1) Providing 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.

2) 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.

3) 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.