A new medical specialty emerges: child abuse pediatrics.

A physican can now study a concentrated curriculum and become board-certified in child abuse.

Unfortunately, there is much need for forensic experts in physical and sexual abuse of children.

Could the burn (or other inury) have been an accident?

Was the child sexually abused?

Forensic child abuse pediatrics holds the answers to these and many other equally disturbing questions.

Many suspected cases of child abuse are not borne out by forensics. They are likely either accidents or injuries resulting from unusual medical conditions.

These specialists will hold the keys to criminal prosecutions, removal of children from their homes, and child custody and timesharing decisions.

Read more in this New York Times article: The Marks of Childhood or the Marks of Abuse?

Child support is typically paid from the noncustodial parent’s salary.

In Asheville, North Carolina, that is no longer as true as it used to be.

Increasingly, child support is being funded by the noncustodial parent’s … unemployment benefits.

A noncustodial parent is three times as likely to pay support from unemployment benefits today than he or she was a year ago.

The amount of support funded by unemployment benefits across the state has grown from $2.4 million to $8.6 million over the last year.

Because unemployment benefits are generally lower than salary and, in North Carolina, garnishment of unemployment benefits is legally capped at twenty-five percent of the amount of benefits, the amount of child support received by custodial parents is down.

Many other communities across the country are likely seeing increasing amounts of child support obligations funded by unemployment benefits and severance packages.

Read more in this Asheville [NC] Citizen-Times article: Unemployment garnisheed for child support.

Sometimes people become foster parents when they are in search of children to adopt.

But, sometimes, they just want to help other families get through a difficult time and then reunite.

One Utah couple is in the latter category.

They actually mentor the parents whose children are in their foster care.

Some of their former foster kids, and their parents, visit them years later.

This couple has fostered thirty-two children over ten years.

In the part of Utah they live in, there are 356 foster families … for 630 children in foster care.

More than half of foster children are eventually reunited with their parents or placed with extended family members.

May is National Foster Care Month.

Read more in this Utah Standard-Examiner article: Layton couple’s goal as foster parents: Get parents and children back together.

In British Columbia, Canada, divorce and custody litigation – or, for that matter, any litigation – can be really expensive.

It’s not the legal fees, as some might leap to conclude.

It’s the court clerk fees, which are substantially higher than elsewhere in Canada.

A litigant must rent the courtroom.

That might run $15,000, payable in advance.

And then there is the cost of the jury.

That might run $25,000, also payable in advance.

And then there might be the cost of witnesses.

That might run another $15,000, also payable in advance.

Giving new meaning to the cliche, “justice isn’t cheap”…

Husband and Wife are from England, but have been living with Child in British Columbia, Canada.

When the marriage breaks down, Wife wants to take Child to live in Europe.

The Court rules that the Child should remain in British Columbia.

Wife is awarded transitional alimony.

At the ten day trial, both parties represent themselves.

At the end of it, Wife asks the Court to waive a court fee … of $3,600.

Chaos in the courtroom.

Wife was supposed to pay in advance.

Court will now consider whether British Columbian court fees are unconstitutional as impeding access to the courts.

There is some Canadian authority to support that conclusion.

Wife is unemployed, but not indigent.

Court wishes to hear from the Attorney General and stays payment of the fee until it does so.

Read more in this Vancouver Sun article: Do B.C.’s court costs impede justice?.

One might not think of a legal dispute over jurisdiction with our neighbor to the north as being an international jurisdiction battle.

But …

Canadian Husband and American Wife live in British Columbia.

Couple divorce.

Husband is awarded sole custody of Daughter by Canadian court.

Wife moves to Nebraska.

Husband and Wife work out timesharing and Wife has Daughter over much of the summer.

Then Wife accuses Husband of abusing Daughter.

Husband denies it, backed by a lie detector test and lack of criminal charges.

Wife retains Daughter and Husband doesn’t see her for two years.

Wife hasn’t been able to transfer jurisdiction from Canada to Nebraska, but neither has Nebraska honored the Canadian custody order and ordered that Daughter be returned to Husband.

Wife does succeed in getting Nebraska to pass legislation to the effect that Nebraska need not honor custody orders from outside the US.

One must speculate that the constitutionality of that statute will be tested soon.

Nebraska may have rejected the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Husband is pursuing political intervention by the Canadian government.

Some Canadians are concerned that it isn’t safe to allow visitation in the US anymore.

Read more in this [British Columbia, Canada] Richmond Review article: Richmond educator fights for daughter.

Husband and Wife marry.

Husband and Wife have Children.

West Virginia Grandparents see Children.

Wife dies.

Husband inherits Wife’s custody of Children.

Grandparents don’t see Children.

Ever.

For nine years and counting.

Grandparents appeal to the courts for visitation with Children.

Over and over.

With no luck.

Because under current law, Grandparents generally have no rights where a fit parent denies them visitation.

Grandparents are campaigning for support of a petition for grandparents’ rights to take to their legislature.

Read more in this Steubenville, OH WOTV 9 news article: Grandparents Fight For Visitation Rights.

Injunctions for Protection against Domestic Violence. Orders of Protection. A rose by any other name.

Court orders all. Literally, pieces of paper.

According to a Justice Department study, more than 3 million people are stalked in a single year.

In Massachusetts, one-quarter of all restraining orders in effect each year are violated. Twenty-five percent.

It is reported that one-quarter of domestic homicide victims in Massachusetts had orders of protection in place against their murderers. Twenty-five percent.

One domestic violence victim insists her abuser violated the restraining order she had against him thirty times over four years. Thirty times.

These are the reasons why a growing number of states are putting teeth behind those pieces of paper called injunctions for protection against domestic violence …

Global positioning devices, worn by violators of restraining orders against them.

The devices serve to prove where the abuser was and, even more importantly, notify police when the abuser is somewhere he or she is not supposed to be under the terms of the restraining order against them.

So far, twelve states are using global positioning technology to enforce orders of protection, with some 5,000 abusers wearing the devices.

Both numbers will likely rise in time.

Read more in this New York Times article: More States Use GPS to Track Abusers .

Florida does not allow adoptions by a homosexual couple.

Washington state does.

A lesbian couple living in Washington state each give birth to a child.

And each partner adopts the other’s biological child as permitted under Washington law.

Lesbian couple relocates to Florida.

And eventually breaks up.

At first, they agree to share legal and physical custody of both children, so that the children can spend most of their time together.

The next year, however, one of the couple “goes straight” and becomes engaged to marry a man.

Who wants to adopt his fiance’s biological child.

At that point, when the child is about 9 years old, her mother denies any timesharing to her former partner.

The frustrated partner brings suit to determine parental responsibility and timesharing.

At trial, the court denies the frustrated partner any parental responsibility or timesharing with the denying partner’s biological child.

On appeal to an intermediate level appellate court, that ruling is reversed.

The Florida appellate court holds that Florida has to give full faith and credit to the Washington state adoption and the rights and obligations flowing from it.

Without regard to Florida’s law and policy against gay adoption.

The birth mother intends to appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.

Read more in this Courthouse News Service article: Fla. Must Recognize Gay Adoptions, Court Rules and this Sarasota Herald Tribune article: Adoption by Sarasota lesbian is upheld on appeal.

Husband is convicted of sexually assaulting Wife.

Wife is terrified that Husband will kill her.

Husband allegedly threatens to dismember her.

Wife flees to Australia with their two Children.

But the Australian courts rule that England has child custody jurisdiction under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.

Wife returns to England with Children.

Police are summoned to intervene in domestic clashes several times.

Police give Wife a “panic alarm”.

About a year after Wife’s return, Husband allegedly drags her from a car and stabs her to death … in front of her own mother and their Children.

Just a few hours after she begged British police for protection.

While she was in the midst of trying to flee from Husband again.

Husband is convicted of murder.

He will serve at least eighteen years in confinement.

Read more in this Brisbane [Australia] Times article: Young mother fled to Sydney to save her life.

It is almost cliche that divorce is one of the most stressful events in a person’s life.

It certainly was for a California veterinarian.

She channeled her stress productively though.

She fantasized about a haven where she could break things.

And, born of her fantasy came … Sarah’s Smash Shack.

A place where angry or stressed folks – or anyone else – can go to smash plates, vases and other stuff, against walls.

Safely.

To the accompaniment of their favorite music.

And they actually pay for the pleasure of doing this damage to someone else’s stuff.

Read more in this San Diego News Network article: Downtown business wants you to break its stuff.