Speaker Series: Natasha Strassfeld

This talk will offer a comprehensive overview of the laws that govern service delivery to juvenile youth within the juvenile legal system, while also exploring the limitations of these established legal safeguards. Second, this talk will center youth with disabilities—who constitute an overwhelming majority of the population of youth in the juvenile legal system—within the national conversation on addressing systemic disparities, such as disproportionate recidivism rates for racialized and ethnic minority youth and the school-to-prison pipeline phenomenon. Finally, this talk will detail the disproportionate representation of system-involved youth with disabilities, critically examine how law and policy shape youth transition from the juvenile legal system to community release, and will review current, inclusive research methodologies for working with and studying this population.

To register, contact Sophie Kofman at skofman@abfn.org. 

Natasha Strassfeld is an associate professor in the Department of Special Education at The University of Texas at Austin. Prior to joining The University of Texas at Austin faculty, she was an assistant professor of special education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at NYU and associated assistant professor of public service at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. She obtained her J.D. from the University of Wisconsin School of Law and her Ph.D. in Special Education from the Pennsylvania State University.