Youth and Families
This resource is part of the Youth Defender Advocacy Program (YDAP) curriculum, a specialized trial advocacy training program for youth defenders.
From the introduction: “Friendships gain new importance and intensity as we become adolescents. Healthy friendships can lead to higher academic achievement, less risky behavior, and greater overall wellbeing and can influence our future values and identity. They can even have positive effects on mental health well into adulthood. Providing opportunities for young people to form…
One-page infographic on the seven key developmental needs of adolescence.
From the introduction: “In August 2024, the Office for Access to Justice hosted its quarterly convening with national public defense organizations to discuss youth public defense. During the convening Rachel Rossi, Director of the Office of Access to Justice and Liz Ryan, Administrator of Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, heard from members of…
This report details the results of the first-ever state-wide Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) survey administered to people currently incarcerated for crimes they committed as children (under eighteen). The trauma measured from ACEs surveys include physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; physical and emotional neglect; separation from parents; mental illness or substance abuse in the home; parent…
The Center for Native American Youth (CNAY) at the Aspen Institute released a report detailing survey results of nearly one thousand Native youth on their needs and priorities across issues that matter most to them. This survey was built and disseminated by Native youth leaders who worked in partnership with CNAY staff to practice and…
In this session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning and Mary Ann Scali, Executive Director of the Gault Center, were joined by Jeannette Bocanegra, Executive Director of Justice for Families (J4F), and Prof. Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology and Raymond Pace &…
From the executive summary: “YEAH (Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout) is a community-based organization working to empower, advocate for, and meet the needs of young people ages 15 to 24 based in West and Southwest Philadelphia. Kendra Van de Water and James Aye co-founded YEAH in 2018 to address the stark lack of safe, culturally…
This article calls for the categorical exclusion of young children from juvenile court jurisdiction as a pathway toward the abolition of the juvenile legal system in its current form. This article highlights the landscape of age-based jurisdictional boundaries across the country: 24 states have no minimum age of arrest and prosecution, while 18 states have…
This report is the product of a one-year project to hear directly from Black communities about what safety means to them. The Black Public Defender Association, in partnership with the BlackRoots Alliance, Cook County Public Defender, and Northwestern University, conducted more than 100 interviews of Black residents in Chicago to collect their stories and advice…
Sydney Baker et al., 29 Psychol. Pub. Pol’y & L. 320 (2023). This article is a call to action for the research community and advocates to engage youth and families with lived experience in the legal system in research on the impacts of race, development, and identity on youth interrogations. The authors detail the limitations…
