Barron Foundation

08/25/2026

Georgia just became the first state in the country to recognize Hot Pink Day.

On August 21, Governor Brian Kemp signed a proclamation declaring November 2026 as Family Court Awareness Month in Georgia, and November 18, 2026, as Hot Pink Day.

Hot Pink Day is new. It has never existed before this year.

It falls on the third Wednesday of every November, and the ask is one sentence:

Wear something pink, on a working Wednesday, where people will see it and ask you why.

Georgia said yes first.

Read what Georgia actually put its seal on, because the language matters.

The proclamation names the courts.

It states that more than 58,000 children each year are ordered by courts into unsupervised contact with a dangerous parent following divorce or separation.

It names the 944 children the Center for Judicial Excellence has documented killed since 2008 in circumstances involving divorce, separation, custody, visitation, or child support.

And then it says the thing protective parents have been trying to make institutions hear for years:

In a significant number of those cases, a court had been informed in advance of a documented history of violence.

Read that again.

A state government put its seal on it.

For every parent who raised a safety concern and was dismissed.

For every child who tried to tell the truth and was not believed.

For every family that learned too late what happens when evidence of danger is treated as conflict instead of warning.

Now we build on it.

Your city can be next.

Your county can be next.

Your state can be next.

The 2026 Proclamation Toolkit is free: a ready-to-send request letter, model proclamation language, and a one-page fact sheet for officials.

Councils are setting their autumn agendas right now. Some offices need up to 60 days.

Labor Day is the real deadline.

267 jurisdictions across 26 states are already on the record. Tennessee's 77 were built by two women.

Do not underestimate what one person with a letter and the refusal to be ignored can set in motion.

Georgia said yes first.

Who says yes next?

Toolkit link in the comments.

Still, we rise. 🤟🩷

08/18/2026

Hot Pink Day now has a date. The same one, every year.

The third Wednesday of November.

In 2026, that is Wednesday, November 18.

We chose a working day on purpose.

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 grocery store, the courthouse. Same shirt, ten times the conversations.

And being asked why is the entire point of the colour.

A weekday also lets institutions take part. A school can do it. An office can do it. A city that proclaimed Family Court Awareness Month can mark it at a council meeting and council meetings happen on weekdays.

The ask is one sentence. Wear something pink.

That is all of it. No registration, no donation, nowhere to be.

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, and that it costs the city nothing.

That conversation is the campaign. The shirt is only what starts it.

And the map keeps growing.

Two weeks ago our verified record held 132 jurisdictions. Tonight it holds 267 across 26 states because four states opened their own files and showed us how much had never been counted.

Michigan alone went from 16 to 88.

Tennessee (Tennessee Safe Parents Organization) from 17 to 77.

Every one of those was a person who asked.

The proclamation language we provide 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.

If you want to do more than wear pink, host a gathering at your courthouse, capitol steps, a public square. We send the kit and the signs free.

barron-foundation.org/hot-pink-day

Mark it now: the third Wednesday of November. Every year, from here on.

Still, we rise.

08/12/2026

Our record said Tennessee had 17 proclamations.
Tennessee has 77.

We found out this week, and it changed our national number from 132 to 193.

Here is how that happens.

Family Court Awareness Month has been running since 2020, founded by Tina Swithin and Sandra Ross. In six years it spread city by city, county by county, across states that had never met each other, faster than any one spreadsheet could follow. That is what happens when something works.

When we took it over this year we set out to verify every proclamation we could actually document. Two weeks ago we published that count and said plainly it was almost certainly low.

Then Tennessee Safe Parents Organization opened their records.

Seventy-seven. Counties, cities, and a joint resolution of the Tennessee General Assembly. Memphis. Nashville. Chattanooga. Murfreesboro. Clarksville.

Sixty-two proclamations won years ago that had simply never been gathered in one place.

TSPO secured nearly all of them. Two women. Four years. A spreadsheet, a template, and a great many emails.

Tennessee is now the strongest state on the national map by a distance, and it is theirs.

Days later a second state told us the same thing. We had one on file. They have six.

So we are asking.

In both cases where someone opened their records, the real number was several times what we held.

There are almost certainly proclamations in your state we do not know about.

If your city, county or state has ever proclaimed Family Court Awareness Month and our map does not show it, tell us. A photo of the certificate. A link. A date and a name. Whatever you have.

Send to [email protected]

This is not paperwork. Every proclamation we cannot document is a piece of evidence we cannot take to a legislator. Somebody sat down and asked for each one of these. That work deserves to be counted.

Check your state on the map. Then tell us what we are missing.

barron-foundation.org/family-court-awareness-month

Still, we rise.

Tennessee Safe Parents Organization Georgia Protective Parents Fair Haven Women's Shelter Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence

08/11/2026

Seventy-seven proclamations. More than any other state in the country.

Two women did that.

Four years, a spreadsheet, and a great many emails.

Tennessee Safe Parents Organization has been building this quietly since before we were involved.

Tennessee Safe Parents Organization

📣 Mark your calendars!

Family Court Awareness Month returns this November. 💗

Beginning November 1, 2026, communities across the country will once again shine a light on the importance of child-centered, trauma-informed, and fair family courts.

Tennessee is a large supporter with over 77 proclamations.

The month is about more than awareness. It’s about listening to children, supporting families, recognizing the impact of trauma, and continuing the conversation about what children and families deserve from our courts.

We’re already working behind the scenes to make bigger, louder, and more impactful.

November 1, 2026.
Stay tuned. There’s more to come. 💗 Barron Foundation

08/04/2026

A proclamation lasts one year.

That is the part almost nobody knows.

When a city proclaims November as Family Court Awareness Month, it covers that November. One. It does not carry forward. It does not renew itself. The following year, somebody has to ask again.

So this map is not a scoreboard. It is a to-do list.

132 jurisdictions across 26 states have proclaimed before. Eighteen governors have signed it. Every single one of them starts 2026 at zero, the same as the grey ones.

Here is the good news: renewals are the easiest yes in this entire campaign. A city that has done it before already has the file, already knows what it is, and almost always says yes again. It takes one email.

The hard part is that somebody has to send it.

Councils set their autumn agendas in August and early September. More requests fail on timing than on anything else. The window is now — August 1 through September 15.

If your city is on this map, ask them to renew.
If it is not, ask them to be first.

The letter is written. The proclamation language is written. You add your city's name.

barron-foundation.org/proclamation-toolkit

Still, we rise.

07/17/2026

The Georgia Supreme Court has unanimously confirmed: there is no domestic-dispute exception to Georgia's RICO Act. Warner v. Espitia, decided June 30. A significant precedent for family court accountability.

In a unanimous opinion issued June 30 (Warner v. Espitia, S25G1354), the Georgia Supreme Court confirmed that the state's RICO Act contains no domestic-dispute exception. The ruling reverses a Court of Appeals decision that had dismissed its use in what it called "garden-variety" domestic disputes.

Why this matters: legal experts note that had the lower ruling stood, civil RICO claims could have been precluded even in serious domestic cases involving threats of violence or coordinated misconduct. The high court held that the Act's plain language applies broadly regardless of context.

For protective parents and the advocates who serve them, the principle is simple: what happens in family court deserves the same scrutiny and accountability as any other courtroom in Georgia.

We will continue to monitor how this precedent develops.

Still, we rise.

07/04/2026

On July 4, 1776, America made a promise that liberty belongs to everyone.

250 years later, we honor that promise by finishing it. In family courts. In state houses. In every room where a child's safety is decided.

This November marks Family Court Awareness Month. The work between now and then is how promises get kept.

Still, we rise.

06/19/2026

On June 19, 1865, freedom arrived in Galveston - two and a half years after it had already been declared.

The promise was real. It was simply withheld.

Juneteenth reminds us that justice delayed is still justice owed.

That liberation can be law and still not yet be lived.

That the distance between what is promised and what is finally delivered is measured in human lives.

We honor the resilience of every family who refused to surrender hope in the long space between the promise and its keeping.

Today we remember.

Today we recommit to the belief that every child deserves freedom, safety, and a future that arrives on time.

Still, we rise.

06/07/2026

Summer has arrived.

And while it is a season of relaxation, beach days, and family time, it is also when those of us in the family court reform movement begin preparing for the most important month of our year.

October brings Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a critical month that lifts the voices of survivors and exposes the patterns of abuse so many endure.

November brings Family Court Awareness Month when the protective parent movement turns its focus to where so many survivors face their next battle: family court.

The story does not end at the shelter. It continues in the courtroom.

Swipe to learn more about FCAM and the ways to get involved: yard signs, business partnerships, event kits, and the national coalition standing for children.

Stay tuned to this page. We are getting ready.

barron-foundation.org/family-court-awareness-month

06/03/2026

Half a million children are living unprotected with a violent parent in the United States right now.

This is what a movement looks like.

Today, and every day, protective parents, advocates, workplaces, and entire communities are putting on hot pink to be visible for the children who cannot be.

Wear it. Share it. Stand in it.