Women's Roles in the U.S. Juvenile Justice System

In honor of Women's History Month, the virtual Elk Place Health Spot from the Tulane University School of Social Work connects the past to the present in a discussion on the roles women play in the U.S. Juvenile Justice System.

The 90 minute session will begin with a historical perspective from Dr. Laura Rosanne Adderley, an Associate Professor with the History Department in the Tulane University School of Liberal Arts, on Frances Joseph-Gaudet (1861 – December 1934), an educator, social worker, and prisoner advocate, who has been honored as a saint in the Episcopal Church and is credited as one of the originators of a juvenile justice movement in New Orleans. Dr. Adderley will then interview panelists who are on the forefront of advocating for young people. This includes women from Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights and the Orleans Parish District Attorney who will speak about the current state of the Juvenile Justice System.

The webinar will occur on Thursday, March 25 from 12 to 1:30 pm CT, and advance registration is required. This program has been approved by the Louisiana State Board of Social Work Examiners for 1.5 General continuing education credit hours for social workers through Tulane School of Social Work.

In addition to Dr. Adderley, Heather Kindschy, LCSW-BACS, MPH from the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, Teneé Felix, Chief of Juvenile Services with the Orleans Parish District Attorney, and The Honorable Candice Bates-Anderson will participate in the event and discussion.

Click here to register.

Participant Bios:

Laura Rosanne Adderley, PhD works primarily as a comparative slavery historian focusing particularly on the 19th century, and the era of slave trade abolition and emancipation. Although the bulk of her research has concerned British slave trade suppression and the Africans affected by it, because of the nature of the 19th-century Atlantic slave trade, her research work has various transnational components across multiple colonial and geographic boundaries, including most significantly interaction between the British and Spanish colonized Caribbean and North America. Adderley is author of “New Negroes from Africa” : Slave Trade Abolition and Free African Settlement in the Nineteenth-Century Caribbean (2006).  The book was a co-winner of the Wesley-Logan Prize for African Diaspora History, jointly awarded by the American Historical Association (AHA) and the Association for the Study of African-American Life and History (ASALH).   Her current book project is entitled Practicing Emancipation:  Slave Ship Survivors, Atlantic Abolition, and the Everyday Politics of Freedom. This work focuses on the earliest Africans rescued from illegally operating slave ships and re-settled by British colonial authorities between 1807 and 1819, mostly in Antigua, the Bahamas and Tortola.  Other projects include a micro-history involving sexual assault aboard a 19th-century slave ship, and a collective biography of free African soldiers who worked for British authorities in Havana Cuba in their efforts to police illegal slave trading in the 19th-century.  From 2013-2020 Professor Adderley served as the administrative director for the Africana Studies Program at Tulane. She currently serves as one of two Tulane representatives on the Board of the Amistad Research Center. She is also a part of a New Orleans based effort to research and create public education around the life and legacy of African-American Episcopal saint, Frances Joseph Gaudet–an early 20th-century and educator and prison reform advocate.  Adderley is also broadly interested in public history projects related to black enslavement and its legacies around the Americas; with a focus on how high-quality public history projects can influence visionary public policies and strong community culture in the present.

Heather Kindschy, LCSW-BACS, MPH, is primarily a public defense social worker and trauma informed treatment advocate.  She started her professional career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bangladesh from 2003-2005. She later briefly worked on a teacher professional development and school connectivity project for a small NGO in Dhaka Bangladesh Relief International. One month after returning stateside Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast and Peace Corps called up Returned Peace Corps (RPCV)to respond.  Heather responded with 40 other RPCVs living in a tent city and working in the Emergency Operations Center for the City of New Orleans.   It didn’t take long after arriving in October 2005, that she has considered New Orleans home. During Heather’s graduate school internship at Save the Children, she conducted psychosocial groups for children who experienced trauma during and after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans Public Schools. After graduation from Tulane she became a founding staff member at Sojourner Truth Academy, New Orleans’ first public charter high school focused on social justice. There, she was the Director of Social Work for four years, and proudly witnessed the first incoming class graduate high school and move on to college. It was there she found her passion for working with kids who have experienced trauma and trying to improve their wellbeing. She also had some first-hand experience on the school to prison pipeline that would go on to inform her later work. In 2012 she moved to Juvenile Regional Services (now Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights) to professionalize a client services unit and try to bring best practices in holistic public defense practice to New Orleans. She is outspoken about the lack of trauma informed treatment for children in New Orleans and the need for it.  She works passionately with children and families to lessen their burden through direct advocacy and intense individual work. She works with community stakeholders and policy makers to try to shrink the juvenile justice system and lessen its impact.  Heather regularly provides workshops to school staff about what happens to kids in the juvenile justice system and the dangers of school to prison pipeline.  She received MSW and Master’s degree in Public Health from Tulane University and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Teneé Felix was born and raised in the Northeast but happily calls New Orleans home. She received her BA from Boston University in Biology and Psychology in 1996. While in Boston, she spent much of her free time mentoring inner-city youth in the Supplemental Program of Educational Skills (SPES) and coaching a basketball team for girls from that program. After completing her undergraduate degree, Teneé relocated to New Jersey to work as a chemical analyst and as a residential assistant in a youth group home. Teneé moved to New Orleans to attend Loyola University College of Law and graduated in December of 2006. While attending law school, she was a student practitioner with Loyola’s Family Law Clinic, and served on the board for Loyola’s Public Interest Law Group. After Hurricane Katrina, Teneé participated as a volunteer with Loyola’s Katrina Law Clinic. She joined LCCR as a staff attorney in January of 2009. Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office has recently named Teneé as the chief of the juvenile division.

The Honorable Candice Bates-Anderson has been serving as Judge of Orleans Parish Juvenile Court since November 2010. Judge Bates-Anderson currently serves as Chief Judge, Orleans Parish Juvenile Court, Section “C” and Chief Administrative Judge of the Court. Judge Anderson was born in New Orleans on May 12, 1970. She received her law degree from Tulane University School of Law and received a Bachelor's degree from Clark Atlanta University. Her work history includes serving as Deputy Chief Judge, Orleans Parish Juvenile Court; Lead Judge of FINS, Orleans Parish Juvenile Court; Lead Judge over Drug Court, Orleans Parish Juvenile Court; Judge, Orleans Parish Juvenile Court, Section C; Partner, The Law Firm of Anderson and Darensburg; Attorney, Regional Transit Authority; Attorney, Housing Authority of New Orleans; Attorney, Law Firm of Beahm and Green; and Judicial Law Clerk. She is a member of the New Orleans Bar Association, Louisiana State Bar Association, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., and Historic Faubourg Treme Neighborhood Association. She is the proud wife of Aaron Anderson III and mother of Penelope Agnes Anderson, Caydance Lillie Anderson, and Angelica Elmira Anderson.