Recent news

Delaware's Office of Defense Services, along with a coalition of criminal justice groups, helped pass several pieces of important juvenile justice legislation in 2016.

Every day, children across the U.S. are held in solitary confinement in juvenile and adult correctional facilities. They are confined to a small cell for 22 to 24 hours a day and are often held in total isolation for weeks or even months at a time. Children in solitary are regularly denied education, counseling, and other services they need for healthy growth and development. You can learn more about solitary confinement of our youth and experience the size and feel of a solitary cell as part of an installation at the Free Library of Philadelphia beginning July 21^st.

The U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services released a new joint guidance about implementation of the foster care school stability provisions of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).

Marsha Levick, Co-Founder, Deputy Director and Chief Counsel, Juvenile Law Center of Philadelphia was a finalist for the "Attorney of the Year" award by The Legal Intelligencer newspaper/American Lawyer Media June 21, 2016.

This year was another great year for our youth advocates. Both programs were passionate about improving access to higher education for youth in the child welfare and justice systems. Each group developed a unique project that tackled this issue from slightly different angles.

Youth First Initiative's recent national public opinion poll shows that most Americans overwhelmingly favor shifting the focus of the juvenile justice system from punishment and incarceration to prevention and rehabilitation. Juvenile Law Center is a national partner with Youth First, and their national poll results align with what we know does – and doesn’t – work when it comes to how we treat youth in the juvenile justice system.

Youth in foster care often describe normalcy as being able to do all the things their friends who are not in foster care get to do: sleep over at a friend’s house, play on a school team, or go on vacation. But foster youth are routinely denied these typical childhood experiences because of the real or perceived need to get advance approval from the child welfare agency or the court.

Youth homelessness is multifaceted, complex, and very different from adult homelessness. A major contributor to youth homelessness nationwide is the failure of the child welfare system to find permanency for all youth in care. Older youth, regardless of age, need and deserve to be connected to a permanent family and support system that both lifts them up and cushions them if they fall.

On April 28, 2016, President Obama signed a proclamation to recognize May as National Foster Care Month. This year, the theme for Foster Care Month is "Honoring, Uniting, and Celebrating Families."