Child Advocacy:

Diana Autin is the Executive Director of the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network (SPAN). SPAN works to educate, empower, and engage families and concerned professionals on issues affecting children; SPAN’s primary commitment is to children placed at greatest risk due to poverty, disability, immigrant or language status, or other special circumstance. Nationally, she is a member of the Steering Committee of the National Coalition of Advocates for Students and the U.S. Department of Education’s Stakeholders’ Workgroup on Monitoring. She is an Advocacy Institute Senior Leadership Fellow, and Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation of Leadership Fellow. In New Jersey, she serves on numerous committees and task forces regarding early childhood, education, child care, health, and human services. She is a member of the Board of the New Jersey Association of Partners in Education. She was awarded the 2002 Distinguished Service Award by the New Jersey Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the Al Harrison Public Health Award by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services in 1999 for her participation on the Early Intervention Stakeholders’ Task Force. She has written numerous reports and advocacy guides on inclusion, and is the author of The Grassroots Guide to Public Policy Advocacy. As Managing Attorney at Advocates for Children, she was co-counsel in several class actions seeking to protect the rights, including language rights, of children with disabilities, including Jose P. and Ray M.

In her spare time, she is the Co-President of the Montclair Council of PTAs, Co-Chair of its Health and Wellness Advisory Committee, and Secretary of its Special Education Parent Advisory Council. She sings with the multi-racial women’s chorus, The Righteous Sisters. She is the mother of multiracial adopted children ranging in age from 10-26, and the grandmother of a 3-year old.
 

Alice Bussiere
Youth Law Center
417 Montgomery Street, Suite 900
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 543-3379 x 3903
Fax: (415) 956-9022
www.youthlawcenter.com
LEP Task Force Participant

The Youth Law Center focuses on issues that affect
children in state care.  More information is available on our website at
www.youthlawcenter.com.  Although we are just beginning to focus more on
LEP issues, much of our work includes issues that affect youth with limited
English proficiency.  This year Alexis Mazon, the Youth Law Center Loren
Warboys Fellow, is working on issues that affect immigrant youth.  Two
Youth Law Center projects focus on the over representation of youth of
color in juvenile justice and child welfare systems.  See the Building
Blocks for Youth Initiative (BBY) http://www.buildingblocksforyouth.org and
the W Haywood Burns Institute http://www.burnsinstitute.org.  BBY will be
issuing a report on Latino and Latina Youth in the juvenile justice system
in the next few weeks.  We also have just started a project on education
for youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, which will
include LEP issues.  A one page description is attached.
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Sujatha Jagadeesh Branch
Child Care Law Center
973 Market Street, Suite 550
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 495-5498
Fax: (415) 495-6734
sbranch@childcarelaw.org
LEP Task Force Participant

Sujatha Jagadeesh Branch is a Senior Staff Attorney specializing in child care subsidies for low-income families and families receiving TANF.  As an immigrant who  entered the United States not knowing English, Sujatha has a special interest in issues affecting Limited English Proficient communities.  Sujatha has a BA from the Ohio State University and a JD from Columbia University School of Law.
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Darryl Hamm
National Center for Youth Law
405 - 14th Street, 15th Floor
Oakland, California 94612-2701
510-835-8098, fax 510-835-8099
http://www.youthlaw.org/
dhamm@youthlaw.org
LEP Task Force Participant

Darryl Hamm graduated from Carleton College with a degree in Political Science in 1985, and earned his law degree from Stanford Law School in 1988. Before joining NCYL he worked for Legal Services for Children and the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. He has experience in a wide range of substantive areas including disability rights, sexual harassment, racial discrimination, education law, juvenile law, guardianship law, welfare benefits, immigration law, and mental health issues.

Cassie Pierson
Staff Attorney
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
1540 Market St., Suite 490 • San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 255-7036 Ext:
cassie@prisonerswithchildren.org
LEP Task Force Participant

CASSIE PIERSON is a Staff Attorney with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC). She began working with LSPC in 1994 as a legal intern while attending law school. She received a B.A. from San Francisco State University in 1993 and a J.D. from New College of California School of Law in 1996. Prior to attending law school, Ms. Pierson was a teacher and over the course of twenty-two years taught pre-Kindergarten, First, and Second grades. She continues to be an advocate for parents and children through her work at LSPC by assisting women prisoners in retaining their parental rights while incarcerated. She conducts family law workshops for prisoners confined at San Francisco County Jail and women held at the federal prison in Dublin. She serves on the Advisory Boards of the National Equal Justice Association and Families With A Future, an organization that provides transportation and assistance to children who wish to visit their parent in prison or jail. She is a member of the California Coalition for Battered Women in Prison, the California Coalition for Women in Prison, and the National Lawyers Guild.