Closing out 2025 with deep gratitude for every defender, advocate, and partner who showed up for young people this year. Your courage and commitment kept the work moving when it mattered most. To 2026 where dignity, justice, and possibility lead the way. Let’s keep building a freer future together!

Thank you for joining us in creating ripples toward justice.     With gratitude,  The Gault Center Team

Support youth defense by donating via the link in our bio or text GAULT to 44-321 to help protect youth rights. #GratefulForGault #YouthRights #YouthDefenseMatters #GivingTuesday

At the Gault Center, we train youth defenders nationwide so every child has someone fighting for their rights. Consider giving to the youth defense movement this season. Every act matters. 💙  #GivingTuesday Thank you to Mirage Carrington and Brooklyn Hicks for sharing their creativity with us. 🫶🏾

Tomorrow is Giving Tuesday!     We are asking for your support to continue to build this community of youth defenders dedicated to protecting the rights of youth. #GratefulForGault #YouthRights #YouthDefenseMatters #GivingTuesday

We are deeply grateful for our community of youth defenders and our partners who make this work possible through your commitment, encouragement, and belief that every child deserves protection, dignity, and a real chance at justice #GratefulForGault #YouthDefenseMatters #GivingTuesday

We are beyond honored to be in conversation with Norma Wong, author of When No Thing Works: A Zen and Indigenous Perspective on Resilience, Shared Purpose, and Leadership in the Timeplace of Collapse, as part of our annual Youth Defender Leadership Summit! #TGCSummit2025 #SharedHorizon #Liberation

We are so excited to recognize Brittany Mobley with the Robert E. Shepherd Award! “Brittany is the embodiment of a servant leader who lives out the mission of this work. Brittany’s advocacy is fierce yet disarming. She is relentless in her defense, but personable in her approach.” #TGCSummit2025

We are so excited to recognize Jenifer “Jeni” Stinson with the Robert E. Shepherd Award! Jeni, we are so grateful for your leadership and service. It is an honor to honor you! #TGCSummit2025 #SummitBeehives #ShepherdAward #YouthDefender

Check out some “Digital Honey” that we shared with our 2025 Summit Beehives! These were created by youth artists part of a youth voice publication co-created by the Gault Center, Progeny, and TerraLuna. We’re so honored to be a part of this important project! #TGCSummit2025 #YouthVoice #ArtAdvocacy

We currently have applications open for our Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, a professional development program for youth defenders and other attorney advocates dedicated to ending racial injustice. Learn more at bit.ly/ARJ2026 and apply by Nov 1, 2025! #TGCSummit2025 #ARJ

We are excited to recognize Angela Vigil, Pro Bono Partner and Executive Director of Global Pro Bono at Baker McKenzie LLP, with the Norman Dorsen Award at our 2025 Summit! Thanks for your beautiful spirit and your work that advances a better future for all children. #NormanDorsenAward #InReGault

We are so grateful to Raj Jayadev, author of Protect Your People: How Ordinary Families Are Using Participatory Defense to Challenge Mass Incarceration, for sharing his beautiful spirit and wisdom with our community at Summit! #TGCSummit2025 #SummitBeehives #ProtectYourPeople #PublicDefenders

We are grateful to cbabi bayoc, internationally known visual artist and illustrator, who is leading an interactive art conversation with the youth defense community on using art in the co-creation of justice at our Opening Ceremony! #TGCSummit2025 #SummitBeehives

As a sneak peak of some of the topics we'll be exploring together as a community, check out some of the books that have been shared with us as we prepared for our Summit program this year! #TGCSummit2025 To check out our Summit 2025 Booklist, click here: www.defendyouthrights.org/.../summit-2....

We are honored and humbled to host 30 local Beehive Strategy Sessions this year as part of our annual Youth Defender Leadership Summit. Starting tomorrow, the youth defense community will come together for two days to build toward a better future for all children. #TGCSummit2025 #BeeInRelationship

National Network For Youth and Baker McKenzie have launched a new national hotline for youth experiencing homelessness, to help them obtain state ID cards and licenses, birth certificates, Social Security cards, and other needed documents.

“Limiting the use of restraints isn’t just symbolic — it will have immediate, real-world benefits for kids across the state by preventing unnecessary and traumatic interactions with the adults tasked with protecting them.” ctnewsjunkie.com/2025/07/18/n...

"Over the last several decades there has been a dramatic decline both in the punitiveness of our country’s approach to youth justice & in youth crime, giving the lie to those who thought that the only way to improve public safety was to crack down on young people." www.governing.com/policy/why-a...

This July Fourth, we look to a future of independence, liberty, and happiness for all young people.

“We now know scientifically what works and what doesn’t work. So for us to go backwards now is more of a sin than it was then, because we’ve been through this thing before.” imprintnews.org/top-stories/...

Honoring the freedom fighters of the past and present whose bold visions and courageous work tear down systems of oppression and build up humanity, liberty, and love. #juneteenth

Thank you to @lastweektonight.com for focusing on the urgent need to transform the juvenile legal system and for highlighting that, "Kids should be provided access to legal counsel at every step of the system." www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pya-...

"We invest way more in locking kids up than we do in educating them. I often wonder if we made different policy choices, how much better off kids and society as a whole would be." www.npr.org/2025/06/05/n...

Thank you to Jeremiah Brown and Players Coalition for supporting New York's Right2RemainSilent legislation! Every child should speak to a lawyer before being interrogated. www.instagram.com/reel/DKNA0Lo...

As we mark the 58th anniversary of In re Gault today, we reflect on the progress we've made thus far in transforming the juvenile legal system to protect the rights of children and recommit ourselves to the critical work that remains. www.defendyouthrights.org/get-involved...

"There are not huge differences in the racial backgrounds of kids who commit crimes. But there are differences in which neighborhoods are heavily policed. Once a child is arrested, the disparities accumulate further, from who is offered diversion to who stays in detention to who gets probation."

"Accountability is about helping someone take responsibility and change. It’s about making sure they never go back down that same road again. And for kids, that only works when you treat them like kids." thelensnola.org/2025/03/28/v...

"In recent years, lawsuits alleging sexual or physical abuse by juvenile correctional officers and other detention center staff have emerged in more than a dozen states. Between 2000 and 2015, recurring abuse was documented in state-funded juvenile detention facilities in 29 states and DC."

Honoring the youth defense community today on the 20th anniversary of Roper v. Simmon #youthdefense #ropervsimmons #adolescentdevelopment #collectiveaction #collectivepower

"Every child and young person sent away has the potential to someday be an indispensable community member on the outside. We just need to give them that chance." statecourtreport.org/our-work/ana...

“Oftentimes what pulls kids and families into these systems is unmet needs. It makes more sense for kids to have their health care tied to a health care system, not a carceral system.” thepublicsradio.org/npr/health-c...

“There’s absolutely no evidence that is going to be helpful in reducing the level of threats.” wapo.st/3CvHJHh

BREAKING: HB2222 Prohibiting youth shackling UNANIMOUSLY passed the VA House!!! “It’s astonishing in the amount of trauma it causes to children,” Amy Borror of @gaultcenter.bsky.social says about the practice. Many thanks to Delegate Rae Cousins for patroning our urgently needed bill! #VALeg

"When we stopped locking young people up for drug crimes, crime kept declining. 'We could make that same choice about guns. We could make that same choice about stolen cars and assaults. These are real problems, but we can be as creative as we are willing to be about the solutions we choose.'”

"King’s dream was not an empty promise or shallow vision of racial reconciliation. His dream was a demand—for justice and the dismantling of systems built on violence and exploitation." missouriindependent.com/2025/01/20/m...

"If prison was designed to punish an adult, it is clearly torture for a kid."

"More families are willing to work with the department now that money isn’t a factor We’re able to just provide services without parents weighing the cost. They’re not worried that they’re going to have to pay for their child’s attorney.” boltsmag.org/michigan-juv...

"If you really care about our safety, you would do things like make more affordable housing, bring back school routes, and make it easier for kids to earn money. Please just give us more opportunities to do good in life and just be kids." www.cincinnati.com/story/opinio...