Population Health
Medical-legal partnership
Medical-legal partnership (MLP) is a novel intervention that partners health care providers with legal aid attorneys to address legal needs such as housing and access to special educational services that may affect health outcomes.
Patients served at Nemours Children’s, Jessup Street, have shown significant rates of health-harming legal needs on SDoH screenings compared to the broader Nemours Children’s patient population in Delaware.
These areas of health-harming legal needs fit into the “iHELP” framework:
I: Income and Health Insurance
H: Housing and Utilities
E: Education and Employment
L: Legal Status
P: Personal and Family Stability
First Chance Delaware, established by First Lady Tracey Quillen Carney, and Delaware Community Legal Aid, Inc. have received funds from Casey Family Programs to establish a one-year pilot of neighborhood-focused civil legal aid services for Jessup Street families and the Stubbs Family Center, together comprising the “Wilmington Community of Hope.”
Referrals from Jessup and Stubbs will focus on families with income less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level focused on ZIP codes with high rates of health-harming legal needs.
