Accessible legal information is essential for youth 

Hi! My name is Serena, and I am a recent alum of McGill University, having graduated with an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and an upcoming 2027 JD Candidate at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law. Justice education for youth has always been an area of interest to me, especially given the low levels of legal knowledge among Ontario and, more broadly, Canadian youth. My time at McGill has taught me the hard-hitting reality of how an insufficient understanding of legal life skills can lead to a multitude of problems for youth once they’ve left high school. Whether it was a run-in with the police or a dispute with landlords, many of my peers found themselves stuck in legal conflicts without the essential skills to get through them. Before working with OJEN, I was not familiar with the organization by name; however, I quickly realized after I began working with this team that OJEN’s resources had been following me throughout my education.  

In high school, I was deeply invested in my law class and passionate about the subject. At university, I would often encounter legal concepts and institutions I had learned about in Grade 11 or Grade 12, which helped me feel more confident in my understanding of our world and the justice system. Whether in Canadian politics classes or international courses, I always felt grateful to be able to rely on the foundational knowledge and skills I had gained in secondary school to support my undergraduate studies. I also felt thankful for the practical skills my law class gave me when facing legal questions during my university experience. What I didn’t know was that much of that foundational information came directly from the hard-working and passionate individuals at OJEN, who cared about kids my age having the skills needed to navigate their everyday encounters with the law and to broaden their understanding of the justice system at large.  

At OJEN, I have had the pleasure of contributing to the very resources that introduced me to legal life skills and knowledge. One of the first tasks I was assigned was to help organize speakers for OJEN’s annual Summer Law Institute, which provides an educational environment for educators to learn about relevant legal issues they can incorporate into their curricula to keep their students up to date on the justice system. I have also worked on a multitude of plain-language resources intended for classroom distribution. The first one I worked on was the Top 5 Cases resource, which outlines the previous year’s most groundbreaking and high-profile Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) cases that educators can teach in their classrooms to keep youth informed about changes within the Canadian legal system. Following that, I worked on a plain-language resource dedicated to the recent SCC decision in Ahluwalia v Ahluwalia regarding the tort of intimate partner violence. Working on these resources has taught me the importance of accessible legal information. In high school, and even at university, I at times took for granted the work my educators put into making legal concepts more understandable to the greatest number of people. OJEN has shown me the significance of this work and given me the necessary skills to make legal materials more accessible and readable.  

Serena presenting about the resources she worked on at the Summer Law Institute

The need for more justice education has never been greater in our current evolving and scary world, especially for youth. We cannot stand by and allow youth to operate in this world without a sufficient understanding of the justice system they live under and the laws that govern their everyday lives. No child should be without the resources or knowledge to deal with the countless legal issues that arise in daily life.  

This past summer at OJEN has shown me how much care and thought this education requires and has made me more optimistic about the support children in Ontario have with OJEN’s help. I am so immensely grateful for OJEN’s support of my education as a teenager, and as an adult, I am even more thankful to this team and organization for their commitment to supporting and informing youth about the systems that impact them every day.