Revolutionizing Probation: From Punishment to Community-Led Safety, Part I, Webinar
On March 26, 2026, the Gault Center & Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout (YEAH Philly) hosted a webinar on Revolutionizing Probation from Punishment to Community-Led Safety. This webinar focused on shifting narratives around juvenile probation—to challenge the dominant rhetoric that probation is an act of benevolence that keeps youth and communities safe and to bring…
Read MoreThe Innocence Project: DNA Exonerations in the United States
A Conversation with Norma Wong: The Superpower of Youth Defenders to Build Toward an Interdependently Thriving Humanity
Gault Center Website: Trial Manual
Gault Center Website: Immigration
Gault Center Website: Transgender, Nonbinary, and Gender Diverse Youth
Gault Center Website: Youth with Disabilities
Let’s Talk About You
This resource from Lambda Legal and the American Bar Association Children’s Rights Litigation Committee gives attorneys an overview on how to approach client interviewing and relationship building in a respectful and trauma-informed way. The page discusses the importance of identity for young people’s well being and on their legal cases. It also reviews basic interview…
Read MoreTrump’s Youth Justice Agenda Will Make Us Less Safe
Former Secretary of the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services, Vinny Schiraldi, wrote this op-ed, discussing President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in Washington D.C. and the District’s intentions to repeal lower the age for trying children as adults to 12 in the Youth Rehabilitation Act. The op-ed details Vinny’s reflections and observations during his…
Read MoreTalking About Young People in a Time of Manufactured Controversy
This article featured on the Frameworks Institute website offers research-based communication strategies for combating the manufactured controversy of a “crime emergency” caused by adolescents in Washington D.C. The article provides a topline nonpartisan message for responding to the relentless, toxic messaging around adolescent crime and outlines five framing recommendations for discussing the harmful policies being…
Read MoreOpinion: Trump is stoking fears about D.C.’s crime but the city is safer than it’s been in decades.
Georgetown University Law Center Associate Professor Eduardo Ferrer penned this op-Ed on regarding the narrative that there is a “rise” in violent crime in D.C. This narrative is being used to justify regressive tough-on-crime policies that do not improve public safety. Professor Ferrer discusses the perception versus the reality of crime statistics and data, including…
Read MoreChallenging the Status Quo: Mobilizing Youth Defense Teams to Uphold Youth Rights & Uproot Injustice
This Racial Justice Webinar was hosted by the Gault Center and Georgetown Law’s Juvenile Justice Clinic & Initiative on May 29, 2024. The webinar focused on a collective call to action for the youth defense community to transform the juvenile legal system by centering youth and their constitutional rights to freedom, liberty, and equality. This…
Read MoreAdvocating for Play, Recreation & Leisure as Essential to Adolescent Development & Youth Defense
In this session of our 2023 Racial Justice Training Series, Prof. Kristin Henning, Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law, and Mary Ann Scali, Executive Director of The Gault Center, will be joined by Dr. Linda Caldwell, Emeritus Distinguished Professor in the Dept. of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management at The…
Read MoreStill Separate & Unequal: Evaluating the Legacy of Brown
In this webinar from May 17, 2023, the Gault Center kicked off the 70th year of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Nearly 70 years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled unanimously that racial segregation in public schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment. Specifically, the Court acknowledged that separating children…
Read MoreOveruse of Psychiatric Medication in the Juvenile Legal & Child Welfare Systems
A webinar from April 10, 2023 with Dr. Martin Irwin, MD, Clinical Professor at the NYU School of Medicine, Department of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Multiple studies have concluded that children in the juvenile legal system or foster care, many of whom are victims of abuse and trauma, are prescribed psychiatric medication at a rate…
Read MoreProtecting Youth Wellbeing: The Intersection of Systemic Racism & Overmedication in Juvenile Court
Webinar provided by the Gault Center on April 25, 2023. This training provided an historical overview on the racialized use of medicine, provider bias, and cultural mistrust, followed by a discussion on practical tools youth defenders can utilize to litigate against medication conditions and/or misdiagnoses of youth in the juvenile legal system. This training built…
Read MoreCultivating Caring Communities in Schools: Tools for Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline
School-based arrests have long made up a substantial number of cases in the juvenile legal system. This is particularly true for Black, Native/Indigenous, and Latino students; immigrant students, students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ students, and other historically marginalized students. Despite significant decreases in the rate of serious crimes and violence on school campuses over the past…
Read MoreAdvocating for Children & Families in the Era of Mass Incarceration
In this session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning and Mary Ann Scali, Executive Director of the Gault Center, were joined by Jeannette Bocanegra, Executive Director of Justice for Families (J4F), and Prof. Dorothy Roberts, George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology and Raymond Pace &…
Read MorePromoting Adolescent Resilience, Storytelling, & Reform
In this final session of our 2022-2023 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning, Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic & Initiative at Georgetown Law, and Mary Ann Scali, Executive Director of the Gault Center, were joined by Clarence Ford, Social Justice and Wellbeing Advisor at the W. Haywood Burns Institute; Prof.…
Read MoreThe Traumatic Impact of Policing on Youth Health & Wellbeing
In this session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning and Mary Ann Scali were joined by Dr. Juan Del Toro, researcher in applied developmental psychology and Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities; Dr. Tiffani J. Johnson, Assistant Professor in the…
Read MoreHumanizing Youth of Color & Challenging Adultification, Transfer, & Severe Sentences
In this session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning and Mary Ann Scali were joined by Eric Campbell, formerly incarcerated founder of Some People Understand Differently (SPUD), Inc.; Carmen Daugherty, Deputy Executive Director of Advancement Project; and Kristen Rome, Co-Executive Director of Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights. This…
Read MorePolicing by Proxy: Shifting the Public Narrative about Black & Brown Youth
In this session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning and Ebony Howard, Deputy Director of The Gault Center, were joined by Thomas J. Bahr, Deputy Public Defender at the Office of the San Diego Public Defender, who will discuss the California case In re Edgerrin J.; Dr. Noël…
Read MoreClosing the School to Prison Pipeline
In this session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, held on August 31, 2022, Prof. Kristin Henning and Ebony Howard, Deputy Director of The Gault Center, were joined by Harold Jordan, Nationwide Education Equity Coordinator at the ACLU of Pennsylvania; Reyna Rollolazo, Community Engagement and Anti-Racism Director at TeamChild; and Amir…
Read MoreDecriminalizing Adolescent Speech & Contempt of Cop
In this session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning and Mary Ann Scali, Executive Director of The Gault Center, were joined by Dr. Shameka Stanford, Juvenile Speech-Language Pathologist; and Duci Goncalves, Deputy Chief Counsel of the Youth Advocacy Division at Massachusetts’ Committee for Public Counsel Services. This session…
Read MoreDecriminalizing Race Pride, Free Speech, & Adolescent Identity Development
For the July session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series, Prof. Kristin Henning and Mary Ann Scali were joined by Dr. Kristia Wantchekon, Secondary Lecturer of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and incoming Assistant Professor of Psychology at Georgetown University, and Orlando Johnson, Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center at Howard University…
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