NCCU Law Students Prepare to Advocate for Children in Abuse and Neglect Cases
Five North Carolina Central University (NCCU) School of Law clinical students completed 30 hours of training through the Durham County Guardian ad Litem (GAL) Program, preparing them to serve as volunteer advocates for children involved in abuse and neglect proceedings.
The students completed the training alongside Interim Associate Dean Katrina Smith ‘09. Chief District Court Judge Doretta Walker administered the oath to the students and Smith during a swearing-in ceremony marking their completion of the training.
The participating law students are:
Deja Bradford
Juliana Kushmakova-Yakubova
Zachary Parisian
Jasmine Peele Garcia
Ashley Witherspoon
The program helps ensure that children who have experienced abuse or neglect have a voice in court proceedings and their best interests are considered.
Working alongside attorney advocates, GAL volunteers gather information about children's circumstances, conduct interviews, visit children, prepare court reports and make recommendations to the court regarding their best interests.
For NCCU law students, the training provided an opportunity to strengthen their advocacy skills while gaining practical insight into the challenges facing children and families involved in the court system.
“Too often the voices of children involved in legal matters not of their making are muffled or their needs and wants determined by people who rarely consult the child or children,” Parisian said. “The GAL Volunteer Program ensures that every child is afforded an opportunity to be heard when determining the best interests of the child.”
Witherspoon described the training as a transformative experience that reinforced her commitment to advocating for vulnerable children.
“This experience has only deepened my conviction that every child deserves safety during those most formative years when they cannot protect themselves,” she said. “Moving forward, I am happy to dedicate myself to being a fierce, objective voice for them, knowing that my advocacy today can potentially shape the adults they’ll become tomorrow.”
Peele Garcia, who plans to pursue family law, emphasized the importance of looking beyond legal issues to understand how court decisions affect children and families.
“My GAL training reminded me that behind every custody dispute or family matter is a child whose life is directly impacted by the decisions being made,” she said. “It reinforced how important it is to slow down, look beyond the legal issues, and truly consider everyone’s perspective, including the child’s.”
Smith said she incorporated the training into the Family Law Clinic to help students develop the judgment and skills required to represent families effectively.
“I made Guardian ad Litem training a required component of the Family Law Clinic to deepen our students’ understanding of what effective advocacy in family court demands: careful listening, thorough investigation, and the discipline to distinguish their own assumptions from the lived realities of the families they serve,” Smith said. “Those skills translate directly to our custody cases, helping students understand our clients’ objectives while examining what the outcomes they seek would mean for the children at the center of those disputes.