Marsha Levick Receives AACAP's Highest Honor, 2017 Catchers in the Rye Humanitarian Award

We’re thrilled to announce the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) selected Juvenile Law Center’s Deputy Director and Chief Counsel Marsha Levick for the 2017 Catchers in the Rye Humanitarian Award – the Academy’s highest honor. Marsha was recognized at the AACAP’s annual event on Wednesday in Washington, DC.

AACAP is one of our long-standing amicus partners on children’s rights issues. Established in 1990, the AACAP Catchers in the Rye Humanitarian Award recognizes individuals who have made sustained and significant contributions to society by supporting child and adolescent psychiatry. Previous awardees include two U.S. Senators, a Nobel Laureate, and a former U.S. Surgeon General.

Under Marsha’s leadership, Juvenile Law Center has contributed to 5 landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, all of which leveraged adolescent development and neuroscience to end the harshest sentences for juvenile offenders, including ending the juvenile death penalty and banning mandatory life without parole sentences for youth.

“As I read the words giving rise to the AACAP Catchers in the Rye Humanitarian Award, I immediately felt the awesomeness of the responsibility to catch our kids before they go over that cliff. I felt inadequate to the task and thus enormously humbled by the recognition. With over 40 years of fighting for kids’ legal rights and well-being in my rear-view mirror, I know well the highs and lows of this work, the exhilaration of winning a landmark victory, and the despair of falling short of the mark. I accept this award not as a marker of how far we have come, but of how far we have yet to go. I will keep my arms outstretched as far, and as long, as I can. Thank you.” – Marsha Levick, Deputy Director and Chief Counsel

Please join us in congratulating Marsha on this important achievement!