Family Court Truth at National Press Club Summit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — They came in from different states. Lawmakers, doctors, lawyers, reporters, and the young people who had once been dragged through the courts that they now condemn. They met at the National Press Club.

The conference lasted four hours. The speakers said that family courts worked in secret, and that the secrecy had bred mistakes, abuses, and the kind of harm that expands when no one is watching.

Lawmakers from Arizona, Idaho, Oregon, and New Hampshire, medical experts, lawyers, investigative reporters, and the now-grown children who had once been the silent subjects of custody battles were there to speak and to witness.

By 1 p.m. on Nov. 11, speaker after speaker stepped to the microphone and described a family court system hidden behind closed doors — a system where judicial misconduct can survive, where oversight is thin, and where decisions affecting a child’s safety are made without accountability.

“For an institution meant to protect children, the family court system has become a profound source of harm.”

Dr. Bandy Lee laid out the risks — the medical toll, the public health costs, the damage from reunification camps, and uneven court rules.

Lee had taught at Yale. She said the courts needed the same things any honest legal system needs: the US Constitution and science that can stand on its own.

As the opening speaker, she mapped out the public-health consequences of high-conflict and lucrative-for-lawyers custody battles — the stress injuries, the psychological fallout, the coercive reunification programs that often resemble prisons forcing children to accept their abuser-parent.

Bruce Fein gave the keynote. He is a constitutional lawyer who has worked across the government. He said the closed doors of family court and the uneven rulings inside them were not just dangers to families, but to democracy itself.

Family Court Truth: Survivors and Avocates Describe Lasting Harm

There were young people there, too. Mia Ambrose, eighteen, stepped forward and told the audience she had been forced to spend six years living under a custody order that placed her with her father. She described the fear she felt, the sexual abuse she says she endured, and the isolation that followed: no lifelong friends, no extended family, no gymnastics, and no contact with her mother, her primary caregiver. She said she had tried to speak up. The court kept her where she was.

She told Child Protective Services, police, and medical experts what her father had done. The court kept her with him anyway. The room listened. It was quiet. You could feel the truth of it.

Her father, Christopher Ambrose, is no stranger to readers. His method is to silence critics.

He is suing Dr. Bandy Lee for publicly warning that he showed the clinical signs of a psychopath. He is suing blogger Tina Swithin for writing about the alleged abuse. He has sued the publisher of the Frank Report twice for reporting what his children and others said they witnessed.

Ambrose has denied the allegations.

Ambrose has also sued the children’s godmother for talking about his anger and the children’s despair. That case was dismissed. And he sued the children’s mother a dozen times, trying to have her imprisoned for talking to her own children. In short, exhibiting all the signs of a psychopath.

“When you’re a child in family court, you don’t get to speak,” Mia Ambrose said.

Now she is speaking.

It remains to be seen if Christopher Ambrose will try to sue her as well.

Another family court survivor, Ally Toyos, a student at New York University, said she had been sent to a reunification camp. She called it coercive. She said children needed safety and due process, not camps.

Family Court Truth: Speakers Issue a Message of Widespread Consensus

Other speakers followed: Dr. Joyanna Silberg, who has spent her life studying child trauma; Karen Winner, who has taken on abusive practices in family law; and Rory Doyle, who runs the Institute of Forensic Science and wants real medical standards brought into custody cases.

The message was the same: the courts work in secret, and there is little to stop mistakes or hold anyone accountable.

Rep. Rachel Keshel spoke about their joint committee on family court orders. Oregon’s Sen. Suzanne Weber spoke of reforms in her state. New Hampshire’s Rep. J.D. Bernardy talked about the need for justice for families. Veronica Baiz, a veteran and HealthTech executive, spoke of her fight for reform.

“People assume courts protect families,” Idaho Sen. Tammy Nichols said. “But the public has no idea what happens behind those closed doors.”

Organizers said they plan to release a summary report and legislative recommendations in early 2026.

“This is not an isolated problem,” Dr. Lee said. “It is a nationwide public-health concern that requires transparency, oversight and reform.”

When the panels ended, people drifted to the buffet. The talk grew somber and heavy. In every corner, someone asked the same thing: How could a court meant to protect families end up hurting them?