Wilbanks CEASE Clinic continues to expand services for survivors

Eight years after opening in 2016 – thanks to a founding gift from 1986 alumnus and Board of Visitors Chair Marlan B. Wilbanks – the Wilbanks Child Endangerment and Sexual Exploitation Clinic continues to demonstrate the value of quality, trauma-responsive legal representation for survivors.

In 2023, the Georgia Criminal Justice Coordinating Council’s TANF Grant Program for Minor Human Trafficking Services and Training awarded the clinic $242,090 to increase community-based services for survivors of child trafficking. The award is a continuation of a 2022 grant, through which the clinic hired a full-time social worker, which ensured interdisciplinary, holistic services for survivors. The 2023 award expanded the clinic’s work to dismantle the sexual-abuse-to-prison pipeline by increasing access to post-conviction relief for survivors under Georgia’s Survivors First Act of 2020.

Wilbanks CEASE Clinic

The 2023-24 Wilbanks CEASE Clinic team.

More than 55 survivors in 12 Georgia counties received direct client services from the clinic during 2023, while dozens more received indirect advocacy through the clinic’s partnerships with law firms, child advocacy centers and other agencies across the state.

Notably, Wilbanks CEASE Clinic Director and Clinical Associate Professor Emma M. Hetherington (J.D.’11) and Staff Attorney Brian Atkinson (J.D.’13) provided expert testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law on the human rights of children in foster care. Hetherington provided additional testimony on how proposed legislation would affect survivors of child trafficking before the Georgia Senate Judiciary Committee, while Atkinson provided expertise on the criminalization of survivors before the Georgia House Judiciary Non-Civil Subcommittee.

Atkinson’s work led to the recent enactment of HB 1201, which filled a significant and unintentional gap left by the Survivors First Act of 2020. Before the passage of HB 1201, the act allowed for vacatur or record restriction for convictions but did not provide relief for survivors who had entered a plea under Georgia’s First Offender Act. Atkinson recognized the law’s shortcomings and advocated for reform.

In March, the clinic hosted its annual conference, focused on courageous advocacy and a lawyer’s responsibility in combatting child sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking. Sandeep Prasanna, a Washington, D.C.-based attorney and policy expert who has advised members of the U.S. Congress, the Department of Justice and others on some of the nation’s most pressing challenges and has helped them to develop bipartisan relationships and support in Congress, delivered the keynote address.