The Parental Alienation Informed Disclosure
A model legal framework to make parental alienation education and safety screening mandatory in every U.S. custody case.
A national gap in family court procedure
No U.S. state requires parents to be formally notified, at the time of divorce or custody filing, of the documented harms of parental alienation, coercive control, or custodial interference — or of the legal consequences of engaging in them. Parental alienation is clinically recognized as child psychological abuse (DSM‑5‑TR V995.51) and produces measurable, lasting harm to children’s development, yet family courts operate without a uniform standard to prevent, disclose, or respond to it.
Three mechanisms, one standard
The Parental Alienation Informed Disclosure Act establishes a uniform standard through mandatory disclosure, mandatory safety screening, and graduated enforcement — adoptable by any state legislature as statute or court rule.
- Mandatory DisclosureEvery state adopts a signed Parental Alienation Informed Disclosure as a required filing in every divorce, dissolution, and custody proceeding, entered into the court record before any custody order is finalized.
- Mandatory Safety ScreeningA validated abuse and coercive-control screen is completed before any alienation framework is applied — protecting against weaponization of alienation claims by genuinely abusive parents.
- Graduated EnforcementA tiered judicial response, from written warning through custody modification, contempt, and criminal referral, gives the Disclosure real preventive force.
Grounded in law and three decades of research
The Disclosure is consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment family-integrity doctrine established in Troxel v. Granville (2000), and with CAPTA, VAWA, and PKPA. It draws on peer-reviewed research spanning three decades and current DSM‑5‑TR clinical classification.
| Source | Key Finding |
|---|---|
| Fidler & Bala, 2010 | An estimated 11–15% of children in divorcing families experience parental alienation, with severe emotional and developmental harm. |
| Baker & Darnall, 2006; Baker, 2020 | Identified 17 primary alienating behaviors; established reliability and validity of the five-factor model. |
| Harman, Leder-Elder & Biringen, 2016 | An estimated 9% of U.S. parents are alienated from their children, with broad public-health and economic consequences. |
| Teicher & Samson, 2016 | Deliberate induction of fear toward a safe parent produces measurable structural brain changes in children. |
| Meier, 2020 | A National Institute of Justice–funded study of 4,338 custody cases found fathers’ counter-claims of parental alienation nearly double the likelihood of mothers losing custody, even where credible abuse evidence existed — the basis for this proposal’s mandatory safety screen. |
Join the effort
The Empowerment Community is seeking legislative sponsors, pilot jurisdictions, and funding partners to advance adoption of the Parental Alienation Informed Disclosure Act in state legislatures nationwide.
Contact us about sponsorship & pilotsDocument Library
The full legislative package, available to download.
One-Page Fact Sheet
The case for the Disclosure in one page — problem, solution, research, and the ask.
Legislative Brief
The full case for a Parental Alienation Informed Disclosure, with research foundation and state-by-state rationale.
Model Disclosure Form
The companion court filing itself — definitions, safety screening, and the differential framework for courts to apply.
Proposed Act
The full model legislation text, ready for introduction by state or federal legislators.