Abstract
Medical-legal partnerships (MLP)—collaborations between legal professionals and health care providers that help patients address health-harming civil legal problems, such as safe housing and access to veterans benefits—have been implemented at several Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers to serve low-income veterans with mental illness or other health conditions. First, we describe the MLP framework and give an overview of the current state of MLPs at VA facilities (VA MLPs). Second, we discuss how VA MLPs help veterans address common legal problems that can affect health and well-being. Third, we provide windows into the inner workings of four VA MLP sites in Maine, California, and New York that serve different segments of the veteran population—homeless, women, and senior veterans—at different types of VA healthcare sites, like VA medical centers and Vet Centers. Fourth, we present data on the characteristics of veterans that participate in MLPs and on the health benefits that flow from this interdisciplinary service model. We conclude by discussing funding mechanisms for VA MLPs, including recent congressional momentum for federal government funding for VA MLPs, and the need for additional data gathering and outcome measurement to further assess and refine this innovative service model.
As a physician who treats veterans, I’ve seen up close that many of the factors contributing to homelessness can’t be fixed without a lawyer’s help. To fully address health, we have to address the social conditions that affect it. Working with lawyers in our clinic every day is one of the best upstream solutions to some of these intractable problems our veterans face (Manchanda, Murphy, Lawton, & Middleton, 2016, p. 11).
Dr. Rishi Manchanda
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Abbreviations
- CBOC:
-
Community Based Outpatient Clinic
- CHALENG:
-
Community Homelessness Assessment, Local Education and Networking Groups
- COD:
-
Character of discharge
- CVLC:
-
Connecticut Veterans Legal Center
- MLP:
-
Medical-legal partnership
- MOU:
-
Memorandum of understanding
- MST:
-
Military sexual trauma
- NCMLP:
-
National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership
- OGC:
-
Office of General Counsel
- OVC:
-
Oakland Vet Center
- Pine Tree:
-
Pine Tree Legal Assistance
- PTSD:
-
Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Swords:
-
Swords to Plowshares
- Togus:
-
Togus Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center
- VA:
-
United States Department of Veterans Affairs
- VAMC:
-
United States Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center
- VBA:
-
Veterans Benefits Administration
- VHA:
-
Veterans Health Administration
- VLSI:
-
Veterans Legal Services Initiative
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Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of Lara Eilhardt at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the General Counsel, Samantha Kubek at the New York Legal Assistance Group, Sara Huffman at U.C. Hastings College of Law, Ryan Lilly at the VA Maine Healthcare System, Dr. Linda Baggett at the Long Beach VA Healthcare System, Leila Jackson at the VA Office of Community Engagement, Sean Clark at the VA Veterans Justice Outreach program, and the VA Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) Task Force.
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Selnau, K., Goldberg, R.C. (2019). Medical-Legal Partnerships in the VA. In: Tsai, J., Seamone, E. (eds) Intersections between Mental Health and Law among Veterans. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31664-8_4
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