Valerie Achille

Valerie Achille, a staff attorney at the national children’s advocacy organization Children’s Rights, believes fiercely in the need to build up and support communities, especially Black communities, and that the status quo of many of our country’s child serving systems is unacceptably harmful to the children and families they are supposed to help. The daughter of a youth pastor, growing up among family members who were teachers and pediatricians, Valerie has long seen the urgency for children to be able to be raised in supportive, loving communities.

After graduating from Columbia Law School in 2021, Valerie worked as a litigation associate at Davis, Polk & Wardwell, LLP, in New York City. Early on she had the opportunity to represent a disabled Black employee in a wrongful termination case, which showed her the power and meaning in giving back to communities of color by protecting their legal rights.

Valerie joined the staff of Children’s Rights in 2022, and has focused on several federal class action litigation cases seeking to protect the rights of children and drive the expansion of community-based supportive services. She’s on a team in a New York lawsuit on behalf of Medicaid-eligible children, attacking the gross lack of mandated home and community-based mental and behavioral health services that contributes to unnecessary family separation and law enforcement involvement of kids—disproportionately Black kids. She also works with a team in an Alabama lawsuit on behalf of youth, again disproportionately Black youth, unnecessarily warehoused in often brutal institutions known as residential treatment facilities and who can and should be supported in communities with the services they need.

“Whether it’s fighting to guarantee mental health services to support children in their homes, or to protect the rights of children in a traumatic and harmful foster system that unnecessarily institutionalizes them, this is a fight for community,” says Valerie. As she develops her skills as a children’s civil rights lawyer, she reflects, “I see extraordinary power and leverage in the law to provide opportunities and resources to level the playing field in so many areas for all youth, particularly Black youth.” When she talks about her work, Valerie’s passion shines through as she notes with a smile. “This is what I need to be doing.” 

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