“Long-term incarceration is not a panacea for safety or treatment. In fact, it can inhibit those very goals.”

TeamChild uses multiple strategies to advocate for youth and system transformation.  A team of TeamChild staff and volunteers fields requests for us to sign onto or write amicus curiae or friend of the court briefs in cases where TeamChild’s expertise and perspective can shed light on an issue that an appellate court is considering. Earlier this year, we filed an amicus brief in State v. B.O.J which raised the question of whether an exceptionally long period of incarceration should be imposed for low level nonviolent offenses to address unmet treatment needs.

When B.O.J. was 17-years-old, she was in foster care, charged with shoplifting (theft 3), and was sentenced to juvenile prison for up to a year. This sentence was significantly harsher than the standard sentence for shoplifting, which could be diverted altogether or resolved through probation in the community or a maximum of 30 days in detention. The trial court based its decision largely on B.O.J.’s history of running from foster care placements and her need for treatment. Unfortunately, B.O.J. was not alone. Around the same time, several cases came up on appeal – including cases from King and Yakima Counties – involving longer-than usual sentences for youth charged with low-level, non-violent offenses.

Travis Stearns with the Washington Appellate Project, who represented B.O.J. on appeal to the Supreme Court, contacted TeamChild. After meeting with Mr. Stearns, as well as the Juvenile Law Center and ACLU-WA, TeamChild agreed to write a brief about alternatives to incarceration based on our research and day-to-day experience advocating for youth. TeamChild works to help young people get out of the criminal court system and back into their communities, with the education, healthcare, and housing stability they need to thrive. To ensure we elevated youth voice, TeamChild partnered with The Mockingbird Society, an advocacy organization that centers youth who have been impacted by foster care and homelessness. Together, we wrote to the Court and highlighted the benefits of community-based strategies in contrast to the risks of harm of incarceration. We further discussed the structural racism and gender bias within the criminal justice system that result in the disproportionate treatment of youth of color in the court system.

The Court ruled that the longer-than usual sentence was an abuse of discretion and concluded “[a] juvenile does not usually pose a serious, and clear danger to society merely because they need treatment.” The Court cited studies that incarceration does not improve outcomes and can be harmful, noting that, “The idea that detention will be a safe placement is belied by years of research. Prolonged incarceration is not a safe housing option. Risks abound for juveniles in detention, including lasting negative impacts on health, recidivism and homelessness… No matter the intention to keep B.O.J. safe, the reality is that incarceration carries heavy risks.”

The studies cited by B.O.J. and amici offer a cautionary tale against imposing lengthy sentences over standard range dispositions with the hope of improving outcomes for juvenile defendants. In a concurrence, Justice González identified the concerns about race and gender bias in this case and opined that such bias casts doubt on the entire ruling.

You can read the Court’s decision here and our brief here. TeamChild is committed to continuing our individual, systemic and policy advocacy to stand with youth.

On May 7th TeamChild supporters gathered at Seattle’s Arctic Club Dome Room for our very first benefit luncheon: Centering Youth, Advancing Justice, where we raised more than $110,000 for TeamChild’s programs.

National best selling author and speaker Debrena Jackson Gandy was our MC for the day. Jakari Brown welcomed the crowd and offered an example of the energy and innovation young people can bring to Seattle’s tech-centered city. TeamChild JR Institutions and Reentry Attorney Damian Davis NoOneElse set the stage for centering youth by sharing some of his own experience as a young person trying to navigate systems that harm young people instead of help them. Dupree Pickett, a member of the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Board highlighted the urgency in responding to young people in need of resources.

TeamChild Executive Director Anne Lee reflected on her more than 20 years of work with the organization and introduced former client Skyla Morris, who illustrated the benefits of working with an attorney to help elevate her own voice in a time of crisis. Seattle’s 2018/19 Youth Poet Laureate Azura Mizan Tyabji closed the event with a beautiful poem, tying together key moments from all the speakers.

Thanks to all of the amazing speakers, our sponsors and supporters. Thanks also to Lisa Bontje Photography for capturing the day

Racism influences the criminal justice, social service, educational and civil/administrative court systems – all of which impact TeamChild’s clients. In 2016 following staff recommendations, TeamChild committed to sending all staff to Undoing Institutional Racism (UIR) training to develop individual and organizational awareness and skill sets around doing anti-racist work. A little over a year ago, staff began receiving UIR training from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond. New staff continue to participate in the training as soon as possible after they join TeamChild. It is an essential training that I am thankful TeamChild is investing in. As part of it, the People’s Institute leads the group in a power analysis, a practice which examines the distribution of power between communities, institutions, and organizations in order to answer the question: “why are people poor?” This is an essential model in order to effectively work with communities as they build their own power.

Since participating in this training, TeamChild staff have been thinking about how to conduct this analysis within communities and looking for opportunities to incorporate community or movement lawyering, where we would focus our legal skills and knowledge toward results that build power within communities. Much of this ongoing discussion has been under the tireless leadership of Community Engagement and Anti-Racism Director Reyna Rollolazo and Staff Attorney Damian Davis NoOneElse, and different offices are engaging in different ways.

In Spokane, I have been empowered to begin a project in which I am reaching out to various community groups to schedule relational meetings where I can listen to the concerns of the groups with regard to local schools. Because my understanding of community lawyering includes not only using our power to support community in various interactions with systems, but also to directly share our legal knowledge and skills, I am also offering these groups education rights trainings based on their interests and concerns. Through this, my goal is that youth, their parents, and their advocates can better understand their rights and what they can do to assert them in schools. I hope that our conversations in these trainings also lead both TeamChild and the community groups to understand better where and how power needs to be enhanced in order for a more equitable education system for the Spokane community.

In the beginning stage of this project, I led a special education training for two groups of parents interested in advocating for their children in local schools. We discussed basic evaluation procedures, due process rights, and effective individualized education program (IEP) writing strategies. The most common feedback I received from both 2-hour trainings is that we needed more time. It is clear that community members desire the knowledge and skills that we as TeamChild attorneys have amassed through our privilege to attend law school and learn from our colleagues. I believe that an essential element of building our communities’ power will be to share it as widely and openly as possible.

Since beginning this project, I have already felt myself falling into old habits of focusing on only the immediate needs of my clients. It is easy to do, as I’m used to reacting to crisis after crisis. To truly build community power and be a part of the systemic change our communities need to be healthy, however, we will have to commit time and resources toward building that community power through listening and through sharing our knowledge and skills.

Board Perspective – 
by Krista Leigh Elliott

For 14 years, I have worked as a public defender in the Juvenile Division of Spokane County. I can receive cases that range anywhere from misdemeanor Disturbing School charges, to First Degree Murder charges.  Ages can range from nine years old to eighteen years old depending on the circumstances. It is a job where I have seen a nine year old bring their teddy bear to court, a twelve year old who has been sexually trafficked, a fourteen year old charged with murder, and of course, seventeen-year-olds charged with Minor in Possession of Alcohol.  It can be trying, but also rewarding.

The Washington State Supreme Court Standards for Indigent Defense require that a public defense attorney receive no more than 250 juvenile offender cases a year. The Supreme Court has also said that children are different from adult offenders, yet the criminal representation of youth has been slow to reflect this sentiment. As a traditional juvenile public defender, we get assigned a case, we investigate the case, we negotiate the case, and we ultimately resolve the case. However, as a holistic juvenile public defender, we strive to help the whole child, including addressing the circumstances that led up to the criminal charges and what the needs of the youth are. In order to effectively represent the “whole child” it is often necessary to work with social workers, mental health and drug and alcohol counselors as well as family members. Unfortunately, a shift to holistic representation has not been fully made yet.  With 250 cases a year, public defenders continue to have to balance the traditional and holistic defender roles with the resources and time available.

In Spokane County, the juvenile public defenders do not have social workers to assist them as some other jurisdictions do and we are limited in the resources available to us.Fortunately, in Spokane County, there is TeamChild. TeamChild treats the whole child and holistically represents youth in the way that traditional juvenile public defenders cannot.   In one specific situation, I represented a youth on a felony property offense whose living situation was, in my opinion, extremely unhealthy for him. He knew he had to find stable and safe housing. While I was working to resolve his criminal matter so that the felony would not hold him back from getting a job, TeamChild worked with him on virtually everything else.  Together, they obtained his birth certificate so he could get a license. They were able to get his benefits paid directly to him and not to his family, where there was conflict.  Also, they advocated strongly for the youth and often provided transportation, which helped him to find housing and become employed.  Partly because of the work that TeamChild did with this young man, who became independent and employed, I was able to resolve this youth’s case in a way that wouldn’t affect his future. Thus, holistic representation. Additionally, the resolution of this youth’s case helped our community, because now this young man is employed and living in a safe residence. His basic needs are met. This significantly reduces the likelihood this young man will struggle in our community and re-enter the court system.

TeamChild advocates for the well-being and positive futures of our youth. But they don’t just do this on an individual basis; they also look at the bigger picture by advocating for legislative reform. TeamChild led in the advocacy for new legislation that would help divert kids out of the criminal justice system by allowing more types of cases to be handled in a diversion program. Now, in Washington State the vast majority of juvenile referrals may be sent to a diversion program. In that program youth have access to more community-based services and the ability to have their records sealed upon completion of that programming. This legislation also significantly reduces the use of incarceration for youth.

 In Spokane County, we are in the beginning stages of sending more juvenile offenses to diversion instead of through the traditional court system.  The Spokane County prosecutors’office must agree to send these cases to diversion even if allowed by the statute, so currently that is something that the public defenders in Spokane and the prosecutors’ office are trying to work their way though.  However, we are seeing cases sent to diversion that would not have been sent before the new legislation.  This is a significant win for our youth and the community. Kids make mistakes.  However, these “mistakes” shouldn’t hold youth back for the rest of their lives.  I love working with the kids, really listening to what they have to say and helping them to have a voice in our criminal system.  It is absolutely the best part of the job. Most of the children that I work with everyday are in crisis and many times the criminal case that I have been assigned to, is only the beginning of what is going on in their lives. They often feel hopeless and unable to do things for themselves due to their age or circumstances.  TeamChild empowers youth by helping them take charge of their own lives, whether it is in their education, the court system,or where they are living.  These are children and they need our help. Fortunately, I see TeamChild help kids every day in my job as a public defender.  The work that they do is invaluable to the youth and to the community and this is why I am now a proud board member of TeamChild. Please consider supporting TeamChild and their mission to remove legal barriers so that young people have the the opportunity to succeed.

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TeamChild Executive Director Anne Lee has been appointed to serve on the Oversight Board of the new Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) for Washington State.

Governor Jay Inslee signed a groundbreaking law in 2017 (House Bill 1661) that moves state funded children’s services, including those provided to youth in the juvenile rehabilitation system, and from the Department of Social and Health Services into the Department of Children, Youth and Families. According to Governor Inslee, this transition, “supports the philosophy in Washington State that all children get an equal opportunity to succeed and that families benefit when services and policies take a preventative approach to problems.”

The Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration will join the new department in July of 2019, so this next year is critical in planning and implementing new strategies to divert youth away from the system as well as better serve youth currently incarcerated and to maximize their success upon reentry to the community.

In her capacity on the Oversight Board, Annie Lee will serve as a Subject Matter Expert in Reducing Disparities in Child Outcomes by Income, Race and Ethnicity.

“We are exploring ways to bring youth and impacted community voice to these conversations and to keep the new department accountable to reform or dismantle existing structures that allow racial disparities and negative outcomes to persist,” says Lee.

The full Oversight Board includes these members:

– Justice Bobbe J. Bridge, Center for Children & Youth Justice
Juvenile Rehabilitation and Justice Subject Matter Expert
– Rep. Ruth Kagi, House of Representatives
Early Learning Subject Matter Expert
– Annie Lee, Team Child
Subject Matter Expert in Reducing Disparities in Child Outcomes by Income, Race and Ethnicity
– Ben de Haan, Partners for our Children
Child Welfare Subject Matter Expert
– Annie Blackledge, Mockingbird Society
Representative of an Organization that Represents the Best Interest of the Child
– Charles Loeffler, Children’s Administration
Child Welfare Caseworker Representative
– Jess Lewis, OSPI
Foster Parent Representative
– Judge Frank Cuthbertson, Pierce County Superior Court
Judicial Representative over Child Welfare Proceedings or Other Children’s Matters
– Kevin Fuhr, Moses Lake Police Chief
Law Enforcement Representative
– Lois Martin, Community Day Center for Children
Early Childhood Program Practitioner Representative
– Wendy Thomas, Kalispel Tribe
Eastern Washington Tribal Representative
– Loni Greninger, Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe
Western Washington Tribal Representative
– Shrounda Selivanoff, Office of Public Defense
Parent Stakeholder Group Representative
– Sydney Forrester, Governor’s Policy Office
Governor’s Office Representative (non-voting)
– Rep. Tana Senn, House Democratic Caucus Legislator
– Rep. Tom Dent, House Republican Caucus Legislator
– Sen. Jeannie Darneille, Senate Democratic Caucus Legislator
– Sen. Steve O’Ban, Senate Republican Caucus Legislator