Allison Crapo has been awarded the Ralph Santiago Abascal Fellowship from the University of California Hastings College of Law. Allison, who graduated from U.C. Hastings law school in 2007, was awarded the fellowship to work with youth who have unmet mental health problems and are involved in the juvenile justice system.
Allison will focus on the existing juvenile mental health courts in Santa Clara and Alameda counties to determine how civil advocates can improve youths’ ability to remain safely at home, succeed in school, and avoid future delinquency. She will provide direct representation to youth and recruit other civil advocates to help provide services. In an effort to expand the population of youth served, Allison will explore the potential of creating new mental health courts in the Bay Area.
Juvenile mental health courts are collaborative in nature, bringing together mental health providers, probation officers, civil advocates, defense attorneys, district attorneys, and judges. This team seeks to divert youth from detention and connect them with mental health services and community supports. Civil advocates, as members of the team, offer unique services: they help youth and families access health care, educational programs, vocational services, and other government benefits. The goal is to help detained youth successfully transition back home and to adulthood.
The Abascal fellowship is awarded for work that involves legal advocacy and policy change in areas affecting people denied access to the legal system. The fellowship committee considers both an applicant’s commitment to public interest law and to the community in which he or she will be working. The candidate’s relevant skills and experience are also considered.
Allison Crapo graduated from Harvard-Radcliffe College and earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. By becoming a lawyer, Allison intends to devote her career to public interest law by working to improve the well-being and opportunities of youth with mental health problems. In proposing this project, she argues that detaining youth in the juvenile justice system because of their behavior from unmet mental health problems is an issue of social justice, especially given the lack of mental health services available for youth.
The Abascal Fellowship is funded by U.C. Hastings alumni, students, and friends, in honor of the late Ralph Santiago Abascal, a legendary public interest lawyer who devoted his career to anti-poverty law and environmental justice. As an attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance, Abascal worked on more than 200 major cases, representing farm workers, disabled people, immigrants, students, and welfare recipients. After graduating from U.C. Hastings law school in 1968, Abascal returned as a professor to teach one of the first environmental justice classes and to serve on the board of directors. Over the course of his career, he was a mentor and inspiration to hundreds of law students and young public interest attorneys.
