LRI: Practice: Health Care Access

Atlanta Legal Aid Society, Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, and the Georgia State University College of Law created the Health Law Partnership ( HeLP) to improve the health and social well-being of low-income children and their families. HeLP staff includes a project director, two staff attorneys, and an office manager. HeLP's primary premise is that by combining the health care expertise of hospital professionals with the legal expertise of attorneys, HeLP can provide a more holistic set of services to address the multiple determinants of children's health. HeLP consists of four components-direct legal services, educational programming, advocacy, and research and evaluation.

HeLP maintains on-site legal services offices at two Atlanta area hospitals, Children's Healthcare at Scottish Rite and Children's Healthcare at Egleston, to address the civil legal needs affecting children's health and well-being. HeLP accepts cases in a variety of practice areas including: access to health care, public benefits issues, private health insurance issues, family law, juvenile law, housing law, education law, employment law and consumer law issues.

HeLP's educational component works to strengthen the long-term effectiveness of the legal services component by training law and health care professionals to understand and address the social needs and legal rights of low-income children and their families. HeLP is developing an interdisciplinary in-service educational program about the legal, ethical, and policy issues that affect children's health and well-being. This program includes in-service training and education for health care professionals at Children's, Children's social work staff, volunteer attorneys who work with HeLP, and medical residents and students in training at Children's. In order to increase awareness of HeLP's presence and services at Children's, presentations are made at both Egleston and Scottish Rite during grand rounds, at pediatric roundtables, during social work and nursing staff meetings, and with school nurse liaisons and hospital school teachers. These presentations cover topics such as family law, housing law, public benefits, and special education. HeLP's educational component has an informal aspect as well. Physicians and social workers call HeLP regularly for immediate answers to questions on issues such as the eviction process in Georgia, divorce matters, guardianship, and denials of Medicaid applications.

HeLP is developing an interdisciplinary clinical education program in conjunction with the College of Law to provide education and client representation in areas of the law affecting low-income patients and their families. This program will provide additional case-handling personnel to HeLP's staff by using law students who will work under close attorney supervision. Law and health care graduate students will gain an understanding of the multiple determinants of children's health, experience in interdisciplinary approaches to problem-solving, and preparation for dealing with the health issues of low-income families. The goal is to transform Georgia State Law's clinical education program from an externship program (scheduled to have an enrollment of 3 law students for the Spring 2006 semester) to a full student legal clinic. The legal clinic will involve a greater number of students in a more intense educational experience by providing more direct involvement with clients under the close supervision of law school clinical faculty. A clinic requires graded performance, a weekly class presentation, and skills training.

The HeLP advocacy component strives to improve low-income children's access to health care and the conditions that affect their health and well-being. Federal regulations require that staff employed by federally funded legal services programs, such as the Atlanta Legal Aid Society, be invited by a legislator before engaging in legislative advocacy or by government agency personnel before advocating for certain types of regulation and policy reform. Following receipt of an appropriate invitation, advocacy efforts focus on work at the legislative, policy-making, and government agency levels on issues such as Medicaid, Georgia's S-CHIP program (PeachCare for Kids), health insurance coverage issues, and other changes in law and regulations designed to improve the overall health and well-being of children.

HeLP's research and evaluation component assesses the quality and effectiveness of the legal service and education components. Research data that indicate the efficacy of the legal and educational services will assist with internal quality assurance and management, fundraising efforts necessary to support HeLP financially, stimulating participation in educational programs, promoting volunteer efforts among professionals in the community to support HeLP, and encouraging the referral of patients and their families to HeLP. Analysis of research data will guide future modifications and expansions. This data also will be used for external publication of program quality, efficacy, and outcomes in order to encourage the development of programs similar to HeLP in other locations throughout the State of Georgia or nationally. Institutional Review Board approval for the evaluation component of HeLP has been obtained from Georgia State University and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.

Contact Information:

Sylvia Caley
Health Law Partnership
975 Johnson Ferry Road, Suite 550
Atlanta , GA 30342
Phone: (404) 785-2005
Fax: (404) 785-4762
sbcaley@atlantalegalaid.org

Practice Areas

Overview Children Consumer Elder Law Domestic Violence Economic Development Family & Domestic Law Health Care Access Housing Human Rights Public Benefits Taxes