In partnership with The Judge David S.Wesley LASC Teen Court Program

*NEW!* The Virtual Youth Juror institute is back this summer.

The need for Teen Court and your contributions are as important as ever. Join with youth juror peers in community to build your skills and tackle bias in an alternative, restorative justice program.

The online sessions will offer the same dynamic speakers and expert presenters as always. You will get hands-on training in California hate crime law, juror skills workshops, and how to be ally through applying the law with compassionate and restorative practices.

Students must commit to the entire 5-day program. The dates for this years session are:

• July 11-15, 2022 (1:30 - 4:30 pm each day)

Students: Contact your Teen Court Coordinator ASAP to sign up. 
Coordinators/Chaperones: Register your group online here!

This program is open to High Schools in Los Angeles County that have existing Teen Court programs or are in the process of creating one.

Questions? 
Contact Marlow Gory at the Los Angeles Superior Court Community Relations Office: mgory@lacourt.org
or the Museum's Youth Education Dept. at youthed@museumoftolerance.com

About SHADES:

In partnership with the LA Superior Court, the Museum of Tolerance (MOT) provides youth juror training for a specialized Teen Court, focusing on bullying incidents rooted in prejudice and bias. The SHADES (Stop Hate and Delinquency by Empowering Students) program goal is to train youth participants to serve as informed and effective jurors.

Teen Court is an intervention program which provides selected juvenile offenders with the opportunity to be questioned, judged, and sentenced by a jury of their peers. The program diverts young people from the formal court system and promotes restorative justice through innovative sentencing. The Los Angeles Superior Court’s Teen Court program operates at over 30 LA County schools and is the largest and fastest growing network of teen juror justice in the country. Through SHADES, the student jurors and their adult partners promote understanding of the negative impact of bias on the community, and advance hate crime and incident prevention through new community service sentencing.

SHADES is the recipient of several recent awards for its contributions to the Los Angeles community and as an innovative and alternative model for juvenile justice.

Youth Juror Training Summer Institute:

The Youth Juror Training Institute is a five-day summer program. Students are divided into groups of 30, to engage in a series of interactive activities and educational workshops led by a professional facilitator. The headquarters for the program is the Museum of Tolerance‘s Youth Action Lab, complete with media walls, anonymous voting devices, multi-purpose rooms and state of the art AV equipment. The program concludes with a ceremony for family and friends where students receive certificates of completion.

Institute Objectives:

• Understand the meaning of hate and bias and identify the forms it takes
• Gain greater self-awareness of personal biases and be sensitive to how these biases can impact judgment
• Enhance empathy for people different from ourselves and gain greater comfort with multiple perspectives
• Learn new communication skills, including effective questioning, active listening and respectful communication styles
• Brainstorm and research ideas for creative and constructive alternative sentencing promoting meaningful offender education and involve students in hate prevention initiatives at their schools

Watch a CBS News story about SHADES: