TeamChild

Teamchild's legal team serves low-income youth and young adults in 4 counties (king, pierce, spokane, and yakima) and youth statewide who are incarcerated in a Washington state juvenile rehabilitation institution, or have recently reentered the community after a period of incarceration, and youth who have education legal issues. The legal program receives approximately 1,000 referrals each year. Independent evaluations have shown that Teamchild has a positive impact on young peoples access to education, health care, and housing while reducing their contact with the juvenile court system.

Teamchild's policy team addresses systemic issues youth face across the state by increasing equitable access to education, healthcare, and housing supports; expanding and investing in community-led and community-based alternatives to school expulsion, criminalization and incarceration of youth; and shifting power and repairing harm in black, indigineous and other communities of color.

Teamchild's community engagement work includes creating opportunities for youth to guide our policy and legal work. Our community outreach and training activities create or reinforce partnerships with youth, families, juvenile court professionals, attorneys and community providers.

Teamchild is the fiscal sponsor of the south king county discipline coalition ("skcdc"). Skcdc is a group made up of community members working to disrupt the school to prison pipeline and end the disproportionate use of school discipline for students of color. The main activities of the skcdc are developing community leaders and providing awareness, training, and voice for youth and parents who seek to eliminate the disproportionality that students and families of color experience with school exclusion and discipline.