Systemic Work
Director of Policy and Systemic Advocacy, Erin Shea McCann, shares 2023 Systemic Advocacy Updates!
LCYC is uniquely situated to provide input on system-wide issues impacting young people because of our exclusive focus on children, youth, and young adults’ rights and legal interests across multiple systems: child welfare, juvenile court, immigration, and homelessness. Youth of color and LGBTQIA+ youth are overrepresented within all the systems that LCYC navigates. It is critical that LCYC addresses these disproportionalities through both direct and systemic advocacy.
LCYC’s systemic advocacy work is informed by the holistic, youth-centered direct representation our attorneys provide to over 500 young people annually across all our program areas and in collaboration with key partners.
LCYC’s systemic advocacy work includes:
Coalition work: partnering with community-based organizations—including those whose advocacy is driven by youth advocates with lived expertise—to identify systemic issues impacting young people
State and local legislative advocacy: sending letters and emails to bill sponsors and committee members, testifying in public hearings, and drafting and signing-on to advocacy letters, and legislative implementation work
Administrative advocacy: advocating to ensure public agencies’ policies and practices appropriately meet the needs of young people
Appellate advocacy: Drafting and joining briefs in appellate courts, primarily as amicus