<img src="/site/files/oldnewsfiles/HealthyStart235.jpg" width="235" height="207" class="FloatRight" alt="HealthyStart235">Widener Law’s innovative medical-legal partnership provides students the opportunity to be part of life-changing improvements in the lives of poor families. Now, it has a strong, healthy future thanks to an infusion of significant new federal funding for community service work.<br><br>A recent grant to the Crozer-Keystone Health System will fully fund its Healthy Start program, which partners with Widener Law Delaware to provide free legal assistance to low-income pregnant women whose unmet legal needs are impacting their health. The grant, which runs through 2019, is part of $5.5 million awarded to Crozer by the Health Resources and Services Administration. Healthy Start is a federally supported initiative that aims to improve infant mortality rates in low-income communities by providing education and social services to improve the health of pregnant women. <br><br>Widener Law Delaware sponsors the civil legal aid program known as the Health, Education and Legal assistance Project: A Medical-Legal Partnership. It addresses the social determinants of health that plague low-income communities. The public health community widely accepts that these unmet legal needs – unsafe housing conditions, lack of health insurance, domestic violence and food scarcity – are often the root causes of poor health, and the primary contributors to health disparities. Widener’s program was founded to confront the reality that 80 percent of the civil legal needs of the poor go unmet – and to help meet some of those needs. <br><br>Participation in the project is a unique opportunity for Widener Law Delaware students, who enroll in a class that also has a field component. It is not a clinic, but it provides hands-on learning experiences. Students support attorneys who are delivering legal services to clients. Program services are free for pregnant women and families who have children younger than 24 months who live in the city of Chester, Pa. and the surrounding community.<br><br>“Crozer-Keystone Health System has made a significant five-year commitment that ensures the important work of our legal assistance project will continue,” said Widener Law adjunct Professor <a href="/Academics/Faculty/ProfilesDeAdj/AtkinsDaniel.aspx">Daniel Atkins</a>. “Through their support of that effort, students learn about poverty, disability, the social determinants of health and how the law can be used to improve poor people’s lives in meaningful ways.”<br><br>The project helps clients maintain or acquire health insurance, secure or improve housing, and preserve or obtain public benefits to which they are entitled. Students assist project attorneys by interviewing clients, conducting legal research, preparing training materials and helping clients navigate bureaucracies. Two Widener Law Delaware alumni – Laura Handel Schwartz ’08 and Jordan Mickman ’12 – serve as full-time attorneys. Shannon Mace Heller ’11, is a part-time public health law specialist.<br><br>Atkins co-founded the project in 2009 with Professor Emeritus <a href="/Academics/Faculty/ProfilesDe/HaymanRobertL.aspx">Robert L. Hayman Jr.</a> and Professor <a href="/Academics/Faculty/ProfilesDe/CulhaneJohnG.aspx">John G. Culhane</a>, co-director of Widener Law Delaware’s <a href="/Academics/Institutes/HealthLawInstitute.aspx">Family Health Law &amp; Policy Institute</a>. It has been funded through private foundations, direct contributions from partners and grants like that awarded by the Health Resources and Services Administration. Atkins, Hayman, Handel Schwartz and Mickman teach the classroom component at the law school.<br><br>The project is an outstanding example of a public-private partnership that provides learning opportunities for students while meeting critical legal needs of an underserved community, said Widener Law Delaware Interim Dean <a href="/Academics/Faculty/ProfilesDe/DalyErin.aspx">Erin Daly</a>.<br><br>“We were so pleased to learn of this funding for Crozer-Keystone Health System, and what it means for the Healthy Start program and – ultimately – our role with the medical-legal partnership. It’s rewarding to know that this valuable public service will continue to be supported for many years,” Daly said.<br><br>For students, news of the grant was reason to celebrate – for themselves, the indigent clients they help to serve and for students coming up behind them. Student Catelyn McDonough was pleased to know the project has a bright future.<br><br>“Being part of the medical-legal partnership has been the most meaningful law school experience for me so far,” she said. “I had never before thought about the adverse effects that unmet legal needs can have on a person’s health. This experience has helped me put the stress of law school in perspective, as I compare it to the stress of finding your next meal or losing your residence. Enabling students to give back to the community in this way is immeasurably valuable.”