Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County's Peninsula Family Advocacy Program (FAP)
A Medical-Legal Collaboration

FAP is a Collaboration Between:


FAP strives to improve the health and welfare  of pregnant women, low income children and their families. FAP provides legal representation, advocacy and education to help address underlying causes of poor health among low-income children.

FAP provides free legal services and representation to low-income pregnant women and family members from San Mateo County and Santa Clara County whose children are receiving medical care at
these sites. All families regardless of income or county of residence
will receive referrals to appropriate resources.

FAP Goals

The Peninsula Family Advocacy Program strives to improve the health and welfare of low income children and their families by:
  • Increasing access to legal advocacy, resources and education by providing legal services to patients and their families in health care settings
  • Training health care providers to identify their patients’ legal needs and to refer families to FAP or other appropriate community agencies.
  • Addressing policy issues that impact children’s health

FAP Strives to Provide

Comprehensive Services to Improve Children’s Health
Children living in poverty experience relatively poor health and development outcomes regardless of the quality of health care they receive. While health care providers can recognize and treat the ill-effects of poverty on child health, they may lack the resources, 
knowledge or time to confront its legal and social causes. Legal Aid
lawyers, who are trained to address the barriers low-income families
confront, are ideal partners for pediatricians. Working alongside health care providers in clinics, lawyers employ legal strategies to improve children’s health.
 
Preventive Lawyering
The Family Advocacy Program is grounded in the preventive care approach used in pediatrics. Because many families visit 
their pediatrician on a regular basis, health care providers may spot legal issues and make appropriate referrals to FAP long before they become legal emergencies. In this way, FAP can begin advocating for families before an economic or legal crisis occurs.

Increased Access to Justice 
General lack of awareness in low-income communities about
the role and availability of legal assistance and other obstacles such as transportation and cultural barriers can impede families' access to legal assistance. FAP works to remove these barriers by placing lawyers at the health clinics families visit regularly.

Families also place significant trust in their pediatricians. Consequently, when a trusted doctor “prescribes” legal advocacy, a family may be more willing to follow through and obtain legal help.

Medical Legal Partnerships Nationally

The Peninsula Family Advocacy Program of the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County is modeled after the FAP started at Boston Medical Center in 1993. Perceiving that a family’s legal problems could interfere with a doctor’s ability to treat a patient’s health, Dr. Barry Zuckerman, Chief of Pediatrics at Boston Medical Center, hired a lawyer to work alongside health care providers in his department. The medical-legal collaboration model has since been replicated in health care settings across the United States.

For more information or to start your own medical legal partnership contact the National Medical Legal Partnership (NCMLP): www.medical-legalpartnership.org