Two ways we make change
JRP represents individual children and, when a system-wide problem comes into view, takes on class-wide advocacy through the courts, administrative agencies, and the legislature. The defense unit serves as a children's public defender firm in delinquency, dependency, and termination of parental rights cases, while the advocacy unit works like a children's legal services office across the state.
Children in foster care
JRP negotiated a statewide settlement on behalf of children in foster care. Appropriations to carry out system-wide changes since the 1995 settlement agreement with the Oregon Department of Human Services have totaled more than $50 million.
The work also included restoring System of Care flexible funds, legislation creating the Oregon Former Foster Child Scholarship, citizen oversight of children in foster care, faster court processes for abused and neglected children, and a published legal handbook on foster care for Oregon teens.
Children in public schools
The SchoolWorks program, established in 2002, helps young clients who face barriers to a free appropriate public education. The Education Project worked to reduce disproportionate suspension and expulsion of students of color in Portland Public Schools.
JRP provides special education representation and represents students at suspension and expulsion hearings, and has trained more than 5,000 parents, caseworkers, foster parents, and others on children's education rights across 25 Oregon counties.
Homeless, runaway, and abused or neglected children
JRP took part in the Homeless and Runaway Youth State Policy Group created by the Oregon Legislature, and runs an information, referral, and advice line that handles roughly 600 calls a year from across the state, a quarter of them referred from other legal services programs.
Children in youth correctional facilities
JRP brought federal litigation over conditions at a state facility that houses children as young as twelve, and took part in legislative oversight hearings on conditions and treatment at Hillcrest Youth Correctional Facility. Those hearings led to emergency appropriations that strengthened mental health treatment services.
Children in detention
JRP helped pass legislation ending the confinement of status offenders in detention, which made Oregon eligible for federal funds, and brought litigation that produced a consent decree requiring Multnomah County to build a new juvenile detention facility and improve conditions in the existing one.
Children in adult jails and prisons
JRP's federal litigation produced a landmark constitutional decision holding that confining juveniles who have not been tried as adults in adult jails is unconstitutional. That decision has been credited as a major factor in an 80% national decline in juvenile jailings.
JRP also worked with physicians to evaluate the health needs of 16- and 17-year-olds held in adult facilities, and educated roughly 1,500 middle and high school students about mandatory adult sentences under Oregon's Ballot Measure 11.
Children's mental health
JRP works with the Oregon Advocacy Center to reform the availability and delivery of intensive mental health services for children, and has trained more than 700 caseworkers, foster parents, and others on access to mental health services for children covered by the Oregon Health Plan, at sites across the state. Families can reach this help through the Mental Health Access Project for children.