Advocating for Play, Recreation & Leisure as Essential to Adolescent Development & Youth Defense

In this session of our 2023 Racial Justice Training Series, Prof. Kristin Henning, Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law, and Mary Ann Scali, Executive Director of The Gault Center, will be joined by Dr. Linda Caldwell, Emeritus Distinguished Professor in the Dept. of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management at The Pennsylvania State University.

In this session, we:

Examined the important role of play, recreation, and leisure in adolescent physical and mental development;
Sought to understand how Black adolescents and other marginalized youth are deprived of play, recreation, and leisure through the juvenile and criminal legal systems;
Discussed strategies for protecting access to play, recreation, and leisure for all youth; and
Incorporated the science of play, recreation, and leisure into youth defense and advocacy.