Enhancing Educational Stability for Systems Impacted Youth

Support for foster and systems-impacted youth

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Systems impacted youth include youth in foster care, the juvenile delinquency system, students subject to exclusionary discipline, and youth at risk of restrictive placement (group homes, residential placements, detention, hospitalization). While systems impacted youth experience staggering disparities in educational outcomes, the likelihood for positive educational outcomes declines further for systems impacted youth that have special education needs. Negative outcomes are often the result of educational instability including frequently changing schools, inability to access appropriate assessments, placement in overly restrictive educational environments, and/or inappropriate school placement. Educational instability directly correlates to lower rates of graduation, negative mental health outcomes, and social and emotional developmental delays. As such, advocating for appropriate educational needs is critical to improving positive life outcomes for systems impacted youth.

This program is an expansion of Community Lawyer’s Inc.’s (CLI) existing special education legal clinics, enhanced to serve systems impacted youth specifically by increasing dedicated staff and seeking CLI’s admission to the LA Superior Court Juvenile Division panel. Currently, CLI offers limited special education legal clinics led by pro bono attorneys and the organization’s Executive Director who is a practicing children’s rights attorney. Legal clinics provide counsel, advice, and representation in matters relating to the educational rights of children with disabilities and their caregivers. As a result of capacity limits, CLI’s staff serve less than 8 special education clients annually despite the organization’s expertise in this area of law.
Program expansion will allow CLI to increase the number of clients served more than threefold by hiring a specialized attorney, increasing existing staffing allocations to conduct specialized program outreach to nonprofits, juvenile public defenders, and legal aid organizations, and seek panel admission on the LA Superior Court for the newly hired attorney.
Importantly, this program is both scalable and sustainable. As a result of the Federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), when a client prevails in their legal issue with a school district, the district is responsible for paying the plaintiff’s attorney fees. This means that within one year of program expansion, CLI will be able to fully self-sustain the program.

This program increases the number of legal service resources for systems impacted youth with special education needs and supports improving educational and life outcomes for systems impacted youth. For clients, success means improved educational and life outcomes, which will in turn result in decreased monitoring by and participation within County systems. As such the program will also contribute to alleviation of strain on County entities including the Department of Children and Family Services and Probation Department. When CLI receives LA Superior Court panel admission, this will increase the number of qualified attorneys able to represent systems impacted youth. Additional resources for systems impacted youth will directly benefit both clients participating in the program and County systems by decreasing the burden on an overworked and imperfect County social service and carceral system which often contributes to the deterioration of quality of life for systems impacted youth.

Success is measured by achieving successful outcomes for clients’ legal issues and by evaluating client feedback. Authentic relationships with clients are key to achieving impact and feedback is sought throughout service provision. Clients are also informed of anonymous feedback forms available. CLI’s limited special education law program has achieved strong client outcomes. Recently, CLI assisted a special education youth client with a traumatic brain injury that had experienced homelessness. For more than a year, the school district did not provide adequate learning services. With CLI’s assistance, the client was able to move to a new school to receive appropriate learning services for their orthopedic and speech impairments. CLI also recently assisted two siblings, a six year old with autism and a 14 year old with severe dyslexia, obtain settlements from LAUSD in order to receive specialized educational placement and compensatory services for their individual educational needs.