"The Family Advocacy Program: A Medical-Legal Collaborative to Promote Child Health & Development"

by Ellen M. Lawton - 030136

Abstract Number: 030136

July 2003

This article discusses the effectiveness of a medical-legal collaboration for the provision of legal services to poor families, specifically to children. Poverty is often the cause of childhood illness due to unmet basic needs, and pediatricians are in the position to intervene preventively with advocacy strategies.

Dr. Barry Zuckerman, Professor and Chairman of Pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, founded the Family Advocacy Program (FAP) 10 years ago to help improve the health of low-income families by training physicians to implement "legal treatment" along with medical treatment. FAP encourages health care providers to look not only at health issues, but also the living conditions that perpetuate illnesses in poor families. Lawyers can support and expand upon the duties of social workers to form effective treatment teams with doctors and nurses.

The article cites reasons that physicians often fail to assess unmet needs in their patients, namely: 1) insufficient knowledge of how to screen for these issues; 2) lack of confidence; 3) a deficiency in knowledge of available resources; 4) difficulty setting the referral process in motion; and 5) lack of time. FAP offers training and simple tools to health providers to promote cross-discipline communication and to provide resources and assistance. Across the nation, FAP-like collaborations are growing as legal services advocates recognize the potential to improve the health of low-income families and children.

For more information on this project, access the full article below as a PDF document and visit the Family Advocacy Program's website at: http://www.familyadvocacyprogram.org/.

Contact Information:

Ellen M. Lawton, Esq.
Director
Family Advocacy Program
Boston Medical Center
Dowling 3 South
Boston Medical Center
One Boston Medical Center Place
Boston, MA 02118
Phone (617) 414-3658
Ellen.Lawton@bmc.org

Additional Information:

• Ellen M. Lawton, "The Family Advocacy Program: A Medical-Legal Collaborative to Promote Child Health & Development." Management Information Exchange 17. No. 2 (Summer 2003) 12-16.*  ( 91k)
  
  *This article appears courtesy of Management Information Exchange.

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