child trauma

A national reckoning hit Washington on Nov. 11, when lawmakers, doctors, attorneys, survivors, and investigative reporters gathered at the National Press Club to declare America’s family-court system a public-health crisis. Speaker after speaker said the same thing: secrecy fuels abuse. Panels exposed judicial misconduct, coerced reunification programs, unchecked power, and the catastrophic medical fallout inflicted on children. Dr. Bandy Lee called the system “a profound source of harm.” Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein warned that secret courts threaten democracy. Survivors like Mia Ambrose and Ally Toyos described years of trauma. The message was blunt: family courts are broken and must change.