Teaching Law as a Life Skill
How Street Law Helps Young Vulnerable Parents Make the Transition to Successful Adulthood
by
Matthew M. Kavanagh, Program Director; Bebs Chorak, Deputy Director; and Jess Pinder, Program Coordinator
A teen parent who has not reached the legal age of majority faces unique legal obstacles. Teen parents are not adults, but they nonetheless operate in a world where the government, police, and the community expect them to be “independent.”
November 1, 2004
|
Washington, DC
Suzanne showed up at a Washington, D.C. center for homeless and runaway youth, after a long history of problems – no high school education, deep poverty, and, most recently, living under a bridge with her two young children. The staff offered her a wide variety of services, including Street Law’s Teen Parents and the Law class, co-taught by a teacher and a lawyer. When she was ready to leave the center, her caseworker asked her if she wanted someone to come with her to look for an apartment. Suzanne shook her head and pulled out her Street Law handouts on what to look for in an apartment, how to read a lease, and what to ask the landlord. She felt prepared for the task, not only with knowledge, but also with skills she developed through relevant classroom practice.
Not all young people make a smooth and successful transition into adulthood. When faced with difficult circumstances, some young people drop out of school, abuse drugs, participate in criminal activity, or become violent toward others or themselves. In the face of adversity, why do some youth go on to become productive workers, parents, neighbors, and citizens while others do not?
“Successful” young people are those who are identified variously as those that do well in school, find employment, avoid delinquency and drug addiction, find their way out of poverty, or go on to raise “successful” children of their own. No matter how success is measured, studies show that youth are more likely to succeed if they have practical knowledge, cognitive and social skills, and meaningful opportunities in and connections to the community.
Teen parents face tremendous challenges including the feminization of poverty, a culture of violence, dysfunctional families, and the lack of living wage jobs and affordable, safe child care. Street Law, Inc. developed the Teen Parents and the Law (TPAL) program in 1996 to provide critical legal information and help teen parents develop the skills necessary to deal with the risks they face. TPAL is part of the Youth for Justice Program, funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). The TPAL program manual, now in its second edition, contains 23 lessons designed to help participants strengthen families and lessen the likelihood of violence in the home and community.
According to National Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting and Prevention, Inc. (NOAPPP, www.noappp.org), there are nearly 500,000 infants born to teen parents each year in the United States. A teen parent who has not reached the legal age of majority faces unique legal obstacles. Teen parents are not adults, but they nonetheless operate in a world where the government, police, and the community expect them to be “independent.” To operate successfully, important knowledge, skills, and community connections need to be developed. This transitional process is especially difficult for youth lacking the necessary support systems, which is the case for many teen parents. Some pregnant and parenting teens have fled abusive or unstable families and must move toward adulthood on their own. Others may be exiting the juvenile corrections system where they entered as children, but often emerge as legal adults, facing very different expectations and obligations. In a law-saturated society, Street Law aims to provide these young adults with some of what they need to succeed.
Street Law’s TPAL program has been shown to increase participants’ knowledge about the law and legal systems (Caliber, 1998) by covering a wide variety of legal information with a focus on the practical information that young people need to know in everyday life. The idea is not to create lawyers, but to teach “preventative law,” which can help young people avoid or solve legal problems as they arise. In addition to essential legal knowledge, Street Law programs also teach young people where rules and laws come from, how they can be changed, and why there are essential to society. This understanding helps young people see the system of rules as necessary, useful, and just, rather than unnecessary, alien, and unfair. As bonding theory (Hirschi, 1969) suggests, comprehension of the importance of law can lead to greater rule adherence among youth.
Pregnant and parenting teens have increased resiliency when taught problem solving skills, including the ability to work as a team, negotiate to arrive at a decision, organize and evaluate information, communicate effectively, think creatively, listen to others, teach and help others, identify problems and generate multiple solutions. Street Law programs like TPAL infuse practice of these skills in every lesson. Cooperative, small-group learning, identified as a key method for encouraging resiliency in youth (Bernard, 1991), builds the ability to organize and evaluate information; plan; reason out moral problems; help others; work cooperative as a team; listen to peers; and generate multiple solutions.
Relevant Practice
Myrna Chasanow, who has taught TPAL in the school system in Maryland, says: “[TPAL] is one of the first times an outside agency has realistically understood the needs and the reality of working with this population. You can’t just confront teen parents head-on. You have to deal with where they are in order to get them to where you want them to be.” Youth transitioning to adulthood need time and programs that attend to that transition. They need meaningful opportunities, like the interactive and supportive environment of a Street Law class, to practice what they have acquired.
Conclusion
In order for young people to be successful and contributing adults they will probably have to know how to balance a check book each month, change a diaper, cook spaghetti, avoid salmonella poisoning, and on and on. However, they will also have to know what a lease means; what rights and responsibilities they have as parents; how to solve disputes in the workplace; how to avoid consumer and credit problems; how to communicate effectively with those in authority; how to work collaboratively and think abstractly; and how to get help from social service, legal, and government systems when they need it. It is important that youth know how to navigate these tasks and, if conflicts arise, know how to generate alternatives.
Street Law is not a fix-all — it cannot give young people all the skills and knowledge they need to be effective and successful members of their communities. Street Law can, however, fill in important pieces of the puzzle.
Whether in the mainstream school classroom, an alternative or community program, job-training or life-skills program, or a juvenile justice setting, Street Law’s TPAL can help connect professionals with specialized materials, training, and programs to create a practical legal education program for the youth with whom they work. Giving young people the tools they need to negotiate in the adult legal world is an important step in preparing active, engaged, and successful young parents who can meet the challenges of the future.
Source:
National Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting, and Prevention Network
(Reproduced with permission)
Learn more
Parents and the Law
Topic: At-Risk Youth