TeamChild’s Indigent Defense Project: Improving Legal Representation for Youth
Jul 17, 2009, Washington Models for Change
The defense attorney plays a key role impacting the outcome of a youth’s court experience. The better trained an attorney is in juvenile proceedings, the stronger an advocate he or she will be for the youth. To ensure fundamental fairness and improved outcomes for justice-involved youth, TeamChild, a state partner in Washington Models for Change, has made progressive strides and shown great promise in its efforts to facilitate statewide training, collaboration and leadership for attorneys who represent indigent youth in juvenile offender matters. TeamChild also helps coordinate the the Juvenile Indigent Defense Action Network activities in Washington state.
TeamChild is a statewide organization that addresses some of the underlying causes of juvenile delinquency by advocating for education, mental and medical health services, safe living situations and other supports. It is committed to partnerships with juvenile defense to provide holistic advocacy to youth.
TeamChild established the juvenile indigent defense project as part of the MacArthur Foundation’s Models for Change initiative. The project has set its goals to assess and develop a sustainable model of technical assistance, training and support for juvenile indigent defenders; conceptualize and develop a comprehensive training curriculum for juvenile defense attorneys in Washington; and create a network of juvenile indigent defense leaders who are proactive in juvenile justice reform efforts. The pursuit of these goals will address the recommendations of the 2003 National Juvenile Defender Center Study, Washington: an Assessment of Access to Counsel and Quality of Representation in Juvenile Offender Matters to provide more assistance and resources for juvenile defense attorneys to manage their cases.
During the first year of the Models for Change grant, TeamChild’s Special Counsel, George Yeannakis, collected and analyzed model juvenile defense training curricula from within the state and across the country to create a comprehensive training curriculum for Washington's juvenile defense bar. In addition to field testing training modules on adolescent brain development, school searches and discipline, initial appearance advocacy, interviewing youth, and juvenile mental health issues, TeamChild surveyed juvenile defenders across the state on their needs for training and technical assistance. To date, this outreach has generated hundreds of technical assistance requests from juvenile indigent defenders. Information gathered from these surveys and calls will help form a recommendation for a sustainable technical assistance model that can be paired with regular and comprehensive training to address the unique needs of Washington's juvenile defense system.
The Washington state juvenile justice system has a varied delivery system for providing defense attorneys. Juvenile defense may be delivered by a county agency, a non-profit organization or private attorneys who are contracted to do the work. According to Yeannakis, most counties in Washington are served by private, contract attorneys who are in solo or small practices and lack a network of supervision, mentoring and support for their juvenile defense cases.
"TeamChild attorneys are partnering with juvenile defense attorneys to provide a holistic approach to support for the child," said Yeannakis. "Together, they can identify better alternatives that address the real issues facing the youth and their families, such as issues associated with poverty, healthcare, education, substance abuse and addiction or mental health issues."
TeamChild’s Executive Director, Anne Lee, said, "For the majority of people coming into juvenile court, this is their first contact with the justice system. Children and their families rely on defense attorneys to explain the process, analyze the case, and provide advice and counsel about the options." She added that the confidential relationship between a defender and a juvenile client is traditional, but it is unique in that the juvenile defender needs the skills to build rapport with the youth, understand the home and family dynamics, and develop a defense that includes both disposition and post-disposition considerations for helping youth get back on track in the community.
Lee said the juvenile defender's role and skills are even more important given the overlay of adolescent development issues and the prevalence of health and mental health disabilities in the population of youth touching the juvenile justice system. For example, a defense attorney might advocate for a juvenile offender to remain in the community to receive appropriate services, such as drug treatment or mental health care, as opposed to incarceration in a locked state-run facility.
So from the defender’s perspective, how much does being well-trained in juvenile justice defense impact the outcomes for youth? According to attorney Thomas J. Wolfstone, plenty. Wolfstone is a contract public defender in predominantly rural Grant County which is agriculture-based and has a population of nearly 85,000. He said the technical assistance he receives definitely has a positive impact on how he conducts his work on behalf of youth.
"This support is invaluable. If we attorneys didn’t have it, it would affect the quality of our representation." Wolfstone has been working on juvenile offender cases since the 1980s.
"I don’t care how many years you have worked in the field, it’s good to have people to bounce things off of." He said the training made available through the TeamChild program and other partners is also good from the standpoint that it helps facilitate Continuing Legal Education requirements, which is especially beneficial to attorneys who have less experience. TeamChild has conducted several juvenile issues trainings in the past year: three regional trainings and one state wide training in cooperation with the Washington Defender Association, the Washington State Office of Public Defense, and the state bar's Juvenile Law Section. Yeannakis said the project tries to encourage attorneys who are already doing juvenile defense work to provide technical support for defenders statewide.
"When we provide technical assistance or answer a question, we link the attorney to a resource or develop that attorney into a resource for other attorneys," said Yeannakis. "This creates an informed network of professional contacts that will continue to grow."
Lee said people who are not involved in the juvenile justice system often misunderstand or underestimate the role and responsibility of the defense attorney. "The biggest thing at stake is the child’s liberty. If you haven’t been in such a situation, it’s hard to put yourself in the shoes of a young person who’s been accused of a crime, but it’s very scary and can follow a child the rest of his life.
"Having a lawyer who is a loyal, competent advocate is one of the most valuable things," said Lee. "We think the system-wide work of our Models for Change project will provide more meaningful, sustained support for defenders in the state and ensure that Washington’s justice-involved youth receive fair and effective support through their court experience."
- Issues
-
Juvenile indigent defense
- States
-
Washington
- Action networks
-
Indigent Defense Action Network