Luna Floyd

The Project

Luna (they/them/theirs) will work with Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund to protect the rights of youth in foster care by litigating challenges to state bans on gender-affirming care for minors, providing technical assistance for attorneys serving transgender foster youth in states with transphobic laws, and proactively advocating for state child welfare policies establishing access to gender-affirming care for foster youth.

Transgender youth have become a convenient target for conservative state legislatures: nearly 150,000 transgender youth live in 30 states that have passed laws restricting or banning gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers or hormone therapy. At the same time, transgender youth are profoundly overrepresented in child welfare systems; 5% of foster youth are transgender, compared to 1% of youth not in foster care. Bans on gender-affirming care have a disproportionate impact on youth in foster care, but their stories are not represented in lawsuits challenging these bans. The unique needs of transgender foster youth are going unmet, and their stories are going unheard in court.

Luna’s project was inspired by their experiences of poverty and queerness growing up in the Deep South, leading them to focus on advocacy for vulnerable LGBTQ+ youth.

Fellowship Plans

Luna’s project includes strategies for change rooted in impact litigation, technical assistance, and policy advocacy. Luna will file declarations from foster youth in existing impact litigation challenging bans on gender-affirming care, ensuring the needs of foster youth are considered in impact litigation strategy decisions. Luna will provide technical and co-counsel assistance to attorneys across the country whose minor clients need access to gender-affirming care, as well as create resources and trainings for attorneys and know-your-rights materials for youth. Finally, Luna will advocate for specific state child welfare policies to ensure youth in foster care have a pathway to access gender-affirming care.

Media

The Project

Mary Rose (she/her/hers) will advocate for youth in foster care in Hillsborough County who are victims of human trafficking through direct legal representation, community education, and collaboration within the child welfare community.

Approximately 60% of child sex trafficking victims in the United States have been in foster care. Florida ranks as the third in the country for human trafficking. Within Florida, Hillsborough County has the largest number of children in foster care who are suspected or verified human trafficking victims. Due to the complex nature of human trafficking and the variety of challenges victims face, each case can require extensive research for an unfamiliar attorney and result in delays of proceedings. Despite this, there is no full-time, paid attorney in Hillsborough County whose primary focus is representation of human trafficking victims in foster care. Mary Rose’s project aims to close the service gap for trafficked youth by providing this knowledgeable and focused representation. Her project further seeks to empower youth to learn about how to seek help if they are being trafficked.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Mary Rose will serve as the designated human trafficking attorney at the L. David Shear Children’s Law Center (CLC), providing direct legal representation in dependency proceedings to human trafficking victims in foster care. She will create materials to educate attorneys and child welfare professionals on issues, resources, and legal protections specific to trafficked youth. She will also add a human trafficking section to FosterPower, a mobile app and website that provides youth in Florida’s dependency system with information about their benefits, protections, and legal rights.

Media

The Project

Cristina’s (she/her/hers) project will focus on providing legal representation and social services connections to 18- to 20-year-old immigrant youth in Western Washington who are at risk of homelessness and deportation.

About 1,300 of the 152,000 unaccompanied minors encountered along the U.S.-Mexico boarder in 2022 were released to sponsors in Washington by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. In the U.S. immigration system, these vulnerable children have no right to appointed counsel. To complicate matters further, certain forms of immigration relief require applicants to be under 21 years old, adding urgency to the situation for many. Cristina will secure immigration relief for immigrant youth who are facing deportation, especially those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, so that they may qualify for essential social services.

My lived experiences as an undocumented woman and the due process violations immigrant communities are constantly subject to are what drive me to work with immigrant populations. I was once an immigrant child who was subject to the terror of the immigration system and this Fellowship will give me the opportunity to help other immigrant youth navigate the draconian system so they do not have to go through it alone.

Fellowship Plans

Cristina will work with Northwest Immigrant Rights Project’s (NWIRP) Children and Youth Advocacy Program (CYAP). Cristina will partner with two Western Washington NWIRP offices, pro bono legal service partners, and other organizations. She will screen for relief, particularly Special Immigrant Juvenile (SIJ) classification and Vulnerable Youth Guardianship (VYG), a mechanism that allows youth ages 18-20 to access SIJ protection. She will also work to connect clients to social services.

The Project

Leah’s (she/her) fellowship will help establish the first administrative appellate practice in New York to challenge abuses of agency discretion that deny youth their rights provided within the New York City child welfare system.

Currently in NYC, there are over 6,000 children in foster care. Article 78 hearings allow these youth to challenge Administration of Children’s Services (ACS )and/or the foster care agency’s discretion. ACS has immense discretionary power to dictate the core of a child’s quality of life – from where they live to whom they live with to the services they receive. Article 78s are the only legal recourse on agency action and take place in NYC Supreme Court, outside Family Court’s jurisdiction. While all children in child-welfare-related Family Court proceedings are entitled to counsel, no one is expressly funded to represent children in Article 78 proceedings.

Foster youth are often said to be “lost in the system,” but Leah has seen through personal and professional experiences that it is not as innocuous and passive as this. The voices of children and families are drowned out by the deference given ACS’s discretion, and she believes a robust Article 78 practice in New York City would help disrupt this.

Fellowship Plans

Leah will challenge the ACS’s abuses of discretion and overreaches of government power. She will provide direct representation to foster youth and youth in juvenile detention whose rights are diminished because of the deference given to ACS decision making. Leah will conduct trainings throughout the five boroughs for other attorneys for children, parent defenders, and community advocates to ensure administrative appeals are an accessible tool for all fighting to keep families together and children safe.

The Project

Sam (he/him/his) will represent children incarcerated in North Carolina’s juvenile prisons by creating holistic reentry plans and advocating for early release.

The right to counsel for children does not include the post-disposition phase of the case. As a result, most children who are sent to prison never speak to a lawyer while they are there. Children do not have a legal advocate to make sure they are getting the educational and therapeutic services that they need. Children do not have a lawyer to advocate for them if they have done everything right in prison and have a strong case for release. Children often feel forgotten. This project is designed to begin filling this gap.

Before law school Sam worked at a holistic youth defender’s office in New Orleans and as a therapist in North Carolina. The children and families who he worked with, along with the lawyers and social workers who zealously advocated on their behalf, inspired him to become a lawyer for incarcerated children.

Fellowship Plans

Sam will visit children in juvenile prisons across North Carolina, listen to their experiences and assess their legal needs. He will select a caseload of children who need additional advocacy to ensure that they are receiving individualized educational and therapeutic services. He will attend their Service Plan Meetings and advocate on their behalf. Sam will also identify a caseload of children who have strong cases for early release. He will use his social work background to craft holistic reentry plans with his clients and their families, building on their internal strengths and connecting them to additional support in the community. Sam will present these reentry plans to judges and other stakeholders as concrete alternatives to incarceration through which these children can return home and thrive in their communities.

Media

The Project

Kelsey advocates on behalf of unaccompanied immigrant children (UC) in Central Florida through community education and coalition building to improve UC legal outcomes and integration in the community. Unaccompanied immigrant children (UC) are children under 18 who lack lawful immigration status in the United States and are either without a parent or legal guardian in the United States or without a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is available to provide care and physical custody. Almost all UC are currently in or have been in Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody, are grappling with trauma, and are not guaranteed a government appointed counsel free of cost to face deportation proceedings. In Central Florida, lack of resources pervades the legal and social systems responsible for the well-being of UC, rendering their ongoing journey in search of protection fraught and unfairly limited to the “lucky” few.

After working in education, Kelsey knew that she wanted to pursue a law degree so that she could amplify the voices of children within the legal system. Kelsey is thrilled that her fellowship will enable her advocate for immigrant children in the Central Florida community.

Fellowship Plans

Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) aims to help fill the gap in unmet need for legal services and social service support for UC in Central and North Florida. Kelsey will provide direct representation for legal cases, as well as develop navigator tools to help UC understand their rights as newcomers to Central Florida. Kelsey will also lead the creation of the Central Florida Unaccompanied Children’s Task Force to identify strategies to reduce barriers to UC school enrollment. Furthermore, Kelsey will develop and deliver trainings to educate attorneys, social workers, and others about UC, the juvenile immigration system, and common forms of relief.

The Project

Rose (she/her/hers) will provide direct representation and systemic legal advocacy to prevent the unlawful and disproportionate pushout of underserved preschool children in Philadelphia, with a focus on Black and Brown children, children with disabilities, children experiencing homelessness, and children in foster care.

Children’s experiences in their first five years are critical to brain development, and access to high-quality early education is associated with positive academic and life outcomes. Often due to subjective and racially discriminatory school rules and enforcement, underserved preschoolers are excluded at significantly higher rates than their peers. Without quality preschool, underserved children enter kindergarten academically behind and may never catch up. When children are suspended or expelled from preschool, their risk of later justice-system involvement increases significantly, pushing them into the preschool-to-prison pipeline.

Rose’s experiences working in elementary education, education research, and juvenile justice motivate her commitment to disrupting inequitable cycles, especially for the youngest learners.

Fellowship Plans

Rose will work to prevent early education pushout by directly representing underserved preschoolers in due process hearings, IEP meetings, school negotiations, and potential administrative complaints, among other avenues. Rose will also seek to improve access to high-quality early education and increase awareness of the education rights of young children through “know your rights” and informational trainings. Rose will work to identify and dismantle barriers driving preschool suspension and expulsion in Philadelphia by collaborating with stakeholders and creating a cross-system working group to address preschool exclusion in Philadelphia moving forward.

Media

The Project

Elisa’s (she/her/hers) project seeks to leverage disability rights law to litigate and advocate for the release of incarcerated youth with disabilities in order to ensure they receive the necessary services in their communities.

More than 200,000 youth spend at least some time in juvenile detention in any given year. Nearly 70% of youth who enter the juvenile justice system have a mental health, sensory, or learning disability, and a third to 40% of detained or incarcerated youth have special education needs. Yet, instead of receiving specialized care in their communities, as they are entitled to under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), they are locked up in detention centers that further exacerbate their symptoms and traumas. Detained children are often subjected to damaging and horrifying conditions—such as physical violence, little or no education or mental or health care services, and 23 hours a day of solitary confinement.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Elisa will utilize an integrated advocacy approach to advocate for the decarceration of imprisoned youth with disabilities. Elisa will bring litigation against individual facilities, conducting policy advocacy in partnership with community members, and developing training materials for public defenders to center disability rights advocacy in their individual client work. Additionally, she will increase awareness of the harms inflicted on children with disabilities by carceral environments through public education initiatives.

The Project

Brian (he/him/his)  will work to increase access to education and mental health care for young people with disabilities in Philadelphia’s juvenile justice system through direct legal representation and advocacy for community-based alternatives to detention.

In Philadelphia, children with disabilities are dramatically overrepresented in the city’s juvenile justice system. Coming into contact with this system often disrupts educational progress and pushes kids with disabilities further to the margins, leading to higher rates of recidivism, lower graduation rates, and economic precarity. With the support of legal advocates focused on the unique barriers posed to them, children with disabilities can disrupt this cycle. Increasing access to free appropriate education and necessary mental healthcare is crucial to reducing recidivism and allowing children with disabilities to reach their potential.

Fellowship Plans

Brian will provide direct legal representation to kids with disabilities impacted by Philadelphia’s juvenile justice system, focusing primarily on educational rights under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and clearing obstacles to necessary mental healthcare. In addition to direct representation, he will work in coalition with community organizations to build more robust alternatives to detention and increase awareness in the community about the legal rights of children with disabilities in the justice system. Finally, he will produce a report on the issues faced by children with disabilities in the city’s juvenile justice system and potential solutions.

The Project

Cecilia’s (she/her/hers) project will provide educational and medical advocacy to children with complex medical conditions across the state of Alabama.

Children with high medical needs require high-quality medical and educational services to ensure they remain in their community, rather than an institution. In Alabama, many of these children live in rural areas with a lack of providers, leaving parents to take on the role of nurse and educator. While support is available through the school system, health insurance, and Medicaid Waivers, these systems can be challenging and time-consuming to navigate and coordinate. These children and families need an advocate who understands each system of support and can increase knowledge of and access to each system of support.

Fellowship Plans

During her Fellowship, Cecilia will represent children in IEP and 504 Plan meetings to ensure appropriate school services are provided. She will assist families in accessing benefits through EPSDT and Medicaid Waivers, helping families apply for services and challenge unlawful denials. Additionally, she will conduct outreach to educate parents and providers about services specific to medically complex children.