CONFIDENTIALITY
Hal Pepinsky, pepinsky@indiana.edu, pepinsky.blogspot.com
February 7, 2011
I just received a cordially written confirmation of a “request that you leave” the child advocacy program I was training in until late last week. The notice reminded me of the phone telling me not to show up for swearing in, when I had been told it was my position on the drug war AND my stance on confidentiality that were unacceptable.
Confidentiality. I had said that I planned to regard myself as a child’s advocate who owed the child all I knew that pertained to him or her, and to consider my unique role in court like that of attorney to client, to help the child gain the control s/he desired, which I regard prima facie as in the best interest of any child (pardon my legalese).
There are two standards for keeping secrets: secrets powerholders keep among themselves (as in joining a team of drug enforcers), or standards of letting subjects of power know as safely and openly as possible what is being done to them and why. I choose wikileaks and I would have put a duty to children to let them know what was being said about them and asking them to guide my recommendations to the court over drug enforcement.
My relations rest on the notion we gain control when we tell our subjects precisely what we are doing to them and why, and retain privacy with what we do to our own bodies from public campaigns. My thanks go to writers of the letter I got this morning for doing exactly what I would wish them to do. In the event, I am reminded me what a fundamentalist I am that keeping secrets from children, voters and other subjects for their own good is inherently violent, inherently socially destructive. I thank my recent training experience for clarifying my own basic feelings and beliefs, and for letting me remain unsworn to set them aside. Love and peace--hal
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How much of your "career" and prior advocacy activity did you share with the Child Advocate program people? Did you give them a sanitized version, such as your profile in "ohio state u crimjus res center" newsletter?
ReplyDeleteOr did you tell them the whole truth; that you have a history of publicly endorsing - as 'responsible' and 'morally correct' behaviour - non-custodial parents who flaunt their contempt for the authority of the child welfare system, of family court judges, of the entire legal and law enforcement system by violating court orders and 'disappearing' with their children into a criminal underground of parental kidnapping facilitators?
Did you tell them that you'd provided a public platform, through your "classes", for a notorious organizer of this criminal underground to preach her philosophy of: "If you suspect your significant others could be a danger to your kids, then to h*ll with the legal system - do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law!"
Did you tell them that you belong to a community of persons who believe that everyone in positions of power in Western nations is literally possessed by demonic forces and regularly participates in raping, torturing, 'sacrificing' and eating human infants?
Because, if your views on the drug war and confidentiality was all they could find to justify kicking you out...they must not have known very much about you.
Sorry it took me awhile to check on comments Bob. I have no regrets, and everything you mention about my views and actions has all been out there, including when I went through a vetting process to qualify for training. Just google me and you'll know what I stand for. When the training folks finally listened to what I'd been telling them about my attitude from the outset, I think they made the right decision for us to separate. Live and learn all around--l&p hal
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