Features

		NEW BOOK: “Making a Connection and a Difference with America’s Youth” features pro bono and public service opportunities around the country for attorneys interested in working with youth. Free Download.

Volunteers Needed for New ABA Teen Mentoring Initiative in Chicago, DC, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, New Orleans and Providence Championing Our Students (COS) is a law-related mentoring program developed by the American Bar Association Division for Public Education that matches teens with legal professionals and law students in five communities. Its primary focus is to help foster young people’s understanding of the role of law in our society, while building skills and attitudes to enable them to succeed in school and life. Mentors communicate online with youth each week and meet once per month for a group event based on a law-related curriculum. Do you or those in your personal and professional networks have a few hours to spare each month to make a difference in the life of a teen? COS is funded by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. For more information or to sign up to be a mentor, please visit www.coslawmentors.org.

• Information on the DVD on Addressing the Needs of Status Offenders and their Families
• National Resource Center for Youth Services
• Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement
• Resources by State
• ABA Policies Concerning Youth
• White Papers, Fact Sheets
• U.S. Dept. of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention
• ABA Division of Public Education
• ABA Center on Children and the Law
• Teen Dating Violence Prevention Kit
• Dialogue on Youth and Justice
• Childrens Budget

The American Bar Association Section of Litigation, Young Lawyers Division, and Youth at Risk Commission presents a FREE on-line Audio Teleconference on Fostering Connection to Success Act: Moving from Act to Action

The Fostering Connections to Success Act, H.R. 6893, was signed into law on October 7, 2008 and will become effective over the course of the next two fiscal years. The Act puts into place some of the most sweeping federal foster care reforms in over a decade. This program will examine the sections of the Act that will impact the work of judges and lawyers for children. The new law will open the door to federal support for youth through the age of 21, ending the trend, in many states, to push youth out of foster care at the ill-prepared age of 18. Other provisions from the Act that will be outlined and discussed in this teleconference include the ability to:

• Find, approve, and support relative caregivers
• Increase efforts to preserve sibling ties
• Mandate coordination and improved oversight of education and health needs
• Encourage adoptions
• Provide federal assistance and protection to native American and Alaskan native children
• Preserve educational stability and enhance education support
• Support the training of lawyers and judges

Our Expert Faculty

• Howard Davidson, Director, ABA Center on Children and the Law, Washington, DC
• Marisol Garcia, Solo Practitioner, Law Office of Marisol Garcia, Lowell, MA
• Honorable Michael Nash, Presiding Judge, Los Angeles Juvenile Court, Los Angeles, CA
• Jenny Weisz (Moderator), Tuff University, Department of Child Development and Urban Policy Newton, MA

• Op-eds
• ABA Supports Assistance for Military Families
• Aging Out of Foster Care