For Our Children and Families – Maine Family Court Reform Movement

For Our Children and Families

movement + advocacy community

About the Movement

For Our Children and Families is a child-first reform movement focused on addressing systemic delays, accountability failures, and harmful incentives within family court systems.

The movement exists because time matters differently for children than it does for institutions. Prolonged delays in matters affecting custody, safety, education, and stability are not neutral administrative issues — they are sources of measurable developmental harm. When systems tolerate delay, children bear the cost.

This effort is supported by a statewide advocacy community of volunteers — parents, educators, clinicians, and neighbors — who believe that the developmental health of a child must always outweigh the administrative or economic comfort of the system. The advocacy community does not exist to control families or replace professional roles. It exists to restore urgency, transparency, and responsibility where those qualities have been allowed to erode.

For Our Children and Families is not a nonprofit organization and does not accept monetary donations. It is powered entirely by volunteer participation and community engagement. Families help families. Neighbors support neighbors.

The movement focuses on reforming process and incentives — not attacking individuals. Judges, clerks, attorneys, mediators, and guardians ad litem are often working under constraints they did not create. The failure is structural. The remedy is systemic.

By advancing earlier intervention, clearer timelines, transparent reporting, and child-centered sequencing, the movement seeks to reduce unnecessary conflict, shorten litigation timelines, and prevent avoidable harm.

This is not about punishment. It is about sunlight. It is not about expanding government authority over families. It is about ensuring that government does not cause harm through inaction.

Childhood is not renewable. Systems must reflect that reality.

What We Do

For Our Children and Families focuses on three core areas:

Advocacy
We advocate for child-centered reforms that address systemic delay, misaligned incentives, and accountability gaps in family court processes. This includes engaging legislators, court administrators, and the public to ensure that time-sensitive decisions affecting children are treated with appropriate urgency.

Community Support
Our advocacy community helps families navigate complex systems by sharing knowledge, organization tools, and peer support. We help families stay oriented, informed, and supported during periods of prolonged uncertainty — without replacing professional or legal roles.

Transparency & Accountability
We work to make delay visible. By documenting patterns, elevating lived experience, and supporting anonymized reporting, we promote public accountability and informed reform. Sunlight is not punishment — it is how improvement begins.

What We Don’t Do

Clarity matters. This movement is defined as much by what it does not do as by what it does.

We do not provide legal advice or representation.
We do not replace judges, attorneys, mediators, guardians ad litem, or clinicians.
We do not target, harass, or publicly attack individual professionals.
We do not minimize or dismiss real abuse or safety concerns.
We do not accept monetary donations.
We do not exist to control families or interfere in private decision-making.

This movement focuses on systems and incentives, not scapegoats. Its purpose is reform, not retribution.

Who Participates

This is a people-powered effort. Participants include:

Parents and caregivers who have experienced prolonged family court delays
Educators who see the impact of instability on children
Clinicians and child-development professionals
Community members who believe children’s wellbeing must come first

Participation does not require agreement on every issue — only shared commitment to the principle that children’s developmental health outweighs administrative convenience.

How to Get Involved

There are meaningful ways to participate, depending on your capacity and interest. Reform happens when people engage the right institutions, in the right ways, with clarity and respect.

Advocate for Better Process

The Legislature’s role is to set clear, efficient procedures for family court matters. You can contact your state legislators to support reforms that prioritize child safety, clearer sequencing, reduced delay, transparency, and safeguards against abuse of the system.

Contact your legislators:
https://legislature.maine.gov/house/house/MemberProfiles/List
https://legislature.maine.gov/senate/senate/MemberProfiles/List

Engage the Judicial Branch on Administration

The Judicial Branch controls court administration, rules, and case management. Public input can support improvements such as clearer timelines, expanded mediation, and more efficient case movement.

Maine Judicial Branch (public information):
https://www.courts.maine.gov
Supreme Judicial Court:
https://www.courts.maine.gov/courts/sjc/index.html

Contact the Judicial Branch (Administrative & Rulemaking)

Maine Supreme Judicial Court

(Rulemaking, court administration, statewide procedures)

Clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court
205 Newbury Street, Room 139
Portland, ME 04101-4125
Phone: (207) 822-4146

Use this contact for administrative, procedural, and rule-related matters.
(Note: Engagement should focus on court rules, case management standards, and systemwide efficiency — not individual cases.)

Contact the Governor’s Office on Capacity and Coordination

The Executive Branch influences whether courts have the resources and coordination needed to function. This includes budgets, staffing, appointments, and inter-agency alignment affecting families.

Office of the Governor – Contact:

https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/contact/schedule
https://www.maine.gov/governor/mills/contact/share-your-opinion

Participate in the Advocacy Community

You can also engage directly with For Our Children and Families by contributing time, experience, or perspective.

Volunteer: Support families through peer assistance, organization, or outreach
Share Your Experience: Help make systemic delay visible through structured, confidential storytelling
Attend Listening Sessions: Join community conversations focused on understanding harm and identifying solutions

Participation is voluntary, unpaid, and grounded in mutual respect.

Why Engagement Matters

The Legislature can lock in better process.
The Judiciary can administer that process effectively.
The Executive can ensure the system has the capacity to function.

When families engage the appropriate branch with clarity and purpose, reform becomes possible — without politicizing individual cases and without compromising judicial independence.

Learn more - For Our Children and Families – Maine Family Court Reform Movement - Maine's Government

By the Numbers

11,000+ pending family cases
Maine’s District Court Family Division has carried persistently elevated pending caseloads since the COVID-19 pandemic, remaining above pre-2020 levels through 2024.
Source: Maine Judicial Branch, 2024 Annual Report
https://www.courts.maine.gov/about/reports/ar2024.pdf

2028 backlog timeline projection
Maine judicial leadership has publicly stated that, under current staffing and capacity projections, the court system may not meaningfully begin clearing the COVID-era backlog until approximately 2028.
Sources:
The Maine Monitor (March 2023)
https://themainemonitor.org/maine-courts-may-take-until-2028-to-touch-backlog-of-cases/
Bangor Daily News (March 2023)
https://www.bangordailynews.com/2023/03/24/news/maine/maine-courts-backlog-2028/

60–90% of family law cases nationally involve at least one self-represented litigant
National court studies consistently show that the majority of family law matters involve at least one party without legal representation, with rates varying by jurisdiction and case type.
Sources:
California Law Review – Self-Represented Litigants in Family Law
https://www.californialawreview.org/online/self-represented-litigants-in-family-law
Hastings Law Journal (UCSF Law Repository)
https://repository.uclawsf.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol67/iss5/8/

Prolonged instability is associated with developmental harm
Child development research shows that prolonged uncertainty, chronic stress, and disrupted caregiving relationships are associated with toxic stress, which can affect emotional regulation, learning, and long-term health outcomes.
Sources:
Harvard University – Center on the Developing Child
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/science/key-concepts/toxic-stress/
Casey Family Programs – Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
https://www.casey.org/what-are-adverse-childhood-experiences/

Notes:
Figures reflect publicly available court reports, peer-reviewed legal research, and established child development science. Ranges vary by jurisdiction and case type. Sources are provided for transparency.

Why This Matters

Children experience time differently than adults.

A year of delay in an administrative system is not equivalent to a year in a child’s life. Developmental windows close. Attachments form or fracture. Educational trajectories shift. Emotional harm compounds.

When court processes involving custody, safety, education, or stability are delayed for months or years, the harm does not pause. Childhood does not pause.

Family court delays are often discussed as administrative inconvenience or resource challenges. But when delay becomes routine in matters affecting children, it ceases to be neutral. It becomes a source of harm — predictable, preventable, and cumulative.

The purpose of this movement is not to assign blame. It is to restore alignment between what we know about child development and how systems that govern children’s lives actually operate.

A system that cannot act with urgency where children are concerned must be re-examined. Reform is not optional. It is a moral obligation.

About the Founder

Justin Tahai is the founder of For Our Children and Families, a child-first reform movement grounded in lived experience, systems analysis, and a commitment to public accountability.

After more than fifteen years navigating Maine’s family court system, Justin witnessed firsthand how prolonged delays, misaligned incentives, and procedural inertia can cause profound and lasting harm to children. His experience did not lead him to seek authority over others or personal remedy through power or compensation. Instead, it led him to ask why a system charged with protecting children so often treats time as neutral when developmental harm is not.

Justin’s work is informed by a plain-language approach to reform: fix process before conflict escalates, align incentives with child wellbeing, and bring sunlight to systems that have grown accustomed to operating without urgency or transparency. He is not anti-court, anti-judge, or anti-lawyer. His focus is structural — on how systems behave under pressure and how predictable failures can be prevented.

He founded For Our Children and Families to create a space where parents, educators, clinicians, and community members can work together to protect children and support families — without fundraising, without hierarchy, and without personal ambition. The movement exists to ensure that children are not collateral damage of delay, and that institutions remain accountable to the people they serve.

Justin Tahai is also a candidate for the Maine House of Representatives. More information about his campaign is available at jtforme.com.

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