CIVIC-FA Track B: Bridging the Rural Justice Gap: Innovating & Scaling Up Civil Access to Justice

在美国，资金不足的农村基础设施以及相应的就业、医疗和教育方面的不平等，使个人面临民事法律问题的高风险。然而，许多农村地区几乎没有律师。由此产生的债务催收、家庭暴力和驱逐等常见民事问题与获得法律援助之间的差距，对社区的复原力和健康产生了深远的影响。这些后果在阿拉斯加被放大了，在那里，每10,000名贫困的阿拉斯加人只有1.13名律师。作为回应，阿拉斯加法律服务公司最近开发了社区司法工作者（CJW）计划，该计划培训阿拉斯加农村社区的个人，提供正式的法律倡导和实践见解。通过扩大CJW项目的规模，该项目直接解决了阿拉斯加农村和土著社区的民事法律需求。该项目还促进了美国各地的地方卫生和福利、地区经济赋权和变革性法律援助提供实践。利用科学和政策见解、地区专业知识和地方关系，项目团队正在：1)为cjw制定正式培训、监督和资格认证程序；2)发展招聘和留住cjw以及劳动力发展的最佳实践；3)对CJW基础设施的短期和长期可持续性模型进行测试；4)建立评估和循证实践的框架。通过严格的混合方法数据收集（定性访谈、调查和培训数据），与当地利益相关者和社区咨询委员会成员的持续审查和参与，以及遵守土著数据主权和政策原则的CJW评估指标的持续开发和测试，该项目同时推进了科学、法律和正义。它还通过证明一种适合文化、适应空间和以人为本的法律服务提供模式是可能的，为法律援助工作作出了贡献。公民创新挑战赛是能源部、国土安全部和国家科学基金会的合作项目。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In the U.S., underfunded rural infrastructure and corresponding inequities in employment, health care, and education put individuals at high risk for civil legal problems. Yet many rural regions have few if any attorneys. The resulting gap between common civil issues like debt collection, domestic violence, and eviction on the one hand, and access to legal assistance on the other, is profoundly consequential to community resilience and health. These consequences are amplified in Alaska, where only 1.13 attorneys are available for every 10,000 Alaskans in poverty. In response, Alaska Legal Services Corporation recently developed the community justice worker (CJW) program, which trains individuals embedded in Alaska’s rural communities to provide formal legal advocacy and practice insights. By scaling up the CJW program, this project is directly addressing the civil legal needs of rural and Indigenous communities in Alaska. It is also contributing to local health and welfare, regional economic empowerment, and transformative legal aid delivery practices across the U.S.Leveraging scientific and policy insights, regional expertise, and local relationships, the project team is: 1) Developing formal training, supervising, and credentialing processes for CJWs; 2) Growing best practices for recruiting and retaining CJWs and for workforce development; 3) Testing short- and long-term sustainability models for CJW infrastructure; and 4) Creating a framework for evaluation and evidence-based practices. Through rigorous, mixed-methodological data collection (qualitative interviews, survey and training data), continuous review and engagement with local stakeholders and Community Advisory Board members, and ongoing development and testing of a CJW evaluation metric that abides by the principles of Indigenous data sovereignty and policy, this project is at once advancing science, law, and justice. It is also contributing to legal aid efforts by demonstrating that a culturally-appropriate, spatially-responsive, and people-centered model of legal service delivery is possible.The CIVIC Innovation Challenge is a collaboration with Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, and the National Science Foundation.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.