November is Family Court Awareness Month
Every November, advocates, survivors, protective parents, attorneys, lawmakers, and community leaders across the United States come together to shine a spotlight on one of the most consequential — and least visible — corners of our judicial system: family court.
Family Court Awareness Month exists because every year, an estimated 58,000 children are ordered by family courts into unsupervised contact with a parent who has been identified as abusive. These are not abstract statistics. They are children living with trauma, and in the most devastating cases, children who are murdered.
"Every year, survivors of domestic abuse step into family court believing it will bring safety and justice — but too often, they are met with institutional betrayal."
Family Court Awareness Month is a call to action: for better judicial training, for evidence-based decision-making, and for a system that genuinely puts children first.
Children We Remember
Family Court Awareness Month was founded to honor children who lost their lives because a family court failed to protect them. We do not name them here. Those names belong to their families, and how they are used is theirs to decide. What we can say is what the court records show.
These children — and hundreds more — were murdered by a parent after a custody court rejected the other parent's plea for protection. Their lives, and the lives of all children harmed by family court failures, are the reason this month exists.
Nationwide Recognition
Some proclamations cover a single November; others are standing, and renew every year without a new request. Either way the paper renews itself but the attention does not — every November, somebody still has to show up and ask their community to notice. This is our documented count, verified proclamation by proclamation against the campaign archive. Earlier materials cited a higher figure covering the founding years; we are recovering those records and will raise this number as each one is confirmed. If your city has proclaimed and is not reflected here, please tell us.
Since the inaugural Family Court Awareness Month in November 2020, mayors, county commissioners, and governors across the country have signed proclamations and resolutions officially declaring November as Family Court Awareness Month in their communities. This growing coalition represents a public commitment: that child safety in the family court system is not a fringe concern — it is a mainstream civic priority.
If your city has not yet issued a proclamation, we can help you make that happen. Every declaration sends a message that your community takes this seriously.
The Verified Record
Every proclamation below is documented in our archive. Tap a state to see its jurisdictions, or search for your own city.
Some states have their own organizations running this work. Where one exists, it appears when you select that state — go to them first, they know their state better than we do.
267 jurisdictions across 26 states. If your community has proclaimed and is not listed, write to proclamations@barron-foundation.org and we will add it.
Family Court Professionals Need Proper Training
Family court judges and professionals make life-altering decisions every day about children's safety, custody arrangements, and exposure to violence. Yet most states do not require that judges receive comprehensive training on the very topics they rule on.
Family Court Awareness Month calls for mandatory, meaningful training across all areas that affect child safety in family court proceedings, including:
The research to support better decisions already exists. The ACEs Study, the Meier Study, the Saunders Study, and the Santa Clara Law Study all provide evidence-based frameworks that should be standard tools in every family court. The problem is not a lack of research — it is a failure to use it.
Post-Separation Abuse
When survivors leave abusive relationships, many assume that the danger is behind them. For those who enter the family court system, the danger often intensifies.
Post-separation abuse is the continuation — and often escalation — of abusive behavior through the mechanisms of family court itself: weaponized litigation, false allegations, violations of protective orders, and court-ordered contact that places survivors and children directly back in harm's way.
"Post-separation abuse is often more painful than the abuse suffered during the relationship — because it is carried out through a system that is supposed to protect you."
Family Court Awareness Month is committed to educating judges, attorneys, and the public about the dynamics of post-separation abuse — so that courts stop becoming tools of continued harm.
Organizations Behind This Movement
Family Court Awareness Month was co-founded in 2020 by Tina Swithin of One Mom's Battle and Sandra Ross of the California Protective Parents Association. Today, Family Court Awareness Month is directed by Dr. Kreslyn Barron Odum and operates as an initiative of The Barron Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Georgia.
Our Partners
Organizations we work with directly on Family Court Awareness Month:
- One Mom's Battle
- California Protective Parents Association
- Georgia Protective Parents
- Protective Parents Michigan
- Tennessee Safe Parents Organization
Tennessee Safe Parents Organization built 77 of the proclamations on this record; Protective Parents Michigan built 88. Michigan and Tennessee are the two largest states on the map because their own organizations built them, and neither was fully counted nationally until this year.
Others Doing This Work
We are not affiliated with the organizations below. We list them because protective parents looking for help should be able to find them:
- Florida Protective Parents Association
- The National Family Violence Law Center
- The Court Said USA
- Piqui's Justice
- Kayden's Korner Foundation
Hot Pink Day
The ask is one sentence. Wear something pink. That is all of it.
In 2026, Georgia became the first state to name Hot Pink Day itself in a governor’s proclamation — alongside November as Family Court Awareness Month, signed at the State Capitol. The day is no longer only ours. It is on the record.
Then, when somebody asks you why, tell them. Tell them family courts decide every day where children live and who they are alone with, and that those decisions are too often made without current knowledge of domestic violence, coercive control, or child abuse. Tell them there is a month for it. Tell them their own city can proclaim it.
That conversation is the campaign. The shirt is only what starts it.
We chose a working Wednesday deliberately. Pink on a Saturday is seen by your family. Pink on a Wednesday is seen by your coworkers, the school run, the waiting room, the courthouse. A weekday also lets schools, offices and councils take part — and a city that proclaimed Family Court Awareness Month can mark it at a council meeting, because council meetings happen on weekdays.
The suggested proclamation language in our toolkit names Hot Pink Day alongside the month, so a council adopting our wording adopts the day as well. If your city has already proclaimed, ask whether they will mark it. Most will, and it costs them nothing.
State Leads
Proclamations do not happen from a national office. They happen because someone who lives in a community walks into their own city hall and asks. Our state leads are protective parents who carry Family Court Awareness Month in their own states — sending requests, answering clerks, and making sure every proclamation granted gets counted.
Write to the address for your state and it reaches the person holding it.
