From my experience, the most annoying thing about the Family Relations office is of course their unholy relationship with the judges in the Family courtroom. These judges, in many instances accept their recommendations as if they are an authority on what is in a parties best interests. The truth is that family relations runs interference between the courts, and couple seeking to get a fast judgement to resolve a marital issue/s. This interference most adversely affects people representing themselves, it outright wastes their time. Many couples have no interest in engaging a Family Relations officer but they are forced to do it anyway. More insulting yet is that unless, like a child, a couple does not have a signed "hall pass" from Family Relations, a judge will not hear their case.
With that not bad enough family relations has made it their purpose to "stick their noses" in the business of divorcing couples and often mislead them to believe that what they recommend is somehow the law when it is not. I personally witnessed them bullying divorced couples into making binding agreements without actually knowing anything about the lives or the issues of the individuals in question.
From my own experience I will say that their decisions are based on dangerous precedents, superficial and insufficient knowledge of facts, and conclusions derived from a minimum of work, research and understanding beyond their own opinion. What is more upsetting, aside from that is this agencies insistence on wasting the time of people seeking a quick legal resolution. More often than not the agency advice is so bad that it complicates matters by making horrible recommendations that do not sit well with couples who just end up back in court. The picture below is an accurate portrayal of how many cases one social worker is forced to decide on in a day.
Personally I believe that this agency advances family conflict, rather than resolve it and it un-intentionally furthers child neglect; Through its ignorant approach to problem solving. This agency, time again has demonstrated that it offers little to nothing to divorced couples and their children and by all rights should be dissolved.
My personal belief is that the direct implementation of the Connecticut General Statues by a judge will better serve divorcing couples than the blind suppositions of a social worker untrained in Law. I believe judges prefer agreements because it absolves them of their responsibility to look up and responsibly implement the law or be held accountable for bad judgements.
Should there be a day we dissolve Family Relations in Connecticut, our citizens will suffer no loss. The courts in conjunction with the Department of Children and Families are more than capable of doing everything critical to Families, as well if not better, just by taking a "lases fare" approach to the personal business of litigious couples. These couples are just as capable of reaching agreements on their own without the forced unwelcome intrusive opinion of state social workers.
Closing these offices down will save the state millions that they could better use to help mothers living below the poverty line. This money could be used for health care now in jeopardy due to the Bush cuts. This savings could be used to improve the quality of education in our schools. Write the Governor and your Representative and ask them to cut funding to CT Family Relations. An arcane agency that has no place in our state.
