Premieres Thursday, October 20 at 10 pm ET on PBS (check local listings)

It has come to our attention that some PBS stations are receiving comments from individuals and organized groups involved in domestic violence and child custody regarding the issues raised in Breaking the Silence: Children's Stories.

We want to clarify our approach to this work. When we began this project over a year ago, our goal was to produce a documentary about domestic violence and children. We had no preconceived notions about the issue...no specific agenda to prove or disprove. The finished documentary is simply a result of where countless hours of extensive research and interviews took us. These are the real stories of real women who lost custody of their children when Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) was used as scientific proof in their family court cases. These were the stories we found over and over again. There have been a number of concerns raised regarding Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS) and how it is addressed in the piece. We do not make the assertion that the phenomenon of alienation does not exist, simply that PAS seems to be wrongly used as scientific proof to justify taking children away from a protective parent. We as filmmakers are in no position to determine the scientific validity of PAS. However, the fact remains that the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Medical Association (AMA), have not recognized PAS as legitimate science. Some individuals have expressed concern that the documentary only features the stories of women as the victims of domestic violence. Research shows that "while women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner." (U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998). If we had featured the stories of one man and five women who had been victims of domestic abuse, statistically we would have overstated the problems of men in this area. Nevertheless, we recognize that men are also victims and men are also sometimes victimized by family courts, but the fact is that many more women are victims. In all cases, the children suffer. Tatge/Lasseur Productions has decided to post some of the studies and documentation we used in the program on our web site at http://www.tatgelasseur.com beginning on October 12.

The documentary will be released for the first time on Thursday, October 20, 2005 and we believe that the comments and concerns that have come in so far are often not based on the full and complete content of the program. These are difficult and controversial issues that stir human emotions. Nothing can galvanize one's passion like the welfare of a child. We understand certain individuals will never be completely satisfied with the information presented in the documentary. All we can do is offer, in the most open and transparent manner, the reasoning and research that went into this program.

Sincerely,

Dominique Lasseur, Producer

Catherine Tatge, Director

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