2026 Proclamation Toolkit
Every November, cities, counties and states across the country formally recognize Family Court Awareness Month. A proclamation costs a jurisdiction nothing. It takes a council a few minutes. And it puts the safety of children in family court on the public record in the place where those children actually live.
This is everything you need to ask your own community for one — a ready-to-send letter, proclamation language your city can adopt as written, and the practical guidance we have learned from four years of running this campaign.
The full toolkit is on this page. The request letter and the proclamation language are both below. The PDF is for printing, or for attaching to an email to your clerk.
Trouble downloading? Some workplace and school networks block Google Drive, and phones sometimes hand the link to the Drive app instead of opening it. Write to proclamations@barron-foundation.org and we will send it to you directly.
Send your request between August 1 and September 15. More requests fail on timing than on substance. Councils set their autumn agendas early, and by mid-October many are full. A request that arrives in late October is usually not refused on the merits — it simply misses the calendar.
A proclamation is a short ceremonial document, signed by a mayor or adopted by a council or board, declaring November as Family Court Awareness Month in that jurisdiction. Most proclamations cover one November and have to be requested again the following year. Some councils will adopt a standing proclamation instead — one that recognizes November every year without a fresh request. Ask for the standing version if your council will grant it; it is the same amount of work and it lasts. But be clear with yourself about what it does and does not do. The paper renews itself. The attention does not. A standing proclamation in a filing cabinet reaches nobody, so go back every November anyway and ask them to read it out loud. It carries no cost and no legal obligation. What it carries is recognition — and for a parent who has been told for years that what happened to their family was an isolated private matter, seeing it named by their own city is not a small thing.
This is the single most common reason a request gets refused, and almost nobody sees it coming.
Most states do not have a court called “family court.” Tennessee does not. Many others do not. A clerk reads your request, checks, finds no such court in the state, and declines — not out of disagreement, but because the thing you named does not appear to exist there.
Remove the objection before they raise it. Put this sentence in every request:
By family court we mean any court that handles family matters — circuit, chancery, juvenile, or otherwise — including divorce, custody, dependency and neglect, and domestic violence.
One sentence. It costs nothing and it closes the easiest door a council has.
Check the city’s website before you look for anybody’s email address. Many large cities and most state capitals now have an automated proclamation request form built into their own site. If one exists, use it — it goes straight into their process, it will not sit in an inbox, and it tells you their deadline as you fill it in. Search the site for “proclamation request” or “proclamation.”
If there is no form, find the clerk. In most cities the city clerk or clerk of the board manages proclamation requests, schedules them, and prepares the document; the mayor signs it. Send to both where you can, and if you can only find one address, make it the clerk.
267 jurisdictions across 26 states are already on record. If yours is one of them, ask for a renewal — renewals are routinely granted and take even less council time. And whether it is a renewal or a first ask, request a standing proclamation: one that recognizes November every year without a new request. Many councils will say yes to that just as readily. Check the tracker on our Family Court Awareness Month page, or write and ask us.
Several councils will only proclaim a cause with a demonstrable connection to their own community. This is the most common substantive reason a request is refused, and it is entirely fixable. The letter has a marked place for you to name what this issue means where you live: a local family, a local organization, your own family if you are willing, or simply the fact that you are a resident of that city. Do not skip it.
Please copy proclamations@barron-foundation.org on your request. This is how the national record is kept. Proclamations secured and never reported are proclamations that disappear from the count — and that count is what we take to legislators.
When it is granted, photograph or scan it and send it to the same address, along with the date and the name of the jurisdiction. If the proclamation is presented at a public meeting, go if you can — and tell us, because we would like to recognize you.
Most councils issue a proclamation for a single November. Some will adopt a standing one instead — a resolution recognizing November as Family Court Awareness Month every year, with no fresh request required. Tennessee has dozens of these, and they were granted as readily as the one-year kind.
It costs you one extra sentence in the request: “If the council is willing, we would ask that this be adopted as a standing recognition of November each year, so that no further request is needed.” Ask for it every time. The worst outcome is that they give you the one-year version, which is what you were asking for anyway.
A standing proclamation renews itself. Your community’s attention does not. A resolution filed in 2023 reaches nobody in 2026 if no one turns up to mark it. Every November, go back — ask them to read it at a meeting, invite the local paper, wear pink in the room. The document is the record. The showing up is the point.
Ask for it with the whole request in one line:
We would ask that this be adopted as a standing recognition of November each year, placed on the agenda, read aloud at a meeting, and posted on the city website.
Read that again and notice what it does. You are asking them to put it on the agenda, read it, and publish it. You do not have to be in the room. Attending in person is a bonus, never a requirement — and that is precisely how a state gets covered by one or two people who cannot possibly attend every council meeting in the state.
Councils respond differently to a request that teaches them something. Where your state has passed reform — Tennessee has Abrial’s Law, and many states have passed versions of Kayden’s Law — name it and say briefly what changed and why. A council that understands the problem votes differently from one that thinks it is being asked for a nice gesture.
Tennessee has 77 proclamations on the national record — counties, cities, and a joint resolution of the state General Assembly. It is the strongest state in the country by a distance.
It was built by two women. One in East Tennessee, one in Middle Tennessee, with a handful of helpers. A spreadsheet, a template, and a great many emails. That is the whole method, and it is available to anyone willing to keep asking.
Cities and counties are where most proclamations come from, but they are not the only door. Tennessee opened four, and the other three are almost entirely unused nationally.
Tennessee wrote to the General Assembly and received a joint resolution — adopted by both chambers. It is the single strongest credential in the national record, stronger than a governor’s proclamation, because a legislature acts as a body and it is entered into the permanent record. Find your state senator and representative, send the same letter, and ask whether a resolution is possible.
Clerks of court see every one of these cases pass through their hands. Tennessee wrote to them directly and built lasting relationships from it. A clerk cannot issue a proclamation, but a clerk can tell you how the county actually works, who to write to, and when. Some will carry your request inside the courthouse for you.
Tennessee was invited to speak at the Juvenile Court Services Association. That invitation came from relationships built one clerk and one judge at a time. If your state has a judicial conference, a juvenile court association, or a bar family law section, they hold the audience that most needs the training this campaign exists to demand.
A proclamation covered by a newspaper reaches a hundred times more people than one filed in a minute book. When a council grants yours, send a short note to the local paper with the date and a photograph. Tennessee has had letters to the editor and news coverage in local papers, and every one of them made the next request easier.
Tennessee tracked every proclamation in a spreadsheet with the signed document linked directly to its row. That is why 77 of them still exist in a form anyone can verify. This campaign lost four years of its own record because nobody did that. When a proclamation is granted: save the document, paste the link in your target list, and send it to the foundation. Do it the day it happens.
The third Wednesday of November, every year. In 2026 that is Wednesday, 18 November.
The proclamation language above names it, so a council adopting our wording adopts the day as well. If your council prefers to keep the proclamation to the month alone, that is fine — drop the clause and ask separately, or not at all.
The ask on the day is one sentence: wear something pink. That is all. It is deliberately a working Wednesday rather than a weekend, because pink on a Saturday is seen by your family and pink on a Wednesday is seen by your workplace, the school run, the waiting room, and the courthouse — and being asked why is the entire point. It also lets schools, offices, and councils take part, which a weekend does not.
If a city grants you a proclamation, ask whether they will mark Hot Pink Day too. Many will, and it costs them nothing.
A decline is often not a decision about the cause. From our records, the reasons given have been:
| Agenda is full | The council has too few remaining meetings in the year. Ask to be placed on the calendar for next year, and diary it for July. |
| No local connection | The jurisdiction only proclaims causes tied to its own community. Revise with a specific local tie and resubmit — at least one council explicitly invited this. |
| Arrived past the deadline | Many cities have an internal cutoff weeks before the meeting. Ask what theirs is and meet it next year. |
| Policy against ceremonial proclamations | Some cities have narrowed what they will proclaim. Ask instead whether a council member will read a statement into the minutes. |
None of these is a rejection of the children this campaign exists for. Treat a no as a date to re-ask, not as an ending.
Write as a neighbor, not as an adversary. The clerk reading your email did not make the decisions that harmed your family. The request that gets granted is short, specific, easy to say yes to, and gives them language they can use without editing.
Nothing else. Do not attach case documents, court filings, or personal records. Requests that arrive with a personal legal history attached are far less likely to be granted, and it puts your own privacy at risk.
Copy into an email or onto your own letterhead. Replace everything in pink.
Subject: Proclamation request — Family Court Awareness Month, November 2026
Dear [Mayor / Chair / City Clerk Name],
My name is [Your Name] and I am a resident of [City, State]. I am writing to respectfully request that [City / County] proclaim November 2026 as Family Court Awareness Month.
Family Court Awareness Month was established in 2020 and is now observed in 267 jurisdictions across 26 states. It is a program of The Barron Foundation, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit working to improve child safety outcomes in family court. The observance asks for no funding and no commitment of staff time beyond the proclamation itself.
The purpose is straightforward. Family courts make decisions every day about where children live and who they are alone with. When those decisions are made without current knowledge of domestic violence, coercive control, and child abuse, children are placed at risk — and in the worst cases, children have died. Recognizing November as Family Court Awareness Month signals that our community believes a child’s safety belongs at the center of those decisions.
By family court I mean any court in our state that handles family matters — circuit, chancery, juvenile, or otherwise — including divorce, custody, dependency and neglect, and domestic violence. Not every state has a court by that name; the decisions are the same wherever they are made.
[Two or three sentences on why this matters in your community. A local family, a local organization you volunteer with, your work, or simply your standing as a resident and why you are asking. Councils are significantly more likely to grant a request with a local connection.]
If the Council is willing, I would ask that this be adopted as a standing recognition of November each year, placed on the agenda, read aloud at a meeting, and posted on the [City / County] website, so that no further request is needed in future years.
I have included suggested proclamation language below, which [City / County] is welcome to adopt, adapt, or set aside entirely in favor of its own form. If it would be helpful, I am glad to attend a meeting to accept the proclamation, or to provide any further information the clerk’s office may need.
Thank you for your time and for your service to our community.
Respectfully,
[Your Name]
[Address, City, State ZIP]
[Phone] · [Email]
cc: proclamations@barron-foundation.org
Offer this to the clerk as a starting point. Jurisdictions frequently trim it — that is fine and expected. The final clause is the one that matters.
Whereas, the term “family court” as used herein means any court exercising jurisdiction over family matters — including circuit, chancery, and juvenile courts — in proceedings involving divorce, custody, visitation, dependency and neglect, and domestic violence; and
Whereas, the family courts of this nation decide each year where hundreds of thousands of children will live and with whom they will spend time unsupervised, making these among the most consequential decisions any court makes about a child’s safety; and
Whereas, researchers estimate that more than 58,000 children each year are ordered by family courts into unsupervised contact with a physically or sexually abusive parent following divorce or separation; and
Whereas, the period immediately following separation is the most dangerous time for adult victims of domestic violence and for their children, and the risk of harm to a child increases after parents separate; and
Whereas, the Center for Judicial Excellence has documented 944 children in the United States killed by a parent or parental figure since 2008 in circumstances involving divorce, separation, custody, visitation, or child support; and
Whereas, in a significant number of those cases a court had been informed in advance of a documented history of violence, and the child was nonetheless placed in unsupervised contact with the person who caused the harm; and
Whereas, ongoing, evidence-based training for judges, custody evaluators, guardians ad litem, and court personnel on domestic violence, coercive control, post-separation abuse, and the effects of trauma on children is essential to preventing these outcomes; and
Whereas, protective parents who raise safety concerns in family court deserve to be heard on the evidence rather than dismissed, and children deserve to be believed; and
Whereas, Family Court Awareness Month invites courts, legislators, advocates, and communities to work together toward a family court system in which the safety and well-being of children is the first consideration;
Now, therefore, I, [Name, Title], do hereby proclaim November 2026 as
FAMILY COURT AWARENESS MONTHin [City / County / State],
and further recognize the third Wednesday of November as Hot Pink Day, on which residents are encouraged to wear pink in visible recognition of the children whose safety depends on these courts;
and call upon our residents to recognize the children whose safety depends on these courts, to honor those who have been lost, and to support the reforms that will protect those still before the bench.
58,000 children: Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence; Silberg, 2008.
Child homicides since 2008: Center for Judicial Excellence, Child Safety First (July 2023) — 944 children. Confirmed as CJE’s current published count in July 2026. CJE updates continuously; check centerforjudicialexcellence.org before each campaign season and never state a figure higher than the source supports.
Jurisdiction count: 267 jurisdictions across 26 states, verified against The Barron Foundation’s proclamation record as of July 2026.
Still, we rise.
