The National Center for Medical-Legal Partnership gave its annual awards to individuals and programs that exemplify the medical-legal partnership model during the 10th annual Medical-Legal Partnership Summit on Thursday, April 9, 2015. Practitioners and organizations from Pennsylvania, Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, and Nebraska were honored for their innovations.
MLP Distinguished Advocate Award
MLP Distinguished Advocate Award winner James Teufel with NCMLP staff Megan Sandel, Ellen Lawton and Joel Teitelbaum (photo credit: Z Miller Photography)
The Distinguished Medical-Legal Partnership Advocate Award was established in 2011, and is given annually to recognize an MLP practitioner from the health, public health or legal sector who has made a significant contribution to support the national growth of the MLP movement through research, policy, scaling or education activities.
James Teufel, MPH, PhD was honored for the central role he has played in advancing transformational research in the MLP field. He has devised innovative research strategies in the areas of financial return on investment for legal interventions in the health care setting alongside the social return on investments delivered to communities and institutions by MLP. As a result of his conceptual work at the intersection of MLP and population health, Dr. Teufel’s work is transforming how the broader legal aid community organizes its thinking and framing regarding the case for justice. Dr. Teufel is Assistant Professor of Public Health and Associate Director of the Mercyhurst Institute of Public Health at Mercyhurst University.
Matt VanWormer, JD was also honored with the Distinguished MLP Advocate Award for his unprecedented work in bringing the MLP approach to Indian Country. After having successfully established the first medical-legal partnership in the Navajo Nation, Mr. VanWormer’s efforts led the Kresge Foundation to support an expansion to another community on the Navajo Nation, followed by his coordination of a national meeting of tribal leaders and other stakeholders interested in adopting the MLP approach in their own communities.
MLP Distinguished Advocate Award winner Matt VanWormer with colleagues from his MLP (photo credit: Z Miller Photography)
Most recently, Kresge awarded another grant to DNA People’s Legal Services to support new medical-legal partnerships and a national network in tribal communities. Matt VanWormer is the Litigation Director at DNA-People’s Legal Services, Inc. and the Director of Four Corners Legal Care, DNA’s Medical-Legal Partnership on the Navajo Nation.
Outstanding MLP Award
The Outstanding MLP Award was established in 2011, and is given annually to recognize medical-legal partnerships that exemplify the activities and integration of medical-legal partnership and demonstrate impact on health care clinic / institution practice. Three medical-legal partnerships were honored with the Outstanding MLP Program Award for exemplifying the activities and integration of medical-legal partnership and demonstrate impact on health care clinic / institution practice.
The Health Justice Project in Chicago, Illinois, was recognized for exemplifying the transformative impact of medical-legal partnership on healthcare and legal practice. The Project’s innovations include a logic model study of the effect of MLP on the achievement of health equity and draft legislation for Illinois invited by the state Supreme Court Access to Justice Commission.
The team from the Health Justice Project in Chicago, Illinois, winner of the Outstanding MLP Award
The Health Justice Project was established in 2010 and is a partnership between Erie Family Health Center and Loyola University Chicago School of Law.
Eskenazi Health Midtown Community Mental Health Medical-Legal Partnership was honored for its excellence in providing integrated clinical and legal services, as exemplified through its leadership in the area of positive policy changes in mental health and developmental disability services.
As a result of their integrated approach, the MLP team discovered and helped reverse a policy that led to many dually diagnosed patient-clients losing in-home support services under Medicaid waivers. The Eskenazi Health Midtown Community Mental Health Medical-Legal Partnership was established in 2010, and is a partnership between Eskenazi Health Midtown Community Mental Health and Indiana Legal Services, Inc.
Meg Kovas from Eskenazi Health Midtown Community Mental Health and Jay Chaudhary from Indiana Legal Services accepting the Outstanding MLP Award. (Photo credit: Z Miller Photography)
The Nebraska Medical-Legal Partnership was honored for its outstanding efforts to scale and integrate the MLP approach quickly and successfully across a wide range of partners and settings. After initial success at Nebraska Medical Center, MLPs were established at six other hospitals in Omaha alone, with two additional partnerships expected by the second half of 2015. Joint data collection and analysis efforts at Nebraska Medical Center resulted in a nearly ten-fold increase in funding from the health care partner over a five-year time span, which is reverberating in the health and legal communities nationally. The Nebraska Medical-Legal Partnership was established in 2009, and is a partnership of Nebraska Medicine, Legal Aid of Nebraska and Iowa Legal Aid.