Testimony: Detained Youth Access to the Juvenile Services Program Amendment Act of 2019
Children’s Law Center is known across the District for our medical legal partnerships and our work with children in foster care. Some of the children we support in the child abuse and neglect system also have juvenile delinquency cases. In 2018 there were approximately 50 youth that had child abuse and neglect cases and some type of juvenile justice case. When the District secures, detains or commits these youth, they are in the joint custody of DC’s Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) and DC’s Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services (DYRS).
Children’s Law Center Policy Attorney Elizabeth Oquendo testified in support of The Detained Youth Access to the Juvenile Services Program Amendment Act of 2019 (“Act”) because it will codify the overwhelmingly positive contributions that the Public Defender Service’s Juvenile Service Program (JSP) renders for youth in joint CFSA-DYRS custody.