{"id":5857,"date":"2015-06-23T13:28:27","date_gmt":"2015-06-23T18:28:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gnof.org\/?p=5857"},"modified":"2015-06-23T13:38:33","modified_gmt":"2015-06-23T18:38:33","slug":"louisiana-center-for-childrens-rights-defends-clients-with-a-holistic-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/gnof\/louisiana-center-for-childrens-rights-defends-clients-with-a-holistic-team\/","title":{"rendered":"Louisiana Center For Children&#8217;s Rights Defends Clients With A Holistic Team"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/211633748&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe Louisiana Center for Children\u2019s Rights defends the right of every Louisiana child to fairness, dignity, and opportunity.\u00a0Their holistic defense helps young people achieve their legal and life goals.<\/p>\n<p>Ariel Test is an attorney for the Louisiana Center for Children\u2019s Rights. Her and her team defends the vast majority of kids arrested in Orleans Parish.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is really hard because sometimes we feel disempowered and it\u2019s a painful reminder of how disempowered our clients feel,\u201d says Test. \u201cBecause sometimes we go into court and we can\u2019t make our voices heard and our voices are some of the more powerful voices in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A big part of Ariel Test\u2019s job is translating: explaining legalese to her client, and explaining her client to the courts. When she initially meets a client in custody, Test explains the procedure and timeline for trying his or her case. She also goes over the police report.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m very careful in that first meeting when I go over the police report with the child and say: this is what the police are saying happened. I\u2019m not saying everything in it is true, but you have to know what they\u2019re saying,\u201d explains Test. \u201cThat\u2019s very hard for a kid to understand. Sometimes there are significant untruths in police reports and sometimes there are untruths that seem rather irrelevant, but for a kid who\u2019s very concerned with what is right and wrong, it can be really frustrating for there to be inaccuracies in the police report.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the Louisiana Center for Children\u2019s Rights takes a very holistic approach to representing their clients. So when she first meets them, Test asks: what are <em>your\u00a0<\/em>needs?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat is the reason that brought them into court?\u201d Test asks. \u201cNot the crime, but what else is going on to see if there\u2019s anything they want to try to work on. Because it\u2019s really important that I am working for their expressed interests. It\u2019s important for me to say: okay, you\u2019re telling me that you\u2019re not going to school. What do you want me to do about that? Here are the options of what we can do about it, but I\u2019m not going to take any steps without your permission. Because sometimes a child can say to me, I\u2019m having a hard time in school, but they can also say to me: I don\u2019t want school to know that I have a lawyer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Test is part of a defense <em>team.<\/em> Along with two attorneys \u2013 one criminal, one civil \u2013 each client is assigned a social worker, a youth advocate, and a trained investigator who interviews the client, witnesses, friends, and family. Test says a trained investigator is crucial.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause regardless of the intention of the person who writes the police report, in the end it\u2019s a short document that can\u2019t tell the whole story,\u201d says Test.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to the direct representation of children, the Louisiana Center for Children\u2019s Rights also works on systems-level reform to make Louisiana a fairer and more equitable place for all of its children.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe usually get a police report that\u2019s very, very small,\u201d says investigator Marecca Vertin. \u201cIt\u2019s a handful of facts, and so we want to learn everything and speak with everyone that we possibly can.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Marecca Vertin says when people understand she\u2019s not investigating for the police, they want to tell their stories.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are looking for other possibilities that might have happened, which is almost always there\u2019s some other possibility,\u201d says Vertin. \u201cThere are some facts that are learned that at least complicate things based on the original facts that were given in the police report. It\u2019s very rare that I would go out and do an investigation and come back and say: that\u2019s how it was.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Anna Arkin- Gallagher is the civil attorney at the Louisiana Center for Children\u2019s Rights. She deals with all of a client\u2019s <em>civil<\/em> legal issues: like housing &#8212; say if the family is being evicted &#8212; or benefits, if a family is having trouble attaining them. But for the most part, her work has to do with education: getting her clients eligible for special education or defending them in school discipline proceedings<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are cases where a client of ours may not be getting the services he or she is entitled to in school,\u201d explains Arkin-Gallagher, \u201cand is therefore having a really hard time in school, having behavioral issues in school, getting suspended a lot, spending a lot of time out of school, and those can both complicate the ongoing delinquency case and in certain cases, lead to delinquency case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor myself personally,\u201d says Harpreet Samra, a social worker on the team, \u201cI grew up in a very stable environment, where all of my needs were being met in one way or another. If I needed assistance, I had someone there that would be able to give it to me. And I think a lot of the resources for our kids are either lacking or they have no idea how to get them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Samra says if a child\u2019s needs aren\u2019t being met \u2013 in terms of education, physical and mental health, family, housing, having supportive adults and structured activities &#8212; it\u2019s easier for them to end up in the system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t look at our kids as their charges,\u201d explains Samra. \u201cI think that\u2019s so important in the work that we do. Because as soon as someone starts doing that, you can look at someone differently. But if you look at them for what they actually need, it\u2019s a completely different relationship you have with your client.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Samra says in a city suffering from so many unmet needs, it\u2019s unfamiliar for these kids to have someone say: I work for you.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow can I help you?\u201d Samra asks her clients. \u201cAnd [I] actually listen to what it is they have to say. They don\u2019t really get asked that question. By anyone. Sometimes you get blank stares, like, what do you mean?\u00a0 What do you want? What do you want out of your life? What do you want to be when you grow up? How do we get you there? What do you have to start doing now?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Caroline Gabriel, is a youth advocate on the team, whose job is to get to know the clients at home and at school, to know all the issues facing the client, and most of all to establish trust.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of kids at first don\u2019t understand our roles and they just see us as being part of the system, part of courts,\u201d explains Gabriel, \u201cand they don\u2019t always trust everyone, which is understandable. I try to explain myself in the best way and let them know we\u2019re on their side and I work for them. They\u2019re the boss.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>Written by Eve Abrams for the Community IMPACT Series and produced by WWNO in partnership with the Greater New Orleans Foundation. Learn more about <a title=\"Louisiana Center for Children's Rights\" href=\"http:\/\/www.laccr.org\" target=\"_blank\">Louisiana Center for Children&#8217;s Rights<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Louisiana Center for Children\u2019s Rights defends the right of every Louisiana child to fairness, dignity, and opportunity.\u00a0Their holistic defense helps young people achieve their legal and life goals. Ariel Test is an attorney for the Louisiana Center for Children\u2019s Rights. Her and her team defends the vast majority of kids arrested in Orleans Parish&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":5858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[677,30],"tags":[350,516,666,326,890,891,571,100],"class_list":["post-5857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-front-page-small-feature","category-our-community","tag-community-impact","tag-economic-opportunity","tag-eve-abrams","tag-human-services","tag-louisiana-center-for-childrens-rights","tag-social-justice","tag-social-services","tag-wwno"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Louisiana Center For Children&#039;s Rights Defends Clients With A Holistic Team | Greater New Orleans Foundation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.communify.me\/gnof\/louisiana-center-for-childrens-rights-defends-clients-with-a-holistic-team\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Louisiana Center For Children&#039;s Rights Defends Clients With A Holistic Team | Greater New Orleans Foundation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Louisiana Center for Children\u2019s Rights defends the right of every Louisiana child to fairness, dignity, and opportunity.\u00a0Their holistic defense helps young people achieve their legal and life goals. 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