St. Paul’s Michell Hamline School of Law recently received a $2 million donation that will be used to fund a new program aimed at helping train young professionals in child abuse response and prevention.
The “Zero Abuse Project” was funded by a $2 million donation from Jeff Anderson, a lawyer from St. Paul. The program will teach future lawyers and legal professionals how to respond to child abuse through training and “trauma-informed care.” Anderson spent much of his legal career handling child sex abuse cases, and he wanted to help ensure young lawyers understand the importance of protecting vulnerable children throughout the criminal justice process.
“We believe child abuse can end and the Zero Abuse Project is pivotal to that mission,” Anderson said. “Our law firm is making this commitment in the hopes that people don’t need to contact us in the future.
Zero Abuse Project
The Zero Abuse Project will include a new child-advocacy law clinic where legal professionals will help mold young minds in all aspects of child abuse law, from education and development to public policy changes and litigation.
Joanna Woolman, who currently runs Hamline Mitchell’s child-protection program, said the new program will expand learning opportunities for students and help to ensure the new wave of attorneys will be advocates for children.
“We’re going to be starting a child-advocacy clinic where they can get real experience working to advocate for children,” she said.
The Zero Abuse Project will also offer nationwide online training and certificates for professionals and other child-protection advocates.
“This will jump-start a national training program in that area,” said Mark Gordon, Mitchell Hamline law school dean, noting that he believe the unique opportunity will encourage more students to apply for admission at Mitchell Hamline. “I think you find a lot of people who are very moved by the stories they read about child abuse who would really like to be part of a solution, but the programming just traditionally has not been there at law schools for students who want to develop a career in this area.”
It’s great to hear that a local law school is taking a special interest in helping protect a class of citizens who can oftentimes find it difficult to speak up or get the help they need. It’s also great to see that it is being funded by someone in the legal community. Thank you Jeff, and here’s hoping to program is a huge success!
