to force him to go on visits to the father who was sexually abusing him. But the judge wouldn’t listen to him. After all, Damon was just a kid. And so Damon kept going on those visits. And kept getting raped. For years.

Or read the accounts of these courageous kids who have now “aged out” of court supervision and tell similar stories about not being believed by the family court and of being sentenced to a life of abuse.

Courageous victims like the ones in the Sandusky trial deserve our collective thanks and our respect for stepping forward and telling us the truth, even though it’s too late for them. They have the courage to try to stop others from being abused.

If enough of them come forward and enough of us start to listen, maybe one day one day when the question is asked — who would believe a kid? — the answer will be different.

Those Fathers & Families guys are just nasty and dishonest!



WOW! Now Glenn Sacks and Ned Holstein are tag teaming against a battered woman. The problem is that they keep inventing stories and repeating wild accusations trying to distract readers from the real issue. A battered woman lost custody of her children to the man who beat her. The family court service evaluator Susan DeVries, Judge Michael Davis and the Minnesota Appellate Court ALL found that Mark Collins ABUSED Holly Collins!

Ned Holstein claims that Holly Collins has been discredited over and over again. By whom? - HIM? / Glenn Sacks?The biggest problem for Father’s & Families is that children grow up. We are adults now and we are telling the world what happened to us!

My brother and I told our mother that our father was hurting us during visitation. For some reason the guardian ad litem Michael London covered it up. We still don’t know what his motives were but we are trying to figure that out. Thank God our mother believed us and did everything she could to protect us. Holly Collins is a hero!

Why is Fathers & Families so intimidated by this quite, shy battered woman?

Mr. Holstien claims that “Glenn Sacks, then the Executive Director of Fathers and Families, painstakingly collected dozens of court rulings, psychologists' reports, doctors' reports, and other documents in this case”

Really? “Dozens”? That is the problem right there! There are HUNDREDS/THOUSANDS of pages of documents. Fathers & Families handpicked a few to support their own personal agenda.

The Minneapolis City Pages broke this story in 2008. They actually went down to the court house and researched ALL of the court documents.

The producers of the documentary No Way Out But One also had access to ALL of the court documents.

The Dutch Ministries of Justice investigated our case. They all realized the injustice that happened in our case. Two children were being abused and the American Family Court System did not protect them!

We are the first American citizens to receive asylum in another country. This speaks volumes for the severity of our case.

So does the fact that we, Holly Collins’ children are adults now. We can tell you exactly what happened to us. Father’s & Families just do not want to listenShame on them for supporting a Wife Beater & Child Abuser!

Holly Collins speaking out on NPR

experthttp://hereandnow.wbur.org/2012/06/06/domestic-violence-out


California Judge Michael Nash this year ruled to open child welfare hearings in Los Angeles County unless there’s proof that doing so will harm the child.

Advocates in favor of more transparency in family courts applauded the decision, because they believe the secrecy can lead to decisions that hurt children.

Gail Helms was behind the push for more transparency in California. In 1995, her 2-year-old grandson was beaten to death by his father, who had been awarded custody despite a history of drug abuse.

Around that same time, Holly Collins of Minnesota was on her way to the Netherlands with her children, 11-year-old Zachary and 9-year-old Jennifer. They had been placed in their father’s custody, and she says she fled to protect them from abuse and a court system that ignored her pleas for help.

Holly became a fugitive, accused of kidnapping her children, and she was placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. But her children said she was protecting them.

“As a kid, I thought it was quite ridiculous that they were charging my mom with kidnapping her own children… taking them away from an abusive father. It seemed completely ludicrous to me,” Zachary Collins, now in his 20s, said in the documentary, “No Way Out But One.”

Holly Collins and her children lived in a Dutch refugee camp for three years, before she was granted asylum.

After 17 years in the Netherlands, Holly Collins returned to the United States, and was ultimately cleared of kidnapping charges.

And now her case has become a rallying point for advocates who want to reform the family court system in the United States.

Guests:

  • Holly Collins
  • Garland Walland, co-producer of “No Way Out But One”
  • Lundy Bancroft, domestic violence and family court

No Way Out But One - The Trailer is Awesome!

Here & Now - No Way Out But One

Film about Holly Collins saga screens at BU
Robin Young, of WBUR’s “Here & Now,” hosted a screening at BU this week of “No Way Out But One,” a new documentary about Holly Collins, an American woman who kidnapped her own children to save them from a life of domestic violence. (Pursued by the FBI, Collins eventually fled the country and was granted asylum by the Netherlands.) The film was part of “Women Take the Reel,” a Boston-based film fest focused on movies written and/or directed by women. The film was produced by BU professor-filmmaker Garland Waller and her husband, former TV host-journalist Barry Nolan

ABUSIVE PARENTS BEWARE...

Children Grow Up and We're Gonna' Tell!

For years Glenn Sacks and Father’s and Families swore up and down that my brother’s skull was fractured at an amusement park. They called my mother a liar again and again. They said that if my brothers skull was not fractured in 1986 (when my father claimed) and it was in fact broken in 1987 (as my mother and brother insisted) it would be easy for me (my brother) to obtain all of the medical records and prove it. Okay… so I DID THAT! I proved that there was no way that my father was telling the truth because I posted the medical records from 1986 which clearly stated that x-rays were conducted and there were “NO BROKEN BONES”! I also posted the results from my brothers x-rays from 1987 which confirm his skull was fractured. It should have ended there. I proved my father and Glenn Sacks and Fathers & Families were all liars!

Now it is happening again… Mike D. Glenn Sacks, Fathers & Families claim that MANY different mental health professionals testified that our mother had/has MSbP. That is a lie! This time the proof is on you!

Only one person, ONE! Susan DeVries the family court custody evaluator said that she read 6 articles about MSbP and said that our case could fit some of the symptoms. She testified under oath that she was NOT familiar with MSbP, that she did NOT have the qualification for making such a diagnosis and that her only information came from rading 6 (SIX) articles. Are you kidding me? Judge Davis even retracted his findings the following week after he reversed custody and clarified that he never intended to diagnose my mother with any mental illness, especially MSbP.

My father, Susan DeVries, Glenn Sacks and now Mike D (who cowardly refuses to come forward with his true identity) continue with further lies suggesting that my mother was a doctor shopper but the evidence already proves them wrong!

We had ONE pediatrician in Minnesota. Dr. Estrin. I adored him! He referred us to ONE pediatric allergist Dr. Blum. Dr. Blum determined that we were “some of the most allergic children he has ever seen”. Where is the doctor shopping? (Again… to make things crystal clear… Our pediatrician told my mother to take us to this specific pediatric allergist. She did what she was told!)

When we moved to Massachusetts we had ONE pediatrician Dr. Louden. He referred us to a local allergist who was a grouchy old man. We saw him ONCE for ONE consultation and my mom was uncomfortable around him and told Dr. Louden. So Dr. Louden referred us to a pediatric allergist Dr. Polmar at the Boston Children’s Hospital. My father convinced Dr. Polmar that my mother was over reacting to our allergies and asked for some sort of other explanation. Dr. Polmar suggested that we could have dermographism, highly sensitive skin.

What should this young mother do? She had TWO doctors who she trusted saying that her children were severely allergic and a new doctor saying that maybe her kids had some other medical disorder.

She decided to get an independent evaluation at Tufts University who determined that our Doctors in Minnesota were correct!

So what did my mom do next? She went back to Dr. Polmar at the Boston Children’s Hospital and she even agreed to have us evaluated there by their psychologists. (By the way…The Boston Children’s Hospital Child Abuse Trauma Team, headed by Dr. Eli Newberger confirmed that my brother and I were telling the truth about the abuse!)

My pediatrician Dr. Vrouwenvelder and allergist Dr De Groot in The Netherlands have also confirmed our allergies. Dr. Vrouwenvelder personally witnessed me in anaphylactic shock.

It is most remarkable that our mother tried everything to get us back and safe. She voluntarily submitted to several psychiatric evaluations to determine if she suffered from MSbP or any other mental illness. They all concluded that she did NOT!

Thank God our mother was determined to protect us from all of my father’s abuse and sacrificed everything to protect us!

It is bizarre how these angry men are claiming that they know what really happened to me and my brother because they read articles from Glenn Sacks who got his information from an abuser. They keep forgetting that my father was found to be an abuser! They are all supporting a known wife beater. That says a lot about their character!

No Way Out But One - Sparking interest at Law Schools around the US

Stanford Law School Center for Internet & Society
By Documentary Film Program on March 29, 2012 at 12:00 am

In 1994 Holly Collins became an international fugitive, hunted by the FBI after she grabbed her three children and went on the run. Holly felt she had no choice after a family court had dismissed her as crazy, ignored her children’s pleas, Holly’s broken nose, her son’s fractured skull, her daughter’s graphic pictures and mounds of medical evidence and gave full custody of Zackary and Jennifer to their abusive father. Holly came to believe she and the children had No Way Out But One.

She fled the United States and made it to Amsterdam where she blurted out a plea for asylum, based on the fact that she was fleeing domestic violence and would not be protected if she were returned to the US.

At first, she and her children were placed in a refugee center with other poor souls fleeing violence torn hell-holes from around the world. Living shoulder to shoulder with people learning to use indoor plumbing for the first time in their lives, Holly and her kids made the best of it. At least they were safe. Holly eventually became the first U. S. Citizen to be granted asylum by the government of Netherlands.

She lived a quiet, low profile life for the next 14 years, until the FBI agents came calling. Hoping to return Holly to the United States to face kidnapping charges, they interviewed her now grown children. They told the agents that far from being their kidnapper, their mother was their savior and their hero.

Eventually, all charges against Holly were dropped, save one: contempt of court. Holly readily acknowledged that after all she and the children had been through, she did indeed have “contempt of court.”

The Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School is a leader in the study of the law and policy around the Internet and other emerging technologies.
http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2012/03/no-way-out-one

American Refugees in The Netherlands - Meet the Collins Family!

Boston University Magazine
http://buquad.com/2012/03/29/no-way-out-but-one-a-reflection/refugees-in-nl-all-4-1/


Boston University - No Way Out But One

‘No Way Out But One’ Screened Again: A Follow-Up
The Quad, Boston University's Independent Online Magazine
By Lauren Michael Mar 29th, 2012

On March 28, I saw No Way Out But One for the second time. This time the screening was sponsored in part by the CAS Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program as a part of Women Take the Reel, a film festival celebrating Women’s History Month through screenings of films written, directed, and/or produced by women.

The 6 p.m. screening included a Q&A featuring Professor Waller; Barry Nolan; Lundy Bancroft, an author and consultant on domestic abuse and child maltreatment; Dr. Eli Newberger, the Collins children’s former pediatrician at Children’s Hospital in Boston; and Holly Ann Collins herself. Robin Young of WBUR’s Here and Now moderated.

Since last December, the documentary has been screened at the Institute on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma (IVAT) Conference. It has also won several awards including an Award of Excellence for Feature Documentary from the Accolade Film Awards. At the end of the evening, it was announced that copies of No Way Out But One would soon be distributed to every member of Congress.

Throughout the Q&A, the panelists stressed that while Holly Collins’ story is unique, the situation from which she and her children escaped is not. A few of the panelists cited corruption in the family court system as a key problem; others pointed to lingering traces of misogyny in court practices. They all agreed, however, that we need to first raise awareness of the injustice in the family courts if we want to find a practical solution to the problem.

And Holly Collins? She wants to do more to help others who have been hurt by the family court system, but for now she’s enjoying the wonderful life she’s always wanted.

Holly Collins - No More Playing by the Rules


NO WAY OUT BUT ONE
Wednesday - March 28, 2012
6-10PM
Boston University, COM Auditorium, Room 101, 640 Commonwealth Avenue

The Courts Called Her Crazy.
The FBI Called Her a Kidnapper.
Her Kids Called Her Their Hero.


Suppose a family court judge gave custody of your children to a man you knew was beating them. What would you do? Until 1994, Holly Collins had played by the rules. That changed when a judge gave custody of her children to their father, the man who had fractured her son's skull. No Way Out But One explores a shocking national scandal that is also a national secret - that men who beat their wives and children usually get custody when they go after it in family courts. Holly Collins was able to do what few women have been able to do. She successfully kidnapped her children and went underground. Ultimately she became the first American to be granted asylum by the Dutch government on grounds of domestic violence. BU's Professor Garland Waller is the producer.

Holly Collins' Children Will Be Heard!

Reel women

Robin Young of WBUR’s “Here and Now’’ will moderate a panel after the screening of “No Way Out But One,’’ a documentary by filmmaker and Boston University professor Garland Waller. The free screening and panel take place Wednesday at 6 p.m. at BU’s College of Communication auditorium at 640 Commonwealth Ave. “No Way Out But One’’ is about Holly Collins, an American woman who flees a life of abuse and goes on the run with her children. She becomes an international fugitive, wanted by the FBI, and the first American to be granted asylum by the Dutch government. Panelists include codirectors Waller and Barry Nolan, Holly Collins, and Eli Newberger of Harvard University and Children’s Hospital.

The screening is part of Women Take the Reel, a festival of films by women presented by Boston University’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program and the Graduate Consortium of Women’s Studies.

See www.bu.edu/wgs.


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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

No Way Out But One Screening


NPR's Robin Young hosts the screening of "No Way Out But One", a controversial new documentary that tells the story of Holly Collins, an American woman who kidnapped her own children to save them from a life of abuse. Pursued by the FBI, Holly fled the country and became the first American woman to ever be granted asylum by the government of the Netherlands, due to domestic violence. The film is being presented as part of Women Take the Reel, a Boston-based film festival focused on movies that are all written and/or directed by women. Immediately after the film, Robin will moderate a discussion with the filmmaker Garland Waller; Dr. Eli Newberger of Harvard and Children’s Hospital; and Holly Collins. This event is free and open to the public.


Start Time: 6:00 pm

Ends Time: 10:00 pm

Location: COM 101

No Way Out But One - A Story of Love & Justice


A TRUE STORY OF FIERCE LOVE AND BLIND JUSTICE

A Documentary project in Boston, MA by Garland Waller and Barry Nolan

No Way Out But One is a documentary that tells the story of Holly Collins, an American woman who was driven by fear, love and desperation to kidnap her own children and go on the run in order to protect them from a life of abuse. Wanted by the FBI, Holly left behind everything she owned and everyone she knew in an effort to keep her children safe. She became an international fugitive, eventually making it to Amsterdam. After spending 2 years in a refugee camp out in the middle of nowhere, living shoulder to shoulder with other desperate souls fleeing violence torn hell holes around the world, Holly became the first American woman to ever be granted asylum by the Government of the Netherlands, due to domestic violence. Though it focuses on the desperate measures that one woman felt she had to take to protect her children, it also exposes the problems that protective parents and vulnerable children are facing nearly every day in courtrooms across the country.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2038674816/no-way-out-but-one-a-story-of-love-and-justice

New Documentary - No Way Out But One

New Documentary by BU Professor Tackles Flawed Family Court System
By Lauren Michael Dec 5th, 2011

In 1992, Holly Collins went to a Minnesota family court intending to secure full custody of her two children, Zackary and Jennifer. She had believed that if she told the truth–that her ex-husband had repeatedly abused her and their children–everything would be okay. But her evidence of abuse, including several medical records and the children’s statements that they always feared visiting their dad, were repeatedly rejected by the court. Her husband claimed she was lying and trying to alienate their children from him. Then, like thousands of battered women each year, Holly lost full custody of her children to their abusive father.

After two years with limited supervised visitation, in which the children weren’t permitted to discuss the ongoing abuse, Holly decided to do something. One day, she asked her kids to meet her at a video store near their dad’s house. They got into a car and started driving. They tried going to Canada, Mexico and Guatemala. Knowing the FBI was searching for them because Holly had in fact kidnapped her kids, she decided to try escaping to Australia or New Zealand. They managed to sneak through airport security without passports and got onto a flight to Amsterdam. There, they were detained and sent to a refugee camp. Years later upon finding a lawyer willing to take her case, Holly became the first U.S. citizen to be granted asylum by the Netherlands on the grounds of domestic violence.

For COM Professor Garland Waller, Holly Collins’ story was the perfect outlet for her to make a documentary on the shortcomings of the American family court system. “My first documentary was about three women who all lost custody of their kids to men who had battered them and sexually abused them,” she said to me when I interviewed her last Thursday. The documentary was never aired for the public, however, because people considered it way too controversial.

“I thought, I know this is an issue that is going on in the family courts, every single day,” Professor Waller explicated. “How can we do a story on this issue of domestic violence and child abuse that people will want to see; that will have a story that has a beginning, middle, and end; that has a hero; and that doesn’t make them feel suicidal at the end?” That’s why she decided to center her film around Holly’s story. ”Holly is one of the few women who has been able to save her children from years of being abused,” she affirmed.

On December 2 at 7pm in COM 101, Professor Waller and her production team screened the film No Way Out But One for a packed lecture hall of students and faculty. The hour-and-a-half long documentary, which was followed by a Q&A session, follows Holly’s story and also outlines the grievous problems 0f the American family court system. Made for under $40,000, the not-for-profit film was a way for Professor Waller and her husband Barry Nolan (who also produced and narrated the film) to make a difference.

“This is what I do to give back,” she explained. “Some people work for charity, some people give to the United Way, but this is what I do.”

As the documentary cites, each year 58,000 children are placed in contact with an abuse parent after divorce, and batterers win custody in 70% of family court cases where abuse is involved.


Holly Collins with her children outside the refugee camp in the Netherlands. Photo courtesy of Garland Waller and Barry Nolan

Professor Waller also cited the lingering gender bias in the family courts. “Courts do not have to consider domestic violence in their rulings, ” she said. “Now that is anti-woman, because it’s usually the women who get beaten up.” Money, she says, is also involved. “The men who want custody are the ones who can afford to have the kids, and you have to be able to pay the court costs,” she explained. “This is something that doesn’t happen in poor families…it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay all these people.” If the father is paying for the court evaluator, she says, often they’ll skew the evidence in his favor.

But even in ugly divorces, she says, usually the parents still want to do what’s best for their children. “When there are cases that involve domestic violence and child abuse, that is not the case,” she explained. “Women often get custody when there’s not domestic violence. But oddly, a batterer is more likely to go after custody than a non-batterer. So its a very complicated issue.”

Since the release of No Way Out But One, Professor Waller and her husband deal with angry father’s rights groups every day. These groups, like Fathers and Families, make an impassioned–if not entirely factual–argument for why they believe the Holly Collins case is a hoax. “After a nice review in a Boston Magazine blog, many pro-father’s rights men were highly critical,” she explained, but “none of them had seen the film and none of them had access to all the thousands of pages of legal documents and medical records and correspondence from experts and FBI documents that we had.” Many of these documents are shown and quoted in the film.

In their writings against Holly Collins, father’s rights groups cite Parental Alienation Syndrome, which means that a mother is trying to alienate her children from their father. Though it is not accepted as a legitimate diagnosis by the American Medical Association or the American Psychological Association (the psychologist who first wrote about PAS had conducted no actual studies), in family court it is often used to legitimize giving custody to an abusive parent.


L to R: Jennifer Collins, Barry Nolan, Professer Waller, and Holly Collins. Photo courtesy of Jessie Beers Altman

As Nolan puts it, “these are people who do not and will not respond to evidence, or facts, or medical records, or court transcripts, or expert testimony if it does not fit their preconceived notions.” The groups say that Holly fabricated the evidence of her husband’s abuse, but in reality false allegations of abuse are very rare.

“Holly may not be perfect, but she was clearly a battered woman who only wanted to protect her children from abuse,” Professor Waller affirmed.

Still, this is an issue that has mainly been ignored by the mainstream media. “The mainstream media is terrified of getting sued, and this is a subject where everybody sues everyone all the time,” she explained. “It’s all he said/she said…so the mainstream media says, this is a mess and we’re not going to get into it. Just as the mainstream media did not cover pedophile priests abusing children, just as for years they did not cover the things that were going on at Penn State, it is the same thing only worse by thousands in terms of the children who are being abused.”

Many years after their mother kidnapped them, the Collins kids, now adults, are healthy and grateful for everything their mother has done for them. Jennifer Collins, Holly’s oldest daughter, is the executive director of Courageous Kids, an organization for young adults who suffered from court injustice as children to speak out and share their stories.

“I guess for me, the most important thing is that I would like people to realize that this is a national issue that is not going away until people begin to understand that in a family court, if you beat your wife and abuse your child, and go after custody, most of the time you will get it,” Professor Waller concluded. “I want to live in an America that protects the children.”

For more information about the film, go to http://www.nowayoutbutone.com/index.html.

Professor Garland Waller on her Documentary No Way Out But One


When Prof. Garland Waller first conceptualized her documentary, No Way Out But One, she did not imagine a project of such enormous magnitude. Originally created as a 15-minute short film, Waller’s award-winning movie about love, courage and perseverance grew into a feature-length documentary.

The film tells the compelling story of divorced mother, Holly Collins, and her fight to free her children from the custody of her former husband, their abusive father. Accused of kidnapping her own children by the FBI, Collins went on the run, ultimately fleeing with her children to the Netherlands where she become the first American woman to win asylum by the Government of the Netherlands, on the basis of domestic violence.

While Collins and her family are a unique case, Waller, who produced and directed the documentary, strives to shed light on the larger issue at hand: domestic violence and child abuse. An estimated 58,000 children a year are ordered into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce in the United States.

“My commitment”, said Waller, “is to broaden awareness of the fact that if you beat your wife and abuse your children in America you are more likely to get custody than not, and I believe this is such a shocking fact, not a make believe opinion that most people have no idea about.”

While Waller’s passion was a driving force behind this documentary, she was not alone in its making. Her husband, Barry Nolan, a television writer and reporter, co-wrote and co-produced the documentary. Waller also said that the movie is truly a reflection of COM, with six students and alumni involved with the production and promotion process. Waller was quick to thank the following: Erika Street, editor; Olivia Neir, web designer and creator; Celia Hubbard, production assistant; Rebecca Wilkinson, production assistant; Jessie Beers Altman, production assistant and second camera in Amsterdam; and Gonzalo Accame, Washington, D.C. videographer.

No Way Out But One debuts at Boston University Dec. 2, 2011 at 7 p.m. in COM 101.