Attorney Amanda Simmons of Ambika Law, PC presents at The Coalition for Juvenile Justice’s 2022 R/ED Conference

The Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) describes its organization as a, “nationwide coalition of State Advisory Groups (SAGs) and allies dedicated to preventing children and youth from becoming involved in the courts and upholding the highest standards of care when youth are charged with wrongdoing and enter the justice system.” CJJ’s conferences bring together a wide-variety of experts and advocates, including individuals with lived experience, to learn, network and develop policy solutions aimed at upholding CJJ’s mission.

Alongside her fellow panelists, Oregon public defender Annette Smith and Atlanta-based investigative reporter Chelsea Maldonado, Amanda hosted an engaging and informative panel discussion on the the current legal and regulatory framework that governs today’s youth congregate care industry, the increasing frequency at which children are placed into these facilities by juvenile justice agencies around the country, and the disparate harms caused by these facilities to BIPOC youth.

Drawing on her lived experience as a survivor of institutional child abuse in the so-called “troubled teen industry,” Amanda expertly highlighted common abuses occurring in congregate care settings for juvenile justice-involved youth, including the routine use of invasive and degrading strip-searches, dangerous physical restraints, solitary confinement, and other punitive and harmful practices. 

In addition to highlighting the harms occurring within youth residential programs, Amanda and her fellow panelists also shared tangible, common-sense policies that could be enacted today to better protect youth in congregate care settings, including The Stop Institutional Child Abuse Act (SICAA). SICAA is bipartisan Federal legislation that aims to collect and analyze much-needed data on institutional child abuse and neglect in youth residential programs, as well as provide data-driven policy recommendations to be implemented at the state and local level.

Amanda Simmons is a California and Utah based attorney focusing on children’s rights, juvenile mental health, educational law, disability rights, special needs estate planning, school injury and conservatorships.Through her participation in CJJ’s 2022 R/ED Conference, Amanda learned valuable legal strategies and approaches that can be applied to the cases she works on through Ambika Law, PC. She hopes to both attend and present at CJJ’s conferences in the future.