Helping our young people become the catalyst for social change
Just for Kids Law run a number of programmes aimed at providing support, advocacy and assistance to young people with a variety of needs.
Education Program:
JfK’s Education Program provides representation and assistance to young people who are experiencing difficulties in their education. Our work includes challenging exclusions, statements of special educational needs or to securing them places in alternative institutions. For further information about this program, click here.
Youth Advocacy Program:
Youth Advocates represent young people in a variety of different forums, such as Acceptable Behaviour Contracts, Referral Order contracts, and school exclusion hearings. The Youth Advocate’s role may include advice and support in the areas of education, welfare, housing, employment, mental and physical health and substance mis-use.
Our Youth Advocates are happy to be a constant contact point across the various agencies and beauracracies that our clients deal with.
Youth Justice Trainings:
JfK provides training events for law students, solicitors, barristers, lay magistrates and judges. The law now requires special treatment for young people in court, and legal practitioners are often unfamiliar with those procedures and working with young people. JfK's trainings aim to promote best practices and equip the attendees with the skills they need to communicate with and effectively represent young people.
Our training actively involves our former clients as trainers. Those attending the training can get a first hand assessment of the legal system from those who have been on the receiving end of it.
If you would like us to provide training to your organisation please contact us.
Harnessing the skills of young people
JfK actively involves young people in all of our projects. We have an advisory panel of young people, including former clients and current clients.
JfK encourages its clients to invest their talents into the organisation, this includes writing of prose, poetry and artwork which we hope to publish. We aim to organise work experience placements for the young people we work with to encourage them to be disciplined, motivated and enhance a sense of self-worth.
JfK's clients also assist in JfK trainings for the legal profession. This ensures professionals have a genuine insight into what it is like to be a young person caught up in the criminal justice system, and gives our clients a voice.
Our Philosophy:
JfK is a community-based project. Our long-term aims are to see the young people we work with become catalysts for social change within their own communities.
The wider community benefits from the investment JfK makes in young people. We also believe our work will improve the standing of our clients in the eyes of the communities in which they live.