Mission
The Youth Advocacy and Policy Lab (Y-Lab) advocates for the creation of youth-serving systems that are trauma-sensitive, healing-centered, and antiracist, enabling all children to learn and thrive. We prioritize elevating the voices of young people so that together we can use legal and policy tools to transform public systems like schools that impact them and their families. Through our legal clinics and courses, we teach law students the theory and skills they need to become leaders in system change advocacy.
To accomplish this mission, we believe that our relationships with others, especially young people, are foundational. To that end, we:
- Approach each other from a place of curiosity and humility, and with a spirit of perpetual learning and inquiry.
- Acknowledge and resist oppressive structures and mindsets.
- Prioritize humanity over hierarchy.
- Encounter each person with respect for the wisdom and weight they carry with them.
- Push for individual and team growth with kindness and compassion.
Overview
Our program is made up of a number of academic, legal, and policy components.
- The new Youth Advocacy & Policy Lab Fellows Program, an immersive experience for second- and third-year students wishing to gain deep expertise in child advocacy with a social justice and antiracist focus. It aims to prepare law students for careers as leaders and change-makers in system transformation efforts.
- The interdisciplinary Trauma and Learning Policy Initiative (TLPI), which deploys a host of advocacy strategies to ensure that all students, including those impacted by trauma, succeed at their highest levels in school and in life. TLPI also conducts groundbreaking research and partners directly with schools and districts to help them create and sustain trauma-sensitive, racially equitable school cultures where all students and staff experience a sense of community and belonging.
- A robust clinical program. The in-house Education Law Clinic furthers TLPI’s mission through three distinct semester-long offerings, each emphasizing a different lawyering strategy: Individual Representation, Legislative & Administrative Lawyering, and Impact Litigation. Law students in the externship Child Advocacy Clinic work as student attorneys at legal organizations and agencies, with a focus on areas such as child welfare, education, and juvenile justice.
- The innovative Students Speak initiative, in which HLS students mentor Massachusetts secondary school students to develop their advocacy voices and testify to legislators and local decisionmakers about what they need to succeed in school.
- A Harvard Law School course, The Art of Social Change, that serves as a gateway course for students across the university about the theory and practice of system change advocacy on behalf of children and youth.
- Y-Lab’s Writing Program, a supportive learning community for law students to share ideas and feedback on writing projects in progress, including Y-Lab Fellows’ capstone projects.
- A statewide legal helpline for parents and service providers supporting students facing extraordinary barriers to accessing their education.