DHCS Launches Web Page for Medi-Cal for Former Foster Youth

DHCS has launched a web page on Medi-Cal for Former Foster Youth.  This site is a great resource and contains information about receiving Medi-Cal coverage until age 26 regardless of income and instructions on how to apply for the FFY program.    

YLC Honors Unsung Heroes on December 7, 2015

Each year the Youth Law Center recognizes people who have made a difference in the lives of our clients during the past year at its Loren Warboys Unsung Heroes Reception.  This year’s honorees have helped improve the lives of children and youth involved in the nation’s foster care and justice systems.  It is our pleasure […]

YLC Releases Survey/Recommendations on Congregate Care

At the Youth Law Center we are continuing our work to ensure that children and youth who must be removed from home are placed in family settings rather than in congregate care facilities.  We have just released a paper entitled “State Policies on Non-Family Foster Care Settings.”  The paper surveys state policies that restrict congregate care […]

Governor Brown Signs Landmark Child Welfare Bill

YLC celebrates Governor Brown’s signing of AB 403, a landmark bill that will move child welfare and probation away from reliance on unnecessary congregate care placement and towards developing capacity for children to be raised in families! These changes align California policy with child development research that establishes the importance of parenting as the most […]

Governor Brown Signs Juvenile Defender Training Bill

YLC celebrates the signing of AB 703 (Bloom) by Governor Brown, which we co-sponsored with the East Bay Children’s Law Offices.  The legislation recognizes the important role of juvenile defenders and clarifies their ethical duties.  It makes clear that defenders are to represent the minor’s expressed interests, honor the duty of confidentiality with the client, […]

Action Alert on Congregate Care Bill

Tell Governor Brown Children in Foster Care Deserve Families, Not Institutions –Now is the time to urge Governor Jerry Brown to sign AB 403! Children have the right to grow up in a family — in fact, it is a basic developmental need. Every child needs a family who can provide hands-on parenting through love, commitment, […]

Shackling in Transportation; Hobbling Fairness

On August 24, YLC demanded an end to indiscriminate shackling of juveniles being transported to court in Contra Costa County. The County shackles every child, irrespective of their offense. They are paraded down a public street in ankle chains, handcuffs, and waistbelts, under the watch of armed guards. Relatively few of the youth are detained […]

Judge Orders Compliance with Flores Settlement by Oct. 23

United States District Court judge Dolly Gee ordered the Department of Homeland Security and other federal defendants to comply with the Settlement Agreement in Flores v. Lynch by October 23, 2015.  The 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement establishes requirements for the release of minors who have been detained by immigration officials and specifies the types of […]

Judge Rules for Immigrant Children

United States District Court Judge Dolly Gee has ruled that immigrant children who are accompanied by a parent when they are detained by immigration officials are entitled to the protections of the Settlement Agreement in Flores v Johnson.  The judge found the Department of Homeland Security and other defendants in violation of the Settlement Agreement and issued an order for […]

Locked Up and Alone

YLC Staff Attorney Sue Burrell was interviewed for a story appearing in the June 29, 2015  edition of THE CRIME REPORT, “Locked Up and Alone.”  The story explores solitary confinement in juvenile facilities against the backdrop of SB 124 (Leno), currently pending in the California Legislature. Sue and other experts noted the harm caused by […]

Court of Appeal Reverses Disposition for Immigrant Youth

The California Court of Appeal has reversed and remanded a juvenile court disposition that ordered a youth to live with his mother in Honduras after finding that return home was not in his best interest.  The Court of Appeal held that the disposition was an abuse of discretion and noted that it may have been based […]

Collateral Consequences of Juvenile Court

YLC staff attorney Sue Burrell’s article, “Collateral  Consequences of Juvenile Court: Boulders on the Road to Good Outcomes,” appears in a just released book, A New Juvenile Justice System: Total Reform for a Broken System, published by the NYU Press.  Edited by Nancy E. Dowd, with a Foreword by Charles J. Ogletree , Jr., the […]

CECANF Works Toward Development of a National Strategy

The Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities (CECANF), established by the Protect Our Kids Act of 2012 (H.R. 6655 [112th]), is more than a year into its mission to study the current landscape and develop a national strategy and recommendations for reducing fatalities resulting from child abuse and neglect.  The Children’s Bureau Express, which covers […]

CA Supreme Court Finds Youth Incompetent to Stand Trial

On May 18, 2015, the California Supreme Court announced its decision in In re R.V., reversing a lower court decision which had found a 16 year-old Orange County boy competent to stand trial.  R.V. had been arrested after having an emotional, threat laden outburst when his step father asked him to get ready for school. […]

President Obama Names May 2015 National Foster Care Month

Recognizing that “Children are best raised in families, not institutions,” President Barak Obama on April 30th issued a proclamation naming May 2015 as National Foster Care Month.  There are over 400,000 boys and girls in the nation’s foster care system. More than 100,000 of them are waiting to be adopted, and every year, 23,000 young […]

Pepper Spray Use Halted in Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall

On April 20, 2015 YLC celebrated the end of a Santa Clara County Probation Department pilot program to allow the use of pepper spray in one of the units in its juvenile hall.  The pilot was developed in 2014 as a result of labor negotiations between the County and the union representing juvenile hall staff. […]

CDSS Fails to Properly Investigate Group Homes

An investigation by ProPublica has found that the California Department of Social Services fails to swiftly or conclusively investigate hundreds of claims of misconduct and other problems in group homes that house the state’s most troubled children. ProPublica reviewed more than 450 complaint investigations undertaken by the agency between 2009 and 2014 from roughly 50 Level […]

The California Senate Judiciary Committee Approves SB 12

The California Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved  SB 12 on April 14, 2015.  SB 12 is a bill to widen the door on extended foster care to highly vulnerable populations of former foster youth.  Learn more about extended foster care and SB 12 here: Widening Door on Extended Foster Care for Probation Youth – Chronicle of Social […]

YLC Co-Sponsors Bill to Extend Foster Care Benefits

Youth Law Center and the Alliance for Children Rights have co-sponsored SB 12, a bill now before the California Legislature which will  provide a support net to vulnerable former foster youth under the age of 21 who were excluded in prior legislative efforts to extend foster care to youth who require the assistance and protections […]

YLC Reduces Group Care in Florida

YLC is partnering with foster families, foster youth and other advocates to support new Florida legislation, SB, 940, limiting the inappropriate use of congregate care for children in foster care.  Carole Shauffer, YLC Director of Strategic Initiatives testified to the Florida Senate,  “Group care is an intervention, it’s not a place to live.  Group care […]

YLC Challenges Juvenile Court Order Turning Youth Over to ICE

The Youth Law Center has applied for leave to file an amicus brief in a second juvenile case pending in the California Court of Appeal in which the juvenile court ordered the youth turned over to federal immigration officials.   The youth fled Honduras in 2013 to escape gang violence and the threat of gang indoctrination.  […]

YLC Urges Additional Protections for Immigrant Children

YLC and the Center for Children’s Law and Policy (CCLP) have submitted comments on Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) standards for facilities housing unaccompanied immigrant children in federal custody.  Over three dozen individuals and organizations from across the country signed on to the comments. The comments respond to a Department of Health and Human Services […]

Commission on Child Abuse to Hold Open Meeting

The Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities (CECANF), a federal advisory committee established by the Protect Our Kids Act of 2012 (P. L. 112-275), will hold a public meeting in Portland, Oregon on Thursday, February 26, 2015, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Friday, February 27, from 8:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. […]

Jennifer Rodriguez testifies on use of psychiatric meds.

YLC Executive Director Jennifer Rodriguez testified before the California Senate Human Services Committee on February 24th on the key role parenting and loving supportive relationships  play in preventing inappropriate use of psychotropic medications for youth in foster care.  Reforms around use of psychotropic medications for foster youth must include efforts to restrict use of congregate […]

Legislation Seeks to End Juvenile Solitary Confinement

YLC staff attorney Sue Burrell was interviewed by San Diego CityBeat in relation to legislation introduced by Senator Mark Leno (S.B. 124) aimed at reducing the use of solitary confinement in California juvenile facilities.  Sue pointed out that, “When juvenile facilities think about solitary confinement, they think of those little metal rooms, like when you […]

Study Reveals Greater Commitment of Foster Parents

Youth Law Center recently joined with nationally renowned researchers on research that demonstrates that foster parents show greater commitment toward youth than group care providers of all types. The study is important because while this commitment is a critical element of healthy development for youth, adolescents are frequently placed in group care rather than with […]

YLC Supports Legal Rights of Immigrant Youth

The Youth Law Center has applied for leave to file an amicus brief in a juvenile case pending in the California Court of Appeal, in which a youth’s immigration status prevailed over consideration of his rehabilitation and best interest.  The youth was adjudicated delinquent after admitting to possession of a controlled substance.  The probation department […]

Petition Filed to Halt En Masse Detention of Refugee Children

On February 2, 2015, the Youth Law Center along with the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, the law firm of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, La Raza Centro Legal, and the University of Texas School of Law Civil Rights Clinic, filed a motion in in U.S. District Court challenging the Department of Homeland […]