Kids' Legal Aid of Maine
Pine Tree Legal Assistance - 030195
Abstract Number: 030195
December 2003
Pine Tree Legal Assistance (PTLA) recently launched the Kids' Legal Aid of Maine project to deliver legal services to low-income children in order to ensure children can access health care, appropriate education services, services for children with disabilities, and public benefits. This project initiated several collaborations which included partnering with the Pediatric Clinic at the Maine Medical Center, the Multilingual Office of the Portland, Maine School System, and several homeless teen centers in Portland. Drawing inspiration from the Family Advocacy Program run by the Boston Medical Center, PTLA has begun working with pediatricians in order to educate medical professionals about how referrals to PTLA can help improve medical problems such as the adverse effects poor housing conditions may have on a child's asthma condition. PTLA has also worked with the Multilingual Office of Portland to identify and accept cases on behalf of limited English proficient children who are wrongly denied educational services. Through PTLA's TeamChild initiative, PTLA attorneys work with juvenile defenders and district attorneys to represent at-risk children in educational and health care issues. PTLA has sought to strengthen relationships with a number of nontraditional legal aid partners in order to educate these partners about the ways PTLA can assist low-income children and how they can refer clients to PTLA.
Recognizing that serving as a Guardian ad litem in a contested family law proceeding is a challenging job for pro bono attorneys, PTLA, in tandem with Maine's Volunteers Lawyer Project, published a web-based "Guardian Ad Litem Best Practices Manual" intended for use by Pro Bono attorneys that was funded by a grant from the ABA Child Custody Pro Bono Project. In addition, PTLA's Muskie Fellowship attorney published "A Voice for Low-Income Children: Evaluating Guardians ad litem in Divorce and Parental Rights and Responsibilities Cases." Both documents are available online through the links below. For additional information, visit the Kids' Legal Aid website at: http://www.kidslegalaid.org and access the documents below.
Contact Information:
Nan Heald
Executive Director
Pine Tree Legal Assistance
88 Federal Street
P.O. Box 547
Portland, ME 04112
Phone: (207) 774-4753
Fax: (207) 828-2300
nheald@ptla.org
Additional Information
Updated 2008
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