Early returns on the FRCs

“Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison"
Civil Disobedience an essay by Henry David Thoreau.

The first returns are out on the Family Resource Centres around Australia. The stories could have been written months ago. They're a little too predictable.
The FRCs are a vast improvement over the former system, at least in appearances. There really was no "former system" other than the brutal and prejudiced courts.

It will be interesting to see if the apparently satisfied Dads assessments match the opinions of the employees.
One legitimate concern is the make up of the staff of FRCs. Of the 5 that have been independently reviewed by fathers and mothers concerned about the fairness of the FRCs, none have reported a single male employee -- much less a male counselor.
If women need to talk to women about these issues; so do men need to talk to men.

He (a father moved from anger to calmness in less than an hour) wanted more time with his children than the Family Court had allotted him. The centre has written to the mother inviting her to come in - and will follow up every 10 days. And it has referred the man to a Parenting After Separation group, and a fathers' group run by other organisations.
From distressed and suicidal fathers to grandparents estranged from their grandchildren, the casualties of unhappy family life have flocked through the doors seeking help - hundreds of them.
...
Counselling has long been available to unhappy couples and warring parents, but because of a lack of funds, "we could only see people who knew about us and could pay", Ms Morris said.

"With triple the program funding, and a common national advertising campaign, we can reach out to a lot more people."

Not many people can argue with that. Now that there is three times the funding, more people may seek out counselling.

I pressed my ex many times to go into counselling. She even mentioned my efforts it in writing a few times in her emails and letters. Other than having to overcome her deep distrust of counselling of any kind; she could always fall back on the excuse of the cost.
We would have been a lower middle class family. With one daughter in private school and one wage earner disabled -- a more and more common situation considering the aging population -- even with private insurance the cost of ongoing counselling was at best difficult.

Considering the near complete lack of a mental health system and the low level of professionalism, the distrustful attitudes of many Australians towards counselling is not surprising.
Like the recent allotment of $1.8 billion towards mental health, FRCs are a good step but hardly a solution. Both efforts could be rightfully called "Too little, too late" for millions of Australians. There is a real danger that the FRCs will only become another expression of prejudice against fathers because of their all-female staffs.

The money allotted for mental health is allocated over 5 years. That speaks very poorly for the planning and predictable results. In the past, such allotments simply became political campaign funds for the sitting governments. There is no reason not to expect the same in the future.

For example, the Bracks government recently produced a miracle cure!
By changing the criteria for a language restricted student to qualify for an integration aide, Bracks was able to cut the number of qualified applicants by over 90% -- and provide himself with most of the $50 million allocated to such programs for his own re-election fund.
Given the history of the Bracks government on disabled and elderly, it is reasonable to expect to see cynical advertisements trumpeting Bracks' commitment to their well-being paid for from this money.

How much of the monies allocated for developing a mental health system in Australia will only go to funding plans which will never be carried out and television ads telling the public about these specious plans is yet to be seen.
Will the FRCs be used to promote the perverse system already in place? That may become apparent soon.