Family Association is a Fundamental Human Right

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AFAC exercises exclusive jurisdiction and oversight over the practice of Family Advocacy. 

We do not offer Family Advocacy services. We train and support Family Advocates and advocacy groups nationwide.

FAQ about your family’s rights

If you are seeking assistance for your CPS case, please look for a trained family advocate in your state and follow these directions. If you are seeking Suzanne Shell’s expert consultation services for your CPS case (we do NOT do divorce/custody cases, ONLY CPS cases), your attorney must contact her. Due to UPL persecution, she cannot not give any information to family members and will not respond to your requests. She can give advice only to attorneys.

If you have complaints about any person who claims to be a Family Adocate - please advise us.

If you are a Family Advocate whose practice is being thwarted by the child savers, contact us.

What is a Family Advocate?

Family Advocacy and Retaliation

Finding a trained Family Advocate

WARNING - some ‘Advocates’ or ‘family rights/parents rights’ groups are not qualified or competent.    Why not?     Who are they?

 Christy asks: What is certification for family advocates? Is this certification recognized by the state?

Christy
   Your questions about certification for advocates are fair. I explain the purpose of the certification during my seminar, so anybody who has attended  has no honest reason for claiming anything other that what you will learn from me now.
       I have never stated this certification was officially 'recognized' by state agencies. This is a brand new field of practice, still in its infancy. The certification merely indicates to all practitioners in child protection that:

1. a certified advocate has received competent training and continues to receive ongoing training and support in their practice.
2. a certified advocate has agreed to abide by certain ethical and competency requirements, insuring quality services
3. a certified advocate has agreed to submit to oversight by the Institute, thereby giving professionals (like attorneys who represent parents) some recourse in the event they work with or hire a certified advocate who does not conform to #2
4. a certified advocate knows the laws and how to use them. . .therefore, it becomes too much trouble for CPS to try their usual tactics. After a few experiences with cases where a certified family advocate is involved, CPS will fast-track reunification, shut down TPR, place the kiddies with relatives, or whatever just to cover their own backsides when they see that advocate is on yet another case.

   Many parents and professionals have encountered enthusiastic amateurs who call themselves 'advocates' who have unintentionally or incompetently hurt cases which gives all of us a bad name. Some are disruptive of court proceedings or staffings. Some give FATAL advice like advising parents not to comply with a treatment plan or to 'rescue' their kids from foster care only to end up in prison. Some write bad motions which attorneys won't touch, or engage in UPL by writing motions for parents without being under the supervision of an attorney, or they do something really embarrassing like citing 'patriot law' or they don't understand the legal principles and make the wrong arguments (some actually publicize this stuff which really makes me cringe).  They probably understand instinctively THAT their rights are being violated as are the laws and policies, but they don't understand exactly how and why, or how to counteract that.
   I realize that some people merely wanted to lash out in rage at what happened to them, and they lash out at anyone and everyone. I know that feeling, I've been there. But I didn't stay there. . .
   There are others who moved on, too, and some people wanted to learn how to do it right. They could either learn like I did, taking years of independent, training, education, research, etc., or they  could learn from someone who already did the work instead of reinventing the wheel. Nobody offered ANY training, so I devised training to fill that need. It started out in 1998 just as training for parents so they could better understand how these cases work and what their rights were and how to assert their rights most effectively.
   Naturally, the training has evolved and improved. Now I offer education programs for:

1. State legislators, teaching them how to legislate to promote and protect the Fundamental Human Right to Family Association without adversely affecting the Federal funding. (This was presented to the Hawaii legislature 2 weeks before they passed laws allowing families to have a family advocate, and appropriating funding for the privately owned and operated Hawaii Family Advocacy Center).
2. Accredited Continuing Legal Education (CLE) classes for attorneys who represent parents and children in dependency cases, and for judges who hear these cases. (BTW - this is OFFICIAL accreditation given to me by the state supreme court or bar association - depending on the state rules.)
3. Law Enforcement agencies on their proper role when accompanying a case worker to a child abuse/neglect report investigation or child seizure.
4. Case workers and CPS agencies - on the totality of their practice during a child welfare case.
5. Mandated reporters  - telling them the truth about their statutory rights and responsibilities when reporting child abuse.
6. I am on the faculty of a national continuing education services company that provides training nationwide on various issues to all disciplines including mental health, law enforcement, legal, educational, etc.
7. Individuals who want to be certified advocates under a state group
8. Parents, extended family and others who have an interest in this issue.

   This is my effort to give advocacy a good name, in spite of the whackos, con artists and glory-seekers out there. But a good reputation must be earned - so that means anyone who wants to be credible must work that much harder to overcome the bad reputation that some family advocates have made for all of us.
   This certification program has been extremely well received by judges, attorneys and other child welfare practitioners in the areas where we have introduced it. As a matter of fact, in these areas, attorneys who have attended the CLE training WILL work very closely with advocates and will adamantly insist on certification as a condition of utilizing the services of a family advocate. Some attorneys even pay the certified advocates, but that is a private arrangement between the advocate and attorney.
   Certification is important for another reason: The Family Advocate law that passed in Hawaii has a single condition. . .the family advocate must be trained. This is to prevent the inevitable disruptions caused by enthusiastic amateurs and to insure the bill would pass. Other states considering the same law will be sure to include that mandate in their laws, too, probably at the insistence of the state CPS agency.  How would it be if your state passed a family advocate law and there were no trained advocates there? Nobody would be able to invoke the rights provided in the law, which would render the law useless. You gotta think ahead.
   NOW - to address the issues of NCIC checks, filling out an application, telling us your court history, and being on a probationary status for a year, etc. There have arisen certain unpleasant problems (based on us erroneously assuming the best when we should have been more cautious) which caused us to institute these measures. Certification is proving to be a powerful endorsement, and we have to be sure that anyone who we are going to certify is qualified by temperament, character, ability, and more. With this certification, we are making a social contract, a promise to anyone who relies on it.  We can't have people who continue to do the things we expressly prohibit, or who lie, or who engage in unprofessional acts. The Institute REQUIRES that anyone who wants to be an advocate to conduct themselves professionally. No ifs, ands or buts.
   We don't require anyone to be perfect, or to have a perfect background. That is why there is a one year on-the-job probationary period after training before anyone can even be certified. But we do have high standards of practice that we will enforce, and we don't apologize to anyone for that. You can choose be a part of that or to reject it. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. But I can observe that while many self-styled advocates spend their time and energy yammering on online groups, we at the Institute are getting the job done in the state legislatures and courtrooms of this country.
   It is exciting to be a part of this historical process. It's certainly a lot more fun that sitting at a computer all day or night, bitching and pissing and moaning about how wrong CPS is, how corrupt the courts are, or 'how much I hate this or that person because she is actually doing the things I wish I was doing, but which I'm not doing because I'm too jealous or proud to get training from anywhere that will improve me in my fight.'
   Christy, I offer training and educational materials. I don't advocate. I educate advocates. I don't have a group. I don't 'sponsor' seminars. People who want to start a group in their state have to:

• first attend a training in another state (recommended, not required)
• apply to the Institute to be a state leader - they will probably be under probationary supervision of another state leader for a year or more.
• sponsor a training seminar in their state
• build their group

   They operate their state group how they want, decide what they want to do, they have their own board of directors  . . . they are autonomous. But if they are affiliated with the Institute, they don't publish anything before we approve the wording, etc (quality control). They honor the non-disclosure non-compete agreements and protect the trade secrets I license to them. Their advocates answer to the state leader and to the Institute regarding their advocacy practice. They get all the support and training they want from the national Institute.
   ALL OF THIS is why professionals come to the Institute for our help in dealing with CPS cases. They don't go to anyone else, THEY COME TO US. We don't seek them out, THEY COME TO US. When they call me, I refer them to the state leader for their state. When I speak in a state and people come up to me wanting to 'join my group,' I refer them to the state leader. I don't have a group, I don't want a group, I don't want to run anyone else's group. I only educate anyone who wants to learn and I oversee the practice of advocacy.
   This is my contribution to the movement. You have every right to take it or leave it. What you decide to do will affect you a lot more than it will affect me, because regardless of whether you participate in training or not, I'll keep doing what I've been doing. I'll keep moving forward no matter what anyone else does, nobody (especially not the barking dogs) has been able to stop me yet  :-) ! You decide what you want to do. I hope I see you at one of the seminars. --
Suzanne Shell
Director, American Family Advocacy Center
            

Q. If you could do only ONE thing to protect your family, what would that be?
A. Amend Your State Constitution with the FAMILY RIGHTS AMENDMENT