CYRAH

At the end of 2022, Legal Counsel for Youth and Children (LCYC) was awarded $3 million over three years by Ballmer Group. The investment was intended to help LCYC expand access to legal aid for youth experiencing homelessness and youth impacted by the child welfare system in Washington State.

The grant award aligns with several statewide initiatives and addresses significant gaps in the availability of legal aid for young people in Washington State, including the statewide implementation of House Bill 1219 (2021), which guarantees youth right to counsel in dependency cases. The State Office of Civil Legal Aid (OCLA) is charged with implementing the Children’s Representation Program (CRP) statewide by January 1, 2028.

CYRAH is aimed to help support the rollout of HB 1219, by creating an online community-building space for the growing number of attorneys who will represent children and youth in dependency and termination cases. CYRAH aims to support individual attorneys doing this work, improve holistic children’s representation statewide, and also bolster systemic advocacy efforts to elevate much-needed services and support to young people.

CYRAH Membership is free and open to eligible attorneys who currently represent children and youth in Washington State and/or attorneys who supervise other attorneys who represent children and youth in dependency cases.

No. It does not cost money to join CYRAH.

LCYC staff are the primary administrators of CYRAH, including its components: the online Resource Library; the Community Forum (hosted on Slack); and Advocacy Updates. LCYC staff will update the online resource library content, support the CYRAH community members in the Slack channel, and facilitate systemic advocacy conversations regarding issues that LCYC and CYRAH members identify as areas of interest.

CYRAH members can contact LCYC staff through the CYRAH email address (CYRAH@lcycwa.org) if they have suggestions for additional materials to post on the resource library, edits to make for materials in the resource library, ways to improve the CYRAH community space, and systemic advocacy issues they are passionate about and want the CYRAH community to hear more about.

LCYC worked in partnership with HWW.work to identify core values and elements for building a robust online community.

LCYC has consulted with the Office of Civil Legal Aid throughout the project’s development phases in order to avoid duplication of efforts and to ensure OCLA’s goals for the CRP were incorporated.

You can share the sign up form with someone that may be interested in CYRAH.

You can have the fill out the sign up form.

You can submit a resource here.

You can email us at CYRAH@lcycwa.org