The University Law School's Family Advocacy Program has received $125,000 from the Jesse Ball duPont Fund to enhance legal opportunities for disadvantaged families whose children suffer from health problems as a result of substandard housing.
Kimberly Emery, assistant dean for pro bono and public interest at the law school, co-founded the program which consists of collaboration between the University Law School, the University Children's Hospital and the Legal Aid Justice Center. She explained that the goal of the program is to "provide holistic services to indigent families, in terms of both medical and legal aid."
The program has been entirely volunteer-run since October 2004, with law students working in various capacities in the hospital, including the newborn and transitional neonatal care units.
Greg Nelsen, a clinical social worker who was stationed in the primary care pediatric center, said he tried to "help young patients and their families to access community services."
This task often proved difficult though, as legal aid opportunities were scarcely available for families with extremely low incomes.
The duPont Grant, however, will aim to alleviate such difficulties by providing the means for employing a full time attorney, as well as at least 20 training sessions for medical personnel and Law School volunteers.
Diane Pappas, associate professor of clinical pediatrics and director of child advocacy at the University. Children's Hospital, said that there will be "three jobs for the prospective attorney --to provide direct client representation, instant legal aid and to train medical staff so they recognize the issues the families face and work in interdisciplinary ways to help them."
The Jesse Ball duPont Fund was established with the purpose of investing in philanthropic causes. In her will, Jesse Ball duPont specified 331 organizations which would benefit from her charity; among them were the University and the Law School. As the fund's senior program officer Sharon Greene explained, it was duPont's appreciation of the state of Virginia and the fact that it was her birth place that gave the University a place on the list.
In this specific situation with the Family Advocacy Plan, Greene stated that it was the collaborative nature of the project and the potential for the replication of such a program in other places such as Richmond and Lynchburg that gained the University special standing for a possible grant.
Despite the optimism associated with such a grant, there is still much to be done.
"Most people don't realize that Charlottesville has a number of non-affluent families," Pappas said. "We're looking for this to be a program that will still be around 15 to 20 years from now."
With the duPont Grant, the Family Advocacy Program might be able to do just that, with the number of prospective families this year up to 200 from 88 the first year of the program's existence.
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