Anne Lee
By Joan Leah Middleton
Anne Lee is an advocate for children. She is the Executive Director of TeamChild, a non-profit organization dedicated to diverting juveniles from delinquency by advocating for their basic needs. TeamChild tackles the root causes of delinquency by helping youth to address their education, health care and housing needs.
Recognizing the value of this nationally acclaimed program, state and local governments have supported the expansion of TeamChild to five counties in Washington State. TeamChild currently has offices in Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Yakima and Spokane. Anne Lee is skillfully leading TeamChild’s efforts to bring this advocacy model to other parts of Washington State.
From Taiwan to Nebraska
Anne grew up in Omaha. Her family’s journey to Nebraska is the quintessential American story. As a young man, her father emigrated from Taiwan to attend Hastings College in Nebraska. While at Hastings College, he was befriended by a kind American family who noticed he would be alone for the holidays. Their invitation that he join their family for the holidays was the start of a life long friendship. A year later, the Denny family opened their home to Anne’s mother Jenny when she arrived in the United States.
Those first Nebraska winters proved too harsh for the Lees, and her father finished college in Arkansas while her mother went to college in Texas. Following college, her father attended graduate school in New York City and that’s where Anne was born. The Lee family eventually returned to Nebraska because of their deep connections. Anne’s father became a professor at Creighton University in Omaha and, along with his wife, he raised his three daughters there.
Anne was the one in the middle. Tragedy struck the family when her younger sister, Kate, was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of three. Although there was hope during two years of remission, Kate passed away. Anne was nine years old at the time.
From Omaha to Princeton
Anne says she was greatly influenced by her parents. In her family, there was a built-in expectation for achievement. She and her sisters had an American mid-west childhood, infused with their parents’ Chinese cultural identity that was celebrated through family and food.
Anne’s father wanted her to learn perfect English, so Chinese lessons did not come until college. Anne remembers summer vacations spent on long, hot road trips to National Parks, peppered with stops at McDonald’s or the rare discovery of a Chinese restaurant off of Interstate 80.
Anne’s father passed away after a long illness during her junior year at Princeton. Following graduation as a sociology major, she worked for a law firm for a year. Her father had encouraged her to become a lawyer and she made the decision to attend New York University School of Law.
According to Anne’s friends, though she stands less than five feet tall, her mother has the heart of a giant. Anne’s personal and professional success is plainly rooted in values imparted to her by her family.
From NYU to Legal Services
When Anne was in law school, she worked with the Urban Law Clinic in New York. She was an associate editor for Review of Law and Social Change. She also became involved with legal aid outreach with homeless shelter pro-viders. She and a law school roommate would volunteer at homeless shelters at night and this no doubt influenced her specialization focus. New York was an exciting place to attend law school and she also took graduate level social work courses, too. Another law school job involved teaching art classes to children with HIV. This experience influenced her, too.
From Legal Services to TeamChild
Following law school, Anne became a staff attorney at Evergreen Legal Services in Vancouver, Washington. She worked in Vancouver for six years. During this time, she represented indigent and senior clients in administrative appeals of public benefits and other general poverty law matters.
Anne developed community training manuals for children and seniors. She became actively involved in statewide advocacy for youth and created a special education advocacy practice. She also spent a year as a staff attorney for the Northwest Justice Project before being recruited for TeamChild. She attributes her success in legal services to incredible mentors and colleagues within the legal aid community in Washington.
TeamChild
Since inception in 1995, TeamChild has gained a national reputation among juvenile justice experts as an effective and uniquely holistic approach to child advocacy. Advocates build community partnerships to help youth with housing, health care and education needs. Last year, over 700 kids were served by TeamChild statewide.
In King County, most referrals come from public defenders and probation officers. From July to December 2004 in King County, 44% of the clients were Caucasian, 27% were African-American, and the remainder were fairly evenly divided among Asian, Hispanic and Multi-Racial. An astonishing 40% were clients with disabilities and 40% lived in single parent households. Youth who work with TeamChild are less likely to be involved in juvenile court and this saves money by reducing criminal justice costs. Of the clients served, 76% are between the ages of 14 and 17.
At TeamChild, attorneys use a collaborative approach to assist their clients. They broker services by bringing everyone involved in a youths’ lives to the table to help develop an individualized plan for their success. For example, TeamChild may work with school officials to help create an education plan that meets the needs of the student the school.
The focus is to get the youth back in school and find other appropriate services, including a volunteer tutor where necessary, to help the child back on the right track. They will represent youths in special education meetings, disciplinary hearings and petitions for readmission to school. TeamChild staff also help youths get access to mental health and medical care and stable housing.
TeamChild functions in an attorney/client relationship with youths and assesses what needs to be done. They are not court-appointed and the services they provide are not available anywhere else. A youth is advised of the options and empowered to make important life decisions. TeamChild explains the consequences of making choices in a way a youth can understand. TeamChild’s approach with their young clients is to build rapport while respecting the ability of youths to make their own choices.
Renaissance Woman
Anne’s friends know her as an incredible leader of TeamChild but also as a
master of all she attempts. She is a gour-met cook who makes amazing Chinese dumplings shaped in the Lee family tradition. She prefers to be on the learning curve and has lately undertaken learning the piano and mastering hand-sawn dovetail joints. After work, she can be found playing soccer, often in the rain with hundreds of other Seattle enthusiasts.
Most of all, she is known for her amazing ability to gather talent to work with and support TeamChild. She has maintained funding for youth involved in King County Juvenile Court for the past seven years. King county funding has has become a model for other funding efforts. Likewise, she has successfully maintained funding from the state and even secured new grants to serve more youths.
A
t present, Anne leads TeamChild’s growing efforts to diversify the organization’s funding base by securing more private donations. Like everything she does, Ann will no doubt succeed with the support and deep respect of her colleagues, family and friends.
TeamChild is located at 1120 E. Terrace, Suite 203, Seattle, WA 98122-7405. The phone number is (206) 322-2444 and the web address is www.team child.org where you can download a 200 page manual entitled “Making a Difference in a Child’s Life.” Cash donations are always needed and may be mailed directly toTeamChild. Anne Lee may be reached by email at anne.lee@ teamchild.org. Get in touch with her and ask how you can help. n
Joan Leah Middleton is a lawyer, guardian ad litem, certified parenting evaluator and Family Law CASA volunteer. She works with children and vulnerable adults. She is listed on various Superior Court registries in King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties and is available by court appointment or stipulation of the parties. Joan can be reached at (425) 557-5910 or kindlawyer@hotmail.com.
