b. Please select the most relevant subject area classification for your project. Children/Youth

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1 Fellow Name: Katherine Walker Host Organization: National Center for Youth Law Project Description: a. Provide a compelling one- sentence description of your proposed project project and target population: Reduce the sexual exploitation of girls in Alameda County by providing mental health and support services through direct representation, community collaboration and the creation of a Girls Court. b. Please select the most relevant subject area classification for your project. Children/Youth c. Executive summary Briefly summarize the need that you are proposing to address, the strategies that you intend to employ and the major outcomes anticipated. Despite community and local government efforts, the number of children who are commercially sexually exploited in Alameda County is growing. Most victims are young girls that have run away, many from foster care. This project will link victims of child sexual exploitation to mental health care and community supports in Alameda County to get them out of detention and into safe placements. As part of my project, I will provide direct representation in matters involving Medicaid, special education, and child welfare. I will add an anti- trafficking component to the existing Juvenile Mental Health Court by recruiting sexual exploitation advocates as full partners in the court. As the project progresses, I will work with local agencies and community advocates to develop a Girls Court modeled on the JMHC s multi- disciplinary, collaborative approach. By linking victims of child exploitation to services and supports, fewer girls will be detained and return to life on the streets. d. Statement of need Describe the need and community to be served by the proposed project. Factors which affect the degree of "need" include: the timeliness or potential impact of the issue, the number of people affected, the size and nature of the geographic area or the lack of legal assistance available. On any given night, between 100,000 and 300,000 children are on America s streets being sold for sex. Despite the passage of key pieces of legislation over the past decade, including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the commercial sexual exploitation of children is growing. In Oakland, (Alameda County) California, one of two major hubs in the U.S. for child prostitution, arrests of minors for soliciting nearly tripled from 2008 to Many attribute the growing problem to drug dealers who have found a more lucrative, less risky trade: sex trafficking of young girls whose average age is 15. A child prostitute can earn a pimp as much as $500 a day with little risk of prosecution because young girls are easily coerced both physically and psychologically. Most victims are runaways, and almost half come from foster care group homes. Many have been exposed to trauma such as rape, physical abuse, and domestic violence. Their sexual exploitation adds to their trauma, and contributes to a very high incidence of mental health disorders. Alameda County has advocates and partnerships that are combating the sexual exploitation of children. The District Attorney s office, for instance, seeks to ensure that these young girls are treated as victims instead of criminals, and the Oakland Police Child Exploitation Unit is trained to work with young victims, provide assessments, and offer them an advocate. Despite these efforts, there are substantial gaps in supports and services for sexually exploited girls. A key concern is the multiple needs of exploited youth, including mental and physical health care, alcohol and drug abuse treatment, education, basic subsistence needs and personal safety. Complicating their plight is the dual jurisdiction of California s juvenile courts: one for dependent and one for delinquent children. Many sexually exploited girls are involved with both. There is an

2 opportunity to meet the multiple, serious needs of exploited girls using Alameda County s Collaborative Court model. Presently, the Court uses an individualized, problem- solving approach to provide holistic services to juvenile justice- involved youth with serious mental health needs including sexually exploited minors. Alameda County s commitment to help this population and the presence of dedicated community advocates provide the platform to create a collaborative solution to significantly reduce the exploitation and harm currently taking place on Alameda County s streets. e. Activities to meet the need and anticipated outcomes Describe the planned project activities to address the need described above, including a brief statement of the specific goals of the Fellowship project and the sustainable impact it will have beyond the Fellowship term. On a two- year timeline, list major milestones that will be accomplished by the Fellow, in six- month increments, in order to achieve the overall project goals. My project will improve access to mental health and community support services for sexually exploited girls. By meeting the individual needs of victims, diversion from detention efforts will be more effective, and fewer girls will recidivate back to the streets. Specific goals for the project: Improve access to mental health and community supports by providing individual advocacy on cases. Develop a system that refers commercially sexually exploited children (CSEC) to the Juvenile Mental Health Court (JMHC) in Alameda County and eventually to the Girls Court. Encourage CSEC community advocates, and youth shelters to participate in the JMHC. Recruit and train legal advocates on securing adequate care through entitlements to mental health care and community support services. Collaborate with the presiding judge of the juvenile court, the DA s office, probation and child welfare services, public defenders, and community advocates to create a Girls Court. Reduce sexual exploitation of young girls in Alameda County, and develop a successful model that can be replicated elsewhere. These goals will be achieved in three phases. First, I will provide direct representation to sexually exploited minors participating in the JMHC on unmet mental health and related needs. This will involve representing youth in matters involving Medicaid, special education, and child welfare. This phase will include developing additional and stronger ties to CSEC advocates. Second, I will design a CSEC component within the existing JMHC to expand the number of girls that can be served and increase the legal and community resources available to them. Activities will include outreach, education, and coordination of legal and community advocates. In phase three, I will partner with the juvenile court, the DA s office, and community and legal advocates to initiate a Girls Court that specifically addresses the holistic needs of Alameda County s CSEC population. This phase includes developing practices and procedures necessary for the identification, referral, acceptance, treatment, graduation, and transition of Girls Court participants. Timeline: Months 1-6: Develop more knowledge of substantive law regarding legal entitlements under Medi- Cal, special education, and child welfare. Build/Strengthen relationships with CSEC community and government agencies. Reinforce existing relationships with JMHC collaborators. Begin direct representation of 3-5 girls. Months 7-12: Train JMHC on CSEC issues. Broaden the JMHC s multidisciplinary team model to include participants from CSEC community organizations and shelters. Expand direct representation to 10 more girls. Months 13-18: Work with JPG Consultants, Orange County s Girls Court and others on a design proposal for Girls Court. Develop protocols, eligibility criteria and a referral process for court. Identify additional stakeholders and partners to promote and support the Girls Court. Outreach to media on the Girls Court. Continue direct representation, and add additional cases.

3 Months 19-24: Finalize the design and Rollout plan. Conduct outreach/educational trainings for probation staff, OPD, and community organizations on the Girls Court. Initiate the Girls Court calendar. Wrap up individual advocacy. f. Collaboration and distinguishable services Describe how you will collaborate with other legal and/or non- legal service providers in the community. If there are services that are currently provided to meet the need in your target community, please describe how the proposed project is distinguishable from or complementary to those existing services. Also describe how the work of the project is distinct from that of a general staff attorney or any previous Fellow at the host organization, but supportive of the organization's mission. For example, a project might take a new approach to addressing an issue affecting the organization's target population or replicate a model that has proven successful in another community. Many organizations are working with sexually exploited girls to provide services and support in Alameda County. They include government agencies such as the AG s office, police departments, probation, the public defender s office and the juvenile courts; NGOs such as Bay Area Women Against Rape, West Coast Children s Clinic, youth shelters; and legal advocates including domestic violence groups, dependency attorneys, and Bay Area Legal Aid. My project s contribution is to engage the CSEC groups with the JMHC collaborators in order to expand the universe of resources and options available to sexually exploited girls involved with the JMHC. Once we work through several individual cases, I will organize efforts to institutionalize the involvement of CSEC partners so they may regularly participate in intake, acceptance, case management and transitions to the community. CSEC partners will develop ownership of the process, which is critical to initiating a Girls Court modeled on Alameda s JMHC. In providing direct services, I will collaborate with the public defender, probation, and mental health clinicians to identify unmet mental health and related needs and represent children to secure adequate care. I will also assess other legal needs including housing, education, foster care and reproductive health and provide representation or make referrals to other advocates as appropriate. My direct advocacy of CSEC partners clients will encourage their participation in the JMHC. My expertise on mental health entitlements under Medicaid, special education, and child welfare laws is a particularly valuable partnership contribution because it is an area of law that is both crucial and not well understood. As the project progresses, I will enlist the expertise of the presiding judge of the Orange County Girls Court, as well as local CSEC partners to develop a proposal for a collaborative Girls Court in Alameda County. Based on my collaboration with clinicians, probation, the juvenile court, and other CSEC partners, we will establish eligibility criteria, assessment and referral protocols, case management strategies, and transitional supports for the girls who participate. I will also develop materials for probation, judicial officers, and community advocates to identify sexually exploited girls to participate in the Girls Court. Although past EJW fellows at NCYL have worked successfully on creating and developing California s JMHCs, my project extends well beyond their efforts. My focus is on providing services and improving outcomes for a particularly challenging population of girls with unmet mental health needs who are typically involved with the delinquency and dependency systems. My project involves new collaborators, different legal challenges, and a goal of reproducing the JMHC model for the benefit of sexually exploited girls in Alameda County and elsewhere. My project is distinct from any NCYL attorney s role in that I will be developing a new area of concentration for the organization. That said, sexually exploited girls are a natural extension of NCYL s work because addressing their needs involves law and policy at the intersection of NCYL s core substantive areas: mental health, juvenile justice, foster care and reproductive health. g. Potential sponsor involvement Nearly all Equal Justice Works sponsors (law firms, corporations, individuals, bar associations and foundations that provide funding for Fellowships) are interested in being involved in the Fellowships they fund. Equal Justice Works would like to learn how Fellows could potentially involve sponsors in their projects. In 3-5 sentences, please describe how your project can involve a sponsor (i.e. pro bono attorney involvement, administrative support, inviting sponsor to events, media for sponsor, etc.).

4 This project is well suited for pro bono involvement through direct representation or co- counseling on legal matters involving sexually exploited children. Of particular interest, will be the opportunity to represent youth in special education cases. Also, there may be opportunities to represent clients in administrative hearings on Medicaid or SSI, or court hearings on restraining orders and landlord- tenant matters. In addition, in the event that my individual advocacy leads to broader reform litigation, the sponsor would have the opportunity to co- counsel with NCYL on the resulting lawsuit. Finally, because my project involves the creation of a new specialty court in Alameda County, there should be significant Bay area and statewide media opportunities to publicize the sponsor s support of the court s and the legal profession s efforts to aide tragically disadvantaged youth and to improve public safety. a. Personal Statement Briefly describe, in the first person, your connection to the community with whom you will work. Describe how your personal background, experiences, and/or unique qualifications best suit you for this Fellowship project. Consider describing a personal or professional challenge that you've faced in the past five years and how you overcame that challenge. During my junior year of high school, one of my best friends, a boy with whom I grew up, killed himself. When my mom told me the news, I remember yelling and rushing from the house. I was beside myself, and could barely believe it was real. My downward spiral began and accelerated quickly. A month passed, I was still distraught and had withdrawn from my family. My parents told me that I had to talk with someone to deal with my grief and sadness. I stubbornly refused. At seventeen, furious, confused, and extremely sad I thought I could deal with things on my own. Fortunately, my parents persisted, and I eventually agreed to see a counselor. I remember spending the first two sessions sobbing. Although I did not want to admit it, I had internalized my anger and sadness. I had been blinded by my depression and the belief that I was coping. I learned firsthand how powerful and debilitating the emotional response to trauma can be and how one might withdraw and be isolated by the experience. I have always believed that my friend could have chosen to continue his life, had he received help from professionals as he coped with life issues. When I began my work at the Alliance for Children s Rights (ACR), I quickly learned that most foster children have experienced trauma. I realized that many of my clients did not feel comfortable expressing their feelings and weren t even aware of it much like me in my anger and isolation. I also discovered that when children act out or shut down in response to trauma or other unmet mental health needs, they are often punished instead of being comforted or provided mental health care. I was given a chance to deal with my trauma because my parents provided me the guidance I needed to get help; but, through no fault of their own, foster children are rarely shown such empathy and support. I have recognized a deep compassion within myself for children who struggle to deal with tragic and painful events beyond their control, and cannot get the care they need to cope. My work with foster children continued at the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL). At NCYL I advocated on behalf of thousands of foster children throughout California for adequate mental health treatment that, while desperately needed and legally required, is often denied. I learned about Medi- Cal entitlements and identified the barriers foster children face in attempting to access services. I also developed greater appreciation for the importance of individual representation because each child has unique needs, and also the benefits of identifying and remedying systemic problems. My project echoes back to my teenager struggles with the pain caused by the death of one of my closest friends, and builds on my work since then for children in need of mental health care. My project will enable me to focus mental health advocacy on children in great peril young girls who are victims of sexual exploitation, drug abuse, and violence: children who are often punished rather than protected by society. It builds on my commitment to ensure that youth, no matter what background or support system they have in place, gain access to services and supports whatever they need that will allow them an opportunity to succeed and lead a healthy, safe, and positive life. b. Skills and experience Describe your public interest work, volunteer service, law school, clinical, coursework and other relevant experiences that have equipped you with the skills, including organizational and project management skills, to accomplish the proposed Fellowship project.

5 I have worked with disadvantaged people, and specifically children, in many capacities. In each role I have used the law to defend my clients rights and gain access to programs and services that promote self- sufficiency, fairness, and justice. My experiences working to fix systemic problems in the foster care system, directly representing clients in special education and housing matters, and building relationships with individual clients will allow me to successfully develop and complete my project. National Center For Youth Law (NCYL) At NCYL, I worked on developing a solution to eliminate barriers to mental health care that foster children face when placed far from home. I developed presentations to highlight the problem, engaged individuals from key state and local agencies and presented data to illustrate the sharp disparities in access to care. I also participated in Alameda s JMHC to ensure that participating children were provided the mental health treatment they needed. My knowledge of Medi- Cal law and the mental health system, and the relationships I developed with key officials in Alameda will assist me in effectively managing a project that secures mental health access for sexually exploited children. Alliance For Children s Rights Working primarily in the Special Education Department, I managed approximately 30 cases, identified clients needs, and advocated on behalf of children at Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings and at an administrative hearing to secure a higher public benefit rate. I wrote a portion of a pro- bono training manual, and presented at a training. These experiences have given me the skills needed to manage a significant number of cases, engage exploited minors, assess their needs, and involve the sponsoring firm in advocacy efforts. Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles As part of the Housing Unit, I drafted answers to unlawful detainer actions, completed home visits to assess habitability, and advocated at administrative hearings to preserve rent stabilized housing. I researched other jurisdictions to evaluate possible changes to Los Angeles s treatment of pro se litigants in evictions. I learned the importance of meaningful client interaction, oral advocacy, and research, which will lend itself well to the direct representation aspect of my project. Los Angeles Superior Court Self- Help Clinic. As a volunteer, I assisted pro se litigants on dissolution of marriage, paternity, and unlawful detainer actions. I also studied the mental health effects this population experienced as compared to those who are not involved in legal proceedings. I trained new volunteers on the policies and procedures of the Clinic. Youth Law Field Placement Clinic. The seminar focused on development of legal advocacy skills and addressed issues of professional responsibility. We had weekly presentations on a wide variety of substantive issues facing youth, with a specific focus on issues in California and its applicable law. Human Trafficking (Fall 2010) This annual seminar explores human trafficking both domestically and internationally. It surveys international, federal, and state laws that govern human trafficking. I will learn the substantive law directly applicable to the girls with whom I will be working.