“No Child Should Fear the Parent the Court Protects”
“No Child Should Fear the Parent the Court Protects”
The Issue
Protect Arkansas Children: Reform Family Courts Now
Family courts should be where children find safety.
Nationwide, they’ve become places where fear is ignored, and the voices of the vulnerable are silenced.
My 12-year-old son was strangled by his father. Yet the court still orders him to spend weeks with his father, unsupervised. The terror of this didn’t just open my eyes — it showed me how deeply our system is failing to protect children across both our state and entire country.
Arkansas courts too often focus on preserving parental rights rather than preventing harm. Guardians ad litem — people entrusted to protect and advocate for children — are making life-changing decisions without the trauma -informed or domestic violence training they desperately need. They can mistake silence for safety. Compliance for peace. Fear for “co-parenting.”
The numbers are devastating:
***Survivors of strangulation are seven times more likely to be killed by the same abuser.
***When a parent — most often a mother — reports domestic violence or child abuse, they lose custody 28% of the time. Even when the abuse is proven, courts still remove their children in about 1 out of 8 cases.
It’s a cruel paradox: the very act of protecting your child can be twisted into evidence that you’re “unstable” or “alienating.”
This isn’t justice. It’s betrayal — by a system built to defend those who need it most.
We can change this.
Arkansas must:
***Require trauma-informed and domestic violence training for all family court judges and guardians ad litem.
***Create independent oversight to hold these officials accountable.
***Actively oversee guardians ad litem by intermittently interviewing the children they represent, requiring detailed reporting on all work completed in the case, and establishing clear guidelines to detect and prevent bias toward either parent.
Children should not be forced to live in fear. Parents should not be punished for speaking the truth.
Sign this petition to demand a family court system that puts child safety before procedure, compassion before convenience, and truth before silence.
99
The Issue
Protect Arkansas Children: Reform Family Courts Now
Family courts should be where children find safety.
Nationwide, they’ve become places where fear is ignored, and the voices of the vulnerable are silenced.
My 12-year-old son was strangled by his father. Yet the court still orders him to spend weeks with his father, unsupervised. The terror of this didn’t just open my eyes — it showed me how deeply our system is failing to protect children across both our state and entire country.
Arkansas courts too often focus on preserving parental rights rather than preventing harm. Guardians ad litem — people entrusted to protect and advocate for children — are making life-changing decisions without the trauma -informed or domestic violence training they desperately need. They can mistake silence for safety. Compliance for peace. Fear for “co-parenting.”
The numbers are devastating:
***Survivors of strangulation are seven times more likely to be killed by the same abuser.
***When a parent — most often a mother — reports domestic violence or child abuse, they lose custody 28% of the time. Even when the abuse is proven, courts still remove their children in about 1 out of 8 cases.
It’s a cruel paradox: the very act of protecting your child can be twisted into evidence that you’re “unstable” or “alienating.”
This isn’t justice. It’s betrayal — by a system built to defend those who need it most.
We can change this.
Arkansas must:
***Require trauma-informed and domestic violence training for all family court judges and guardians ad litem.
***Create independent oversight to hold these officials accountable.
***Actively oversee guardians ad litem by intermittently interviewing the children they represent, requiring detailed reporting on all work completed in the case, and establishing clear guidelines to detect and prevent bias toward either parent.
Children should not be forced to live in fear. Parents should not be punished for speaking the truth.
Sign this petition to demand a family court system that puts child safety before procedure, compassion before convenience, and truth before silence.
99
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Petition created on October 14, 2025