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1225 South Weller St, Suite 420
Seattle, WA 98144
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TeamChild is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.
Federal Tax ID# 91-1930194
Reflections on Racial Equity Education Series
Last month TeamChild concluded our 3-part Racial Equity Education Series focusing on racial equity in the juvenile justice system. We launched this series to provide spaces for youth and community partners to tackle many aspects of this topic and to provide learning opportunities. Throughout this project, the young people drove and curated the content, and even facilitated one of the sessions. Thank you to over 500 of you who registered for our series, and a big thanks to our 8 sponsors: Group Health Foundation, Microsoft, Kaiser Permanente, Perkins Coie, Cisco, Baker McKenzie, Columbia Bank and Cairncross & Hempelmann!
In our first session we were able to work with social justice advocate and former Seahawk player, Doug Baldwin, Jr., who has a passion for criminal justice reform. This project was particularly special to us as we got to work alongside Kenan Kenard-Adams and Juwan EveryBodyTalksAbout, who interviewed Doug, based on their own questions, from a juvenile detention facility. Doug, Kenan, and Juwan created a space to discuss their thoughts on the system, and the overall themes that resulted were belonging, love, humanity, meaningful educational opportunities and mutual respect. You can watch the filmed conversation here: Addressing Racial Equity in the Juvenile Justice System.
For Part 2, “Community Solutions to Prevent Incarceration,” The If Project, Reclaiming Our Greatness, The People’s Assembly, TeamChild, and our emcee, Rayneesha, dove into the topic of youth incarceration and some alternative community-driven approaches. This powerful conversation with our partners highlighted the need for community services that reflect the community, meet youth where they are, and provide spaces for youth voice.
Our final topic focused on “Disrupting the School-to-Prison Pipeline.” We featured Spokane’s Every Student Counts Alliance, staff from TeamChild’s King & Spokane offices, Jazzmine (a parent and an advocate for youth), and South King County Discipline Coalition. The group launched into topics about why the school-to-prison pipeline exists and the negative impact of microaggressions and of criminalizing behavior at school. They also discussed the problematic ways in which schools punish students of color and how the pandemic has furthered inequity in schools.
Thank you to our young people that consulted on this educational series! Without the young people’s wisdom, knowledge, and firsthand experience it wouldn’t have been possible to have such rich conversations. Thank you to our partners who were featured in this education series. We are honored to work alongside you in community and are grateful for all your hard work dismantling racist and oppressive systems and being leaders and allies in ending punitive approaches for youth.
An Important Transition at TeamChild
“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
A Message from Annie Lee
Dear Friends,
When Pat Arthur, Simmie Baer and Christie Hedman called me 27 years ago to do education law training for an attorney in a brand new project called TeamChild, I didn’t know it would lead me to quit my legal aid job two years later to join Elizabeth Calvin and Rosey Thurman in launching TeamChild. At that time, we didn’t know what the future held, we just agreed to take those first steps, together. We couldn’t have gone as far or long without tremendous support from leaders in public defense, civil legal aid, and the community throughout our journey. The list is long and growing!
Now, after 24 years with TeamChild, twenty of those as its Executive Director, I’m writing to let you know that I’ll be leaving TeamChild at the end of 2021. Words can’t capture the deep gratitude I have for the opportunity to spend all these years working with and alongside friends and colleagues – a group of tenacious, fearless, brilliant advocates who embrace and embody the idea that young people have dreams that are worth fighting for and justice requires that they be seen and heard.
TeamChild is ready for the next chapter of advocacy for young people in the broader movement for racial equity and youth justice. Our staff are dedicated, passionate and no nonsense when it comes to equity, anti-racism, and justice for young people. They lead with strong, shared values and forge relationships that move our collective practices forward. Our board is energized and committed. Our financial health has never been better, with strong reserves and new revenue already secured for growing our impact. There hasn’t been a better moment to make space for new leadership to guide TeamChild into its next chapter.
For me, I’m ready, too, to leave this dream job and turn to my next chapter, the beginning of which includes taking time to focus on family, reflect deeply on what has been an incredibly fulfilling 24 years at TeamChild, and refuel for the next challenge. There’s no question that I’ll miss TeamChild and the day to day labor of love and respect for each other and the work.
TeamChild was born out of the crisis of the 1990’s when the criminalization of young people, especially youth of color, overfilled county detention centers and state juvenile prisons. Thousands of young people each year were scarred with a “juvenile criminal rap sheet”, encumbered with legal financial debt, and locked out of education and employment opportunities. Over the past 25 years, TeamChild staff have blazed trails and supported transformations – walking alongside young people in individual cases and advocating for broader change across the juvenile legal system. In this work, we’ve been steadfast in rejecting the premise that incarceration and punishment make communities safer. We’ve been ardent advocates for centering and including youth in the decisions that impact them and the trajectory of their lives.
We have come a long way together. We’ve seen a steady, significant reduction in the number of young people who get entangled and incarcerated in the juvenile legal system. We’ve worked with our public defense partners to improve the access to and quality of juvenile defense. We’ve joined with community partners to put an end to open-ended expulsions, expand the ability for 90% of juvenile court referrals to be diverted, increase public investments into community-led approaches, and end the use of youth detention for non-criminal issues. We haven’t always seen the full staircase with each step, but we’ve always been willing to take it.
Our times demand us to come together to take the next bold steps towards racial and youth justice. I know you’ll continue to support TeamChild as we stand with our clients and communities to advance the work we started so many years ago.
TeamChild’s staff and board have been collaborating on the process to recruit TeamChild’s next Executive Director. While my last day isn’t until the end of the year, I will be taking a short summer leave starting July 1st and will return in September through the end of 2021 to support staff and board in these transitions. I look forward to connecting with you in the coming months, so please reach out!
If you have questions or need to reach me over the summer, please contact Reyna Rollolazo, our Community Engagement and Anti-Racism Director, or Sara Zier, Acting Director of Legal Services.
With gratitude,
Annie
A Message from Rosa Peralta
Dear Friends,
I’m writing on behalf of TeamChild’s board of directors to share our gratitude for Annie’s two plus decades stewarding TeamChild’s mission and for her leadership in advancing justice for young people in Washington state and around the country. While it seems nearly impossible to imagine TeamChild without Annie, we know the organization is bigger than any one person and we are excited about its capacity and its potential. Annie is leaving at a time when TeamChild is in an incredibly strong position, with staff and board aligned in our collective vision, a healthy financial position, increasing capacities to represent youth through individual and policy advocacy, and a demonstrated commitment to putting our anti-racism and equity values into practice. We also appreciate the deep and wide support we have from all of you — our community of clients, families, stakeholders, colleagues and supporters– to help us with this transition and in advancing our mission.
Staff and board have begun the process of looking for a new Executive Director. We are working together to define the attributes necessary to lead this organization and to engage a search firm to help us. We’ll keep you posted on our progress and on opportunities to join us in celebrating and honoring Annie’s 20+ years of work at TeamChild.
In solidarity,
Rosa Peralta, Board President
Children Are Not Adults: The Evolving Jurisprudence and Recent Developments in Washington State
Over the last fifteen years, the United States and Washington Supreme Court have recognized that children are different from adults and those differences matter when it comes to sentencing in a criminal matter. In 2017, the WA Supreme Court decided Houston-Sconiers, which held that judges have discretion to go lower than standard adult sentence ranges and must consider youth when sentencing individuals whose crimes were committed when they were under the age of 18. In September 2020, the Supreme Court decided In re PRP of Ali and In re PRP of Domingo-Cornelio that Houston-Sconiers applies retroactively to individuals sentenced prior to the 2017 decision in Houston-Sconiers. Hundreds of incarcerated individuals, who were charged and sentenced as adults when they were juveniles, now have a pathway for their sentences to be reviewed. These cases have been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by King and Pierce County prosecutors, and the petitions for a writ of certiorari are pending.
TeamChild has teamed up with Microsoft Legal for pro bono support in assisting young people who are requesting legal advice about their sentences. On January 21st the Juvenile Rehabilitation (JR) Institutions and Reentry Project team hosted a kick-off educational webinar discussing the history of landmark supreme court decisions that have allowed the justice system to consider youthfulness in sentencing. Attorneys Damian Davis NoOneElse and Gus Voss were joined by Marsha Levick (Juvenile Law Center) and TeamChild Board member Melissa Lee (Seattle University’s Korematsu Center).
In addition to providing an introduction to evolving jurisprudence nationally and locally reflecting adolescent development, the presenters also highlighted the historical racial disparities in prosecuting children in adult court, recent Supreme Court decisions, and new opportunities for resentencing.
The next step in this project will be a technical training on sentencing review where CELA attorneys will learn how to review sentencing orders, transcripts/recordings of sentencing hearings, criminal history, and collateral information to determine the merits for resentencing. Attendees will be prepared for volunteering to do sentence review with support from experienced attorneys.
Thank You, Funding Community, for Covid-19 Support!
The twin pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism have unveiled many cracks and harms of the systems that are supposed to serve youth. TeamChild’s clients have faced increased barriers to education, employment and housing because of this pandemic. COVID-19 has disrupted students’ learning drastically and is only exacerbating education inequity. Distance learning is presenting serious difficulties for youth and families and for marginalized students in particular. Our staff have worked consistently to support young people despite having to shift our work to being completely remote. Our commitment to our mission and values has not waivered even as we’ve felt some uncertainty about the future funding climate.
COVID-19 has impacted TeamChild’s revenue and expenses through cancelled fundraisers and work from home costs, and our budget through an uncertainty in public funding contracts. One thing we have been able to count on in these difficult times is our community of funders to support us. We have been incredibly fortunate to have our funding community rally behind us and support us with COVID-19 relief funds. We have appreciated the low barrier applications, fast funding delivery, and investment in our youth. It means the world to us and we wanted to give a special shoutout and express our gratitude to the following:
- Schools Out Washington
- Washington Department of Commerce
- Paul Glaser Foundation
- Greater Tacoma Community Foundation
- United Way of Pierce County
- Yakima Valley Community Foundation
- Washington State Partnership Council on Juvenile Justice
- F5 Global Good Community Impact Grants program
- Legal Foundation of Washington
The need for more legal services, training, and policy advocacy is essential to supporting young people facing even more barriers due to the pandemics. Especially for our clients who are incarcerated, our work addresses their well-being, safety, and education while in custody and removes barriers to their release and reentry. We appreciate our funding community’s investment in our youth.
Youth Voice and Advocacy
Artwork by [email protected]
Taylor is a young adult who is artistic, a hard worker, a loyal friend, and who has a wonderful, biting sense of humor. She sees clearly how systems should work and doesn’t accept less, advocating and inspiring service providers to do more for her and others. TeamChild worked with Taylor in her early adolescence when she lived with her family and again later when she was in foster care.
TeamChild worked with Taylor on several matters. As she says it, “TeamChild helped me with anything and everything, including with my family, mentally wise, and school changes.” When asked what she feels like we accomplished together, she focused on school. Taylor said, “Because of TeamChild, I got an education. Well, I never fully got an education because of moving around with foster care, but I got as much of an education as I did because of our work. TeamChild helped different doors open.” Taylor is finishing her high school diploma now, and she has promised to show it to the judges she appeared in front of in her dependency foster care case.
When asked what it meant to work with TeamChild, Taylor said, “I gained somebody that wasn’t just another worker. Not a friend, but someone who connected with me more, who made me feel better and safer. Someone who understood more about the problems I had and who went above and beyond to work with me on my terms and find resolutions.”
Taylor would like to see a lot of things change with foster care, juvenile court, and education systems. Mostly she wants people working in any kind of setting to take time to notice more. Taylor mentioned that she still remembers individuals who checked in with her about even the simplest things, like whether she wanted a glass of water while she sat in a state office, waiting for placement, not knowing where she would go that night. Taylor is grateful for legislative changes that stop the use of detention as placement for kids in dependencies who run away. But she really wants to challenge systems and service providers and workers to ask whether they would want their own kids to go through what she and others do and, if not, then don’t accept it for them either.
Your support is critical to upholding the rights of young people like Taylor. Join us in pursuing a vision of power and unconditional belonging for Washington’s youth—a future in which all young people have a voice and can achieve their goals.
TeamChild Partners with Local Legal Aid and Community Organizations for Know Your Rights Webinars
TeamChild has long addressed education access and equity for young people experiencing school discipline, enrollment and reengagement barriers, inadequate special education and related services, and discrimination. COVID-19 has intensified these issues for youth of color, youth with disabilities and youth with financial challenges.
In September, attorneys from our Know Your Rights workgroup collaborated with partner organizations to share information from our Education in the wake of COVID-19 Know Your Rights Manual. If you missed the webinars you can view them, and related resources, using the following links:
South King County Discipline Coalition – Back To School in COVID-19
The next webinar will be presented by The Every Student Counts Alliance, a coalition of parents in the Spokane region seeking to create equitable and inclusive school practices involving education, discipline and safety while amplifying the voices of diverse populations. Attorneys from TeamChild and Northwest Justice Project will present information regarding attendance, grading, special education, discipline, technology, and McKinney-Vento issues during distance learning. Following a short presentation, there will be time for questions and discussions of students’ issues that have arisen with the beginning of the school year. Save the date!
October 2nd, 2:30-4 PM – Back to School in 2020 Know Your Rights. Pre-registration is requested. Register HERE.
See our calendar for additional upcoming training dates.
Institutional Education Task Force
We know from our work with young people across the state, juvenile court involvement does not produce good educational outcomes. The 2017 Washington State Center for Court Research report Students Before and After Juvenile Court Dispositions makes clear that juvenile justice involvement does not improve and in fact worsens the educational outcomes of students.
As one partial response to this long standing problem, in March 2020, the WA state legislature passed a bill (ESHB 2116) establishing a task force on Institutional Education, which means the education provided to youth who are housed in our state prisons, county detention facilities, and other public institutions. Spearheaded by Representative Callan, whose District houses 70-100 youth at the Echo Glen Children’s Center, a state prison run by DCYF/Juvenile Rehabilitation, this task force aims to understand the inequities and gaps in educational services provided to youth who are incarcerated and propose solutions to improve the system of education and the outcomes for youth who are served by it. TeamChild Managing Attorney Karen Pillar is a member of the Task Force, which meets monthly between June and December.
The questions being considered by the Task Force are more than urgent. Alarm bells sounded over a year ago when the Issaquah School District, the District responsible for the education of youth at Echo Glen, indicated that the funding model in place would cut the number of teachers available to teach at Echo Glen by more than 50%. As revealed in an OSPI complaint filed by TeamChild, the 2019/2020 school year proved to be as bad as expected for the students at Echo Glen, even before the stay home orders left all school districts scrambling to address equitable education.
The work of the Task Force and others addressing the educational needs of youth in county and state institutions must entertain and envision a new model for providing education to a wide range of youth, from age 12 to 25, with a variety of learning styles and academic needs who also spend a varying amount of time inside and transitioning out of county detention and state institutions. The work is also urgent for every state and county agency to meet its commitment to equity. Black and brown youth are disproportionately sent to detention and state institutions, exacerbating preexisting education inequities. While TeamChild is at the table to voice our perspective about the educational rights of youth we have represented, we continue to work alongside those in the community to end the use of detention and state prisons for youth.
My Journey to Investments and Partnerships with TeamChild
In 2009, I began my career at Cocoon House, helping youth who were incarcerated find services in the community. What brought me to this work is my personal experience as an “at-risk” youth. I had different touch points with the court system and experienced brief housing instability as a young adult. For me, education was a catalyst to overcoming my circumstances. Due to my lived experience, I felt deeply passionate about helping young people navigate systems that are designed to punish them. As a youth advocate, I spent many work days sitting in courtrooms eagerly awaiting the outcome of my client cases. Inside a courtroom at Denney Juvenile Justice Center is where I first met a TeamChild attorney. I witnessed her unfettered determination to get her clients released from jail and enrolled back in school. I remember thinking how grateful I was to share clients with a TeamChild attorney. I was a social worker and didn’t know the rights of young people or the intricacies of juvenile law. Back then, I had no idea that one day I would be working for TeamChild and this memory would come full circle.
In 2018, after several promotions and program expansions, I left Cocoon House as the Director of Outreach, with a program that tripled in size and doubled its operating budget. I was proud that over the years we were able to create and expand services for young people. It was time to do something different and I took a job at a startup called A Way Home Washington. I was charged with creating a large-scale initiative to end youth homelessness in Washington State by 2022. This work had never been done before in the nation, let alone Washington State. One of the big pieces of my job was to build public will, engage philanthropy, and form local coalitions in Yakima, Spokane, Pierce, and Walla Walla Counties. I found myself completely energized by the external facing work. After two years of doing complicated systems change work, I felt it was time to return to the service provider world. Throughout my career, I had always done resource development and partnership work and wanted a role that solely focused on it.
When I saw the role of Director of Investments and Partnerships open up with TeamChild, I was excited. I poured over the website and knew that I wanted to be a part of reducing incarceration of young people across Washington State. I learned that TeamChild’s strategies included individual legal representation, training, consulting, and policy advocacy. TeamChild has set ambitious targets of drastically cutting school exclusions and youth incarceration across the state, and replacing these punitive approaches with community based strategies. Much progress has been made through law change and advocacy. I saw TeamChild’s values of youth-centered, wholeness, accountability, and anti-racism and knew it was a fit for me. My new role will focus on building relationships with people, connecting them to our mission, and helping them invest in our work. I want to raise enough funds so that we can expand our impact across the state. In this work I want to center the voices of young people, where they have voice, choice, and autonomy in how their stories are told. I also hope to integrate the anti racist principles from the People’s Institute throughout all of the investment work. I’m excited to build the relationships and partnerships that will fuel TeamChild’s incredibly impactful work.
Artwork Created for Pierce County Office
Many of us at TeamChild miss working from, and inviting the community into, our offices!
Last spring TeamChild youth supporter, F.C., created this artwork for our Pierce County office, incorporating visual symbols that were important to each staff member. F.C. is a talented artist, who started college in January with the goal of becoming an architect. He would like to design spaces that serve low income communities to give back to his community.
Thank you, F.C., for your ongoing generosity and for inspiring us with your artwork, passion, and vision! We look forward to visitors being able to stop by and enjoy this artwork in person when we are able to safely re-open our office.
