Kristen Weber honored for efforts to dismantle harmful family policing systems
NCYL’s Director of Child Welfare presented with American Bar Association’s Mark Hardin Award, which recognizes efforts to create change
It was during Kristen Weber’s first tenure with the National Center for Youth Law some 25 years ago that she began to truly realize the transformative power of legal advocacy.
Kristen, at the time a Skadden Fellow fresh out of law school, arrived at NCYL with a deep passion and desire to keep children and families together and safe from harmful state interventions and separations. She joined a dedicated team led by the late Bill Grimm, then a rising national leader in the child welfare space who would serve as Kristen’s first supervisor and mentor.
Kristen, who remembers Grimm for his “relentless pursuit of justice,” was immediately thrust into work on multiple high-profile lawsuits. Over the next two decades, she utilized her talents at several other organizations, continuing to broaden her scope and refine her skills in an uncompromising pursuit of youth and family liberation. In 2022, Kristen returned to her roots at NCYL to become the organization’s Senior Director of Child Welfare, a role once held by Grimm, her pioneering mentor.
Today, Kristen’s name was once again positioned alongside Grimm’s — this time as a recipient of the American Bar Association’s Mark Hardin Award for Child Welfare Legal Scholarship and Systems Change. Kristen was among a pair of honorees presented with the 2024 award, five years after Grimm received the same honor, during today’s kickoff of the ABA’s Access to Justice Conference in McClean, Va.
The National Center for Youth Law is proud to celebrate Kristen and this milestone recognition, particularly with April observed nationally as Child Abuse Prevention Month. Kristen’s unwavering commitment to abolishing harmful child welfare and family policing systems, and to building alternatives that support the safety, care and healing of young people, has led her to become a national leader in the fight for justice and liberty for children and youth.
Upon receiving the Mark Hardin Award, Kristen noted the honor felt particularly rewarding with Grimm, her former mentor, among the list of previous winners.
“I’ve grown a lot since those early days with Bill, and my work and viewpoint have evolved and changed with me,” she said. “I’ve been challenged and learned so much in community with many of you. … It’s been made clear to me that the work of racial and social justice is a collective effort. We all have a role to play and what may seem at the time like something small can lead to a huge impact.”
Deep passion for advocacy
Kristen’s career has spanned many states and issues, but her focus has always remained on keeping families together, identifying and addressing racial and social inequities in child welfare systems, and preventing states from weaponizing child welfare systems by using them to surveil and punish youth, particularly those who are Black, Brown, Indigenous or identify as LGBTQIA+. She envisions compassionate, community-focused alternatives that are designed to keep children safe without using state power to forcibly separate them from their parents.
At NCYL, Kristen leads a dynamic team of policy advocates and litigators. The team is committed to the same vision that has driven much of Kristen’s career:
- Reducing the family policing system’s infliction of harm on children and their families;
- Supporting and elevating what youth and their families and communities do to care for themselves and each other; and
- Building and innovating what doesn’t yet exist, but communities deserve.
“As one of my dear mentors says, ‘It is hard work and it is heart work,’” Kristen said. “I’ve worked with, represented, and talked to many, many kids and their families about what they need to be safe and together. I’ve learned about and documented how the child welfare or family policing system acts in harmful and traumatizing ways. And I feel such an incredible sense of urgency to have all of us do better, build new approaches that aren’t carceral or punitive to families, and address so many of the structural inequities in our country.”
For more on Kristen’s advocacy and selection for the Mark Hardin Award, please read the American Bar Association’s announcement here.
For more information on the National Center for Youth Law, visit youthlaw.org.
