Violence and abuse affects our peers, our families, and our pets despite our different backgrounds. Not everyone has a home where they feel secure or benefit from nurturing relationships. During the 2017-2019 bar years, the ABA YLD is committed to making home a safe place for everyone. Through its national public service project, Home Safe Home, the YLD will address four different types of home violence—intimate partner abuse, child abuse, elder abuse, and animal abuse—in three different ways: through education, outreach, and advocacy.
At each of its quarterly national conferences, the YLD will feature at least one educational program and one outreach project centered on one of these types of home violence. The topics and themes will change at each conference, offering attendees varying opportunities to learn not only about these issues but also how they can make a difference in their own communities. In concert with its national conferences, the YLD will put together “roll-out packages” for our affiliates and their members. These packages will include materials and resources providing detailed guidance for how our affiliates and members across the country can implement this project in its various forms in their local communities. The YLD will also work with different types of community shelters, programs and local initiatives at each of its meetings to ensure that attendees and local young attorneys alike are provided with diverse opportunities to make a difference in the communities that we visit.
Finally, the YLD will focus on advocacy that is consistent with our education and outreach efforts. During the 2017-2018 bar year, the YLD will draft a resolution to introduce for passage by the ABA House of Delegates in support of federal and state legislation designed to address home violence. During the 2018-2019 bar year, the YLD will work to turn that resolution into legislative action in Washington, D.C.
Home Safe Home is a multi-faceted project that will educate young lawyers about this pervasive, dangerous epidemic, encourage them to become involved in their own communities, and facilitate effective advocacy on both a local and national level. Together, young lawyers can help make home a safe place for everyone.