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。由此产生的诸如追债、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具有深远的影响。这些后果在阿拉斯加被放大，每10,000名阿拉斯加贫困人口中只有1.13名律师可用。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，该计划培训嵌入阿拉斯加农村社区的个人，以提供正式的法律宣传和实践见解。通过扩大CJW方案，该项目直接满足了阿拉斯加农村和土著社区的民事法律需求。它还促进了美国各地的地方卫生和福利、区域经济赋权和变革性的法律援助交付实践。项目团队利用科学和政策见解、区域专业知识和地方关系，正在：1)为CJW制定正式的培训、监督和资格认证流程；2)为招聘和保留CJW以及劳动力发展提供最佳实践；3)测试CJW基础设施的短期和长期可持续发展模型；以及4)创建评估和基于证据的实践框架。通过严格、混合方法的数据收集(定性访谈、调查和培训数据)，与当地利益攸关方和社区咨询委员会成员的持续审查和接触，以及持续制定和测试遵守土著数据主权和政策原则的CJW评估指标，该项目同时促进了科学、法律和司法。它还通过展示一种适合文化、响应空间和以人为中心的法律服务提供模式是可能的，从而为法律援助工作做出贡献。公民创新挑战是与能源部、国土安全部和国家科学基金会合作的。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力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.