Recent news

As we enter a new year filled with uncertainty, one thing is clear – we need to keep fighting for children in the justice and foster care systems. 

Juvenile Law Center has been a leader in the fight against unnecessary family policing and in favor of family preservation for 50 years. Our litigation helped to create pressure for the federal law that required family preservation services. Subsequently, widely referenced publications, trainings, and advocacy led by youth with lived experience in the family regulation system gave the law teeth and led to additional reforms. Despite this work, the over-reach of the family regulation system continues, and Juvenile Law Center remains committed to safely keeping families together.

Youth partnerships have been a cornerstone for advocacy work at Juvenile Law Center for decades. Although our approach to engaging youth partners has evolved over time, the core value of experience-led advocacy persists.

Our country stands on the precipice of dangerous cuts to the social safety net. SNAP benefits will be cut off on Saturday, pulling food assistance from 40 million people in this country – the majority of which are children.

During this year’s YJAM (Youth Justice Action Month), I was drawn towards a re-read of Kristin Henning’s remarkable text: The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth.

Yesterday Juvenile Law Center partnered with Temple Law Review for its Annual Symposium. This year, in celebration of 50 years of Juvenile Law Center, the theme was “Youth Justice in a New Era: Reflections on State Constitutional Litigation, Abolition, and Movement Lawyering." This blog reflects on the role of movement lawyering in pursuit of family preservation. April Lee of Philly Voice for Change participated on the movement lawyering and abolition panel discussion.

This week, Juvenile Law Center and Temple Law Review are hosting a symposium reflecting on 50 years of children’s rights advocacy and how to use different strategies in the future. As we prepare for the symposium, I am sending an important message to law students – the future of the legal profession.

Juvenile Law Center has been a national leader advocating for the rights of young people in the justice system for 50 years. One of the ways in which Juvenile Law Center is unique, however, is in the role it has played shaping international law, policy and thinking on juvenile justice and in inspiring those who advocate for justice for children. This has happened in three principal ways.