VIDA Pilot Project

Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County - 020086

Abstract Number: 020086

October 2002

Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County (NLS) created the VIDA pilot project to provide health care assistance and leadership development training to uninsured poor working families. VIDA is a partnership of NLS and IAF-L.A. Metro (a community organizing project in Los Angeles County). Through VIDA, participants are provided assistance in overcoming barriers to health care access for themselves and are provided leadership training to empower them to advocate on behalf of themselves and others to improve access for low-income uninsured members of their communities.

VIDA emphasizes the need for simplified "front-end" access, which amounts to providing assistance to the working poor to help them locate and establish a "medical home" to obtain preventive health care. Los Angeles County makes available free and low-cost care at clinics and hospitals for people with no insurance. VIDA's simplified "front-end" access enables participants to more easily navigate these available services and resources. This includes linking VIDA participants with other programs and benefits (such as helping eligible individuals apply for Medi-Cal) and linking participants to individual advocacy from the Health Consumer Center of Los Angeles, another project of Neighborhood Legal Services.

VIDA employs person-to-person organizing to enroll families in this project. Since VIDA mainly serves recent Hispanic immigrants, person-to-person organizing has proved especially effective in dispelling any apprehension and fear that might accompany participation in a project such as this. In addition, VIDA staff also work with the health care system to ensure that health care workers meet the needs of VIDA's client community. For example, VIDA participants repeatedly have voiced concern that frontline health care workers were disrespectful to them and that their language needs were disregarded. To resolve these problems, VIDA arranged a meeting of frontline health care workers with VIDA participants to discuss some of these problems and to improve relations. From this meeting, frontline health care staff gained a better sense of how to deliver culturally appropriate services. For more information, access the fact sheet below.

The current focus of VIDA is responding to the devastating cuts in L.A. County's budget for providing services to the uninsured. Participants are involved in numerous "house meetings" to learn about how the changes are affecting others in their communities. The VIDA project is working on framing a solution to this crisis by identifying advocacy opportunities for the participants and training the participants in how to effectively advocate on their own behalf.

Contact Information:

Barbara Frankel
Neighborhood Legal Services of Los Angeles County
13327 Van Nuys Boulevard
Pacoima, CA 91331-3099
Phone: (818) 834-7572
Fax: (818) 896-6647
bfrankel@nls-la.org

Additional Information:

• VIDA Pilot Project Fact Sheet ( 171k)

back to top ^