Hello. Sorry it's taken me a little bit more time to have myself prepared. So I will introduce
myself. I am Carrie Adams. I reside in the county of Pinkpea. My birthplace is in the
county of Cook County. My marriage was in the county of Cook County. The divorce in
the county of Cook County. Education in the county of Cook County. My children's birth in
the county of Cook County. And my situation is slightly different. But again, I've been in
family reform now just about six and a half years, almost seven years. So I would not call
this, you know, a choice. It's really, because of circumstances, the most of us. We would rather
be doing other things. We have other interests. But when you are a parent, there's just something
about having to back them up every step of the way. And, you know, in the bad times, you're
backing them up. And the enemy is your, you know, your judge. The team that operates things in
the courtroom. The mediation squad. I'm going to use my own language in this, okay? Because
that's really, it's more reasonable to actually tell you how things really are. I don't need
to be quaint and, you know, sort of civil with my language. I'm very reasonable, been decent
and whatnot. But I face the same obstacles. And I had to grow a backbone because of the abuse
from the system, okay? So I know what goes on. I've been a part of various different groups,
done various different roles. Basically, when I first came into the family reform, it was,
I was a state director for the United Civil Rights Council. And there was a gentleman that I shared
the state of Illinois responsibilities with, and that was just overlooking our counties.
And this fellow who became my dearest friend is no longer with us. His own case, he fought for
14 years. He is a gentleman who also exceptional father. I mean, what people have to go through
is uncalled for. But certainly, even though it may look like you are left without, it doesn't
give away the fact that you are first a parent, and your children are your children. So you
either have people who can stand up and be present in court. They can be just about where
they need to be. Because, again, this is not, you know, paddy cake games. This is a life battle.
And the stuff that goes on in the number of people who are really working against you, never
with you, the only ones to work with you will only be another person, another friend, maybe
an older, younger sibling, maybe another second cousin. The only ones who can relate to you is
when this bad affair of your rights being violated, your kids' rights being violated,
that's when you have your partner and the one who can fight with you and join you. No one said
this was truly easy, but I can say for myself, I never thought it was the epidemic that it is.
Okay? So my childhood stuff was raised in one family, but it being a foster family, I only had
one family. I did not have to go and be moved around, but in the same token, there was abuse
that happened there. I had a twin sister. Right now, we've been pretty much apart for
most of our adult life. I was having to be really her protector because her with her disability,
it sort of may have not been the trigger that caused abuse from the foster parents toward
her, but nonetheless, I still had to be the bigger sister and come to her defense over
and over and over. My entire life living at home, it's like you're growing into some other person,
but you're supposed to be a child. And again, a lot of who we are when we are grown, there are
experiences of our past as a child that go with us, but ideally, I can say that for the statistics
of abuse, for the statistics of circumstances in court, the statistics of our kids being on the
streets, the statistics of our kids choosing drugs and alcohol, all of these by far are an epidemic.
They plague our culture, and as you see, there happens to not be a resource that actually
is going to rescue them. And so, it is at every night of unselect hours for a parent, you know,
these crises that these kids are in, by golly, if they don't have their period fighting for them,
it does. Okay? This is a real epidemic of this country. And again, there's more, if you are aware
of things, the only thing you need to really do from there on after is to then be in the right spot.
Keep tuned in to the kids that you may surround. And again, with Renee's comment, you know,
kids revolve in a child, but there's a way of actually becoming aware. You have to kind of know
what that language is. Or if you are in a mentoring role, whenever a kid has a need, but doesn't have
the words with it, you are the best remedy on the spot. Every child needs to be rescued.
And it's nuts up to somebody else. It's when you are aware of it. They don't have to be your own.
We have a thing in Chicago that when we do our rallies, because again, a lot of the different
organizations I've worked in, Illinois Fathers is a fairly good-sized group, yes, males.
And when they first organized, I was one of their first female members, and I've been along the trail
with these guys for quite some time. Illinois Fathers is working diligently on a lot of the things
that are taking place in our legislature. There are things there that every Illinois parent,
I don't care if you have kids, yes, but if you're just an Illinois citizen, you must begin to look
at Illinois Gov and the sites that actually display the rights and statutes and rules of Illinois
Law. These things are imperative because they will take effect to your classroom where your
children are enrolled. It'll take effect to you should you be, you know, facing any maybe
small claims situation. A lot of things because we don't expect to be battling the law. We think
that it's at our defense. I hate to break the news, but no, you need to know where your rights are
because that law actually will be purchased. It is purchased and it's actually from the bench on
down going to violate you. So people need to know when you find that violations take place
and you didn't expect it and you know for certain, well you certainly don't want this to happen to
your kids, but this is our problem. Right in every classroom or right in every courtroom,
we have situations of what the law is, how it's written, it definitely doesn't execute as written
and it's not fair and there's a lot of biases and plenty of discrimination. This is a big war.
It's a war without firearms and it's appalling in my opinion because I looked at life as being the
most precious thing, family being a part of that, the extended family. I mean nothing more, if there's
anything to be proud about, it's your loved ones and yet you have to understand that the system
happens to be set up in such a way that there is no care in the world about you to them
and who your kids are to you does not matter to them. I have over some time besides moving past
the role in Civil Rights Council and then Illinois Fathers, which I'm still very active in,
I've also come on board to our Illinois chapter of parental alienation and so to share good news,
just this past spring, Illinois, well with the father organization and many other entities,
we were actually to very recently, we passed a bill, I don't have the bill number with me,
I can just give you the description, it's the Steve Blockins Memorial Bill and this bill just had passed
our senate and this has a lot to do with the visitation circumstances, of course we're looking
at our law officials, we want them to work with us, we know a lot of families, there seems to always
be too much room for a lot of false allegation circumstances and of course when the family is
not no longer habiting together, visitation, you know again, whether you've left as a mother
or the father, you're still supposed to be handled according to the law, it should be civil,
it should be without any violence, but again, you know, people do act differently through very traumatic
experiences and divorce is very traumatic, so the children are affected and with the Steve Blockins
bill, you have to kind of look it up and you can look it up in Illinois Gover, go to Illinois
Father's site and look at the kind of things, the points of interest that would actually help you
should your own visitation schedule be violated by your ex and so it's very broken down very clearly
of the concerns that most of us have when we are the alienated parents, see, the court doesn't really
fix anything, so you know, two people that even though you're divorced, you know, you have just
constant repeals of laws and they are the law writers, but so are advocates and so the advocates
need to really become more and more involved and kind of engage to how law is, how it sounds,
how it's written, these very things, you can make a difference and because there are things in the
law, I can only attest to that just several groups in the state of Illinois altered and changed
and revised already what was in family law, so it is possible, you need to be a part of the law form
as well. Going back to the alienation, parental alienation is a behavior that when two people have
been once married or maybe not once married, but have children, there is a normal expected condition
that kind of takes place and that's why this condition is, it's not, it's unfortunate that it is a condition,
but it's also, it's also something that happens to be, you remain ignored in our judicial branches
and our courtrooms because when you have somebody who has violated your visit and that might be the other parent,
typically we would go to our attorneys and we tell them, well I've just got stood up on my business,
you know, can we get this made up, I want to see my kids, I missed out on a band concert,
whatever it may be, when there is an incident and in some cases there's just constant incidences
because just you find that people are very unreasonable in circumstances of divorce,
I certainly was victimized by my ex over and over and over, I fought my case for six plus years
and to know that he sat with the funds also meant that everybody that was in this case being a judge,
two or three judges, counsel, GAL, all of these other parties wind up really being there to be paid,
not there to actually assist me in my role as a mother and the mother of my two kids,
so you have to kind of expect that your fixes do not take place while you're at hearings
and while your cases, they're in a courtroom, but your fixes come between you and your ex
and if there's somebody else in the family that has to play a role, then you might want to point that to them
because the only way that the families can survive in our culture today is by the help of the other family members.
Alienation is something that will have just as much an impact mentally, emotionally, spiritually
as the same kind of abuse that is used when you have child abuse,
when you have the multitude of things that children both emotionally may face.
These things are same, but then at the same time they're slightly different.
But again, we have to see that somewhere we can turn somewhere to actually restore what you want.
What you want is you want the best for your kid.
If your ex does not, then I can only tell you that's the real issue here.
We have people not working together, but the long process in court basically simply has a way of dragging people's lives around
so people then don't really work together.
They maybe want to really apply due process.
It's one of those words in court and yet because they don't apply due process, people are burnt out
and their lives are torn, the kids are kept from seeing another parent, extended family members don't see those kids
and so this is what the reality faces today.
It doesn't matter which county you're in, it doesn't matter which state you're in.
This is what's happening to families and in advocacy at least you stand for something
because if you don't stand for something, you must fall for everything.
There's a lot of different things I've learned in seven years.
I only try to hand them out being pointers, suggestions, remedies to anybody who needs them.
I don't do any hands on to any cases anymore.
I face my own personal struggles with MS and so I have to prioritize my time and energy and so I do.
But in any of the groups, I wanted to really be encouraging because I think these things must be known
or at least talked about.
While advocacy comes because of just us being everyday people and what effect we have had going through something,
I would really recommend that we now take this and approach our clergy, our churches, our community centers
and to actually kind of bring additional resources to be used or useful
because children are found just about everywhere and we want our other social settings to be as much assisting us
as we are trying to assist our own kids and all the other kids.
So I would definitely suggest that meeting with clergy and making what we do as advocates in advocacy
to actually broaden our rooms a little bit more so that we're actually known by first names.
