What secrets are family courts hiding???

Dr. David Timpanaro, CEO of Step Up Family Services connects with Catherine Jones to discuss Family Court. Dr. Timpanaro has been involved in this area of the field for over two decades.

It starts in a courtroom with no cameras, no public transcripts, and no clear accountability. But, behind those closed doors, a quiet pattern is repeating itself. According to Dr. David Timpanaro, the CEO of Step Up Family Services in New Jersey, in recent years, mothers are losing custody, and “experts” are profiting. And children? Well, they’re caught in the middle of it all. Welcome to family court.

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A System Built on Silence

Timpanaro says he’s been in the family court trenches for decades, as a professional working within the system. He holds a PhD in multidisciplinary human services, with a focus on what he calls “practices around children and families.” His job is to create what he describes as “a wraparound plan to ensure the success of that child and family,” pulling together court systems, therapists, schools, and psychiatrists who, he explains, often don’t communicate at all. But the courts are not working as planned. And he says that what he has seen from inside that system is deeply troubling.

“You have children and families that have court involvement, psychiatry involvement, psychology involvement, school and IEP involvement, private therapist involvement, and none of these entities talk to each other,” he says.

In fact, he says he has noticed a concerning and recurring issue in the past decade: the courts have turned against mothers. And that breakdown opens the door for unethical practices, often hurting the very people the system is designed to protect. What may seem shocking to the public is just routine in the family court world, he says. One example is a case unfolding in Jesup, Georgia, where a child has been removed from her mother’s home completely, without due process.

“It’s not unusual,” Timpanaro says.

Experts Without Oversight

Timpanaro believes real change must include transparency, retraining, and oversight. Because the stakes are too high. “These professionals thrive in a system that’s fractured,” he says.

“They can manipulate things, and there’s almost no oversight. Judges rely too heavily on their word, even when those so-called experts are acting unethically. That’s dangerous.”

The emotional toll runs deep, not only for the parents caught in the system, but for the children whose futures hang in the balance.

“When I entered family court, I believed it was about truth and justice. I quickly learned it was about business transactions,” Tina Swithin, founder of the advocacy organization One Mom’s Battle, writes. “To the system, your life is another case file, another hearing, another line on the docket. It is inhumane and calloused. … Expecting justice or fairness in family court is like searching for an avocado in a hardware store.”

The Rise of the Pink Sign Protest

Still, there is hope. Across the country, concerned mothers and other victims of family court are stepping out of the shadows. They’re showing up with hot pink signs and undeniable stories.

“There’s hope in that,” he says. “Once people start pulling back the curtain, it’s hard to unsee what’s really going on.”

The signs are part of a growing national, grassroots movement to bring awareness to the country’s family court system. Recently featured on the WPLG’s World News segment, the hot pink sign movement started with a handful of mothers demanding visibility and has since grown into a national symbol of protest and survival.

The Pink Signs That Say Everything

From front yards in Georgia to sidewalks in California, the hot pink signs with children’s photos are raising awareness, one family court case at a time. Much like the pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness, these signs are turning a spotlight on a crisis that has long remained hidden for years. Each sign carries the message that something is deeply wrong inside the nation’s family court system.

Timpanaro and a growing network of advocates believe these signs will awaken the public to the need for urgent reform. They see them as the start of a national reckoning. The hot pink signs force the country to ask a long-overdue question: what happens when the system meant to protect families becomes the one that tears them apart?

https://medium.com/@cathyjonesfsu/behind-closed-doors-what-family-court-doesnt-want-you-to-see-930ce398c319