Professional Alliance for Child Centered Safety

10/16/2026

Raving reviews from every participant yesterday for session 1!! Don’t miss session 2 - Today !! 11:30am EST

10/14/2026

We often say, "Domestic violence is bad."

It’s a statement everyone agrees with, but why? What specifically happens to adults and children when they experience domestic violence and household trauma?

To answer that, we look back at groundbreaking public health research: The 1998 CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study.

The study identified 10 specific types of childhood adversity across three main categories:

1. Abuse

-Emotional Abuse: Insults, humiliation, threats, or intimidation

-Physical Abuse: Hitting, kicking, or physical harm

-Sexual Abuse: Inappropriate touching or non-consensual sexual acts

2. Neglect

-Emotional Neglect: Failing to make a child feel safe, cared for, supported, or loved

-Physical Neglect: Failing to provide basic human needs like food, clothing, shelter, or medical care

3. Household Challenges

-Witnessing Domestic Violence: Seeing or hearing physical or emotional abuse in the home

-Substance Abuse: Living with someone experiencing alcohol or drug misuse

-Mental Illness: Living with a household member experiencing mental illness or su***de attempts

-Parental Separation/Divorce: Family disruption that impacts household stability

-Incarcerated Family Member: Having a household member spend time in prison or jail

When courts, legal professionals, and family systems dismiss domestic violence or treat it merely as "parental conflict" or "he said, she said," they ignore the deep, measurable impact of ACEs on child development and long-term well-being.

Moving beyond basic "awareness" means understanding the physiological and psychological cost of trauma—and taking decisive action to protect children.

💬 In our next post, we will break down the long-term health and behavioral outcomes uncovered by the ACE study.

How does your organization or legal framework account for ACEs when evaluating family safety? Let’s connect in the comments below.

10/14/2026

Tomorrow! Still time to register

10/14/2026

🚨 EDUCATORS, MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS, CHILD PROTECTION WORKERS, ATTORNEYS & CHILD ADVOCATES — THIS TRAINING IS FOR YOU!

Are we keeping up with the digital risks affecting the children we serve?

From AI and virtual reality to online grooming, exploitation, sextortion, and the mental health consequences of digital environments, the challenges facing children are evolving rapidly.

Whether you’re a school counselor, therapist, social worker, attorney, judge, GAL, CASA volunteer, law enforcement professional, or child welfare advocate, understanding these emerging risks is increasingly important to protecting children.

The Professional Alliance for Child-Centered Safety (PACCS) is excited to partner with the nationally recognized Zero Abuse Project to offer an exclusive 4-part virtual professional training series focused on recognizing, understanding, and responding to risks in today’s digital world.

📅 FOUR SPECIALIZED SESSIONS:

🔹 October 15 — Extended Reality: Understanding emerging immersive technologies and their implications for child safety.

🔹 October 16 — Caught in the Algorithm: Online exploitation, mental health, and child safety.

🔹 November 4 — Reality Check: Navigating extended reality risks with practical prevention and response strategies.

🔹 November 11 — Apps, Access & Exploitation: Recognizing how emerging platforms and everyday digital tools can be exploited to harm children.

Why does this matter to your profession?

Children’s online experiences don’t stay online. They can affect emotional well-being, behavior, relationships, school performance, safety assessments, and even legal and child protection proceedings.

These trainings offer practical insights to help professionals better recognize warning signs, understand evolving threats, communicate with families, and respond effectively.

🎯 If your work involves children’s safety, mental health, education, advocacy, or protection, we encourage you to join us.

🔗 Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/GsXKI7OLTz6w2vs2TPI7FA #/registration

Learn more:
https://www.paccs.global/c/seminars-workshops/paccs-exclusive-zero-abuse-project-4-part-series

Please share this opportunity with your professional networks, colleagues, schools, agencies, and organizations. The more informed the professionals surrounding our children are, the better equipped we are to protect them.

PACCS Members Exclusive Training Series Protecting Children in the Digital Age A Four-Part Professional Development Series Artificial intelligence, immersive technology, social media, and digital platforms are changing childhood faster than policies...

10/14/2026

📚 PACCS NOVEMBER BOOK CLUB!

💚 Co-Parenting After Divorcing a Narcissist by Isabella Francis

Co-parenting is challenging enough. But what happens when the relationship is marked by manipulation, emotional abuse, high conflict, or ongoing power struggles?

How do you protect your children, maintain healthy boundaries, and support their emotional well-being while navigating these difficult dynamics?

This November, PACCS is featuring Co-Parenting After Divorcing a Narcissist, a book exploring emotional recovery, challenging co-parenting relationships, and strategies for moving forward.

💬 Join us for a conversation about:
✅ Recognizing unhealthy co-parenting dynamics
✅ Establishing boundaries and protecting your peace
✅ Understanding the emotional impact on children
✅ Supporting healthier parent-child relationships
✅ Practical strategies for navigating high-conflict situations

📅 Monday, November 9, 2026
🕖 7:00 PM Eastern
💻 Virtual via Zoom

📖 Read the book before our discussion, or join us to learn and engage with others!

📩 Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/JnVNsGVUTGmPush1mtsl7w

📚 Book information: https://www.isabellafrancisbooks.com/products/co-parenting-after-divorcing-a-narcissist

Because protecting children means understanding the dynamics that affect their emotional safety.
Lynn Brooks, MFT

10/14/2026

Please Join Us to Stand Up for Family Court Reform with our Vigil and 2 Day Confernce of Inspiration, Innovation, Healing and Empowerment.

10/13/2026

Children don’t just witness domestic violence. They experience it.

Today we highlight the impact that Domestic Violence has on children—and how our systems fail them.

1. Neurobiological & Physical Impact:

Chronic toxic stress floods a child’s brain with cortisol, disrupting neurodevelopment and setting them up for lifelong health struggles—including autoimmune disease, obesity, heart conditions, cPTSD, anxiety, depression, and low self-worth.

Developmental Regression:
Ages 0–5: Sleep disruptions, bed-wetting, and severe separation anxiety.
Ages 6–12: Unexplained physical pain (headaches/stomachaches), guilt, falling grades, or aggressive acting out.
Ages 13–18: Substance abuse, self-harm, truancy, and replicating abusive dynamics in their own relationships.

2. Abusers frequently use children as tools of coercive control to punish and manipulate the coparent. Abusive parents use tactics such as coercing the child to gather information, spy, track locations, or report on the other parent's private life. Abusive parents can also use threats like, "If you leave, you will never see the kids again," or "If you don't tell the courts your other parent abused you, I'll never see you again."

Reality Distortion: Systematically undermining the coparent's authority and convincing the child the safe parent is dangerous or unstable.

Adultification: Children are forced into the role of emotional caretakers or physical protectors, losing their childhood prematurely.

Legal Warfare: Presenting a perfect parent image in family court to drag out custody battles and financially drain the survivor.
3. How Children are Overlooked by the Court System

Family Courts: Courts frequently lack a clear understanding of who is the true perpetrator and who is the victim, particularly in complex cases where false allegations and child coaching are factors. Driven by a lack of understanding of how profoundly children are affected by an abusive parent and a push for preservations of parenting rights, courts can easily mistake an abuser's charm for good parenting while penalizing the non-abusive parent.

The Witness Label: Framing children as mere bystanders who witnessed an event—rather than primary victims minimizes trauma and restricts their access to legal protections and advocacy.

Misdiagnosed Behaviors: Trauma responses in school are frequently mislabeled as standalone behavioral issues or ADHD, leaving the root cause unaddressed.

The takeaway: We must stop treating children as secondary figures in domestic violence cases. They are primary victims who need recognition, specialized advocacy, and systemic protection.

What are your thoughts? What changes do you think are most urgently needed in legal or community responses?

10/10/2026

What is NOT Domestic Violence and Why the Distinction Matters

In our last post, we explored seven behaviors classified as domestic violence. But precision matters just as much when defining what it is not. Confusing non-abusive conflict with domestic abuse can misallocate critical support resources, misunderstand relationship dynamics, and mischaracterize legal or professional situations.

Here are four key distinctions:
1. Healthy conflict and disagreements: Standard arguments, raised voices during a single stress-induced disagreement, or differing opinions where both parties maintain mutual respect and equality are conflict, not abuse.

2. Mutual, non-abusive combativeness: Occasional reciprocal arguments that lack a dynamic of systemic coercion, fear, control, or intimidation can be destructive, but they do not meet the threshold of domestic violence. It is important to understand that a pattern of behavior is what is critical.

3. Conflicts with strangers or coworkers: Fights, harassment, or aggression involving individuals you do not live with, are not related to, and have never shared an intimate relationship with fall under general assault, battery, or workplace disputes.

4. Stress, mental health, or substance struggles alone: While external factors can deeply strain a relationship, abuse is a deliberate choice to exert power and control—not a direct medical symptom of mental illness or addiction on its own.

Why This Distinction Matters
Clarity protects those experiencing true danger while ensuring that couples experiencing other forms of distress receive the right kind of intervention, such as counseling or conflict resolution, rather than generalized labels.

What are your thoughts on how professionals and leaders can better navigate these distinctions in workplace or community settings? Let's discuss in the comments.

Join PACCS's next Book Club on Monday, October 12 for a discussion on grief with author Dr. Susan Sterkenberg and her book "Becoming Sanctuary: One Mother's Journey through seven Sacred Spaces of Grief." Register using the QR code below.

10/08/2026

We recently covered the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) definition of domestic violence, but let’s look closer at the specific ways DV manifests in real life.

While the official DOJ definition establishes key baseline criteria, it doesn't fully capture the complex dynamics surrounding the use of children in domestic violence situations. To provide a more complete picture of how coercive control operates within family units, we’ve included child-targeted manipulation in our comprehensive list below.

Domestic violence affects individuals regardless of age, gender, race, background, or economic status. It is a pattern of behavior used to gain and maintain power and control:

🔹 Physical Abuse: Hitting, slapping, shoving, choking, restraining, weapon use, or withholding necessary medical care.
🔹 Sexual Abuse: Non-consensual sexual acts, reproductive coercion, or sexual degradation.
🔹 Emotional & Psychological Abuse: Gaslighting, continuous insults, isolation from loved ones, and extreme possessiveness.
🔹 Financial Abuse: Restricting access to funds, controlling career choices, ruining credit, or sabotaging financial independence.
🔹 Technological Abuse: Monitoring through spyware, location tracking, forced password sharing, or online harassment.
🔹 Stalking & Harassment: Persistent unwanted communications, surveillance, or physical trailing.
🔹 Weaponizing Children & Coercive Control: Using children as leverage, manipulating children and teenagers to believe the other parent is unloving or dangerous without evidence, and exaggerating normal parenting flaws to erode parent-child relationships and maintain control.

Clear awareness helps us spot these warning signs earlier—in our workplaces, legal systems, communities, and personal networks.

📌 Up Next: In our next post, we’ll explore what domestic violence ISN'T to address common misconceptions and myths.

If you or someone you know needs support, confidential assistance is available 24/7. (National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE or text "START" to 88788).