Direct Services
We provide independent Child Advocates to unaccompanied and separated immigrant children in government custody and safe repatriation support to children returning to their home country.
Child Advocate Program
The Young Center has developed the only program in the nation that provides independent Child Advocates to unaccompanied immigrant children in government custody, whose job it is to advocate for the children’s rights and best interests. We are appointed to the most vulnerable children, including those forcibly separated from their parents at the border, children with mental or physical disabilities, children who are victims of human trafficking, and children who have witnessed or experienced violence.
While in custody, these children are separated from their parents and caregivers. As such, we serve as trusted adults to advocate on their behalf, to ensure they have legal representation, to advocate for their safety and well-being, to ensure decision makers, including immigration judges and asylum officers, consider their best interests. After they are released, children are still in deportation proceedings and it is critical that the same decision makers receive fact-based information about their best interests from independent Child Advocates.
What Are Child Advocates
A Young Center Volunteer Child Advocate is an adult who spends time with, and advocates on behalf of an individual unaccompanied immigrant child while they are in government custody and subject to deportation proceedings. Serving as a Child Advocate means being a reliable and trustworthy presence for children, and accordingly, we have a thorough clearance and training process.
A Child’s Rights Paradigm
To recognize children’s rights as set forth under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to minimize the risk that bias, stereotypes and subjective values influence our recommendations, the Young Center uses a paradigm based on child welfare and international law to evaluate each child’s best interests. This paradigm takes into account widely-accepted best interests principles of safeguarding a child’s safety and well-being and expressed interests, as well as the child’s rights to health, family integrity, liberty, development, and identity.
Become a Volunteer Child Advocate
An advocate for a child’s best interests, safety, and well-being. An amplifying voice for a child’s story.
Join our community of hundreds of Volunteer Child Advocates across the country who provide accompaniment to unaccompanied immigrant children and youth, and advocate for their rights and best interests while in government custody.
Safe Repatriation Support
Some children wish to return to their home countries, while others face removal against their wishes. In cases where children face repatriation, the Young Center seeks to determine whether the child can be safely repatriated. Through the Young Center’s safe repatriation work, we collaborate with international partners to gather information about children’s safety in their country of origin.
We have developed relationships with non-governmental organizations and independent social workers and psychologists to conduct international home studies in countries all over the world, including but not limited to Angola, Brazil, Canada, Chile Guatemala, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Venezuela. We use this information to develop our best interests determinations about a child’s safety and best interests. We submit these determinations to decision makers—immigration officers, asylum officers, immigration judges and other decision makers—in advance of a decision about a child’s repatriation.
“Arriving to a brand-new country is overwhelming, and they may feel lonely, especially because they are so young. I want them to remember a friendly face throughout their life experience in the new country, so they realize support and encouragement will always be around, even when their loved ones are far away.”
Gizelle Romo, Volunteer Child Advocate
Refer Children for the Appointment of a Child Advocate
The Young Center accepts referrals for the appointment of Child Advocates for unaccompanied and separated children who are in federal custody, or were previously in federal custody.