Cheryl M. Graves

Cheryl Graves is an attorney involved in the Juvenile Advocacy Project of the Children and Family Justice Center of the Northwestern University Legal Clinic. She represents children in delinquency proceedings and supervises law students in their work on such cases. She received her law degree from IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law in 1984 and has a Masters of Public Health degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Graves has developed a comprehensive health, education and wellness program for young women at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center School, known as "Girl Talk." She also developed a community-based Street Law project to teach residents at the detention center and youths in community settings about their rights, responsibilities and the consequences of the juvenile justice system. She has worked to develop the Community Justice Initiative (CJI), a youth advocacy and policy project that combats the criminalization of youth and trains youth as peer educators and organizers. She is also on the board of the Girls Best Friend Foundation, which funds programs promoting advocacy and social change for girls in Illinois.

Prior to the Northwestern University Legal Clinic, Graves coordinated a Fair Housing advocacy and enforcement project at Access Living that targeted discrimination against people with disabilities in the Chicago metropolitan area. She also worked as a Cook County Public Defender and as a Staff Attorney with the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago.