Improving the Odds: Helping Lawyers Help Youth

Truancy cases processed in juvenile court increased nearly 70 percent between 1995 and 2004, and made up the largest proportion of the petitioned status offense caseloads—violations only for individuals who are juveniles, such as underage drinking—for all but American Indian and Alaska Native youth. Because the young people involved in these cases are not in school or at work, they are at significant risk of using or selling drugs, belonging to a gang, running away and committing a major theft or serious assault, among other problem behaviors.

Hard economic times can contribute to increased truancy for youth—for example, there are fewer resources for schools to track students and connect them to supportive resources, many parents take on more than one job and rely on an older sibling for child care and many caregivers lack affordable transportation to take their children to school.

Toward a remedy, the Obama administration has pledged to address the dropout crisis by investing in intervention strategies. One of the best interventions is connecting at-risk youth with legal advocates, which better the odds for youth to stay in or return to school.

The ABA Commission on Youth at Risk agrees with the intervention, believing that lawyers have unique skills to play an early and influential role as partner with the educational system to increase the likelihood of graduation.

A commission-sponsored program, “Building a Bridge to Keeping Youth in School: Connecting Education and Advocacy,” will explore how the legal community and public schools can work together in aiding at-risk students, in addressing disciplinary issues and in studying dropout policies and practices.

The panel will include experts who can speak to the barriers—and offer solutions—to lawyers becoming involved through pro bono or other advocacy work on behalf of at-risk youth, or who are already working with schools and students but who want to improve the relationship and advocacy.

The program will be held in the Hynes Convention Center, Room 309, Level 3, from 10 a.m. to noon on Feb. 13.

In addition to the Commission on Youth at Risk, the program is co-sponsored by the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities and Commission on Homelessness and Poverty.