Stephanie S. Franklin has a passion for empowerment

Listen to this article

Stephanie S. Franklin spends most weekday mornings in court representing abused and neglected children and most afternoons visiting with her clients and their families at Mecca’s Place. The rest of her time is devoted to developing and growing the center, which she founded while still at her previous job with the Family League of Baltimore City Inc.

Franklin works all day, every day, in other words — and that’s fine with her.

“I’m just working in what’s my calling,” she said last week between meetings. “It’s what having a passion is all about.”

Franklin speaks excitedly about Mecca’s Place, a “global empowerment center” that she said aims to help clients and their families holistically, with an emphasis on human rights and social justice.

“It was my passion to do legal advocacy that way,” she said. “We look at the best interests of the child in a global fashion.”

Franklin, who was honored by The Daily Record for Leadership in Law in November 2006, decided to make Mecca’s Place her full-time job in January 2007. The move fulfilled a career goal to start out on her own.

The organization now has a staff of six and represents 1,000 abused and neglected children, mostly in Baltimore city and county.

Just as important to Franklin as her work with the children is the work with the people in their lives. Mecca’s Place holds community workshops on the child welfare process and offers “therapeutic education” to address children’s behavioral or social problems. It also offers a kinship program for clients’ relatives.

“It’s to empower them with information to advocate who we represent and what represent,” Franklin said.

Mecca’s Place also reaches out to incarcerated parents, with workshops on how to navigate the state Department of Juvenile Services. Franklin said sometimes an active parent in jail can be helpful to a child; for example, the parent can help pick the best family member to care for the child, or sign off on an adoption.

“It doesn’t matter whether or not the parent is incarcerated, the child is going to be attached to the parent no matter what,” she said. “We consider the incarcerated parent a resource.”

Franklin has become a resource in her own right, an authority on child advocacy who keeps track of bills moving through the General Assembly and often provides testimony. She co-authored a report for a United Nations conference in Switzerland a few years ago about families with members in jail. But she declined to speak at the conference, instead sending a formerly incarcerated mother and children to address the international delegates.

Franklin also mentors four staff attorneys at Mecca’s Place. The young lawyers that work for her fit in one of two categories: those with political aspirations and those who want to become influential in their communities.

“I see it as a training ground for new lawyers who will be our future leaders,” she said.

Franklin would like to see Mecca’s Place become known as a leader in advocacy for children and families, its model copied across the world. But her favorite part of her job remains making a difference in an individual client’s life.

“It’s always satisfying to do something that makes a client smile,” she said.