Co-host Chris Kleiser chats with Meribah Knight about her important investigation into Rutherford County's Juvenile Court and juvenile detention practices. 

Co-host Chris Kleiser talks with Tim Curry of the Fines and Fees Justice Center who discusses the importance of following the money and ways to challenge the imposition of these costs on young people and their families.

Special thanks to Angela Vigil and the Gault Center for giving us permission to use her amazing song, Defender and to VOLUNTEER sound engineer Raiden Rogers for donating his time and energy to put it all together.

Co-host Chris Kleiser sits down with Dr. Nicole Beurkens to discuss the  role of nutrition and behavior. Now, this episode might seem like a stretch,  but in our holistic representation, we have to understand just how important nutrition is as one of the underlying root causes of many of  our client's behaviors. 

Recommendations:

Books: Food Fix, Dr. Mark Hyman
Life Will Get Better: Dr. Nicole Beurkens
Sugar Proof: Drs. Michael Goran and Emily Ventura
Kid Food: Bettina Siegle
How To Do The Work: Dr. Nicole LePera

Better Behavior Podcast

https://www.drbeurkens.com/podcasts

Host Christina Kleiser sits down to have a conversation with Dr. Edward Mulvey about his and his colleagues’ Pathways to Desistance Study, which examines what does (and does not!) support kid’s desistance from delinquency. Dr. Mulvey has dedicated his career to asking what works and what doesn’t. We look forward to hearing how this plays into our critical work.

Also, special thanks to Angela Vigil for the new song, Defender!

In the Season 2 premier of the In Defense of Children Podcast, host Cashauna Lattimore, talks with Eric Zogry and Caitlin Fenhagen about the seminal case of In RE JDB, a North Carolina case that made it all the way to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled that the age of the child is a factor in deciding whether the child can understand and waive Miranda warnings. A small, but important, ruling in the world of youth defense, Eric and Caitlin, discuss the case’s origins and it’s impact on  all of us as we continue the fight to defend children.

How does incarceration impact the development of the children who are held in detention facilities? What are the alternatives to arresting and holding kids in jail? How does the current approach impact children’s ability to succeed following court involvement, especially for those who are incarcerated due to non-violent offenses? And how do we as youth defenders advocate for change? To answer these questions Host Kristen Anderson interviews Mark Soler, Executive Director of the Center for Children’s Law and Policy in Los Angeles, about the psychological impacts of detention on youth and his work over the years to reform the juvenile justice system by ending solitary confinement of children and limiting their traumatizing experiences.

While various federal and state laws provide protections for youth with disabilities, school districts and law enforcement routinely fail to adequately address the needs of these children before simply deferring them to the courts. Thus, three to five times as many youth with disabilities are involved with the juvenile justice system compared with the general public school population. So in this episode Host Kristen Anderson sits down with the dream team from Disability Rights Tennessee, Assistant Legal Director Sherry Wilds and Staff Attorney Daniel Ellis, to learn more about advocating for the rights of our most vulnerable clients.

Host Chris Kleiser talks through adjudicative competency and youth rights waivers with none other than the grandfather of competency, Dr. Thomas Grisso.  What are some red flags that should raise the question of competency? Chris and Dr. Grisso take a deep dive into all of the questions.

Host Chris Kleiser talks with Dr. Keith Cruise, Professor of Psychology at Fordham University, about all things trauma and how it’s more than an ACEs score. Dr. Cruise is the Director of Clinical Training and a Co-Director of the Center for Trauma Recovery and Juvenile Justice, a technical assistance center that is part of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. He has regularly been hired as an expert on cases in Tennessee and happens to be the expert on the Tyshon Booker case, discussed in Episode 2. In this episode, Dr. Cruise dives into what the research tells us about how our client’s traumatic experiences shape their lives and how we as defenders can incorporate trauma-informed practices in our representation.