Q&A with Youth Law Center’s Jennifer Rodriguez about transforming foster care and juvenile justice systems through youth-led solutions.
For our latest spotlight featuring leaders from our All In for Oakland grantee partners, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jennifer Roriqguez, Executive Director of Youth Law Center (YLC). Since 1978, YLC has been a thought leader in advocacy for children and youth in the nation’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Their movement lawyering in Oakland and Alameda County continues to shape how they approach their work across the country.
Read my interview with Jennifer to learn more about her and YLC’s efforts to uplift youth and transform systems through advocacy and partnerships with movement-based, youth-led organizations.
— Ray Colmenar, President of Akonadi Foundation
Q: What drew you to the Youth Law Center (YLC)?
A: Even though I have been a lawyer at YLC for the last almost seventeen years, and the Executive Director for the last twelve, I actually began my relationship with the organization as a youth organizer. During that time, the lawyers helped me understand how to lawyer effectively by listening carefully to young people, using the law strategically for change, and ensuring that as lawyers, we are accountable to the youth we advocate for. What was most compelling is that the YLC lawyers seemed to approach their work in support of foster care youth and youth in the criminal justice system in the same way they would approach issues for children they loved in their own families and communities. Growing up in the system, I never experienced that care from adults, and so it was truly compelling.
What sealed the deal was also the very first piece of legislation I supported as a youth organizer — the Foster Care Bill of Rights, the first of its kind in the nation. We drafted this bill because there were too many youth with similar experiences like my own, ones in which they were isolated or mistreated. YLC helped us craft this legislation which ended up being successfully passed in California, and then spearheaded similar legislation across the country.
Q: What are the common causes of foster care youth being funneled into the juvenile justice system at disproportionate rates?
A: There are a number of things, but the largest are 1) the foster care and juvenile justice systems do not understand adolescent development and therefore don’t work well with youth. They don’t understand how young people’s previous experiences might impact how they show up and they neglect to encourage healthy development, which at the most basic level requires loving, stable families who can support them and opportunities for youth to access their special gifts and talents. 2) When youth in foster care act like teenagers, we are quick to criminalize them instead of understanding their behavior is a natural part of their growth and adolescence. Our focus should be on fixing foster care, rather than criminalizing youth for reacting to harmful practices and environments.
Q: Youth Law Center has a strong movement lawyering model. Could you tell us more about what movement lawyering is and why it is important?
A: Movement lawyering is about using the law equitably and with integrity. It means that the problems and solutions we work on are informed by those most impacted. It is really about sharing and building power and keeping our ears to the community so that we can continue to advocate for laws that positively impact and reflect their needs.
We collaborate with movement-building organizations like Young Women’s Freedom Center, Ella Baker Center, Urban Peace Movement, California Youth Connection and CURYJ. These groups bring together system-impacted youth to analyze the forces shaping their experiences and learn what is required for change. This collaboration allows us to be precise with our legal tools to help advance their agenda. Movement lawyering paired with movement-building organizations is a force to be reckoned with.
Q: How has YLC’s partnerships with organizing and movement groups helped to push forward your mission to transform foster care and juvenile justice systems? What are some of the benefits and challenges of these partnerships?
In our work in Oakland and Alameda County, it is impossible to approach our advocacy without our partners. They focus on the problems that need fixing and provide real, long-term solutions. Our work in Alameda County and Oakland focuses on dismantling punitive systems that derail the potential of youth, especially Black and brown youth. The challenge is thinking about how to rebuild after dismantling these harmful systems. Movement-building organizations are most equipped to reimagine investing in our youth and approaching efforts through a racial justice lens. From there, we come in with legal research and strategies to turn some of their ideas into policy wins.
One challenge is that youth closest to this work and most deeply impacted are often struggling to keep their heads above water. They need a lot of support, so keeping them in the movement isn’t easy. The health of the community always impacts the strength of the movements. In Alameda County and Oakland, the narrative around young people and criminalization has closed many doors. When they have to move into defense mode, it doesn’t help – and we as lawyers are just the tool, not the builder, and can only do so much to push this work forward without the youth.
Overall, it is powerful to see young people understand that they have power. We love working to ensure the power continues to shift to our young people, changing the trajectory of their lives forever. Oakland is a special place to work because folks here have the vision to reimagine a just world. That has always been Oakland’s history. Oaklanders are dreaming up things that other cities couldn’t even imagine. It really will shape the future of youth all over the world.
Q: Are there any specific projects or initiatives that YLC is leading in Alameda County?
A: In response to youth’s desire to see investment in education, rather than incarceration, we have promoted community colleges for youth as an alternative to detention in Alameda County. Our efforts included advocacy to ensure investment in K-12 and postsecondary education was a key part of Alameda County’s Juvenile Justice Realignment Plan, and ensuring state resources are available to fund Laney College’s Restoring our Communities program that supports systems-impacted youth in accessing community college. We won a $15 million annual state allocation to California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office specifically for youth impacted by juvenile justice, of which Laney College’s incredible Restoring Our Communities program, will receive a $1.5 million grant this year to expand college programming to systems-impacted youth both in and out of detention. It helps support these young people by helping them ensure they have access to benefits, housing, and support with college enrollment. It also encompasses dual enrollment programs so they can take classes within juvenile detention facilities. Providing youth in the juvenile justice system with increased post-secondary education access should both shrink the population in detention (as more youth can use community colleges as the community institution and plan to secure release or diversion), provide an effective intervention that is truly rehabilitative and offers youth a pathway to economic freedom, and divert youth from entering the adult criminal justice system.
Laney College’s Restoring our Communities program also has hired a SB 823 fellow who works closely with youth who enter Alameda County’s juvenile justice system to help them enroll in community college courses and advocate for them to get back home and on track. Many of the students are excelling- building for their future, going on to four-year colleges, like San Francisco State University. We are proud to have played a role in that. Now, we are training student leaders with experience in juvenile justice to lead efforts in their own communities to spread this type of model
Q: YLC developed and implemented the Quality Parenting Initiative (QPI) to promote excellent parenting for all children in the child welfare system. Please tell us why you started the initiative and how it works.
Relationships are crucial for children and youth. QPI is a systems change strategy where we empower people within the community to lead advocacy to change policies and practice in foster care to emphasize the importance of relationships and align with child development research. We have now trained over 500 community advocates, including youth, resource and birth families, agency staff and advocates to lead change to ensure that youth can grow up in families, not institutions .
Q: Could you share any policy wins YLC has recently celebrated? Are there any current policies, programs, or initiatives YLC is leading?
We recently secured a significant win by collaborating with the California Department of Social Services and the Legislature to pass permanent foster care rate reform, even during a challenging budget year. This reform provides $340 million annually to support youth with enrichment, academic, and strength-building activities, including advocacy, sports, dance, and cultural programs. It’s the first policy in the U.S. to include these activities in the foster care rate, and we hope it helps prevent youth from entering the juvenile justice system.
Ahead of the fall election, we’re focused on protecting the voting rights of youth in the juvenile justice system. Without intervention, many voting-eligible youth, primarily youth of color in California’s juvenile facilities, will be unable to exercise their right to vote, impacting both them and their communities.
Since California closed its youth prisons, those serving long-term commitments remain in county facilities, sometimes until age 25. Most facilities are not equipped to ensure these youth can vote. Our advocacy includes analyzing voting access in every county, issuing a report with model policies for probation, developing know-your-rights materials, creating awareness posters that we hope will be posted in every juvenile detention facility in California and shared by community groups, and partnering with the Secretary of State’s office to highlight the civic rights of this group. You can learn more and download our voting rights poster, illustrated by Akonadi’s 2024 Racial Justice Poster project artist Jose “Peps” Garcia, here.
We are also holding facilities accountable for harmful practices like using pepper spray as punishment, denying school or family visits, and failing to provide fresh food.
Q: What call to action do you have for folks to support YLC’s work?
The strength of our work depends on the community feeling like these children are their own. The most important thing they can do is care and step up. If the community saw these young people as their own, there would be a wave of political support for change, making folks receptive to the solutions youth have designed.