Partner
Safe Kids US is a website meant to be a bevy of information for kids in abusive situations. It provides access to the founder’s personal story, and websites and organizations to help kids. It is focused on children, so boys and girls like its founder, Dune Mecartney, can have resources to help cope with trauma in their homes. For more information, visit: www.safekidsus.com
Moderator
Paul Griffin graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1997.He has been a litigator for over 25 years and has vast experience trying cases in state and federal courts. He has successfully litigated and consulted on over a hundred cases involving allegations of domestic violence and child physical and sexual abuse. In October of 2016 Mr. Griffin was appointed by Maryland Governor Lawrence J. Hogan to serve as a member of the Workgroup to Study Child Custody Court Proceedings Involving Child Abuse or Domestic Violence. The workgroup succeeding in persuading the Maryland legislature to enact a law requiring family-law judges to be trained in various aspect of child abuse, domestic violence, and trauma. Prior to being appointed to his current position of Legal Director Mr. Griffin was a member of the Board of Directors of Child Justice for three-and-a-half years. In 2008 Mr. Griffin was a recipient of the Friend of Children Award from Child Justice’s predecessor organization, Justice for Children, and the 2015 recipient of Child Justice’s Heroes of Child Justice Award.
Panelists
Jean Mercer is a developmental psychologist who has for the past 25 years been studying potentially harmful psychosocial treatments for children and adolescents. She became interested in reunification therapies about ten years ago and has written a number of articles on this topic in professional journals. She is presently working on a book of narratives of children and parents about whom parental alienation has been alleged. She has been described as "a debunker".
Hon. DeAnn M. Salcido [Ret.] is a former San Diego Superior Court Judge. She served in Family Court and in Criminal Court from 2002 through 2010. In 2010, after discovering a chronic pattern of Superior Court judges placing politics over citizen safety, Judge Salcido became a whistleblower by exposing judges who knowingly ignored mandatory laws on domestic violence cases. Soon thereafter, her workplace became a hostile work environment and the CJP filed disciplinary charges against her. Rather than fight to keep a job she had grown disenchanted with, she chose to resign and preserve her right to practice law.
In 2012 Ms. Salcido opened a boutique family law firm [Honorable Legal Services], which is primarily devoted to protective parent cases. The firm’s motto is “restoring honor to the courts and protecting families.” She is now a tireless advocate for court reform. Exposing the court professionals who mistreat domestic violence victims and protective parents is her passion.
Ally Cable is the founder of CJE Youth Speak, a youth advocacy initiative at the Center for Judicial Excellence, and a third-year undergraduate student at New York University studying Neural Science on the pre-med track. She started advocating against family court corruption after her experience with the forced reunification camp, Family Bridges. Ally is dedicated to working with other survivors, educating the public about the horrors of forced reunification through social media.
Brooke Sherrill is an 18-year-old who attended Turning Point for Families in July of 2019. When she was 14, and her sister 11, under the impression they were going to the courthouse to tell the judge where they wanted to live. Instead, the two girls were surrounded and taken away from their mother. They were not even allowed to say goodbye or have any of their personal items. They were separated from her mother for extended time periods, and she appreciates being able to have a relationship with their mother again.
Sharon Jeu is a protective parent whose four children have aged out of the court system. Sharon can speak about domestic abuse, court abuse, and reunification programs, based on her ten-plus year saga culminating in intense court intervention and national recognition of the case’s injustices. Featured in a 2017 article by the Washington Post, spotlighting the ordered placement of her children into a reunification program, which was under the threat of her being sent to jail. Sharon offers insights based on her own experience as well as notes from her children, regarding how the abuse and subsequent court-directed exploitation affected their lives.