Karen Woodall has a pathological need to denigrate other people and organisations working in the area of separated families. Targets include single parent charity Gingerbread (which I have logged under Karen Woodall on feminism - not because Gingerbread espouses feminism but because she equates the two), social entrepreneur Duncan Fisher, all charities which received funding when her funding dried up.
She also has frequent spats with other individuals in her own field of parental alienation, who you might imagine she would be more likely to ally with: Craig Childress, Melanie Gill, Michael Robinson of Custody Minefield, and Nick Child of The Alienation Experience and For All That blogs.
“I have also been watching with interest, the emergence of another wheeze to convince the government to fund a pointless project called ‘equal parenting’ and I have been observing the way some in the father’s movement, at the very mention of the word equal, are fooled into thinking this must be good for dads. Let’s start with this new wheeze shall we, Mumsanddadsnet.com
Mumsanddadsnet.com was launched this week with articles in the Telegraph and the New Statesman. The site, which is badged as being ‘backed by the world’s leading thinkers and writers on equal parenting’ (whatever that means), appears to be populated with articles written by three people, none of whom seems to me to be familiar as a world leader. Given the launch is covered by both the left and the right, one can be sure that the purpose of it, coming ahead of the next general election, is to hedge the bets of the founder in terms of who wins power the next time around. Because whoever holds the power holds the purse strings and given that this venture’s founder is a self proclaimed ‘social entrepreneur’ you can be sure that its mission is not merely to give those of us who are not world leaders, the benefit of his wisdom in the field of equal parenting.“
The “social entrepreneur” she criticizes is Duncan Fisher, the co-founder of Fathers Direct (which became the Fatherhood Institute). Next, she accuses the Fatherhood Institute of being in thrall to feminism, oblivious to its links with the British Religious Right.
“Those of you who read regularly will know that I have issues with the Fatherhood Institute. This organisation, set up in the wake of the birth of Fathers4Justice, was unashamedly, in the words of one of its founder members ‘the antithesis of the father’s rights movement.’ It has also been, in my view, the nemesis of fathers rights shoring up as it does the feminist control of the field of family policy and failing to challenge, those things which truly affect dads in our country today. Now I may be a hard task master. I like my institutes to do what they say they do, I like them to represent the people that they purport to represent. Funded as they are, in significant amounts of tax payers money, I think the Fatherhood Institute should speak for the needs of fathers, should represent them in a way that ensures that their best interests are met and that the children, who are the ones who make men into fathers, should also get a look in. Especially as the Fatherhood Institute’s voice is the only voice that government is currently listening to in any significant way. To have this organisation, enthusing about equally shared parenting therefore, leaves me concerned and worried about the future for fatherhood, even more so than I am already, given that the years ahead could well involve some form of parliamentary control by the Labour party, itself no friend of fathers.”
Husband Nick Woodall pitches in to the criticism of the Fatherhood Institute: “Let’s look at that again. Of all the national charities and other ‘third sector’ organisations that work with families and children, only one organisation that focuses on fathers receives funding from central government…”
Engulfed in jealousy after the Government pulled the plug on funding for the Centre for Separated Families, the couple accuse the Fatherhood Institute of being “the only government funded organisation in the UK supporting fathers” even though Families Need Fathers, which occupies the middle ground between the extremist Fathers 4 Justice and the seemingly benign Fatherhood Institute, also received a substantial grant in the same round of Department for Education funding in 2011-2013 which paid £444,000 to Karen and Nick Woodall’s Centre for Separated Families - which they stole from the charity rather than pay their debts to HMRC!
Below the line, Karen Woodall’s fans pile in, and Karen Woodall responds approvingly.
A regular contributor, padrestevie, boasting of his “commanding physical presence and the physical capacity to cause a great deal of damage” and claiming both mothers of his children were “aggressive, belligerent and violent” drunkards, called the Fatherhood Institute “ignorant and grossly insulting” and director Adrienne Burgess “patronising and blusteringly obfuscate” with terrible typing.
Karen Woodall responded:
“I could not have put it better myself padrestevie, I too was astonished and saddened actually that an institute which receives millions could not put an ounce of effort into discussing, respectfully, the issues at hand. I am incredibly grateful for Nick Langford’s curation of the reality of what is being done and so glad that people do understand what is happening, if there are, at least a few of us truth keepers, we can resist this tide, whether its borne of sloppiness, arrogance or downright privilige.”
And to a later comment, she approved:
“Interesting description of Mumanddadsnet and Fatherhood Institute as creepy…hadn’t really thought about it that way but you are right, it is creepy Eric.”
She continued in a similar vein in her blog of 3 August 2014:
“A long time critic of the Fatherhood Institute, I took to a facebook page to hold FI to account for their continued pattern of releasing briefings to government with pleas for funding for a new campaign attached to them. This latest briefing is no exception and suggests an ‘inspiring men’ campaign in which volunteers will go into places where children are to raise awareness and provide role models for young men who wish to go into non traditional jobs of work.
The response of FI was somewhat predictable and I have clearly both upset and frustrated them with what they termed my ‘continued carping’ about the work that they do and the money that they hoover up to do it. Far from carping however, I consider that any organisation which depends upon large amounts of government funding (tax payers money), should be willing to answer to its critics and be transparent about what it delivers to the people it purports to represent.”
On 4 May 2016 the Custody Minefield blogger, Michael Robinson, posted the following:
“We make this announcement following an invitation from Karen Woodall’s solicitors to announce details of her compliance with the sanction made against her by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.”
In summer 2017 American parental alienation practitioner, Craig Childress, accused Karen Woodall of appropriating his theories in a blog entry entitled “Karen Woodall - Stop It”.
On 17 February 2018 American parental alienation practitioner, Dr Craig Childress, announced on his blog that Karen Woodall was threatening police action against him for his criticism of her in their ongoing war of words:
“It has become dangerous to criticize Karen Woodall. If you criticize Karen Woodall you may face legal retaliation. Be careful. Criticizing Karen Woodall is dangerous.”
On 2 May 2018 Karen Woodall wrote on her blog: “His behaviour towards me and his writings about me are frankly a breach of the APA code of ethics on several counts, aside from them being quite simply offensive, untrue and a little bizarre in their intensity. A very sad situation all around, doing nothing to help children and families and everything to further misery and discord amongst parents. I wish it were different but I am not going to enter into any kind of discussion with a man who behaves in this manner because it is futile.”
In her blog of 3 August 2018 Karen Woodall called Jean Mercer, Professor Emerita at Stockton University in the US, “the witch” because of her opposition to parental alienation ideology.
On 22 November 2018, Karen Woodall accused an alienated mother who dared to challenge her of being petulant, judgmental, and “crashing around the internet”, and wrote: “I was unable to travel to the US this year because of the threats I received…”, claiming that the authorities had put in place “online monitoring” to protect her.
On 10 July 2019 Karen Woodall wrote:
“As for Craig Childress – who knows what I do to trigger his rage but I suspect that covert competition to be ‘the one who resolves the problem’ is part of it. I note this morning that he has returned to a wiser self and is writing about Object Relations Theory….which is interesting given I was writing about that yesterday………I don’t read his rants about me anymore because I am aware that he reveals far too much about himself when he descends to that self and it is uncomfortable to watch that happen, not because of what he writes about me which matters little to me, but because of what is revealed about his own unconscious processes.”
On 3 April 2018 she sniped at American colleague, Amy Baker:
“I accept Amy’s sample but 40 is an extremely small sample. Also, I am talking about diagnosed narcissists and there were not 22 diagnosed narcissists in that sample just 22 mothers who were described as narcissists by others… Diagnosis is the key with narcissism, otherwise all and sundry can go around talking about it and diagnosing it in people… Amy’s work is important but…In this field of work it is critically important to listen to the people who have done the work and not go around following the lead of people who bleat about narcissism.”
On 10 November 2018 a British parental alienation blogger called Linda Turner commented: “Karen Woodall of the Family Separation Clinic, while being overtly critical and denigratory of other programmes and practitioners, asserts there is an evidence base for her work – one which does not require independent evaluation or comparison to other programmes. I had hoped to review data of their programme as part of my current research, but have had no response to my request for a copy of the presentation on their work made by Nick Woodall at a recent London conference.”
On 2 October 2018 Karen Woodall blogged:
“This week alone I have been reading misleading claims from a group claiming to be ‘the only practice delivering forensic assessments in parental alienation’ which is so manifestly untrue that Trading Standards have been notified.”
This “group” to which Karen Woodall referred was the Family Attachment Consultants, a company run by Melanie Gill and Chip Chimera. Melanie Gill, another individual who acts as an expert witness in the family courts diagnosing parental alienation, is apparently unwelcome competition. Interestingly, Melanie Gill is one of four parental alienation experts incubated by the Centre for Social Justice - the others being Karen Woodall and Nick Woodall themselves, and Celia Conrad.
Recently, Karen Woodall has taken against one of her most ardent and faithful fans, Nick Child, who runs three blogs about parental alienation and feminism: For All That; The Alienation Experience, and Equalism.
On this short youtube clip, he says he has been working in the field of parental alienation for ten years - “reading, writing, organising, networking, blogging” - though he does not do court or clinical work directly. This clip has angered Karen Woodall so grievously that she cannot bring herself to even mention Nick Child by name.