Legal Representation for Foster Youth

After more than a decade of incremental legislative advocacy, House Bill 1219 passed in 2021, and will expand the provision of legal counsel to dependent children and youth across Washington State. The bill will be implemented over the next several years, with the statewide Children’s Representation Program overseeing the program and implementation efforts.

It is critical that dependent youth have access to an attorney so that their rights, safety, and access to family, education, services, and permanency are protected in the often years-long, complex dependency proceedings. LCYC has played an important advocacy role in the many years leading up to the passage of HB 1219. We will continue to support and monitor the bill’s implementation so that dependent children and youth have access to high quality, well-supported legal counsel in every county in Washington State. LCYC Staff Attorney, S. Annie Chung, sits on a work group appointed by the Supreme Court Commission on Children in Foster Care to update the children’s representation standards of practice, training, and caseload limits.

Foster Youth Transition to Adulthood

Given LCYC’s direct representation of young adults in Extended Foster Care, we keep a close eye on all services impacting this population of young people, including the need to develop a robust Independent Living Program, so that they feel prepared to transition to adulthood.

LCYC believes that at its best, Extended Foster Care can serve as a homelessness prevention program for young people leaving foster care, which fulfills the promises made to young people in Senate Bill 6560 (2018)—legislation that mandated that by December 31, 2020, young people shall not exit public systems of care into homelessness. While the promise of 6560 has not yet been met, we continue to monitor its progress and push to hold accountable the state agencies responsible for implementing it.

Youth and Families in Crisis

LCYC was involved in advocacy around Senate Bill 5290 (2019), which phases out the use of jail as a punishment for youth involved in non-criminal status offenses (such as running from a foster care placement or being truant from school). While the passage of 5290 was a huge victory for young people, it also requires Washington State to rethink how it engages with youth and their families so that both preventative and crisis response systems are available when youth and families need them. LCYC continues to engage with community-based providers, advocates, state agency partners, and legislators to identify what robust supports will help fulfill the promises made in 5290.

Uniform Guardianship Act: Minor Guardianships

Senate Bill 5604 passed in 2019, was amended in 2020, and implemented January 1, 2021. LCYC supported the bill and continues to track its implementation. The UGA allows (among many other things) minors to file a petition so that courts can appoint a guardian to make decisions and take action for a youth who does not have a parent or legal guardian able to care for them—this provides youth a route to stability and safety with a guardian outside of the child welfare system. LCYC attorneys represent minors in Minor Guardianship proceedings, and we are working alongside kinship caregiver and parent advocates, as well as the courts, to remedy some of the accessibility barriers youth, guardians, and parents have faced since the bill became law.

Name Change Petitions for LGBTQIA+ Individuals

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, court closures and restrictions highlighted barriers young people —particularly trans young adults experiencing housing instability —faced when filing name change petitions in Distict Courts. Changing their legal name not only psychologically benefits trans people by legitimizing their identity through the eyes of the law, but it is also often the last barrier they face towards accessing new opportunities and benefits. Yet, many District Courts were refusing to accept fee waivers from young people who were working with a Qualified Legal Services Provider (QLSP), while others were requiring young people to pay a $203.50 recording fee before accepting their name change petition despite being eligible for a fee waiver. Given that trans young people are at high risk of homelessness, District Courts requiring fees to access the name change process presents a clear access to justice issue.

LCYC reached out to partners at QLaw and TeamChild, who confirmed that the same barriers existed in even more jurisdictions. LCYC led on writing advocacy letters to each District Court and the District and Municipal Court Judges' Association (DMCJA), highlighting the access to justice issues for Washington’s indigent LGBTQIA+ community in the name change process. We presented at a DMCJA Board Meeting and at the Access to Justice Board’s Delivery Systems Committee Meeting. LCYC also met with the Court Management Council Chairs, coordinated by Access to Justice Board. LCYC also partnered with the Gender and Justice Commission for future advocacy and training efforts. We continue to monitor this issue, partnering with legal aid organizations throughout Washington who know of people facing similar barriers.

Affirming the Gender Identity of Foster Youth

A trans foster youth consistently asked the court and the parties in his dependency proceeding to use he/him pronouns and to allow him to cut his hair to allow him to better reflect his male identity. The dependency court permitted the youth to cut his hair but denied his request that the court and the parties use male pronouns.
The youth moved for reconsideration, which the dependency court denied. The youth then filed a motion for discretionary review in Division II Court of Appeals. The Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) cross-moved for discretionary review. LCYC joined the Washington Defender Association, Lavender Rights Project, the ACLU-WA, and QLaw on an amicus brief, arguing that the dependency court failed to affirm the youth’s dignity, personal autonomy, and emotional well-being in failing to acknowledge the youth’s identity and, in doing so, committed probable error when it denied his motion regarding pronoun use.

The Court of Appeals (Division II) granted the youth’s motion and DCYF’s cross-motion for discretionary review, and “ordered that the juvenile court’s denial of [the youth’s] motion for the court and the parties to use male pronouns is reversed in part, and this matter is remanded for further dependency proceedings.” The Court further granted DCYF’s motion to change the caption of the case to reflect the youth’s male identity.

Foster Youth Right to Legal Counsel

LCYC has filed amicus briefs in several appeals regarding dependent youth’s right to legal counsel in the often years-long, complex legal proceedings that determine whether they will be separated from their family, where they will live, whether they can visit their family members, what medications they are required to take, where they will go to school, and other fundamental liberty interests. While the appeals—including whether youth can retain private counsel to represent them—have not resulted in universal right to counsel for dependent children and youth in Washington State, appellate litigation has continued to shape the legal representation landscape in Washington and influence legislative advocacy.

In 2021, House Bill 1219 passed and ensures that foster youth ages 8 and older will be appointed an attorney at the start of their foster care case and that youth of all ages will be appointed an attorney upon the filing of a petition to terminate parental rights.

To uphold our commitment to address the racist history and practices of the child welfare system, LCYC supported the passage of House Bill 1227 (2021), also known as Keeping Families Together. The bill aims to reduce the effects of implicit bias by appropriately increasing the burden of removal for Child Protective Services and shifting legal presumptions around relative placement. We hope it will achieve its goal to reduce the overall number of families entering the system, thus reducing the number of families unnecessarily separated—especially families of color—who are disproportionately policed by the child welfare system.

To ensure equal access to justice, LCYC supported the passage of House Bill 1072 (2021), which removes the immigrant restriction on state funded civil legal aid dollars. The bill ensures that undocumented people can access civil legal aid—people who are already in a vulnerable position because of their legal status. Removing the restriction will mean that they will have the ability to resolve legal issues, including stabilizing their family situation, preventing eviction, saving their home from foreclosure, protecting themselves from debt collection, avoiding medical care costs in instances of intimate partner violence, and many others.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted many systemic inequities that LCYC was asked to provide advocacy support on, including, among other issues: how the Department of Children, Youth, and Families (DCYF) should support young people who are in Extended Foster Care (EFC) and are turning 21 and will lose the support of the EFC program during the COVID pandemic; what constitutes an emergency matter for dependency, juvenile, and family court related issues to ensure access to courts; the need to release youth from state Juvenile Rehabilitation and county detention facilities to prevent the spread of COVID; and, the need to conduct case-by-case determinations for when family and sibling in-person visitation can occur in child welfare cases