Advocating 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 Caldw...
Still 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 sc...
Protecting 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...
Overuse 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 o...
Cultivating 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...
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 joine...
Advocating 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...
Humanizing 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, Deput...
The 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 Psycholog...
Policing 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 Defende...
Decriminalizing 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,...
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 t...
Decriminalizing 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 Profes...
Defending Sexual Identity Development & Challenging Sexualized Myths about Youth of Color
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 Maheen Kaleem, Deputy Director of Grantmakers for Girls of Color, and Brittany Moble...
Decriminalizing Fashion & Culture for Youth of Color
The April session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series.
For this session, held on Monday, April 25, Prof. Kristin Henning and Ebony Howard, Deputy Director of The Gault Center, was joined by Prof. Andrea L. Dennis, Associate Dean for Faculty D...
Decriminalizing Play & Educating Stakeholders on the Value of Play in Healthy Adolescent Development
In this second session of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning was joined by Prof. Harrison P. Pickney of Clemson University's College of Behavioral, Social, and Health Sciences; and Dr. Rasul Mowatt, Departmen...
In the kickoff of our 2022 Racial Justice Training Series and Book Club, Prof. Kristin Henning was joined by Dr. Laurence Steinberg to discuss adolescent development and race.
This session was built around the Introduction, Molotov Cocktail or Scien...
Reconsidering Decision Making in the Juvenile Court System Through the Lens of our Racial History
On August 12, 2021, NJDC and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges hosted a discussion with noted professors Kristin Henning of Georgetown Law and Geoff Ward of Washington University in St. Louis, about the historical impact of rac...
On March 24, 2021, NJDC and the Mid-Atlantic Juvenile Defender Center hosted a webinar titled FASD & Youth: What Defenders Need to Know.
This video includes information about FASD provided by Dr. Larry Burd. Portions of the webinar addressing defens...
On May 5, 2021, NJDC presented at an Illinois Summit about our report, Due Process in the Time of COVID, available here: https://njdc.info/wp-content/uploads/Due-Process-in-the-Time-of-COVID-19.pdf.
The presentation may be useful to other jurisdicti...
We all want young people to thrive. But referring them to the juvenile court system often gets in the way. Learn how to help youth mature into thriving adults. Check out www.njdc.info/futuresinthebalance.
Video by Next Day Animations (www.nextdayani...
NJDC & Players Coalition team up to protect young people
NJDC is proud to partner with the Players Coalition to eliminate barriers to that prevent young people from accessing their constitutional right to counsel.
Addendum A: Important judicial considerations regarding adolescent development
This is the sixth in a 7-part training video series for juvenile and family court judges on concepts of adolescent development. In this video, Judge Karen Ashby reviews how adolescent development plays into considerations of positive youth developmen...
Addendum B: Applying Adolescent development throughout the case
This is the sixth in a 7-part training video series for juvenile and family court judges on concepts of adolescent development. In this video, Judge Ernestine S. Gray discusses how understanding of the developmental capacities of young people can imp...
Principle 3: Adolescents develop at different rates in social, emotional, physical, and cognitive d
This is the third in a 7-part training video series for juvenile and family court judges on concepts of adolescent development. In this video, Dr. Antoinette Kavanaugh explains the science behind adolescent development and how it impacts youth decisi...
Principle 5: Secure and health relationships promote adolescent success and positive development
This is the fifth in a 7-part training video series for juvenile and family court judges on concepts of adolescent development. In this video, Dr. Antoinette Kavanaugh talks about the things we can do to help young people develop in positive ways.
Principle 4: Adolescents development and learning are profoundly affected by early childhood experi
This is the fourth in a 7-part training video series for juvenile and family court judges on concepts of adolescent development. In this video, Dr. Antoinette Kavanaugh discusses how prior traumatic experiences may influence how young people interact...
Principle 2: Adolescents are less culpable and more capable of reform than adults
This is the second of a 7-part training video series for juvenile and family court judges on concepts of adolescent development. In this video, Judge Ernestine S. Gray discusses how developmental concepts argue against harsher treatment of young peop...
Principle 1: Adolescents are constitutionally different from adults
This is the first in a 7-part training video series for juvenile and family court judges on concepts of adolescent development. This video includes the introduction, followed by Judge Karen Ashby discussing the U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence releva...
"What we know is that when access to justice depends on a child's ability to pay for their own defense, the disparities of class, race, and ethnicity are magnified."
Devin McCourty - Support Youth Access to Counsel - NJDC
New England Patriot Devin McCourty and Players Coalition team up with the National Juvenile Defender Center to raise awareness that far too many young people in juvenile court don't ever get lawyers.
Strategies to Advocate Against the Pretrial of Youth
NJDC Executive Director, Mary Ann Scali and NJDC Gault Fellow, Aneesa Khan, host a webinar on decreasing the pretrial detention of young people in the juvenile justice system. Presenters review juvenile cash bail laws and discuss a national snapshot ...
NJDC's Remarks at Players Coalition Press Conference
On January 30th, 2019, the Players Coalition Charitable Foundation unveiled its 2019 plan to impact racial and social inequality and also announced its 2018-19 support of six national non-profit organizations at a press conference. Players Coalition ...
Fees and Costs of Arizona's Juvenile Justice System
"Not once does the judge or probation officer explain how expensive it's going to be if you plead guilty without an attorney... The probation officer that said, 'it's really expensive to have a lawyer,' neglected to say 'it's really expensive to have...
